#we had to write an article and I hit all the points I was supposed to and it flowed together nicely ughhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

[gimmic-ky]

im still really sad how my last danish test I got a barely passing grade on it I tried so hard I was so proud of it..... I literally don't even know what I did wroooooong!?

[leclsrc]

has yet to pass ✴︎ cs55

centre image by tony belobrajdic

genre: exes to lovers, slow burn, fluff, humor, slight angst, yearning, some sexual tension

word count: 12.5k

Four years after an angry breakup, the universe is bored enough to nominate Carlos Sainz for GQ Sports’ Man of the Year and assign you to be the writer of his profile.

notes... internet translated spanish lol

auds here... requested, this fic is long! i hope you all like it apologies for the inactivity </3 exes to lovers we have a very love/hate relationship but this was a pleasure to write

You’re half sure your head is about to pop out from how annoyed you are.

At the office, mornings move slowly in the very corporate-desk-job kind of way, but today is notably slower. Your boss had called you in an hour earlier to discuss important matters, and this is your third hour waiting already. Either your boss is a dumbass, or you got the wrong email, which both essentially mean the same thing anyway.

The time on your Panthère tells you you’re curving into the three-and-a-half hour territory, and right as you’re about to get up to get a glass of water, the large wooden door swings open and your name is called through the crack in it. Suddenly the irritation dissipates into nerves, and because Jonathan didn’t specify anything in the email, you realize you could be wading into anything right now. Termination. Promotion. A brick to the head.

“Morning,” you offer once the door’s been shut behind you. 

“Sorry for the wait,” he says politely. “We’ve been in discussions with GQ Sports all day. All night last night, too. It’s all proper boring.”

You nod, remaining fairly quiet and waiting for him to break the news to you. He clears his throat, places his hands on his hips and exhales.

“Right, so this is all related to GQ, actually. They’re doing a Men of Sports segment and they asked us to assign one of our writers to an athlete. You’re our best right now, really—your article turnout last year was absolutely stellar. So, there’s, ah… there’s tennis, yeah, there’s footie, obviously, and—under usual circumstances, you’d get to choose one of either. But we actually really wanted to cover racing this year.”

The cloud above your head carrying the dreams of interviewing Leo Messi or Roger Federer pops dismally.

“Racing.” You repeat curtly.

“It’s gotten proper viral this year!” He smiles, gestures to nothing to prove his point. “Every teenage girl’s got a crush or other on a driver. Anyway, we set you up with the racing category, and the segment comes out in around six months.”

“I’ve got a tiny bit of a qualm about th—”

“So it’s decided. GQ’s going to pick out the driver for you, and you’ll be introduced at a gala next week.”

“Wait—” you laugh uncomfortably. “I’m thankful for the opportunity, and wow, thank you for choosing me, really, but do I not get to pick my own driver?” You clear your throat. “I mean, I’m spinning the story.”

“I know,” he sighs. “But this deal moved pretty quick, so a majority of the leverage goes to them. Don’t worry, though—a lot of the drivers will have great stories, I’m sure. You’ve got Lewis, you’ve got the Verstappen guy, you’ve got the Rosberg fellow…”

“Rosberg retired in 2016.”

“Oh, fuck, seriously? Well. Hit me with a brick then.”

—

The gala is a fundraiser to celebrate the season kicking off, you realize when you step outside the car and read the navy blue banner across the entrance to the carpet. It’s all fancy fonts and table placements, but One look at the watches and earrings in this place will tell you there’s more than enough funds already. You digress, anyway, walking inside to find the only one person you’re familiar with in the world of racing.

“Lewis,” you mutter when you locate him, voice dry with dread (and lack of alcohol), “kill me now.”

“On the off chance you’re serious—I’m actually willing to do so.” You slap his arm and he scowls.

“I’m supposed to meet the driver I’m writing about tonight, but the GQ guy hasn’t texted me. Christ, I hope it’s you. At least I have years’ worth of blackmail on you to really sell the profile.”

He only laughs, guiding the both of you to a champagne tower and offering you one. You down it in seconds, suffocated by nerves and the curiosity blooming inside you. “You don’t think it’s…?”

“I think they keep track of those things,” he replies, but his voice is only half-sure. “Conflict of interest and that. But Jonathan did say it was a quick deal?” You nod. “So it’s not impossible, I suppose.”

Big help, you chirp sarcastically, eyes perusing the large room. There are tables populated by celebrities, by politicians, and of course, by drivers. You keep scanning, squinting to chisel your search further, but it’s cut off by a tap of two fingers on your shoulder. 

“Hi. I’m Nick, the GQ rep, and I believe you and I have a meeting,” says the man behind you with an excited smile. “Why don’t we…?”

He gestures to the expanse of the room and you nod, falling into step beside him. He introduces the article, the concept of shadowing the athlete to achieve a more immersive piece of work as a result, something novel and innovative.

He’s right in the middle of talking about Jonathan when he stops at one of the cocktail tables and stations the two of you there. “Okay. You’re one of the biggest names in sports journalism right now, so it means a lot for you to want to represent racing. Especially because both Neymar Jr. and Nadal expressed bids to get you to write their segments!”

“They wh—”

“Right, here we are. Meet your shadow—or, subject—for the next six-ish months.” He places two hands atop your shoulders and wheels you around, so your eyes meet those of, “…Carlos Sainz Jr.!”

Yeah. This is fucking rich. 

Nick is talking but none of it falls right on your ears. Everywhere in your mind, alarm bells ring at full volume, alerting you to the danger present, almost. You plaster on a fake smile to acknowledge his presence, but his outstretched hand goes unnoticed. Clearly picking up on the tension, Nick gives a sheepish giggle and ducks out of the exchange, leaving the two of you woefully alone.

“Carlos,” you say politely. “What a nice surprise.”

There is a limited amount of phrases that are considered acceptable to say to an estranged ex of four years. There’s oh, what a surprise!, didn’t expect to see you here, you look well. It’s limited because nobody ever thinks to run into their estranged ex of four years, and even then, any sane person would do well to avoid interaction at all costs. So you’re really the luckiest son of a bitch in the world to be situated with a stuffy public interaction, under the guise of professionalism, with your ex-boyfriend.

Your history is heavy in the air. The last time you saw each other, things had been a lot different, but now you’re two professionals. Really. You really are professional.

“I refuse to be within ten metres of the guy,” you say, on your third martini. Lewis faces you with poorly hidden concern, and beside him, roped into your lovelorn matters, so does Sebastian Vettel. “Ten metres. Actually, no. Make it twenty. How can I be arsed to write an all-over-him feature about a guy I absolutely hate and haven’t seen in four years?! I had it all sussed—get assigned to Lewis, write the best feature, then restore his eighth world title.”

“—She’s joking,” coughs Lewis.

“Oh, but now? Now, it’s get assigned to my ex, write like shit, never get recognized for a good piece, and die hungry and alone on the streets of London. You know, I should just call Jonathan and tell him I don’t want this. I’d rather go back to writing normal articles.” You pry your clutch open but a hand stops you before you can.

“Don’t.” Sebastian’s voice is gentle, but firm. “This is a test of character, don’t you think? More than that—it’s a test of how good you are as a writer.”

“True,” interjects Lewis, chewing on a quiche. “If you can write a stellar profile about an ex, I mean—you’re just proper talented. But it’s also about how strong you are now, morally. Emotionally.”

“I’m perfectly fine emotions-wise, thanks,” you retort. Both men shrug, backing off, and you feel like you should be smug about it—but your mind is stuck on the topic even as the night passes.

You end up deciding when you’re kicking your heels off in your flat a few hours later, giving Jonathan a ring despite the late hour. It takes a while for the man to pick up, but he does eventually, with an excited tone colouring his voice—“How’s my star writer? Sainz, huh? Real eye candy.”

“About that…” you start, walking over to your bookshelf and chewing your lip, trying to think of the right way to decline the offer. Your eyes land on one of the several awards you’ve garnered in your profession—in fact, the very first one. Most Promising Journalist, it reads, embedded into the front’s frosty surface. 

Four years ago. And you’ve proven it since, if the crowd of glass around it is anything to go by. Why let a petty ex destroy what could potentially be one of your biggest gigs yet? Your segue outside of sports journalism?

“Earth to—yeah, hello? About what?” Jonathan’s voice breaks you out of your thought train.

“… I just, uh,” you say, nodding, “I wanted to say I’m really excited.”

— 

Carlos Sainz Jr., 27, is on the rise as one of Formula One’s most talented drivers… (add more info…) His smooth driving style and charm has led him to become one of the most popular figures in the sport, both on and off the paddock. He is also a huge, absolutely irritating, cannot for the life of him be humble!!!, SON OF A BITCH, PRICK, ASSHOLE—AND THE BIGGEST WANKER ON PLANET EAR

“The team will be here in just a minute,” says the lady who’d ushered you into this meeting room in Maranello. You half-shut your laptop in fear she’ll catch sight of your brief Word document meltdown, but she doesn’t seem to notice, setting a glass of water beside you and you stare idly at it while waiting for the rest of the room to enter. You’re expecting Nick, Carlos, Mattia—the boss—and Charles, his teammate. Jonathan’s already beside you playing Candy Crush on his phone, as per boomer law.

This meeting is pointless. You’ve already exchanged the bare minimum pleasantries with Carlos, anyway, and you cannot for the life of you decipher why there needs to be a whole new corporate clash just for this. But here you are anyway, awaiting your ex-boyfriend’s arrival into the room and back into your sweet life.

He enters with everybody else, his hair half-damp and his eyes meeting yours almost immediately. You clear your throat and turn away, standing to shake hands with Mattia. He’s pleasant about it, expressing excitement for the final output and commending your earlier work as a writer. You offer the polite small talk back, discussing plans for the article and the release date.

“Over at GQ Sports, we’re really trying to make this concept as immersive as possible. That requires the writer to shadow the athlete at almost all times, maybe taking a couple days off if needed. That might mean she gets a paddock pass, and things like that.”

“That’s no problem,” Mattia says. “Anything for the article.”

You end up being introduced to Charles, too—Charles Leclerc, who wears a contagious smile and won’t stop letting his eyes frolic in between you and Carlos, like he can sense the history. You suspect Carlos brought him up to speed, anyway, but it’s still a bit amusing. While the meeting carries on, Charles chips in with a joke. “Hey, if you find this guy irritating, you and I are going to get along.”

You laugh a bit, but remain mostly quiet for the sake of being professional. You miss the way Carlos’ eyes linger on you a second too long, focusing on the tail-end of the meeting so you can, for lack of better word, get the fuck out of here.

Of course, though, you’re stopped in the middle of the parking lot by Carlos himself, whose apologetic face is the first thing you see when you turn around with a huff. You’d already known it was him—he was calling your name loudly as he jogged over to you—but it’s still a sour surprise.

“What?”

“Let’s”—he pauses to take a breath—“talk. Listen, I know it must be an imposition for you to write about this, about me. Let me make it clear that I’m 100% okay if you choose to switch athletes. And if you needed any background information, I’ll be willing to give you that.”

“I don’t care what you’re okay with,” you say blankly. “And I’ve got Google.”

“Right.” He stares. “Um. Okay, well, let’s—can we agree, then? To be civil, for the period of time this article will be written?”

You consider the truce. As much as you’d like to be snarky with him and make your disdain all the more clear, you’re also not interested in making a scene or causing any type of fuss around his—and your—colleagues. The glass awards on your shelf flash through your mind, and you inhale softly. “Okay.”

He smiles. This seems a bit more difficult than you thought, for reasons you didn’t even consider.

“Forget anything ever happened,” he says when your hands meet. Something jolts through you.

Yeah, you’re fucked.

—

Your introduction to the actual sports part of the profile goes well, with a flurry of chaos in Bahrain.

Despite Jonathan’s texted reminder from Friday morning (Stick to Sainz the whole time), you find yourself staying in your comfort zone, ergo following Lewis around nearly the entire weekend. Granted, you are itnroduced to a few more drivers—Mick, Esteban, Alex—but also Lando, one of Carlos’ closest friends on the paddock, who makes dirty jokes from the get go.

Still, even Lewis has to remind you you have another driver to actually cover, so you reluctantly detach from him on the race day and begin your search for—

“Carlos,” you utter, breathless from exhaustion when you finally locate him inside his room at the motorhome, which you swear you checked twenty minutes ago. Either he’s avoiding you or he’s truly impossible to find. He adjusts his suit and looks at you with an unreadable expression.

“Yes?”

“I need a couple of words from you.” You smile politely, taking a seat on the couch armrest. “Like, pre-race nerves, jitters, routine. Anything?”

“I have a playlist,” he says, humming. “I like to call family, have a talk with the engineers.” He says it like en-yi-neers, but you already anticipated it. You’ve known en-yi-neers for years. You know how he talks, pronounces everything. “And I say a prayer, trust the car.”

“Trust the car?” You type the last few words onto your laptop, which you’d been toting around all day. It balances on your lap. “Any follow-ups to that, considering there’s been some chatter around the car this year and its supposed faultiness?”

“I just do what I do best,” he replies, steadfast. “The rest is a gamble I’m willing to take.”

“Perfect.” You finish. “That was a great line. Thanks so much, really.” It’s your reporter voice, the one you use for just about everyone else on the paddock. He nods in response, and the room ebbs into silence again. It’s awkward, when you excuse yourself and exit, already planning exactly how you’re going to tell this to Lewis. Halfway out the door, you purse your lips, turn, and then:

“Good luck, by the way.” Your voice falls soft. 

He looks up, momentarily surprised. “Thank you.”

You nod a little, smiling as you shut the door.

Carlos ends up getting second place—you’re beside a zealous Ferrari engineer when it happens, walking along the pit lane. Compared to your stoic smile, their reaction looks like the pinnacle of human emotion. Your turmoil is all inward, a melting pot of emotion for the driver. Would it be weird, you think, to feel proud? To feel happy? When things have ended?

Much later, when you’re wrestling for comfort in the throng of cheering Ferrari engineers, you squint to find Carlos on the podium.

You’re aware there are photographers everywhere, with high-def cameras that rival your natural eyesight, even, but still you tug your phone out and snap a few shitty zoomed-in pictures of him in second place, smiling and sprayed with champagne. You think of the profile, of the words you’ll use to capture this moment, the season kickoff. But most of all you think of the way his eyes seem to search for something specific in the mass of people, or the way you wished for them to meet yours.

—

Sainz, a self-proclaimed music lover, loads a pre-race playlist that changes every few locations. He names some of his favorite artists and songs as sources of motivation.

You climb into the passenger seat of his Golf when you finally find him, after a half hour of asking around everywhere. First, it was “in the motorhome,” then it was “in a meeting,” then it was “hanging out with Charles”—none of which ended up being true, anyway. He doesn’t question your presence (he hasn’t much, lately), just lets his eyes wander over to you briefly before you begin asking questions.

“Favorite song?” You get straight to it, stressed over the article. Jonathan has been on your ass about missing a deadline and causing the third world war in the process, or something or other. You sigh when you settle into the seat.

“Not even a hello or a buenas noches,” he says as he pulls out of the parking lot to drive the both of you to your hotel. “What’s this for?”

“You already know,” you say, humming as you sift through notes. “Listen. You did an interview before with Toro Rosso, right? Where you said your favorite artists were Muse, Kings of Leon, and The Killers. Right?”

“What the—you are a serious stalker.” He laughs out loud, eyes still on the road ahead.

“It’s kind of my job, Carlos,” you say, smiling and gritting your teeth. “Just answer.”

“Sí, sí. Yeah, I like that genre. I like rock, I guess… rock, indie, 80’s. You’d be surprised how little of an effect music has on my pre-race routine, though, even if I have a playlist.”

“Tell me more,” you muse. Your laziness to retrieve your laptop results in you scribbling soundbites onto your notebook instead. 

“Music is an escape for me, you know? I like it a lot. So as long as something gets me going, I’m good with it. It doesn’t have to be by a favorite artist, or a famous one, or a Spanish one. Though I have been listening to Shakira a lot lately.” Obsessively listens to Shakira, you write. “It’s just release. Lately, I’ve been listening to the same few ones on loop.”

“Care to share?” Music = release. Same songs looped.

He presses something onto the centre console, and music flows throughout the car right after. “This.”

Baby I’m Yours by Arctic Monkeys, you write, and then, all at once, you slowly realize exactly what you’re writing. You stare at the scrawled-on words, the song bleeding into your ears and saturating your brain. You’ve always thought of this song with a weird feeling, one in between nostalgia and hurt, and now it’s on full blast. In Carlos’ Golf, no less, which happened to be the venue for many of your listening parties back then.

Back then—when nobody knew much of this song and it hadn’t yet become an indie anthem. It was just another cover by your favorite band in 2015. It became your song, the song for kitchen dances, the song for long car rides, the song for the red lights, the song for the morning routine.

But now it’s just a song.

“Carlos,” you say. It’s supposed to sound strict, firm, even a little angry. But you’re so affected, it leaves you quietly instead, weakly almost. “Come on.”

“Do you remember when you first showed me this song?” He responds instead, the volume still loud. You allow yourself to smile a little, leaning your head back and watching the cityscape of Bahrain whir past. In a foreign city, you think, you feel more at home than ever.

“Yeah,” you profess. “On my iPhone—what was it then? iPhone 5, or something.” You both laugh a little. The dam has broken, it seems, and topics of your past relationship seem to now be open to discussion. But it doesn’t feel alien, or weird, or uncomfortable. Carlos laughs, makes fun of your old lockscreen, and all is well.

A lot of memories have unwittingly attached themselves to this song. It’s the kind of song where, even in the opening notes, you’re already stunned with the myriad of them. There are the obvious ones: first finding the song, first dancing to it. But it trickles down into the smaller, more niche ones.

The time you got a busker in London to perform it for you both, and danced like idiots at ten-thirty in the evening, while some onlooking geriatric couple watched with mild entertainment. The time you got him a vinyl record of this EP, and left it in the cab before you were supposed to give it to him, leading to you crying on his sofa while he cuddled you and fed reassurance into your ear. The time he attempted to learn the chords to it and broke the string of your decorative guitar.

Like always, Carlos drives one-handed. He’s usually responsible, but if he’s cruising, or driving at a relatively slow pace, he likes to lean back and use his left. His right lays, unmanned, on the centre console of the Golf. You don’t notice it’s there until you finish writing a sample line on your notebook and you lower your left hand absentmindedly, brushing a finger against his in the process.

Your instinct is to jerk away, but Carlos is calm, humming to the song and reading road signs. So you let it rest there, in part to show yourself you’re capable of relaxing, but—and it feels like a heavy thing to admit—also because you like the feeling.

So your hands are there, just shy of each other, barely touching. His pointer finger twitches, almost like he’s trying to hold it back from inviting yours to wrap around it. You let yours brush over them a little bit, pulling away. Then he coughs, and lifts his hand to make a right turn, so you resume writing, eyes downcast. 

—

You’d spent the Saudi weekend less with Lewis (in a bid to follow his advice) and socialized a bit more with Lando and Charles, who both proved to be pleasant company. They played table tennis with you and even shared a good chunk of grid gossip.

“Pierre and Yuki have soooo done it,” whispers Charles, scandalized, sipping a G&T from a decorative polka dot straw.

“Shut up!” You clap a hand over your mouth. “I mean, I had my suspicions. But really? They’ve shagged?”

“Oh.” He pauses dumbly, scratching his head. “I meant they’ve done marijuana.”

“Damn it, Charles,” bemoans Lando. “You’re a sodding buzzkill. We’ve all done weed, this is not news. The gay sex would’ve been.”

The afternoon progresses into night, and you seem to be on a roll with the sports component—Carlos gets to P3 in Saudi Arabia. You travel to his motorhome room after the debrief, where you hope he’ll be, and find him packing shit up inside.

“Good work out there,” you say, and when he looks up he finds himself meeting your eyes in the mirror. He fumbles with the zip of his suit and you walk a little closer.

He huffs out a polite thanks, tugging on the zipper harder. The cloth’s eaten it, a problem that’s been plaguing his race suits as of late—a problem, according to his engineer, easily solvable if he’d just be more patient with tugging it downward to loosen. A problem you’re familiar with as well, from his Toro Rosso days of ranting to you about zippers and sewing.

You lean against the wall and maintain safe distance. “I’m going to ask you about the race later.”

“Alright. What specifically?” He begins the mental Spanish-English translation in advance. 

“Whatever you can give,” you reply, nonchalant. “Maybe more on the feeling while racing. The different perspectives of P3? Sort of like—yeah, you’re on the podium, but it’s not P1.”

“Thanks for the reminder,” he laughs a little, a bit embarrassed he hasn’t fully undone the zipper yet. “Um, sure. I’ll meet you outside afterward.”

“Thanks. And—” You stop yourself in your tracks, still facing him in the mirror. His eyes find yours again, eyebrows raised from the unfinished sentence. “—Be patient with the zip.”

He chuckles, memories surfacing like bubbling lava. “Right. Bueno.” He turns and throws his hands up, looks like he’s surrendering almost. “Help me out?”

You’re incredulous—it’s a highly compromising position.

But he’s not really smiling, and he seems to be seriously asking you to please help zip him up, so you nod. Nod once then twice, walking slowly over to him and placing two fingers on the zipper. You don’t notice how shaky your grip is until you see the way your hand trembles.

Slowly, you tug. Upward, then downward, then upward again, to loosen the stubborn thing. Your eyes move until they meet his, and you realize how close together you are. From here you can see the faint pink indents on his face from the balaclava, and you wonder almost how it’d feel to stroke over it with your thumb. It twitches on the zip and you remember to yank it again.

“Just give me a second,” you say, but you’re not even paying attention to the zipper.

Just him. Just the proximity. The thoughts of what if—what if you leaned closer, right now? Closed the gap, shut your eyes, let your finger trace over the shape left behind by his balaclava, zip forgotten?

“Take your time.” His voice is deep, gentle. 

His eyes pierce yours, the tension growing in between you until you can barely breathe.

You pull and finally, it gives, unzipping the whole way. You blink, breaking eye contact and stepping backwards so fast you almost trip. “I’ll be outside.” The door is shut, the noise damning behind you as you finish an entire cup of water in what you genuinely think to be record time. 

—

“Fine. Fifty euros.”

“Fifty?! Cheap trick. Make it two hundred.” 

“If you’re in the hundred territory, might as well make it five hundred. Turn this into a serious thing.” 

“Deal.” The Brit and the Monegasque clap their hands together in a firm handshake. “Let’s talk terms.”

Charles recites his end of the bet, as clearly as he did when this was first wagered just ten minutes ago. “She and Carlos will start dating before the article is even published.”

“They’re exes, innit?” Lando laughs. “You’re wrong, Charl-ito. They will never date, ever again. Exes don’t date.”

“Unless they’re soulmates,” he reasons.

“Psh, what do you know about soulmates?” The younger raises a condescending brow. “You dated a girl and then her best friend.”

“Back off,” insists Charles petulantly, watching Lando messily write down the evidence of their wager on a small slip of paper. For proof, he’d said, before slipping it into the back of his opaque phone case. He waves it around. “We shall see.”

“You will definitely be paying me up,” Charles says proudly. “Just you wait.”

—

“Care to listen to me?” You hoist yourself onto the stool of this hotel bar, ordering yourself a martini.

“Always,” says Lewis, immediately facing you. He’s always been one of the kindest, most genuine people in your life. He’s known you forever, and he’s the only person here who really knows the extent of your history with Carlos, all the layers, all the fights, all of it.

You sigh and lean against the backrest, deflated. “Carlos and I… I don’t know if this is going to work.”

“The article?”

“Being with him.” You pause to reword it. “Around him.”

“I see. Hasn’t it been, what—four years now, though?”

“Yeah, but…” But why does it feel like you both want those four years gone? The car ride with the song, the eye contact, zip situation after Saudi. You lick over your lips and sit a little straighter.

“Lew, it’s just—and you should know this—when you break up with someone, you’re forced to unlearn all the things you knew about them.” You sigh. “All the… just all of it. The habits, the quirks, the favorite words, the way they like their toast and eggs. And if you can’t, then fine, it’s still okay, because why would you ever need it again? But I haven’t forgotten anything, and now he’s back in my life.”

Lewis stares, with eyes that convey solemnity and a little sadness. He seems to understand, watching you intently, the way your eyes are glassy with unshed tears.

“So now I see him, and it feels like he’s like”—you inhale—“this sounds… bad, but like… I’m… like he’s a lover, kind of. In disguise, a little bit. I don’t know. Like, I have to pretend I know nothing about him, like every little fun fact is a new thing for the profile… but I know everything.” And what a heavy burden it is.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. 

“No, don’t be. I’m pretty sure this is all one-sided.” You take a long sip. “That’s the price to pay for ending on bad terms, I suppose.”

“Just think,” he muses out loud. “When this is all over and you’re accepting your Pulitzer, you won’t even be thinking of him one bit.”

“Right,” you say. Carlos, Carlos, Carlos. He’s the only thing on your mind. “Right.”

You find a working title for the article later. Carlos Sainz, it reads on your Word document. On racing, gracious defeat, and life’s driving forces.

—

Like every other sport, Formula One drivers have their share of bad competition days. Sainz recalls a time his car failed and caused him to DNF—racing vernacular for “Did Not Finish,” a damning phrase for any driver on the grid.

A double kill vibrates through Carlos.

It’s a consecutive hit that’s both professional and personal, and greatly affects the momentum of the profile you’re busy writing. In Australia he’d been reserved, eyes stormy, walking alone but not angry. He’d congratulated Charles and everything, even offered a few words for the article. The last you saw of him was with a beer, brows knitted together.

Tonight you’re in Imola. He’d been okay after the race, the usual silence that comes with a bad result.

No hard feelings, he’d said. This is the business. Hugged Danny, excused himself; nobody said anything. It’s a normal response to a shit day. You spend the post-race buzz with Lewis and Sebastian this time, but you manage to congratulate Lando on the podium finish when you catch sight of him.

“Maaate!” He cries gleefully when he sees you. “Where’s the muppet?”

“Mourning,” you drone. “Reasonably so, I guess.”

“Tough crowd,” he says, kissing his teeth. “But, yeah. Hey—shots on me!”

“Tempting offer.” You eye the bunch of tequila on the table. “But I think I’ll retire early. I need to send a draft pretty early tonight.”

“All good. Have fun being a loser,” he says, watching you leave.  

The hotel, it turns out, is not nearly as fun as the party. Which is common sense.

You spend time writing and rewriting a few paragraphs of the article, stuck on the title of it and honestly wishing you were with Cuervo and vodka right now. You suppose you don’t need one just yet—they usually come to you late, anyways. Jonathan sends you three follow-up emails regarding a draft, so you send him the latest version and read over the file, reciting favorite lines under your breath.

In the middle of reading on the Bahrain P2 and a little segment on Sainz’s favorite Ferrari moments, somebody knocks on your door.

It’s a surprise—you don’t spend much time with people on the paddock, and only few of them know your room number, which leads you to narrow down the person on the other side to a select group. There’s Lewis, most likely of them all. Charles, who you’d grown much closer to as of late. Level with him is Lando. Then maybe, just maybe, Sebastian, to offer late night advice.

It could’ve been any of them, but it’s not. It’s somebody else.

“I’m sorry.” His voice threatens to break. “I didn’t know who else I could talk to.”

“Carlos?” You blink. 

You usher him in after, and you hope his mind is anxious enough that it doesn’t pay much attention to your hideous pajama situation (old hoodie, souvenir L.A. pajama pants). You end up on your balcony, both of you facing the frigid nighttime air. It freezes your cheeks, casts your hair backwards. Your eyes slide to his stoic figure, the way even his hair is blown back by the wind.

He’s quiet, but more relaxed, less stiff. “Sorry, again.”

“S’okay.”

You duck back inside and return with two cigarettes and a lighter. “Wanna?”

“Awful habit.” But he accepts it anyway, sticking it in between his lips. It bobs as he speaks, still unlit. “I need this, though.”

“I don’t do it regularly,” you defend, pressing the flame to the cig. He exhales. “Some situations call for them.”

“This definitely does. Bit of a slap to the face, you know?” You nod. “I’m sorry.” The apology carries more weight than it should, and you know why. 

Like it’s the most difficult thing in the world, you breathe a few times before you respond in a hushed tone. With your words comes a huff of smoke. “Don’t beat yourself up over it. You gave it your all, took a risk, it went to shit. But you gave it your all is what matters in the end. You put heart into it, which is something not everyone does in sports these days.”

“I feel… complimented.” You both laugh at the lack of good phrasing, so he rewords it. “I meant, I feel, how you say? Touched. It means a lot to be praised by you.”

“Does it?” Smoke again, another whiff of it.

“They only ever want to praise the podium finish, the P1, the title holder.” He lets the words fizzle. “But here you are praising a driver who finished like shit twice in a row. More people should be like you, paying thanks to the underdogs.”

It’s not the underdogs, you think. It’s just because of you. 

“More like the shit drivers,” you say instead, in a low rumbling voice. He laughs, calls you stupid in Spanish, and it’s a dead issue.

Later, before he leaves, when the room’s much darker and less bathed in moonlight, you whisper goodbye to him through a small crack in the door. He smiles a bit, and you catch it even with the lack of lighting.

“Thank you.” He says. He means it. You catch his perfume when the door swings closed. It smells like wood.

—

Sainz has off-grid hobbies, one of the most notable of which is cooking. He claims to have a good hold over the kitchen, and cooks several of his favorite dishes on the rare weekend off. Blah blaaahhhh, cooks well. Usually wears funky apron. WRITE THIS PROFILE ALREADY STOP EATING PASTA YOU DIPSHIT

Lando had invited you all to an Airbnb owned by a friend in Umbria, a two-ish hour drive from Imola.

With two free days, you’d followed a small group of drivers—Carlos included—to soak in the rest of Tuscany. Charles and Lando, however, left as soon as you arrived, to check out the last few hours of the farmer’s market. Alex had met Lily at the Eurostar station and they’d gone biking together.

This effectively left you and Carlos alone, which was not an unusual occurrence, but still proved to be a bit tense. With the kitchen free and the fridge stocked, Carlos suggested he cook for you both. Despite your best efforts, you ended up at the island writing and taste testing sauce, chicken, anything he slid over to you on a saucer with a tiny fork beside it.

“You’re going to give me cholesterol problems,” you quip. “This pasta is too good.”

“Cacio e pepe.” He twirls some onto a fork, straight off the pan, and shoves it into his mouth, a low mmmm leaving him once he gets to chewing. You laugh, a stifled sound through the noodles in your mouth at the exaggerated show of delicious food.

“Any favourite food you think is notable enough for the profile?” You type again, backspacing your harsh reminder. Makes a mean cacio e pepe (look up translation later). “Like, food you cook yourself, or even other recipes.”

“This,” he says, pointing to the pan. “This is fuel.”

“Amen.” Loves cacio e pepe.

“And it’s good with chicken.” He points to the oven, where he’s been baking chicken for a bit now. The kitchen smells of it, of the rosemary and oregano and pepper. “Oh, and put that I cook with music on. Let me connect my phone.”

Cooks w/ music. “Why do you need to mention that?”

“Ladies love a chef,” he says simply, letting a familiar song thrum into the woody kitchen. “And I love ladies.”

“Okay, slag.”

“Fuck off!” He begins shimmying all across the kitchen island, cranking open the oven mid-dance to check on the chicken, then continuing to clean the counter. Still he dances, and not very well, either—he always claimed singing was a stronger suit of his, so you allow the fool to be a fool.

Back when you two were still together, Carlos already had a preference for 70’s disco in the kitchen, saying it brought out the dancer in him. Nothing seems to have changed in that department, and you smile with mild embarrassment and amusement watching him dance across the kitchen, using the kitchen towel as a prop and swinging it around.

Loves dancing to The Communards while baking rosemary chicken. “Let me taste the chicken, by the way,” you ask when you finish typing, hopping off the stool and walking to the oven. He continues dancing, hips cocking poorly from side to side to the old song. He retrieves a fork and cuts a piece of chicken, reviewing its doneness briefly before turning with a piece of it stabbed into the utensil.

“Open,” he says. “It’s hot.”

It’s too natural, the way he slowly feeds you the piece. You don’t even realize it until you’re chewing, and by then he’s back to dancing to the song that’s now reaching its end. “It, uh,” you stutter, a bit nervous, “it’s really good.”

“Of course, I cooked it,” he says smugly. You grab a lime from the fruit bowl and throw it, hitting him in the back of the head in retaliation. He turns slowly, still dancing, lips stretched into a challenging smile.

Lando and Charles walk in ten minutes later to Carlos and you, yelping and chasing each other around the wide counter, chicken left atop it and forgotten in favor of the tag game. Charles, toting bags of fruit, faces Lando with a victorious expression. Pay up, he mouths, cocky.

—

It’s much too hot in Miami, but you appreciate the heavy beach culture and the even heavier nightlife.

You work on the profile until your fingers hurt from typing, sending Jonathan another draft for approval. Charles joins you on a cocktail taste test at the open bar until your tongue tastes like gin and your head is a bit spinny. Both Ferrari drivers end up having a shitload of pictures of you sleeping on the leather couch, enough that Lewis ends up getting ahold of them, too.

It’s a 2-3, in the end, with P1 going to Max. The latter throws a party at some place along the beach strip, invites you in one of the only conversations you’ve ever shared with the guy so far. He seems a bit unfriendly, but when you walk into the exclusive club later that night, you find him doing a handstand in front of a beer keg, so that’s that.

FUCK YEAH! Max hollers, following it with a howl so happy it reverbrates in your ears. It’s crowded everywhere, and you’re pretty sure Lewis isn’t here, so you spend a few minutes roaming around, getting a good grip on the vibe of the place.

It’s Carlos who finds you in the middle of the dance floor, nursing yet another drink to aid your lack of social skills. His voice is rough in your ear and it smells like a Jägerbomb, a low laugh escaping it right after. “All alone?”

“Unfortunately,” you tease, turning to face him. “Man, I thought guys were confident in Florida.”

“Cuidado,” he warns, smiling. “This dress is pretty difficult to resist.” His tongue’s definitely been loosened by shots, his eyes half-lidded and looking you up and down. You laugh, raising one eyebrow at the sudden flirty tone, but welcoming it nonetheless, depositing your now empty glass on whatever cocktail table is nearest. Who said you were sober? 

“Nobody’s inviting me, so why don’t you and I dance instead?”

He licks over his lips—he never seems to keep his tongue in his mouth—and winks, nodding.

And here in Miami, through the strobing purple lights of this ridiculously expensive club, you wrap your arms around his neck and dance to whatever Calvin Harris song is blaring through the bass.

His hands are all over you, loosening your stiff stature; they wring into the fabric of your obejctively too-short dress, raking it up a bit. You lean back and he leans forward, following you, drawn into you, your noses pressed together and your eyes meeting. Your breath heightens, holds, your fingers moving to his long hair and holding him close to you.

His hand moves over your ass, pulling you in. He smiles, pokes his tongue into his cheek, and you giggle, almost causing your lips to touch. Your mind is haywire from the alcohol, but you can’t really bring yourself to care. The warmth grows between you, closer and closer, the dynamic easy—

And then someone spills their drink on both your feet, causing you two to break apart and laugh off the tension instead. You’d almost fucking kissed. However you’re going to tell this to Lewis, you don’t even know.

And you’re not entirely sure, you think as you rinse whiskey and bile off the tip of your heel in the bathroom, how it sounds like to write Sainz and I almost made out in public on the GQ profile.

—

Nick emails you directly to ask if Carlos can do some test shoots in Miami for the profile cover.

You convince him to agree, even if he thinks he’s no good in front of a camera, and you two show up to a mostly empty warehouse studio. There’s a white backdrop situated toward the back and a tiny-sized crew of people working.

“Hi. Is this for GQ?” You ask the photographer. “Test shots?”

“Oh, hi.” He stands and shakes your hand. “I’m Luke. Big fan of your work, by the way. So the concept today is just plain shirt, long hair, gorgeous face, white background. Good?”

“Bueno,” Carlos says behind you with a smile.

You sit on a chair a few metres behind Luke while he works, watching the shots pop up on his screen every time the shutter clicks. As it turns out, Carlos is a brilliant liar, because every single shot—even one where he was fixing a wrinkle in his tee—looks perfectly usable anyway. Sainz is a natural stunner, you jot down.

It’s a bit awkward to admit you can’t help but stare, but his face is undeniably handsome, especially when he’s in front of the camera. Thankfully for you, and heavily owed to Carlos’ natural skill for modeling, the ordeal’s over in less than thirty minutes, and you begin preparing your stuff to leave.

“Oh, crap. I forgot I had to do a test bridal shoot for R&B’s wedding anniversary in September.” Luke sighs, clicking through the photos rapidly.

“R&B. The… music genre?” You ask, confused and toting your bag on your shoulder.

“Silly! Ryan and Blake. As in, Reynolds and Lively? They plan their photoshoots way in advance, and they always need sample poses to choose from.”

“Oh, I get it.” You smile. “Well, we’re sorry for keeping you.”

“You”—he stops both you and Carlos, pacing in front—“you two wouldn’t… mind, would you?”

“Mind… mind what, now?” Your eyes flit toward Carlos’ and you both laugh nervously.

“Being my mannequins for the bridal shoot!”

Both of you balk, making up all kinds of excuses, but as fate would have it, Luke is very convincing and you’re against the backdrop after five minutes of persuasion. He directs you into different silly, quirky poses—a piggyback ride both ways, smiling goofily, the like. Carlos can’t stop laughing every time the shutter clicks, at how silly the two of you must look. 

Luke plays some music to get you both looser, and directs you into a few mocking dance poses. Then he directs you in a partners-in-crime pose, which you love the outcome of. Okay, last one, newlyweds, he says. Carlos, why don’t you get behind her and wrap your arms around her waist?

You clear your throat, letting him do so anyway, his hands big around your frame. “Careful,” you whisper when he’s right behind you. Luke raises an inquisitive brow behind the camera, watches your chemistry unfold through the viewfinder. Your breath hitches a little, but you swallow the nerves.

Look into his eyes, Luke says. So you do, meet them, force yourself not to look away for once and just stare. It’d been easy to do this, because you could just as easily break the stare, but now it’s different. Your eyes flutter, and his stay unblinking. 

It’s like that for a minute, just staring, like all the things you want to say can communicate themselves through eye contact alone. Another twenty seconds pass before Luke coughs, breaking the moment.

“I said we were good like a minute ago, guys,” he says knowingly, packing up with a smirk.

—

Lewis advises you to avert your pent up “romantic” tension to another boy. It’s difficult, but you challenge yourself to find somebody anyway, maybe outside of racing, to use your extra paddock pass (courtesy of Mattia) on. The guys in your DMs are all skeevy, or you’ve unfortunately ghosted them, so they’re all out.

After some searching, you end up using your extra pass in Spain, and for James, a Sky Sports sound editor for streamed football games. He’s British and a huge Tottenham fan who you met during drinks with a few reporters the month prior. Not bad, but not necessarily your type; at this point, though, you’ll take anybody above the bare minimum. And James is above it—a gentleman, kind, funny in the quaint English way. He could be taller, but you find him charming enough.

Noise flows through the paddock, chatter and cheering and interviews. “This is so cool,” says James animatedly. “I feel like a regular Schumacher.”

You give a phony, flirty laugh and enter the Ferrari hospitality, raking your hair backwards. “I’m going to get something real quick, okay? Stay put…” You point at a lone chair. “Over there.”

“Alright,” he says with a smile. “I can’t roam arou—?”

“No!” You say, a tad too quickly. “I mean, sorry. Don’t. Just. I’ll be back really quickly.” Before you can even retrieve your phone charger from Carlos’ room, the owner himself walks into the area, squirting water into his mouth and furrowing his eyebrows together when he sees you standing beside a stranger.

“Hi,” Carlos says, a bit bluntly. His eyes are darting everywhere but at you, lingering a bit too distastefully on James’ timid figure. “You are?”

“Her date,” James says with a nervous laugh, pointing a thumb towards you. “James. Huge fan of you. Of the team.”

“Sure.” He offers a tight-lipped smile, hand meeting James’ outstretched one to form a polite handshake.

It’s awkward, is what it is—awkward and stuffy and Carlos won’t look at you. He clenches his jaw a little, smiles, looks up and down. “You, uh… how long have you guys been…?” He waves a finger in between the both of you, almost fearfully, like the answer will cast him into ashes.

“Not—not long, really.” James laughs again to relieve the tension that seeps across the room. “A month?”

“A month?” Carlos repeats, arms crossed.

“We haven’t even, like, had se—”

“That’s—” you cut in, sharp and apologetic, “wow, that’s plenty. Thanks, James. Could you get us some drinks? I’ll have a beer.”

“It’s one-thirty,” he says.

“Yeah,” you respond. “A beer.”

He leaves you both alone sheepishly, and you turn to face Carlos’ intense expression.

His arms are crossed and he rakes a hand through his hair—but he doesn’t say anything. Why should he, anyway, he thinks to himself, staring at you. You wore your hair in a ponytail today, so he sees more of your pretty face. Oh and so does James. Pendejo.

“Are you okay?” You ask, even if he knows you know what’s up.

“Totally. Muy bien.” He shrugs, drinking water again. “Should I not be?”

“Never said that,” you say, raising both eyebrows. 

“Okay. Well enjoy the beer.”

So he’s jealous. Fine, sue him. He’s jealous of the British gangly guy you thought was good enough to invite onto the paddock. Barely even made a lasting impression. He gives a small, phony smile and walks back, meeting Charles along the way.

“You look like you’ve just seen a ghost, mate,” says the younger, slinging an arm over his shoulder. “Maybe the ghost of James?” He flicks the guy’s forehead, laughing.

P4, it ends up being. Not nearly good enough. But James is the first to say, “Congratulations, hombre!” in a God awful accent, so it becomes ten times worse, really.

—

“Alright guys, Carlos and I here today with some members of our team, and we’re going to play some fun trivia games.” Charles’ eyes read from the signboard behind the camera, his amusement wholly unscripted as he looks from you to Andrea and back to Carlos.

You honestly don’t know why you agreed to this. It might have been Lewis’ gentle persuasion or your boss’ overenthusiastic persistent voice, or the sleepiness that’s been wearing you down and boggling your mind lately, or—and it’s probably this—the fact that James ghosted you after Spain, because you “clearly have a thing with Sainz, and I don’t wanna be a homewrecker.” Whatever it is, you’re apparently a guest on the C² Challenge segment. 

Today is a trivia game against Charles and Andrea, and you’ve all been given a general guide to what the questions entail—math, music, general knowledge, and one scripted Ferrari question at the end. The structure is fairly basic; each team member gets to answer one at a time, both contributing to overall points—and no coaching allowed, for some odd reason.

Charles is a little shit, so he’s made an off-camera bet: loser should treat winner to a round of shots at the next afterparty/get-together. And—who are you kidding, really—Carlos is also a little shit, so he’s game for the bet and has fired you both up to win, spouting Ferrari trivia in your ear should it come up.

“I got it,” you say snappily when he hasn’t stopped pestering you for five straight minutes. “I got it.”

“Oh, did you got it?” He asks sassily. “Okay. When did Ferra—”

“We’re starting in three,” says the cameraman in Spanish, Italian, then finally English.

He holds three fingers up and you hug your tiny dry erase board closer to your torso, readying your camera smile. The video—and the game—start off well enough, a quickfire competition developing between the two teams that infects you and Andrea quickly. 

“Stay calm and collected,” Carlos proclaims, lips stretched into a proud smile. “Our team motto.” He elbows your side and you roll your eyes with a smile, teasing. 

“I think it’s, ah, always—always cheat, mate,” Charles protests, pointing an accusatory finger. 

“You are soooo—tch, I propose we kick Charles for poor sportsmanship,” retorts your teammate, laughing. The force of his laughter shakes the stool he sits on and you bite back a smile, remaining relatively quiet like you’ve been since the start of the video.

The remainder of the game passes with Carlos and Charles neck and neck, you and Andrea working overtime to make sure your teams don’t lose the bet. Eventually it boils down to one question, which Carlos is in charge of answering. Behind the camera, the producer raises a signboard and reads it out: We all know C². What is eight squared?

What a relief, you think. They’ve basically handed the win to you and Carlos on a silver platter. You wait, bumbling in your seat and raising an L sign toward Charles, who sticks his tongue out in response. Excitedly, you watch Carlos cheer for himself and finish writing, turning the board inch by inch until you all see the answer he has written on it.

Everyone stares. Then: “Team Charles wins!”

“Que?!” Carlos blinks, scandalized and a bit amused. He stares at the question then at his answer then, as if dreading the laser eyes, at you. Your eyes narrow, disappointed.

“Carlos. What is eight squared?”

“Eight squared. Eight, and you take another eight, and—it’s right here.” A tan finger points firmly at the number written messily, square in the middle of the whiteboard.

16

“Eres un tonto,” you quip, remembering bits of teasing you’d used on him years before. “Carlos, it’s 64. Eight times eight, not eight times two.”

“Ay, puta—” He shuts his eyes and laughs. “Lo siento! Sorry, sorry. Sorry! I cost us the win.”

Across you, Charles is coaxing a much more begrudged Andrea into a childish victory dance, pulling his arms up and down to convey the joy of winning. You sigh exasperatedly, but smile . For what it was worth, you had a great game anyway. The noise grows, and you watch the producers pack up, the cameraman parting from the camera for a moment to converse with one of them.

Left alone with you for a bit, Carlos lets his voice slip into a quieter one. “Sorry again. I forgot.”

“Forgot?” Your brows furrow, confused. “What?”

“That, you know”—he points at the lonely 16 on the whiteboard he holds—“it’s supposed to be 64.”

 “Oh.” You laugh, a light sound. “Whaaat?! It’s not that deep, Carlos. Seriously, don’t worry about it. It was all fun.”

“Well, I’m glad you had fun,” he says softly, smiling.

“Yeah, me too,” you say, unable to hide your smile. You stay like that for a bit, something blooming in the pit of your stomach you can’t—and refuse to—name.

—

You get two days off, and Charles had suggested you all go to Paris before you go to Cannes, where the Ferrari team is apparently expected for a meeting before Monaco. You’re the one who’d said yes first, even if Carlos seemed to hesitate; he had asked why, to which you responded you’d never been before.

You’d read about it, watched about it, and like every other human on Earth, seen pictures of it. But you’d never been to Paris; work placed you mostly in London, sometimes South America, other times Italy. But Paris was never a destination. So Carlos allowed the greenlight and you flew, with Lando, Pierre, and Esteban tagging along for shits and giggles.

“I’ve waited my whole life for my Eiffel Tower moment,” you say, not even trying to hide your wonder. Carlos got the best room for himself, but invited you in, for the view. He doesn’t tell you he went through hell and back to get precisely this room, so you could peek inside and see the tower.

“Well, you’re here now.” He wedges the hotel balcony door open and walks toward the railing. You follow suit, arms crossed over your torso, eyes stuck on the view. “How is it?”

“It’s as beautiful as I imagined it to be,” you confess honestly, eyes still stuck on the tower, the way it stands alone and glittering against the black of night. Cliché as it is, you feel like you’ve checked one huge box off your bucket list, staring at the landmark like it’s going to evaporate into thin air. 

Beside you, Carlos hums in agreement, but his gaze is stuck on something else. “I know.”

“Oh, do you?” You laugh. “Are you in the business of admiring beautiful things?” You tease, looking up at the stars.

Sensing his eyes on you, you slowly avert your gaze until your eyes meet. The light reflects in his eyes, and they meet yours blindingly, beautiful, luring you closer. The joking tone of your words is caught in your throat, desert dry, your lips parted to spout words you’ve now forgotten, lost track of.

Your silhouettes dance against the lights of the city below, two figures admiring the other. His eyes flicker down to your lips, linger there a second too long. You stumble closer, your foot touching his.  “…Paris.” The words struggle to leave but they do, quietly, an admission of guilt. “It’s always reminded me of you.”

 “Not Spain?” He asks, leveling your volume. You’re closer, so close you feel his breath fan soft against your own face. His voice is deep, accented so thickly, the way it is when he talks with you because he falls into a familiar rhythm of knowing you’ll decipher whatever he has to say.

You giggle, a low, breathy sound. A barely there shake of your head. “I… love it so much, is why. Always have.”

Had there been a pedestrian across the street who looked just a few floors upward, they would’ve found the both of you there, smiling foolishly, blanketed by the night sparkles of the Eiffel Tower and the rest of the city. They would’ve seen the way Carlos leaned in, his eyes on yours and then on your lips, the way you nodded in silent, warm invitation. Come closer, you seem to say. Don’t stray any further.

A lock of your hair touches his jaw, from how close you two are. So close. Everything smells like him, like the musky woody perfume he wears, the detergent he uses. All of that, and everything underneath. The scent of him. Just him. 

You hold your breath when you both lean in, eyes fluttering shut and waiting, waiting for his lips to meet yours.

The door shakes with several knocks, Lando’s voice seeping from the other side of it. “Mate, we’re gonna be late for dinner!” He says boredly, letting his fist collide with it a few more times for good measure.

Instantly, you and Carlos separate, both of you clearing your throats, rushed flimsy excuses escaping your mouths at the same time. You’re warm all over, the excitement, the nerves, tapering off into nothing as you walk back inside the room, busying yourselves with anything. Oh, I need to check if Jonathan’s emailed me. Oh, let me go answer the door.

Lando is waiting, expectant, on the other side when Carlos pries the door open. “Mate! Dinner! I texted you like twenty minutes ago and y—oh.” He spots you sitting at one of the lounge chairs in the room, and immediately his brows raise. “Hey, dude. You’re here?”

“Yeah, to, uh—to get Carlos to OK some edits,” you say with a smile, hoping your nonchalance isn’t too shaky. “I needed to get a draft in by three hours ago, so.”

“Oh. Right, obviously.” His eyes narrow a little, but he doesn’t relax much, gaze suspicious and a bit beguiled. “Well, if you’re not busy, we’re having dinner?”

“I’m good,” you decline, a touch too quickly. “It’s getting late.”

“Alright, well it was a courtesy invite, you dipshit,” Lando teases, and everything feels a bit more normal. You just flip him off, and Carlos retrieves his coat, eyes still not meeting yours when you all exit at the same time. Lando makes up for the hole in the conversation, droning on and on about the restaurant they’re going to, and how good it seems to be.

The elevator ride is equally charged, and you spend it humming and interjecting Lando’s words to come across as unfazed, even if you’re so totally not. Once you’re alone you finally let big exhales leave you. You don’t know if it’s from the anxiety of almost being caught, or the anxiety from the kiss unfinished.

—

LOVE the latest draft, Nick & I both. Could we get a deeper angle? Something re: regrets? Would really tie it together! Best, J

“Huh. Do you have any regrets?” You ask, tearing your eyes away from the short email. Next to you, Carlos nods his head slowly. You’re on the beach in Cannes, taking time off before the meeting and people-watching. Charles had joined you for a good half hour before leaving to sleep in the hotel instead, leaving you two to bask in the now setting sun.

“Everyone does, no?” He stretches a bit. The topic is tense. “But yes, I have some specific ones.”

“Like?” You ask weakly.

“I was stupid when I was younger. More immature, more forgetful. You grow older and you think of all the things you could’ve done right, years too late. There’s a proverb I heard once that goes—camarón que se duerme se lo lleva la corriente. It means to—to stay alert. Don’t let things pass you by.”

“And do you think you followed that advice?”

His eyes meet yours. “Do you?”

—

It’s quiet when Carlos walks inside your flat, and already his heart begins to drain, filling with guilt.

He steps over the creaky floorboard, notices your car keys on the table, your jacket haphazardly slung over the rack, your Chanel bag half-open on the dinner table beside an empty wine glass and a sweaty bottle of Cheval Blanc. The bedroom door’s half-open, light bleeding into the dark rest-of-the-place, and when he gently pushes the door to get in, the sight he faces is crushing.

“…Estás bien?”

You face the window, your back to him, in a beautiful, beautiful black dress. Your hair had been up, but it’s unpinned now, falling in loose, messy waves. You hiccup, and then tense. Feigning nonchalance, you croak out, “Yeah, yeah.”

“I’m sorry,” he says honestly. “I didn’t know the thing was earlier.” His eyes hover to the glass award on the bed, one you’d hoped he would watch you receive tonight.

“I said I’m fine,” you say. “Just”—you sniffle—“it’s fine, Carlos, just get out.”

You’re standoffish, and cold, but Carlos knows you’re incredibly hurt. In an attempt to try and coerce a conversation, he stays. “Let’s have dinner tomorrow,” he suggests in a low voice. “On me. Right? To celebrate.”

“Leave me alone, Carlos.”

“I wanted to go,” he insists. “I had a meeting that ended late, and—”

“It doesn’t fucking matter,” you assert, turning. You’ve clearly been crying hard, your face flushed and shiny, a few rogue tears still on your chin. “Just go.”

“I know how much this mattered to you.”

“And yet you didn’t go.” You sniff, wiping fruitlessly at your face. “Carlos, just…” Your voice sounds thin, heartbroken, worn with pain and real tiredness. 

“Cut me some slack.” Carlos argues softly.

“No, I just… I don’t even know how things got to this point, Carlos. We used to be so much happier. But now, it’s like I have to demand for your time like everyone else does. Now, I—I cook, I plan dinner, I put my own career on the back burner so I can spend more time with you even if I’ve gotten calls, promotions that you don’t even ever… ever ask about, just everything. I don’t think… I don’t feel you love me that way. Care for me, that way. You’ve never shown it, not lately especially.”

“You should’ve told me,” he says, hurt.

“This kind of thing, it…” you shake your head, wiping your clammy hands on the black silk. “It doesn’t need to be said.”

“Let me make it up to you.” He steps closer but you’re quicker, almost stumbling in your rush to avoid him.

“No,” you protest, “just go, Carlos, just go. Get out and close the door.”

“Cariño—”

“Go,” you say, voice hard with contempt. You refuse to meet his pleading eyes. “Go, Carlos.”

So he does.

He passes by, again, your handbag, with the sleek travel-sized bottle of Santal 33 you keep with you always peeking out, and the Cheval Blanc he’d bought you a few months prior, and the jacket you’d bought with his approval almost a year ago. He lingers in his car for a minute, the rain pelting the Golf noisily. 

He drives off, wiping tears from his own face.

And maybe, had he stayed a little longer, he would’ve seen you tearfully emerge from the elevator, into the lobby, then out into the rain, still in your black dress, and let yourself get soaked waiting for him to come back, refusing to believe he’d even let himself leave you so broken.

—

You play Uno to pass the time, your last night in Cannes.

He’s won two games in a row at this point, and you’re almost 100% sure he has a plus four card in his hand, so you play a bit more deliberately, eyeing him with a challenging glint in your eyes. You’re a bit watered down by your earlier conversation, but you feign nonchalance anyway.

Blue 2. Blue 5. Green 5. Then finally, he slaps it onto the deck—a plus four card. “Oh, come on, Carlos,” you say, almost actually irritated.

“I’ll kiss it better,” he says. Suddenly overwhelmed, you push yourself off the counter and storm out.

He follows you, stumbling into the empty balcony and softly shutting the door, voice still colored with laughter. “I’m sorry! I didn’t know you’d be so upset about the—”

You barely hear the rest of his clearly half-hearted, humorous apology. It doesn’t matter to you.

What does matter is everything from the years past crashing on your shoulders like debris, like rain, finally giving under the weight of being so close to him again. Everything. The tangled fog of your relationship, the start, the middle, the terrible end neither of you wanted. You pulsed with want, with yearning, with sadness.

So you ask yourself why? Why? Why? Why couldn’t he have come back? More importantly—why did he let you go so easily?

The truth is, you’ve drowned yourself in work so long you’ve forgotten what it’s like to feel, to be felt. And if Carlos is doing this, all this, all the touching and the tension and the debris and the rain that crash on you like a bruising, torrential storm, for his own pleasure, like this is all a game, then you’ve yearned for nothing.

“This isn’t about the game, Carlos!” It heaves itself out of you in a half-sob, carried by the wind.

He stops—stops walking, stops smiling. Just stops and stares, brows knitted with concern. You refuse to look at him, staring instead at the skyline, arms crossed. The view blurs with tears, lights meshing together prettily.

He stutters your name out in a feeble response. It’s mortifying, the way you start to cry when it leaves his mouth.

You turn then, willing your lips to stop quivering. “Good for you,” you say shakily, “you can—you can fool around, kiss me like it’s nothing, pretend like we never even mattered so you can make jokes about how we’ve ended up here again, back, together.” You inhale, but it’s no use; you’re crying even as you speak. “And I’ll laugh, because it can be funny, you know, fuck it. But… I’m so—”

The wanting shows, in moments like this. Wanting love, wanting comfort, wanting warmth, an escape from work and stress and life. You know how it feels, to be loved. You’d been familiar with it, at some point. You want it again, the ache, the kiss, the pain of it all. More than that, you want him. For just a moment. But all this wanting is so exhausting.

You want this profile to be over. You want to pull him close and tell him how proud you are, but also how hurt you are. You want Spain. You miss Paris. Everything, everything, every memory, every single painful loving thing bursts inside you.

“—tired.” You nod your head, licking tears that have perched on your lip, smiling humorlessly, shrugging. “I’m—I’m tired, and lonely, and being around you makes it worse. Being around you hurts me. It hurts you. This profile was a bad idea, and I should’ve trashed this the moment I learned I’d be covering you. Because I knew then it would’ve turned to shit, and I was right.”

He stares, unmoving. He remembers, too. He’d tell you everything if the words clicked just right. But they never do; they tangle like cotton balls in his throat before he can kneel and name everything he remembers, everything he loved about the two of you. Cariño. Just be mine, tell me everything, tell me you love me.

You wipe a hand over your face. “Let’s just let this go already. You know, we really were good for a while. This… this is maybe just one of those things where we made it in another life, but not this one.”

At his returned silence, you nod, then walk quietly past him and back into the room.

It’s just as empty as you’d left it, dim and lit only by the warm light above the kitchen counter. Your forgotten Uno game lies on the same spot, beside the two empty wine glasses. You stare for a second. Life had been different when he’d lay down his cards just minutes ago.

A coat is tugged from in between couch cushions, your heels from by the door hastily pulled on. Every movement feels heavy, like sandbags are tied to your limbs, your tongue, your eyelids. You turn, one last time, to see the moment suspended in time—and you meet his eyes. Even across the room you feel like you’re drowning in them, dark and solemn. 

“Wait,” he says, and even with just one syllable he’s managed to stop your world from turning again. “You’re right. Everything you said. When I’m around you, I hurt. I’m reminded of how awful I was then. It’s painful to be together.”

Eyes meet, eyes blink, eyes close.

“But you didn’t trash the feature. And I still enjoy your company. You could be covering Rafael Nadal or whoever right now. I could be in a jet to Japan. But you and I are here, are we not?”

Only you. It’s only you.

“I’ve missed you.” It rips through him. “I want to be here with you. I want to make the pain go away, so let me.”

“It’s useless,” you protest, tearily. “This won’t work. I’ll get mad, you’ll get fed up, I’ll get bored, you’ll put work before us.”

“Okay.” He paces toward you, nearer and nearer, closing the distance between you both. “I’ll make it work.”

“Carlos,” you weep, “I don’t know why you don’t get it. Life sucks. And all we get are little moments where things are… are good. So don’t waste the moments like this. Let’s not waste the moments on this.”

“You’re not a waste,” he says—and you crumple into his arms, worn, exhausted.

A knot in your heart is slowly unraveling itself. You’ve waited, yearned for so long, and finally you’re in his arms again, with the kind of quiet resolution only he would understand. You left the lights on for him. You’d do it again, but you don’t have to.

You bury your head in his chest, a chorus of apologies leaving him. I’m sorry, he says. I’m sorry, I love you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Everything.

I love you, you say weakly. I love you, that’s enough. I waited for this to leave, but all it did was hide. The love has yet to pass. It never will.

—

“Yours really is the best selling one!” Nick pulls you in for a hug. “We have Nadal and CR7 on the roster, but Sainz’s is selling like crazy. Your writing is just—” He kisses his fingers. “You are amazing.”

“You flatter me,” you reply gracefully, letting him pull you into another embrace but prying him off a bit faster. You don’t need another Jonathan-esque freakout in the middle of the room.

The GQ party, six months later, almost a mirror of the fundraiser just a few months ago. Only this time, you’re not tacked onto Lewis, and you’re not buzzing with nerves (as much). You had run into Lewis when you entered, and Charles too, and Lando when he spotted you, but none of them are your plus ones to this event.

Your profile is the talk of the journalism scene. Nobody can shut up about it, and it thrills you, excites you, to be witnessing your work be recognized beside Carlos himself. He brings you a glass of champagne and presses a kiss to your cheekbone, smiling against it.

Neither of you notice Lando and Charles behind you, watching like hawks. The elder cackles, presents his hand like a sacrifice and turns to the Brit. “Aha.What did I tell you, chat?”

“Five hundred euros,” moans Lando, slapping a bunch of bills onto it. “You’re an intuitive prick.”

“Those two are soulmates.” They stare at your foolish figures, smiling like idiots, high-fiving even. “The kind that’ll always, always find their way back to each other. Always.”

Lando shrugs. “Hey, honestly, for once, I’m glad I lost a bet.”

“I look great on the cover,” Carlos says, both of you staring at the screen’s display of it. 

“Shut up,” you smile, interlocking your fingers. “Well, my writing looks great inside.”

“Really does,” he says. “I’m so, so proud of you, cariño.”

“Proud of me?” You tease, staring up at him. “You made the last minute title change that caused fans to go crazy.” You both turn to stare at it displayed on the screen, smiling fondly.

Carlos Sainz—on racing, gracious defeat, and refinding love.

[louisupdates]

Louis’ quotes from The Times article: Louis Tomlinson: ‘When One Direction split I was mortified and bitter. It felt like another loss’

The singer on life after the boy band, grieving his mother and sister, and why he would ‘be up for’ a reunion, as he releases a film (24.2.23)

I’ve always had a problem with ‘ego’, and I’ve always been worried about being one of those people in the public eye who just loses all sense of reality, and becomes an arsehole. I’m from Doncaster.

If someone does come up after an hour to ask for a selfie, I won’t say no and I won’t run away, especially if I’m three pints deep!

With this job, there’s so much room for overthinking, you know? Someone from the record label will tell you they like your stuff, but you find yourself thinking: yeah, but do they? It’s the fans that help you really believe in yourself.

I do miss the boys, and I do definitely miss being one of the five, but I like doing my own thing too. It was time.

This is a confidence game for anyone, and there’s been plenty of moments of vulnerability throughout the entire process.

Only Harry knows what he means there. It’s hard to speculate. But we all came from relatively humble beginnings, and now we are where we are.

Some of the things that have happened recently have been quite drastic, yeah, but then so much in my life seems to have been pretty extreme, one way or the other. There’ve been challenging times, definitely. It’s funny, but I couldn’t even tell you how many years ago my mum passed, I just blank it out. But for the first 18 months, I’d take any form of bad luck personally. I’d feel every tiny thing. But now I genuinely feel I’ve come out the other side. I feel more empathy for everything and everyone these days.

It was mostly amicable. Simon always had my best interests at heart, and I liked him. He had his faults of course, like all of us, but it was always inevitable I’d have to go off and do my own thing.

[Being able to write with artists rather than songwriters] was a big difference, huge. These are people who live and breathe music. It’s the first time I felt really comfortable doing my own stuff, you know?

When I was in the band, working with professional songwriters whose entire aim was to write the hit single, they’d tell me that singing in my natural accent wasn’t commercial. Sorry, but what a shit idea. Who wants to sound like everybody else? I dumbed down a little bit in the band, because you do, but I’ve learnt who I am now.

Well, being a role model for one. I never wanted that. I always had to worry whether it was OK if, say, I was seen here or if I could get away with smoking a joint there, before concluding: hmm, probably not. But I never wanted to be the perfect pop star, especially in the climate of Instagram. I don’t want to put an artificial world out there. I think it’s important that people see your scars, your flaws.

When One Direction split up, I was mortified, I was absolutely gutted. I was a bit bitter, I suppose, because it just felt like another loss to me. But I’ve a better understanding of things now, and there’s not as much anger. It is what it is. Getting back together at some point is hard to imagine right now, but I’d be surprised if we lived out our lives and didn’t have a moment where we had a reunion, or whatever you want to call it. I’d be up for that.

Well, it’s not a surprise is it? We were always aware that Harry fit that mould, and it’s been an amazing thing to watch. Envy? At the start maybe, when I was trying to find my feet, but it’s never healthy to cross-reference your own success with others, is it? These days I’m learning to elevate myself in those moments when I have to. I didn’t know how to do that before, but now? Now I know I fucking can.

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

Have you read the NYT piece on Taylors sexuality? Would love to know if you have any thoughts?

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/04/opinion/taylor-swift-queer.html

I didn't think it was a good piece - and I think it was wildly inappropriate for anyone to write that for the NYT or the NYT to print it.

The piece is far too long and because of that length it has many contradictory ideas. This is probably best seen through the fact that it seems to want to argue that reading Taylor Swift is queer is legitimate (it's possible to do a great version of that article), present proof that Taylor Swift is queer, and argue that it's a problem that people aren't reading Taylor Swift as queer. Given current understandings - it's impossible to make a coherent argument for all these at the same time and the arguments frequently undercut each other.

You can see this in the many false endings of the piece there's a paragraph above the picture of Taylor in her reputation outfit - which is basically 'queer readings must be seen as possible'. Perfectly fine ending, reasonable thing to say. But then the last section opens: "I remember the first time I knew I had seen Taylor Alison Swift break free from the trap of stardom." And the certainty is never undermined, even though the argument is incredibly flimsy (basically there is only one possible understanding of Hits Different).

The Hits Different argument - which doesn't seem to consider the possibility that the narrator could be talking about herself with the line 'argumental antithetical dream girl' is part of a really unsophisticated reading of Taylor Swift's work. The reference to anti-hero - which turns the sexy baby/monster on a hill into a statement about how she's supposed to look rather than how she feels - simplifies the song massively.

The fundamental problem (as is so often with these sorts of pieces) was that this was someone whose thoughts had been developed in fandom and was responding almost entirely to fandom discourse. Fandom works in binaries - there is only one legitimate reading and therefore in order to prove your argument is legitimate you need to show that other readings aren't. But that's definitely not a cultural discussion of queerness and celebrity. It reads to me like she's not self-aware enough to separate what she desperately wants to say about fandom, and what is a cultural argument that is appropriate for this forum.

**************

And I disagree with some of the really basic premises of the argument - that she's too cowardly to make explicit - which is that outting is OK.

Taylor Swift has not come out - and this article includes a list of reasons why this person thinks she's gay - and ends with a claim of knowledge.

Lets stick to basics - if you think there's reason to believe that a celebrity was going to come out and didn't - then it's totally OK to talk about that with your friends. It's not OK to write an article about it in the New York Times. If someone doesn't

Likewise - the point of queer coding is that only people who are familiar with queer culture will pick it up. It's a fucked up thing to do to translate queer coding to a wider audience - because the whole point is that the person doing it only wants to speak to those who know.

One of the bizarre things about the article is that it seems to take as a starting point that things only exist if they're talked about in the New York Times. It asks the question about what queer people who see queer themes in her work are supposed to do and suggests the answers are: "Right now, those who do so must inject our perceptions with caveats and doubt or pretend we cannot see it (a lie!) — implicitly acquiescing to convention’s constraints in the name of solidarity."

The idea that the only options are lying or talking about why you think a celebrity who is not out is queer in the pages of the NYT is completely bizarre - and erasing so much of queer culture. Speculation about the sexuality of prominent figures is definitely queer culture - but not done on broadcast - done within queer communities. To me that so invalidating of what happens within queer friendships and queer communities to say that the only options are lying or stating your opinion in the pages of the New York Times.

There is nothing wrong in seeing queerness in Taylor's life and work. There's nothing wrong with talking about the queerness you are seeing in Taylor's life and work - even for major publications. But the certainty - the idea that your responses are only valid if you can prove that you're right about someone else's experience - I think that's damaging for the person that is making the argument, the person they're talking about, and queer culture more generally.

[seasurfacefullofclouds1]

Hi Sea, do you have any thoughts on the headline of the Times article and Louis saying he was “mortified” when the band split.

It’s such an odd choice of headline. I think Louis chooses his words so carefully, so I’m assuming “mortified” is a very deliberate choice.

Why didn’t the interviewer follow up with “why did you feel that, what did you have to feel embarrassed/shame about”? (Rhetorical…fairly sure we know why).

I’m maybe reading too much into it, but the only thing I can think is that this is a subtle confirmation that he was blindsided by intentions after the “hiatus”, and mortified/embarrassed that he’d trusted and taken people at their word.

Ultimately obviously I think it’s a massively poor article, and frustrating that (yet again) the focus is 1D/Harry, but some of the things he’s said are intriguing.

Hi,

From the Times article, I will reprint all of Louis’ standalone quotes. We’ll see that this reads very differently from the rest of the article, almost with an exact opposite tone and intention.

“All right?”

“I’ve always had a problem with ‘ego’, and I’ve always been worried about being one of those people in the public eye who just loses all sense of reality, and becomes an arsehole. I’m from Doncaster.”

“If someone does come up after an hour to ask for a selfie, I won’t say no and I won’t run away, especially if I’m three pints deep!”

“With this job, there’s so much room for overthinking, you know? Someone from the record label will tell you they like your stuff, but you find yourself thinking: yeah, but do they? It’s the fans that help you really believe in yourself.”

“I do miss the boys, and I do definitely miss being one of the five, but I like doing my own thing too. It was time.”

“This is a confidence game for anyone, and there’s been plenty of moments of vulnerability throughout the entire process.”

“Only Harry knows what he means there. It’s hard to speculate. But we all came from relatively humble beginnings, and now we are where we are.”

“Some of the things that have happened recently have been quite drastic, yeah, but then so much in my life seems to have been pretty extreme, one way or the other. There’ve been challenging times, definitely. It’s funny, but I couldn’t even tell you how many years ago my mum passed, I just blank it out. But for the first 18 months, I’d take any form of bad luck personally. I’d feel every tiny thing. But now I genuinely feel I’ve come out the other side. I feel more empathy for everything and everyone these days.”

“[Leaving Syco] was mostly amicable. Simon always had my best interests at heart, and I liked him. He had his faults of course, like all of us, but it was always inevitable I’d have to go off and do my own thing.”

“[Writing with artists rather than professional songwriters] was a big difference, huge. These are people who live and breathe music. It’s the first time I felt really comfortable doing my own stuff, you know?”

“When I was in the band, working with professional songwriters whose entire aim was to write the hit single, they’d tell me that singing in my natural accent wasn’t commercial. Sorry, but what a shit idea. Who wants to sound like everybody else? I dumbed down a little bit in the band, because you do, but I’ve learnt who I am now.”

“Well, being a role model for one. I never wanted that. I always had to worry whether it was OK if, say, I was seen here or if I could get away with smoking a joint there, before concluding: hmm, probably not. But I never wanted to be the perfect pop star, especially in the climate of Instagram. I don’t want to put an artificial world out there. I think it’s important that people see your scars, your flaws.”

“When One Direction split up, I was mortified, I was absolutely gutted. I was a bit bitter, I suppose, because it just felt like another loss to me. But I’ve a better understanding of things now, and there’s not as much anger. It is what it is. Getting back together at some point is hard to imagine right now, but I’d be surprised if we lived out our lives and didn’t have a moment where we had a reunion, or whatever you want to call it. I’d be up for that.”

“Well, it’s not a surprise is it? We were always aware that Harry fit that mould, and it’s been an amazing thing to watch. Envy? At the start maybe, when I was trying to find my feet, but it’s never healthy to cross-reference your own success with others, is it? These days I’m learning to elevate myself in those moments when I have to. I didn’t know how to do that before, but now? Now I know I f***ing can.”

Journalists are usually trained to be as objective as possible, to present the artist in the context of their work without interjecting their own “psychological” read on motivation. However, this journalist seemed to be determined to overlay his weirdly personal, obsessively biased narrative over Louis’ words, by framing Louis as someone who lost to Harry Styles and is still bitter about it.

The journalist’s interpretation directly contradicts Louis OWN WORDS, “But I’ve a better understanding of things now, and there’s not as much anger. It is what it is,” and also, “It’s never healthy to cross-reference your own success with others, is it?” The journalist obsessively read into Harry’s words as well, hunting for a confirmation from Louis that Harry is actually more articulate and sympathetic than he is — so much so that in the article Louis has basically had to say, “No comment.”

It reads like the confrontation with the Australian television show where the interviewer obsessively dwelled on the college class about Harry, and Louis replied, “Why don’t you sign up? You seem very interested.”

As for Louis’ using the word “mortified,” we can see that Louis placed it in the context of feeling “gutted,” and grieving for “another loss.” The band’s end really was like the death of something irrecoverable to him. He has expressed in previous interviews how he did not expect hiatus to be a permanent break because no one in the position of knowing (including Harry) was honest with the rest of the band. No one would tell them definitively. The reason was probably that they were hedging on 1D as the backup route if solo Harry failed. At the time, it probably felt risky for Sony to kill such a moneymaker, to alienate the other guys in this way… but as it turned out, Harry Styles is fine with leaving no prisoners standing. Harry uses their names only when he mocks the boys or needs a PR shine.

[thepeakygurl]

You said what?

Well, this started as a os, but ended up being something that need a part 2... so I guess we'll see if you like it and if I should write a part 2☀️

Not a request

Peter Parker / Spiderman (TOM HOLLAND) x fem!reader

Prompt: You had few encounters with Spiderman before, almost too many to be just classified as fated encounters. In one of those many, you reveal to him a secret of yours that you never told to anyone, but one day your classmate and friend Tom happens to casually talk about your secret to you.

As you were about to leave the classroom, you found yourself shoulder to shoulder with Peter, who has been very chatty towards you in the past few days, or at least has tried to.

You both stood in front of the door waiting for the other to make a move, you tried to hold yourself from smiling at the sight of his cheeks slowly turning the same colour of a tomato “Are we can’t stay here the whole day, Peter” you said in a laugh.

“Right.” he whispered while heading out the door first, but he waited for you just to be able to walk next to you in the hallway “So, how did you find the class?” he asked you, as innocent as that question was, you almost felt triggered by the imagines of the small knife going through that frog going through your head.

You looked at him visibly disgusted, as if that was enough to answer his question “I don’t like knives, and I don’t like knives going through things, especially living beings” you spitted out. 

“Oh, yeah yeah of course…” he quickly said looking at his shoes “I am sorry, I forgot about your fear of knives” the words left his mouth so quickly and so vividly that there was no way for him to come back from what he just said to you.

Your head turned to him quickly as soon as you heard him, your eyes almost out of your head and your mouth slightly open, but not quite yet ready to speak. Only recently you moved to that school and you never dared to talk about your fear of knives because that would have led to a conversation about your father and what happened to him. It was already hard being the new kid, let alone being the new kid who’s father was murdered by stabbing and on top of that, you unfortunately witnessed the whole thing at the mere age of 12. Never in a million years you were going to tell that story to your classmates, but there was Peter Parker apologising for triggering a memory that you never shared with him. 

Peter’s heart started to race against time, a time that he was trying to beat in order to find an answer to a question you hadn’t asked yet How do you know? And all sorts of thoughts started to invade his mind The internet! Say you read it in an article about the murder! No… she will think you are weird for looking her up on the internet. Maybe… maybe I asked about her around! But, that just sounds like stalking… Damn it Peter! Maybe she told me, yeah she told me.

“How do you know about my fear?” you gathered all the air you had in your body in order to pronounce those words outloud.

“Oh, you… you told me, remember?” he stuttered looking away from you. Peter was never a good lie, he could swing around it and manage to not actually answer your question, but when it came to lying… he was really bad.

“I most certainly not” you said “Beside, I’m pretty sure this is the third time we have spoken and I wouldn’t have entertained a conversation about my worst fear. So, who told you or how did they find out?”

His hands were shaking at this point and his brain stopped from collaborating, he almost slipped and hit a trash can, but he was able to jump over it, which you thought was pretty impressive, but you were not about to dismiss the whole argument “You must have forgotten. How would I know if you didn’t tell me? I just thought that it would have triggered the memory of your father and make you sad so I connected the frog to your dad- wait this is not how it was suppose-”

And again your heart sank “How do you know about my father?” your mouth started to feel dry as well as your throat, you had to take a deep breath before looking at him again.

The more you thought about it, the more it didn’t make sense. You were hundred percent sure to never have entertained that conversation and even if he did read it online, you were pretty sure that the media didn’t allow enough coverage to your father’s passing for him to actually find out about it. You didn’t even manage to make any actual friends in order for you to share such a personal story… and that’s when it hit you. You did make a friend… sort of.

The past few weeks you had few encounters with Spiderman, a masked freaked that went around at night to save the neighbourhood and to be fair, he did save you couple of times. Somehow you always found yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time, which was not as odd in that city. But thankfully, Spiderman always led you to safety. Those small few encounters always led to silent moment sitting on the roof of some building, which he said was the safest place to be at night, which also allowed you to collect yourself from the scared of being robbed or being killed by some supernatural creature.

You now remembered that night when Spiderman save you and took you to one of his spots, you thought it was odd for him to take care of you in that way and you’d lie if you said you didn’t think he was a paedophile with the intention of assaulting you, but he never did so maybe he was trustworthy?

“Do you feel better now?” he asked you, you were still shaking still feeling that knife against your throat, all of that for a bag that only had dirty tissues and couple of gums in it. 

You shook your head at him “Thank you, again, I guess” you murmured. He was laying down with his head resting on his arms, and he seemed so unfaded by the whole thing, while you… you looked like a ghost. 

“It’s my job, Miss” he said “You are still shaking a lot, you must be new around here” he said in a laugh, almost hinting at the fact that it was almost the normality to get robbed in that neighbourhood.

And that’s when you told him about your fear of knives, your father and how that never truly left your mind. He stood and sat looking at you, listening to what you had to say, he somehow could understand your pain, he too had lost people, but he didn’t say anything, he just stayed quiet and you were grateful for that. His silence meant for you more than all the sorry you heard in your whole life.

And now, Peter Parker was looking at you telling you something that you only had said to one person in town, and that was Spiderman. You had to cover your mouth in clear surprise “You… You are…?”

“Huh?” he said, now speeding up, “S-sorry Y/N, I have to go now, I got class” he said while running, dodging the people who were about to run into him.

“WE ARE NOT OVER WITH THIS CONVERSATION PETER PARKER!”

[cosmo-watches-movies]

The Deal (2003)

Plot: This politics drama tells the story of the events leading up to the Blair-Brown-Deal.

Do I need Spoilers for a movie based on real events?

Well this subject matter couldn’t be further from Underworld in any way.

This movie opens with a disclaimer stating that some secenes dialogues are invented but it is based on a true story. Followed up by this statement:

"Much of what follows is true."

And...although I think that's very funny, what was the intend behind that? I don't know if that is supposed to make the movie more or less convincig to me...

Anyway...

I’m having a hard time coming up with something to write about for this one. Like it wasn’t boring, far from it actually, I was with it all the way. But still…trying to piece together the details of a political agreement of two polititians in a country I’ve never even been in is kind of difficult. Probably beneficial to have been alive back then aswell. Like I think you need at least some background info to understand this properly. Okay so let me get that info on how the british government works and some of it’s history and I’ll try again.

*Action montage of me researching the british government set to the Rocky Theme*

Allright that’s done, I think I somewhat understand what’s going on now, if you really wanna get into the terminology please google what you don’t understand, I’m already struggling to put this together as is.

So we have Gordon Brown (David Morrissey), who just got elected as the Member of Parliament (MP for short) for Dunfermline East in Scotland. He soon learns that he will have to share his office in London with the MP for Sedgefield, Tony Blair (Michael Sheen). At first Brown isn’t very happy about this, but eventually they become friends. At some point they discuss their goals in political positions and agree that Brown would be better suited as the leader of the party. Stuff happens. One day Browns mentor and head of the party John Smith (Frank Kelly) suffers a fatal heart attack. Quickly Blair decides to run for leadership. Brown is pissed, drama, drama, drama, till Blair reaches out to him, asking him to meet up and settle this matter. They do and aggree that Blair will run for leadership and in turn Brown is assured “unprecedented power as his Chancellor should they win the next election” and “sweeping control of social policy” (quoted from the wikipedia article of the film, Idk how to reword that). Also Brown would be granted Blair’s successor should they be reelected. I left out many characters and some smaller plotpoint, that contributed to this. This films plot spans over several years. Those of you who are really interested in this story should just go and watch the movie, most of the details are not very relevant to my comments. I’ll be a surface skimmer for this one.

To be honest I probably never would’ve touched this film if it wasn’t for this blog. Buuut I’m glad I saw it, I learned stuff. I’m more smart now.

Now the cast in this is great. This film is in essence about the relationships between the people who make politics, like a peek behind the curtain. The characters at the center of it being Brown and Blair obviously and then John Smith and Peter Mandelson (played by Paul Rhys, who you might remember from Gallowglass, I did not know he was in this film going in, so I was pleasantly suprised). And all four work very well together.

Voice of little Cosmo, who is really bad at school presentations: “This movie was good and I liked it because it had a story and characters in it.” (I’m sorry, I’m trash xD I told you I’m struggling to write this)

The four characters have very natural chemistry. Until the big conflict in the third act of course, as it’s supposed to be. And when the situation hits the tipping point, oh boy does it crash hard.

A selection:

It's all a matter of interpretation isn't it? You say potato, I say the circumstances are different now!

Well done Tony! Way to piss off a Scotsman.

Yay! Goin two for two! (I'll get back to this one later, subtle but genius acting in this one)

Not too long after this they reach their agreement and the film is over. But that’s good, I like that this movie doesn’t drag. It’s exactly as long as it needs to be. That can be a bit of a problem for me with other similar movies. They’re too long and add too many unnecessary details. This one doesn’t, it’s straight forward, I think that’s one of the main reasons I did enjoy it, even if the genre isn’t something I would typically seek out. That plus, well the acting is not just good it's actually entertaining. You know what I mean?

Let me explain, I have something really cool for ya. I did some “research” for you on this one. (I watched interviews) And I learned some interesting things about Michael’s process for getting into a character.

Firstly, because I know he would not like it if I didn’t point this out. He does not do impressions! There is a difference between an impession and performing a real person in a story. An impression is copying a persons look, mannerisms and speech patterns as perfectly as possible. Ususally for satirical purposes. Usually only for a sketch or something short like that. That is not what Michael does when he plays a real person.

So instead on focusing on the outside impression, what he does is, as he puts it himself, he “bathes” in the person so to speak. Meaning he does months of research, watching and reading everything he can about that person, fully immersing himself, so he can build a deeper understanding of what makes them tick, what motivates them and ...you know the internal workings and all that. Their actual personality.

This might seem obvious to some, but to be honest I never thought about how an actor might tackle a task like this before. The absolute best thing though, is listening to Michael talk about his work. He’s so passionate about the characters he plays and the storeis they're in. No matter if it’s about a famous politician, a morally questionable soft angel or a creepy vampire. You can really see that he manages to build a connection with each and every one of them. That’s one of the reasons he’s such a good actor I think. And it's a joy to watch him immers himself.

He said a thing about improv, that I think applies to his acting in general aswell: “(Improv) forces you to make choices in the moment that aren’t intellectual choices. You just have to make a choice, because, it has to be real, cause your living it.”

This stuff requires a deep dedication and knowledge to and of the character and I think this is how we get these brilliant microexpressions he always does. Because in the moment he is that character going through these emotions. There is a deep basis behind what he does. Maybe this is standard practice, maybe not, again, I know nothing of acting, but you can really see the enormous effort he puts into his work and I think that is absolutely amazing.

Just one example is this short second here:

Previously Blair had no problem looking directly at Brown while arguing. But when he actually says out loud, that he thinks he is better (suited) than his opponent, he suddenly can't keep it up anymore. *gasp* Could that be guilt? He knows exactly that he's not only breaking the trust his friend had in him, but also hurting him on a personal level. And all of this is in a few miliseconds! This is exactly what I'm talking about!

This scene in general is just excellent. It's an incredible example of two actors just bouncing off of each other incredibly well! If there's one thing I like even more than Michael Sheen's acting, it's seeing him act with another great actor. That's what I'm here for! That's when the magic happens *u*

Okay enough of me geeking out. All of this said, in this case I unfortunately can't even judge if Michael really succeds at what he set out to do with this role, because I don't know what kind of person Tony Blair actually is. As I said I wasn't there back then. And tbh I'm not yet invested enough to go that deep into this rabbithole. I did watch a few documentaries to familiarize myself with the subject, but my patience for this stuff only goes so far. However for me in this movie he was very convincing as a politician, who won't hesitate to make decisions that will bring him closer to his goals but will have a negative effect on others aswell (Foreshadowing). Anyway judging by the sequels to this and other biographical films he would be cast in in the future, I'd say he did just fine ;)

So, apparently I did have something to say about this one after all.

Summarizing: Give this one a watch, it’s good. And you might learn something.

[dynamite-derek]

The Best Sort of Sendoff

Note: This article contains spoilers for Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. For reference, I am in Chapter 10 of the game right now, so this won't contain end-game spoilers. This is instead a look at what happens in the "Memoirs of a Dragon" portion of the game. It's risky writing this before I finish playing, after all this is the franchise that used rubber bullets as a plot twist, but I have faith in the writers to not suddenly drop the ball.

In most films in the Rocky franchise after the first two, there would be a scene where Rocky looks back on his past and you get a great montage of scenes. They would show his triumphs, his hardships and generally make you feel good for following his story up to this point. I would like to think this is because Sylvester Stallone never knew when the final Rocky movie was actually going to be. Rocky Balboa was a legendary character, the movie's world isn't the only thing bidding farewell to him - the audience is too.

Saying goodbye to a character the audience has spent a lot of time with is a tricky thing to do. One of the main complaints about the Disney Star Wars films are how they treat characters from the original trilogy. Return of the Jedi had a pretty happy ending for the main cast but fast forward to the sequel trilogy and everybody is miserable, their lives suck and they die in a way that left a lot of people feeling unfulfilled. Regardless of what you think about the quality of these films, the treatment of these characters is a gigantic reason the reception towards them is so chilled.

The Like a Dragon franchise has not had Kazuma Kiryu as its main protagonist for two games now. Yakuza: Like a Dragon, the seventh entry in the franchise, replaced him with a character that feels like his polar opposite. Kiryu is stoic and keeps a lot of things internalized, Ichiban Kasuga is loud and personable and wears his heart on his sleeve. They both come across as good people but in different ways. Kiryu did get to show up in that seventh entry, but he felt like more of a cameo role. It was like getting to spend one more afternoon with the living legend. It wasn't his show anymore, but he was around.

Little did we know when playing those games that Kiryu would get a farewell tour. Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name kicked this all off with a nice little side story about Kiryu living life as a man who is supposed to be dead. It's mostly a standalone piece, but the references to Kiryu's past adventures come hitting hard and fast at the very end. I wrote that the ending to that game is a masterclass in video game storytelling and I stand by that - if you've stuck with Kiryu through all his adventures so far, it is one of the best scenes the medium has ever conveyed.

There wasn't a sense of finality though. That title ended with Kiryu saying he wanted to live a little bit for himself. He was already a major part of the ad campaign for the eighth entry in the franchise, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, so there was no feeling that we were saying farewell to this guy. In a sense, we would be getting a new chapter for this legendary figure. Rocky Balboa would be getting one final fight in that ring.

Infinite Wealth gives you that finality. Kiryu shows up and it is revealed that he has cancer and only has months to live. While he is still an imposing and larger than life figure, his time on this earth is up. He doesn't seem too bothered about it though. The audience might be going like "hey dude, why don't you reconnect with Haruka or something?" but the man himself just wants to accomplish this last mission he is on and die in peace. You spend a long time in Infinite Wealth going around Hawaii with the future and past of the franchise yucking it up and it just feels great. Chocolate and Peanut Butter together at last!

At some point in the game, Kiryu's illness gets the better of him and he is sent back to Japan to take it easier. Given that he has months to live, he shouldn't be fighting baddies with Kasuga all day and night, he should be resting. Who knows, he may have more time than he thinks! At this point, the game decides to start letting the player say goodbye to this character. Your party and Kiryu's old friend Makoto Date note that the dragon of Dojima has spent the majority of his life looking out for others and should really spend his last moments doing something for himself. That's right, Kiryu gets to star in the hit 2007 film "The Bucket List"

The game then opens up a bit of story called "memoirs of a dragon" as part of this bucket list. You guide Kiryu to a bunch of locations in Japan, both in Ijincho and the very familiar Kamurocho, and relive all sorts of things. It's one thing seeing the gate in front of Tenkaichi Street and going 'oh yeah, I've seen that gate before, it's in every single one of these stinkin' games,' it's another thing to have your main character reminisce about this and what it means to him. Sure, a lot of time media can best convey emotions by showing and not telling, but hearing your fading protagonist talk about the old days gives you more insight into those things and can help the player feel a little bit more.

These scenes vary greatly in their emotional impact. Some of them are goofy, with call backs to side games like Yakuza Dead Souls or Like a Dragon: Ishin. Some of them are sweet, with our protagonist talking about characters who don't even seem to appear in this game like Goro Majima or Taiga Saejima or Shun Akiyama. If you played past Yakuza games, you know who these guys are and it's nice to see them acknowledged in some way even if they don't play a major role here. You remember them and Kiryu does too. This is a memory of his life, not just a memory of what you experienced in Infinite Wealth to this point.

At some point, Kiryu's friend Date decides that this whole process needs to get a little more personal. You see, the Dragon of Dojima is supposed to be a dead man. He fakes his own death in order to protect his loved ones because he was privy to some government secrets that put everyone in danger. So Date decides to gather some people and have Kiryu sort of listen in on their conversations so he can see how they're doing without him. The conversation almost always circle back to Kiryu and how awesome he is (was), so it can feel a bit like Tom Sawyer listening in on his own funeral, but it's sweet hearing people give their thoughts nonetheless.

Sometimes Kiryu will interact with these people, but he never actually explicitly says who he is. He'll say he's Taichi Suzuki and leave it at that. You get the impression that everybody knows it's really him, so they'll say really emotional things that start with phrases like "well if he was here, I'd say something like..." It's just very sweet to get a sense of closure with characters that normally would just be one and done. You never got to see Rocky Balboa get one more chat with Clubber Lang well after the fact, but longtime minor foe Lau Ka Long sure as hell gets one final moment to see the legendary yakuza one more time.

All of these scenes are a really nice look back on this guy's life. The player gets to be privy to a lot of introspection and dialogue they normally wouldn't get to be a part of. The best part of this is, you never get the impression Kiryu is a miserable person who isn't ready to go out. He instead goes with the approach of "I thought I had finished all I needed to do, but getting this extra closure has been really nice." It's incredibly sweet to see orphan boy Taichi as a grownup and doing well for himself. As players, we saw this fella when he was just a little brat at the orphanage. Kiryu put on a wrestling match for him! The last time Kiryu saw him was when he was a child too, so this little scene is great because both the protagonist and the player get to see this long gone character and go "his life seems pretty neat."

Probably the most impactful scene I had gotten to at this point would be Kiryu seeing Kaoru Sayama one final time. For those that don't remember, Sayama was Kiryu's love interest in the second Yakuza title and the two of them ended up parting ways because of different goals in life. It was always sad to me, personally, as a player that she got written off and just vanished into the void but here she was once again. And yeah, her life is going great! She's working hard to help ensure that the youth don't go down the wrong path, she made a good life for herself in America.

But Date hones in on her lack of a wedding ring and it is revealed that, yeah, she keeps kinda busy so it's hard to find someone. But also a part of her wants to stay available just in case Kiryu really is alive, as a lot of people whisper in the underground. Date almost lets it spill that well he's actually still there, but Kiryu (communicating via secret spy headset so he can listen in) stops him and says it's not necessary. Later on he says something like "to know she still cares is more than enough for me" and that his current situation would just make things worse for her. He isn't regretting his past choice of parting from her here, he is instead appreciative of the person she has become.

Being able to see and hear all of the impact this character has had is really something special. You've spent hundreds of hours as Kiryu talking to all these characters. You're not only saying goodbye to this legendary video game character, you are also saying goodbye to his world and the people he cared about. This isn't just a farewell to Kiryu, it's a farewell to the old.

By not portraying Kiryu as a miserable sadsack on death's door but instead showing him as a man ready to face death head on, the writers of this title really make this feel like an excellent farewell. He doesn't need to be in a Wonderful Life scenario where everyone tells him how important he is, but he gets to experience it anyway and appreciate it. It's a final gift for a man on his way out. These characters aren't trying to redeem Kiryu or make you see him in a different way, they are simply reaffirming what you the player already know: that he's awesome.

We will probably never see a character get as great of a sendoff as this again. There will not be an Uncharted game in 10 years where you get to revisit all the old characters and see where life has taken them. So appreciate this for what it is - another great example of storytelling in video games.

[tortan-saarbruccan]

Thrilling Chase in downtown Saarbrücken

On Saturday afternoon the police arrested a man in the town centre of Saarbrücken. The procedure of this arrest raises the question: Are our police forces actually competent?

October 16, 2023, 10:03 a.m. CET

Saarbrücken - Chaos broke out last Saturday when two police officers and an as of now unidentified individual sped through the market. According to some more or less reliable eyewitnesses they were chasing the suspect for at least 500 m when the man grabbed a bicycle - in theory gaining a significant advantage over his pursuers.

Unfortunately he rode his bike exactly like any self-respecting Tour de France contestant would never let themselves be seen doing it. Nevertheless the officers deemed it neccessary to obtain a vehicle. Luckily for them a group of tourists doing some sort of "Walk through Saarbrücken" without the annoying walking part were passing by and they could get their hands on two segway personal transporters (there is no way to tell exactly what happened, eyewitness accounts range from "borrowing" to "threatening with a gun and an arrest and physical violence and "genderkonforme Sprache" and also there were Aliens involved"). The ensuing race could probably not even be shown in a slapstick comedy for neither party had any competence in manoeuvering their vehicles but plenty of obstacles in their way.

As our probably most reliable eyewitness recounted: "It was crazy! In the movies they're always like - vroom vroom" - makes exaggerated hand motion driving invisible toy cars - "and then the bad guys chasing the god guys always explode - KABOOM" - the arms being thrown out to imitate an explosion nearly hit a nearby man in the stomach - " and the hero says something really cool and his car can fly. This wasn't like the movies. I don't think there were good guys here. They were all really really bad. But it was really funny. They just screamed and said all the bad words my mother says i'm not allowed to say. They looked just like my little sister learning to ride a bike. Only she didn't crash into a fruit stall. But the guy did. He just full on crashed into it. The woman who was with him was slightly better but i think she nearly fell off laughing then she saw this. Also she confiscated a smartphone from a teenager who filmed the whole thing."

This seems to be largely true as we could indeed identify a former market stand in the wreckage caused by the chase. The close resemblance to an elementary school slalom course could also be confirmed. After bringing 9-year-old Matty back to his father we then set out to investigate further. Questioning the fruit vendor didn't lead to any new information regarding the outcome of the arrest but they reported missing fruit - most notably a watermelon. While we are not entirely certain, the bump under the policeman's t-shirt was probably not the head of an enemy or a very sudden pregnancy...

In addition to the - very disturbed- fruit vendor other people unwillingly witnessed these events. One shitty fucking asshole bystander remarked: "This wouldn'ta happened if y'all had some guns". Roy from Texas - as he introduced himself to us - then continued to expand on his plans to start a militia to defend people against militant groups, at which point our correspondent decided to remove themselves from the situation lest they started throwing hands. Our next witness, Irmgard (96), gave a long-winded speech about the impudence of today's youth and her grandchildren's incompetence at baking, which our team of reporters, to this day, still have failed to connect to the occurrences this article is about. While our conversation was not very revealing the tremor in her hands gave us the distinct impression that a gun in her hand would at least solve one problem: overpopulation.

DISCLAIMER: DO NOT POST UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!!! Alex, you were supposed to write a short article about the market and not a horrifyingly unprofessional and bloodcurdling story about incompetent cops and segway personal transporters. You are an intern and not a "correspondent". Also the use of majestic plural is at best confusing and at worst very f*cking annoying. Also swear words are a no-go.

PS: You were supposed to bring me coffee two hours ago.

[everygame]

Battle City (NES)

Developed/Published by: Namco Released: 9/9/1985 Completed: 20/11/2022 Completion: Beat all 35 unique levels. Version Played: Switch Online Trophies / Achievements: n/a

[Apologies for interrupting, but before we get to the article I’d like to mention that you can pre-order a copy of exp. 2600, my brand new zine, right now and get more of–and help support–writing like what you’re about to read.]

There are iconic NES games–Super Mario Bros. and that. And then there are iconic NES pirate cart games. Battle City is the latter. 

I have a funny history with NES piracy, actually. As most people know, the NES wasn’t really a thing in the UK for most people (I certainly didn’t know anyone with one as a child) and by the time I reached the age where my family were spending more time in Malaysia, I was already an avowed PC gamer. So even though I have so many memories of department stores with rows of pirate carts and knock off Famicoms… I wasn’t interested at all, and instead filled my boots with copied floppies (seeking out the stalls with the best reproductions of manuals and that sort of thing.)

In some respects, I regret this–so much of the video game culture of South East Asia in the 90s seems to be lost forever (see tweets) and now all I really have is snatches of memories–usually a gaggle of kids crowded round a pirate cart version of Street Fighter II in a Jaya Jusco–but I also know that games like Battle City squandered the chance to get me lugging a Malaysian famiclone home with a couple of 150-in-1 carts.

Let’s remember here I’m not yet a teenager and I’ve just discovered the glory of things like Wolfenstein 3D’s vibrant ultraviolence and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis’ cinematic narrative. And while in Malaysia I’m putting the exchange-rate equivalent of pennies into big fancy sit down/ride cabinets of the likes of Suzuka 8 Hours or Rad Mobile. So when an uncle digs out a faimclone and a pirate cart and you boot it up to find you can play 30 versions of the dustiest-ass tank game for babies you’d ever seen…

(And what was the deal with every single pirate cart massively over-inflating the number of games anyway? Was anyone fooled when they selected “Fancy Excitebike” in the list and just got Excitebike again??? I have one of those snatches of memory of standing in a wee store with my dad, him saying “you can get another game for the house!” and me, unable to tell which cart offered any value at all–after all, 80 of the games would probably be the same ones on the cart we already had–going home empty handed! Empty handed! When do kids ever do that???)

Anyway. When I think of pirate carts, I think of Battle City. Maybe it isn’t iconic to everyone, maybe it’s only iconic to me because it was on the cart I had for one summer at least… but it’s such a pirate cart game that it almost feels weird to play it in an “official” way.

And I suppose, this many years later, it’s kind of weird that I put a bunch of time into it?

I’ll say this. It’s not surprising that at the time I gave it short shrift. It’s got horrible sound (a constant buzzing of engines) and feels extremely simplistic and limiting as you awkwardly move your tank around sans diagonals. It was, after all, based on a game from 1980 with a bit of a graphical touch-up–contemporary with the timeless Pac-Man, sure, but this ain’t Pac-Man. I’ll admit the tank movement feels better than I remember it (smooth, and perfect speed) but the game sort of doesn’t really feel like anything.

Look at it this way. The game has you as a tank trying to defend one poorly walled-in base, always at the bottom center of the screen, from being shot by enemy tanks. There’s some terrain, but it’s mostly brick walls that can be shot through. Enemies spawn from the same three spawn points at the top of the level, and there’s some variation between them (some fast tanks, some tanks that take a bunch of hits). None of the enemies have any real AI–they don’t seek you, or really seek the base, either. Sometimes there are power-ups; you can improve your gun to destroy steel walls; there’s an occasional smart bomb or time-stop which are must-grabs. Shoot 20 tanks to get to the next level.

It’s, you know… fine. It’s an alright game design. But when you actually sit down and play it, the game very quickly devolves into getting your tank as far up the screen as you can manage where you are able to shoot clearly to both the left and right boundaries without being shot from a tank spawning above, and then just… firing constantly left or right based on which side tanks are traveling down from most urgently.

There are a few levels where this is not simple to do (a total bastard of a level mostly with tree coverage, making tanks near-impossible to see) and you can’t consider this tactic a total slam dunk because if a tank does slip past, they’ll often destroy your base before you can get to them, leading to an instant game over (no matter how many lives you have!) which can be infuriating. But it’s not like there’s better tactics; on a level by level basis you’ll do your best to shoot your enemies straight paths to your base, so you kind of just have to accept the variance.

In the cold light of 2022, Battle City is… a half-hour or so of near-mindless blasting that you wish had any sort of twist, or spark, or even particularly interesting level design, to make it a charming bit of classic arcade action worth score attacking.

In the early 90s it’s a dusty-ass tank game for babies that is indirectly responsible for the total lack of preservation of south-east Asian game culture history. Probably.

Will I ever play it again? Nope but I’ve got 1991’s Tank Force waiting to be played which is a baffling (and obscure) sequel that’s maybe brilliant. I mean who knows.

Final Thought: One of the most annoying things about Battle City of course is when you’re shot from the side by a tank that’s turned on a dime before you could notice, and I have to admit I’d be interested to play this exact game but with real, slow-ass tank turning. Would it be better? Would it actually be even more annoying? I’m kind of imagining these situations where you watch your tank turn, watching another tank turn, thinking “oh god, I hope I get this shot off” like you’re actually in the tank, feeling it slowly spin around… [“That’s why tanks have turrets though. So they can shoot in different directions more quickly”--Ed.] Shut up!

Support Every Game I’ve Finished on ko-fi, either via a one-off donation (pay what you like) or by joining as a supporter at just $1 a month. Supporters receive an automatic 35% discount off physical zines, like exp. 2600, which you can order now.

[curiositykilledtheradiostar]

I saw Multiverse Of Madness today. I want to preface this with the fact that it is a good movie, and I did, mostly, enjoy it. I also want to preface this with the fact that I am a, currently furious and raging and NOT in a horny way (save Captain Carter hot DAMN but not my point), pansexual, not some "ally" trying to preach and start trouble. I also am by no means some expert you should take seriously. I am simply queer, a person with braincells and a critical eye when I want to, and very angry.

America Chavez makes me absolutely furious. Not at her, I love her character so much, but at Marvel. I didn't know she was going to be queer walking in, probably cause I wasn't following franchise news. But I saw that little button on her jacket and I practically lit up. I was so fucking happy to finally get queer rep. To finally get to see myself in the franchise I loved.

And I was wrong. Not only was I dissapointed, but as I sat there with that movie in the credits and the ride home, I crumbled and cracked as it hit me that I got nothing but a hollow fucking shell of a rep. A button on a jacket. That's it. The only tiny piece of myself I get to see, and its a fucking garnish, an afterthought. Even less than a "token gay". I got queerbaited to the bottom of the fucking ocean to drown, played like a cheap kazoo.

How could they. I didn't even know she was a lesbian until I went looking to see if anyone else was as outraged by this as I was. And what I found was articles fucking praising the boldness of the move to add that tiny little pin, spinning tales of empowerment. I didn't even know if she was supposed to lesbian or bisexual or trans, how was I supposed to? And yes, it makes a fucking difference. I never would've known that she was LGBTQ+ at all if it weren't for that little pin.

It hurts. I feel awful. Do not get me started on the fact that her two moms were killed off within .5 seconds of appearing on screen. The worst part is that Marvel is being applauded for this shit. This is not "representation." This is an afterthought. This is them trying to earn some fucking brownie points at the last goddamn minute. My identity is not a fucking pin to put on your jacket and leave at that. My story is not reduced to only stripes on a flag that you can use to tell it. I am bigger and I am more and we all are and queer fictional characters should be too.

Would it have been so hard? For her to offhandedly say Stephen had good taste? For Captain Carter or Captian Marvel to walk in and her to trip over her own feet? To have her mention an old crush, maybe someone who got hurt and she had to leave behind? To even show her with a girl at the end? To at least follow through on the promise that pin made me, that I got to see myself on the big screen?

Maybe I wouldn't be so mad if it wasn't Marvel, if I didn't care this much about it. Maybe if it wasn't Disney, with a history of pulling bullshit like this and more. Maybe I'm overreacting.

But do not tell me I shouldn't "expect so much" of queer characters and their writing, or "not everything has to be about gayness, they need a narrative too." The Mitchells vs The Machines (2021) had a queer main character in the same subtext as America was. But Katie Mitchell also had a girl she liked, and she was looking for community of people like her, and had her own journey of self discovery shown, and she resonated with a large LGBTQ+ crowd because of that and more. And that wasn't even Katie's main narrative. It's not impossible or some unattainable standard. It's writing a queer character for queer people, instead of pushing her into a hetero-conformative box or shoving just her aside.

Marvel is multi-million dollar franchise. They could do it if they wanted to, if they tried. But they don't, and they didn't, and THAT is my problem.

I am not your brownie point. I am not a gold star to earn on your assignment. I am not a pin to put on your fucking jacket. Stop treating us like it.

[splathousefiction]

Into The Wild: R/GoneWildAudio

Trigger Warning:

The following article will discuss grooming, racial bias, violence and more. Reader discretion is heavily advised.

I have spent over a month gathering witness testimony from users of r/GoneWildAudio. Quotes when given are word for word what was relayed to me from sources, all of which will be kept in total confidence. Any information that is not eye witness testimony is publicly available with a google search.

“I want you to fuck me so hard my neck snaps against the bathroom stall”.

It’s been close to seven, eight years since I got that Twitter DM.

I still remember it vividly.

Because the person that had sent it to me was supposed to be a friend.

They had interviewed me for their podcast back when I still did Magic: The Gathering content. I’d felt safe with them, knowing absolutely nothing else about them save the face they showed the public. I consented to the interview and started it with a crude joke. Even back then, the persona I played on air danced around horny concepts and potty humor. It was all an act. Anyone that actually worked directly with me or knew me could attest to that.

That’s not what this person got out of it however.

The messages started up the same week. Boring small talk at first, but it quickly escalated into them sending me nudes, salacious texts and more. All without my consent or prompting. At first, I played dumb. Being a “himbo” has gotten me out of trouble more times than I care to count. Then came the point they dragged my partner at the time into it.

So, I went off.

I threatened to post full screenshots. I threatened to tell everyone that would listen. I told them I’d talk about it on the podcast I was a part of at the time. We had a massive audience. It would kill their career overnight.

They huffed and left me alone after that. Started horrid rumors about me, the whole nine. Some people agreed with them. Random people I’d never spoken to would hop in my mentions calling me all sorts of things. I never acted on any of the things I’d say I would do. They were a prominent community figure. I was the “shock jock” of our podcasting circle.

And, as they said: “Nobody is going to believe you”.

I left the MTG community behind entirely a year or so later. Maybe two. At that point I’d seen its face, I’d seen my stalker/harasser have a fast-tracked career. I watched as one of our largest cosplayers was doxxed and people sided with her harasser. Whatever disillusionment I had about the community had been shattered into a million pieces.

It was one of the last times I consciously put effort into aligning myself with a collective online.

My stalker/harasser, the person who was the primary reason I stopped attending in-person events at all, wasn’t outed from the community until 2020. When someone finally leaked screenshots and the entire network of abuse they had orchestrated. The day it happened, friends from that era of my life reached out. They told me they were glad I was okay.

That they wish they had listened to me.

Day late and a dollar short folks, but thanks I guess.

I’m ashamed to admit it happened, even still.

I’m more ashamed that it was the second time it had occurred.

I don’t mention the above to garner pity or sympathy, but to illustrate a key fact about how communities will often overlook the worst in their midst to keep the “machine” rolling. If your harasser is a prominent part of the community, if they’ve aligned themselves with movements that are inherently “good”, they often can move with impunity. They can continue to be a wolf tearing at the flock for years to come. “Cancel Culture” isn’t real and it never has been, for if one instance of it was true I wouldn’t be writing this at all. I wouldn’t feel compelled to talk about another era of my life, the reasons I left, and why I felt compelled to write this editorial in the first place.

This isn’t a hit piece, this isn’t an expose. This isn’t even a word of warning.

All of what you’re about to read started with the simple question of why.

MTG Twitter and content production wasn’t the last time I willingly became a part of an online subculture. The real, actual last time that happened was R/GoneWildAudio on Reddit. I was there for almost two years, from 2018 to the summer of 2019 or 2020. This is brief for many who are familiar with the subreddit or contribute to it; however, my few years there both elevated my career to new heights while making me omnipresently aware of the exploitation, insecurity, harassment and real world danger that surrounds GWA. I left after one critical event, giving my piece in a community thread  in which the painfully small moderation staff was attempting to quell growing flames.

I thought that would be it.

I was confident that I could close that chapter, and move on.

Yet here I am now, after spending roughly a month talking to people, studying sub reddit traffic and more. I’m faced once again with the realization that I am not alone, nor were my negative experiences there isolated. Unlike last time, I’m not afraid. I’m motivated to act as quickly as I can to answer that question, worming its way through my gray matter.

Why GWA?

Reddit, Age Gating Content And Responsibility

Reddit is one of the largest and most popular social networks on the face of the earth, rivaling only Twitter and Facebook in respective visits per day.

In the modern era, Reddit is stylized as a place that caters to every interest regardless of how niche. Your lust for a certain anime character and weird Audacity question can have equal footing in their respective communities, with responses from actual people and auto-moderation/bots. This seems an ideal circumstance for independent creators and large corporations alike, as creating a subreddit for your whatever can instantly allow you audience reach.

Users can also operate in relative anonymity. Account creation requires only an email account, and there’s always the option to create a “throwaway” right from the user control panel. You can also surf as a guest if you see fit. Security for account creation works via passwords and two factor authentication. Beyond this however, personal and community safety is left up to dubious moderation staff and individuals.

This creates a paradox for adult communities on Reddit, as there’s no true age gating or ID checks before users join. There’s the atypical “are you 18+? This community is NSFW” that pops up, which everyone simply lies to. Legally, this is all above board. However, it also very openly lays bare the possibility for NSFW reddits to be widely available to minors-who sometimes engage with the community via content creation.

I want to stress that this isn’t unique to reddit. Just in the last few months, the NSFW twitter community has seen several prominent personalities out themselves as underage. However when comparing Twitter and Reddit, the contrast is in sheer volume. Twitter has billions of users. A NSFW subreddit if it’s popular can have anywhere from ten to a hundred to a few thousand users. The capacity for a minor to both gain the trust of the community and lie to moderation (which waffles between non-existent and “a hand wave”) on Reddit is exponentially higher. Moderators are human, and will make judgment calls accordingly.

With a disposable email and hand hewn identity, users can engage in spaces they absolutely shouldn’t, thus endangering themselves and the entire community in the process.

Such is the case with GoneWildAudio, one of the most popular erotic audio subreddits on the site. GWA features a pop up window to confirm you’re legally of age, and asks for a vocal timestamp verification for performers.

That’s it.

And this is more than other subreddits even attempt.  

As a vocal talent myself, I can’t even begin to stress how incredibly fucking easy this is to bypass. With a bit of practice an amatuer could easily pitch-shift their voice and sound far older than they are. If they were especially crafty, they could also pull it off in an audio editor. Mic quality would also come into play here-overwhelmingly, the users on GWA do not have proper or professional set ups. A shitty cell phone mic recording could make a user sound far older than they really are.

The possibility of there being content created by minors on GWA is  “above zero”, which is a non-negotiable dangerous risk for anyone involved in the adult community.  The responsibility for ensuring proper age gating and safety for the community has failed everyone at every single level. The question of who is responsible for ensuring this isn’t as sticky as it seems.

If Reddit is going to allow adult content on the site, proper age gating such as what Fansly, OnlyFans and others use is paramount. However, Reddit sitewide moderation has a horrid reputation for ensuring NSFW doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. As Reddit won’t even remove illegal content on their own site unless it breaks the news, the chances of site moderation acting are incredibly low. As such, moderation responsibilities often fall on individual sub reddits.

Which brings us to one of the largest things users will notice about GWA right off the bat: It’s moderation is next to non-existent by adult industry standards, and dangerously ineffective given a subreddit of it’s size.

This is a fairly recent issue. GWA swelled during COVID-19 lockdowns and now sits at around one million members, a point of pride for them. Membership doesn’t translate into real-world traffic on the sub however. Over a three week period, I checked online membership during peak EST hours. The average per-day was somewhere around 4.5k-5k users online, without accounting for people surfing as guests (there’s literally no easy way to track that on my end). While this is a miniscule fraction of the active user base, that’s still a few thousand people. Logic would dictate a dedicated moderation staff available at least during peak hours to ensure member safety, especially given the open (and legally dangerous) possibility of minors accessing adult content.

That’s absolutely not the case.

As of this writing, there are currently eight active moderators. You can view the current list of moderators here.

Eight moderators for thousands of possible users is, simply put, disastrously insufficient by any stretch of the imagination. This grows exponentially worse if you believe the by-line of “a million active members”. Even given the use of auto-moderation via bots, this isn’t enough people. If for no other reason than ensuring the safety of their own members, having a moderation staff of under ten people willfully endangers casual audience members and performers alike. To translate this into real-world application, a site receiving this much traffic would likely have a dual-purpose department of at least fifteen to twenty.

At eight individuals, who are both likely unpaid and likely have real-world lives/jobs to get to, the end result is a moderation staff that is heavily overworked, untimely in remedying emergency situations and difficult to approach at all. A staff of eight people to handle thousands isn’t sufficient enough to ensure a democratic and unbiased use of moderator responsibilities.

I’d know.

Over the last two months, I put out a call on twitter for audience members, moderators and performers to speak to me about their experiences with GWA. I received roughly thirty three detailed responses from across the spectrum, save for the moderation staff itself. As promised, these responses will be kept in full confidence and not quoted here. If one of my sources feels confident telling their story publicly, they’ve my support. I received written testimony, screenshots from discord servers and more. Responses came from a diverse data set as well. Many BIPOC, queer people, audience members and performers reached out.

There were common observations in every single message:

The Moderation Staff of GWA Is Inherently Biased: One common thing I heard from the performers that spoke to me is that certain community members were held to a radically different standard than the rest of the community simply due to their prominence. While this does occur in any community one might find to some degree, the GWA mod staff has a history of allowing abusive, actively predatory, racist and otherwise biggoted performers the freedom to remain. This was cited by every single BIPOC and queer respondant I spoke with. A single person saying this would be concerning, but repeated evidence has made it abundantly clear that the mods of GWA will turn a blind eye if a performer drives subreddit (or affiliated subreddit) traffic up.

The Moderation Staff Will Not Act Unless Moved By Outside Forces: The story of F_Stop_Fitzgerald was one I heard about on Twitter well before the GWA staff made a public post. F-Stop_Fitzgerald, who lived in Toronto, was a school teacher and member of GWA who created teacher-student centric content. He was caught trying to lure children and in possession of child pornography. The literal headline breaking story was well known on twitter for roughly 48 hours before the GWA staff made a post about the incident, encouraging victims to come forward and offering anonymous resources for witness testimony.

Curiously, a moderator mentioned that they were aware underage users were on the sub reddit and that “we don’t care if you broke the rules, we’re here to help”.

While I understand where they were coming from, this coincidently confirms that the mod staff is aware of the non-zero chance that minors are on the subreddit yet again and will likely not act to remove them unless it’s brought to their attention. Their attention, which is sparse, given their already overwhelming workload. While proper age gating likely wouldn’t have prevented Fitzgerald’s predatory antics, the fact that the mod staff was both aware of minors and not proactively preventing situations like this from even having the chance to occur with the absolute bare-minimum legal compliance is incidentally malicious by association.

The legal precedent for that falls not on them however, but Reddit itself, which cannot and will not risk losing it’s user base overnight ala Tumblr-style age gating and content requirements.

Fitzgerald absolutely hasn’t been the only case of predators making use of the subreddit either. Several of the people I spoke with were victims of targeted harassment, sexually predatory conduct and more. In more than one instance they went to the mod staff, who made excuses for performers because of their prominence within the community. An investigation was promised, and the performer was allowed to continue to post. In one case, it was even suggested that the victim simply “tag that performer out”.

When did people actually experience results?

When they went to twitter directly with screenshots, left to fend for themselves against the onslaught of harassment by supporters for performers who refused to see what was before their very eyes. Then and only then did the GWA Modstaff decide to act, and rarely was someone banned from the subreddit for their actions. It’s the popular belief that Fitzgerald received banning at all simply because he broke international news.

This led to the creation of several twitter accounts, such as ConfessionsGWA and others. On these pages news broke about several GWA performers who were abusing their positions within the community to get away with everything from exploitation of labor to far worse. There’s a 41 page google doc with screenshots. The catalyst for the creation of CGWA seemed to be Tom Banter, who was openly allowed back to GWA and GoneWildAudioGay after fetishizing BIPOC audience members, using sexual degredation on discord server members, and openly complaining that he had to tag his non-con audios with a “rape” tag.

To quote one of the GWA mods, “(Tom) has paid the price for his scandal so hopefully he’s reflected and learned his lesson”.

Tom continues to make audio to this day on Youtube and streams on Twitch.  He left reddit only after individuals came forward away from GWA, on twitter.

In response, GWA has scrubbed or archived any of Tom’s posts.

Never moving unless pushed from extrinsic platform sets a precedent of “the mods don’t care”, community wide.

GWA Is Inherently Focused On The Cis-Het White Male Gaze (And The Mods Still Don’t Care):

Literally every BIPOC performer and user I spoke with could cite multiple times off the top of their head that there was a push of their own to make GWA a more inclusive place. Or, at the least, a place that was safer for BIPOC performers to post without worry of a hostile, fetishizing or racist audience.

Nothing happened.

Either the mods would hand-wave away comments while promising nothing or simply not respond at all. During the height of BLM protests after the murder of George Floyd specifically, none of the respondents I spoke could recall any of the moderation staff working towards making black performers feel safer. Almost all of the respondents I spoke with cited that incident as what ultimately drove them from the platform.

This is tied in with the overwhelmingly stereotypical focus of BIPOC bodies within audio, specifically black women. Many of the sources I spoke with would remark about how overwhelmingly and aggressively sexualized they were for their race. Some respondents also pointed towards how several performers-such as KenteClothedTiger, Tombanter and others-would specifically focus on marketing themselves as an inclusive, BIPOC focused creator in order to lure in their victims.

The end result of this is a less diverse community as BIPOC people, sickened by the lack of mod action, rightfully leave. As the subreddit grows less diverse, it tends towards caucasion and cis-het focused content. Those alienated by gazing at the top posts are often told to head towards an affiliated subreddit, such as GoneWildGay and others. Which would seem an ideal solution, save that this funnels BIPOC and queer talent into an ever smaller nesting doll of potential audience reach.

It’s an insidious means of stifling BIPOC and queer voices.

So who does the responsibility for correcting any of this lie on?

Institutionally, Reddit as a platform first and foremost. Without getting into a discussion on internet privacy, release forms and proper legal compliance towards adult content, Reddit is incredibly unlikely to move. It costs less money to simply make Subreddits disappear when they break the news than to proactively ensure legal compliance with content creators and communities. What’s more, making their user base actively feel safe over simply making problems “vanish”.

Logically one would assume that the moderation staff of GWA would have a vested interest in, at the least, having an appropriate number of moderators to deal with the thousands deep user traffic (or what’s more, their “million strong” membership). Except they’ve done anything but that.

The latter here looks absolutely baffling to anyone with any understanding of how a community is run from the outside looking in. It begs the question of why a community would be run this way whatsoever, what kind of ideation would lead to leadership like this.

Which leads us to GWA’s second largest issue-it’s “amateur” marketed culture.

Free Content Isn’t Free: GWA’s Stalwart Refusal To Admit The Obvious

GoneWildAudio proudly proclaims itself as a community “for those aroused by sound”, where performers of all stripes and capability are invited to post their content. There’s an open mix of script writing, improv performances, “ramble faps” (listening to someone engage in self pleasure) and more. Recordings vary in quality from cell-phone static scratches to uploads professionally edited, scored and recorded.

Regardless of the amount of work put into these uploads, users are strictly forbidden from posting links to absolutely any services in which they might get compensated for their work. Because GWA’s culture insists that it’s “amateur” and not “professional” work.

This is alarmingly counterintuitive to creative culture period, but especially heinous as many people turned towards erotic audio and sex work during COVID 19 lockdowns, when GWA itself experienced it’s largest surge in traffic. People flooded the subreddit as they found themselves with unprecedented free time, hoping to find a community that would be a pathway towards substituting their strangled income.

Except their posts would be auto-yanked for linking to a twitter account, an additional platform for uploads and more simply for having a tip jar. As of my writing this, I was recently informed that a GWA mod convinced a new audio platform that GWA couldn’t use them despite their pro-NSFW attitude because the site itself asked for donations. A patently absurd idea that caused the site owners to reconsider featuring NSFW content at all (they still allow it as of this writing) and instead focusing on music.

The idea that anyone, amateur or not, doesn’t deserve to be compensated for their efforts, tipped or otherwise financially shown appreciation for their works is inherently exploitative to the core. Conflating successful efforts with make-believe, worthless upvotes doesn’t put food in the fridge, pay the light bill or student loans. What’s more, apathetic staff could even codify something within their own rules that would essentially hand-wave away responsibility. We are not held liable for anything beyond this subreddit page beyond harassment, et al.

Instead, “we are amateurs” is used as a shield, with exploitation of talent being rampant. Script writers get their works stolen, performed without credit and put behind paywalls (which, while strictly forbidden via GWAs rules, still happens regularly enough you could set a clock to it). Voice actors put hours of work into performing, engineering and scoring their works only for them to be vacuum-sucked onto this solitary platform (as linking to others could get the post yanked). New arrivals and hopeful content creators eager to join a community either get disillusioned and leave, or begin to view compensation as a kind of “selling out”.

This is especially rancid as GWA’s reputation casts an enormous shadow over the entire ero-audio community despite its quantifiably small reach. GWA is often where many of us begin or build our careers. I myself likely never would have met CMakesP, XytaMidnite and many of my regular clients had I not formally posted Splat Speaks there. I would be hard pressed to find a performer in erotic audio that didn’t start at GWA over youtube.

A community this small with a culture of  “you’re only a real artist if you’re starving”, lead by a staff that openly allows the continued predation of it’s user base, sounds like a fucking fever dream. It’s the kind of place that other adult performers would jump ship from. Many of us have.

Yet the specter of GWA still lingers on throughout the community by a falsely inflated reputation. Performers, platforms hopeful for the upload traffic and others take a single glance at that “million membership” mark and assume working with GWA will make or break their reputation.

GWA isn’t necessary to be an erotic vocal act, script writer or engineer. People simply use it because it’s the most convenient option by being a small, fractional part of one of the largest social media services in the world. People use it because they see the word “amateur” and assume that means them due to inexperience. Listeners use it because the tagging system is at least semi-functional.

All while the sub continues to exist only because of exploitive practices.

This is even more intolerable as GWA can’t provide safe platforms to upload content to. Soundgasm, long touted as the preferred platform for the sub (to the point it’s directly mentioned in their rules), had its content scrapped several times and uploaded without performer consent all over the web. I myself was a victim of this, as were dozens of other performers I know. It was only after this was repeatedly and loudly talked about on twitter that it was revealed how incredibly easy it was to download content directly from the service in MP3 quality. When the mod staff was approached about this, they failed to even assure their users with false security.

“These things happen”, they said.

Which is hilarious considering any other respective platform that also hosts “amateur” content often has provisions in their EULAs and rules that they’ll file DMCA claims on behalf of their users if their content gets stolen. They also often codify that the “amateurs” literally keeping the service alive (often with free content as well) inherently own the rights to their content. Even non-commercial sites like Archive of Our Own, allows “amateurs” to file complaints if their works are uploaded in a non-transformative fashion-and link to personal pages where you can be tipped. While Ao3 does allow scrapping, they’ve publicly stated they will take counter measures against it should it occur at the scale GWAs own scrape did.

Not to mention Soundgasm is a volunteer project maintained by a single person. What happens if one day they decide the hassle is no longer worth it? It hasn’t even been properly maintained in over eight years.

If GWA cannot and will not protect its own members, their content or even create a space that promotes professional growth, I find myself once again returning to the opening question of this editorial.

Why R/GoneWildAudio?

Concluding Statements, Observations And The Way Forward

The simple answer to that question is something GWAs entire reputation is built upon, but also something that can be easily templated over to a different service, a different subreddit, a different community:

Convenience.

That’s it.

People don’t use it because it’s safe. They don’t use it because the moderation is great. They don’t use it for the diverse array of BIPOC/Queer/Trans uploaded content, the inclusive community. They don’t use it in hopes of making some extra cash.

They use it because Youtube is a puritanical hell hole and they already have a reddit account. They use it because Twitter is overwhelming at billions of users and the nazis are also there. They use it because they can do so relatively anonymously, and the risk-reward calculation means they won’t get hurt. Maybe. Perhaps.

Unless they’re BIPOC or queer, in which case they’re always, always looking over their shoulder so long as they’re using the subreddit.

GWA exists because of convenience, is continued to be used because of convenience, and can be subsequently dropped if faced with competition that’s even a mild improvement, has even a slightly caring moderation staff or is creator-career friendly. It could disappear overnight should Reddit itself decide it no longer benefits the platform as a whole to have it. Even something as small as losing Soundgasm would have disastrous effects. A better tagging system could legitimately be enough to cause a shake up.

GoneWildAudio exists on a razors edge, ever a single strong wind away from being relegated to history. If that history proves good or ill is ultimately up to those framing the community through rules, policy and community action.

As of this writing, many of them have been absent for weeks.

-j

Twitter

Fansly

Redbubble

Patreon

Reddit

Amazon Wish List

[tokkionline]

🎆

29. — pie

34. — cinnamon

Evelyn had expected her day to go many ways. She did not, however, think that she’d spend it trapped in a bakery baking pies with a handsome semi-stranger.

Let’s rewind a little. It’s morning, she’s happy (for once) and ready to face the day (for once). Leefside definitely took some time getting used to, but now she has the feeling she can do this. She can write a proper article about it without being a total bitch. She can learn to appreciate this village. So she gets breakfast, brushes her teeth, gets dressed, and heads outside in order to scout the most interesting, tourist trap places.

After hours of visiting bookstores, skating rinks, coffee shops and weirdly specific stores (who knew a store selling only plastic flamingos existed!), she decided to spoil herself a little. Nothing better than getting cozy in a bakery and watching the snowfall as she feasts on a cinnamon roll. Yes, yes, this is it. Yum.

You see the gist, now? Today was supposed to be a nice day. However, Evelyn is overall unlucky. Evelyn has some god that is against her and refuses to let her have one good day. So of course (of course!) as soon as she gets comfortable in the empty bakery with her pastry, the biggest snowstorm she has ever seen hits.

And here she is now, baking pies with a handsome semi-stranger. “Remind me again why we’re doing this?”

Theo chuckles as he mixes the dry ingredients. “Nothing goes better with a snowstorm than pies, don’t you think? I’m thinking of hand delivering a few to people once the storm lets up. Best way to feel better about the fact that your house is buried under snow.”

And that was no exaggeration. As she looked outside the window, all she could see was white. Blinding white that could frostbite her ears off. Oh, great. She sighs as she cuts apple slices. Why did she accept this already? Because he was kind enough to let her stay in until the storm calmed down? Because his smile is weirdly charming? Because she’s too nice? Probably the latter. She’s way too nice, and now here she is helping him out while she could have napped in his apartment upstairs (his offer). 

Leefside is known for being a tight knit community, and Theo is proof of that with the way he speaks of each villager with a smile on his face, as if he knows them all personally. It astounds her, really. After all, why care? People come and go, there’s no need to get to know them that much. Back in New York, she didn’t know everyone who lived in her building, and she was perfectly happy with that. Connections might seem good, but in the long run? They hurt. She’d rather keep away from that guaranteed pain.

Maybe this is why you don’t have many friends, hm?

“It’s just…” she begins slicing another apple. “You don’t owe them anything.”

Theo gives her an amused smirk. “Do I have to? Can’t I simply want to be nice?”

Well, she can’t counter that without sounding like a complete asshole. That makes her grin. “I suppose you have a point.”

And really… this is fun. This is really fun. She hasn’t baked in a good while, so she had forgotten how good it felt. The entire bakery smells of apple and cinnamon as they bake the multiple pies they’ve made, and the entire time, they talk and talk and talk. 

“Are you kidding me?” Theo hands her a steaming cup of hot cocoa. “Legally Blonde is totally the best movie.”

“I mean, I guess it’s nice, but really? To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before is the best romcom.”

“Please, fake dating is anything but realistic. And predictable,” he takes a sip from his own mug. “I mean, of course they’re going to end up dating! It’s literally written in the stars!”

“Should we test it, then? Fake date, and then part ways” she grins, fully determined to tease him. “I’m telling you, fake dating without getting feelings is doable.”

She does notice the way he blushes a little, and really, she’s blushing as well as she stares into those dark brown eyes. When the light hits them just right, they turn into a delightful honey color that she wants to stare at for hours.

Theo grins. “Well then, this only leaves us with one option.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Fake date?”

“Nope. We deliver these pies, then watch the romcoms later to decide which one is the best.”

Evelyn had expected her day to go many ways. Now, however, after delivering the pies to happy villagers and sitting down on Theo’s comfortable couch to watch romcoms, she finds herself pleasantly surprised.

[redshift-13]

One of the most interesting articles I read in 2023 was Mark Danner's "The Grievance Artist" in the Nov. 2 New York Review of Books, a review of several books by Trump insiders.

nybooks.com/articles/2023/11/02/the-grievance-artist-trump-mark-danner/

The following quote is from former senior official in the Department of Homeland Security Miles Taylor, from his book Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump:

word came down from the White House…to stop providing the president with lengthy documents. If there was a staple in it, the briefing paper was probably too long and needed to be cut. Fifteen-page updates on complex issues were chopped down to one. Bold fonts. Simple words. BIG pictures. Know your audience, they say, and the “audience of one” (as we called the president) had the temperament of a child, albeit a child with a finger lingering over the nuclear button.

Contrast that with reports of Obama and Clinton, both apparently vigorous and omnivorous readers.

It's no surprise then that a mind like Trump's, averse to reading and reflection, would wind up so often helplessly flailing when his impulsive fantasies met roadblocks. Here's a more extensive quote from the article:

"How to explain that the border and its influx of undocumented immigrants is a bitingly complex problem, springing from global economic realities and the impositions of American and international law and the bitter bottlenecks of domestic politics, to someone who simply is unable to absorb it? Who seems able to listen only to himself? Taylor describes these encounters vividly:

The president went back to his greatest hits—“a big, big border wall!” “cut off the cash!” “screw the Mexicans!”—and we sat there listening to the diatribe that had begun to sound like a Broadway sing-a-long from hell. We left without any clear direction…. Two days later, on March 19, he did the song and dance for us again. The Oval Office meeting was supposed to be about combating opioid addiction…[but] Trump steered the briefing to his favorite subject. He ran through his list of cruelly imaginative immigration policies once more.

Between meetings, Taylor and administration colleagues compare notes about the “pretty crazy shit” Trump had just spouted, speculating darkly on the president’s mental health. But he always manages to top the last performance, as in this phone call Taylor sat in on with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen:

“Kiiiirstjen,” he said in his distinctive New York accent. “I can’t believe what I am seeing at the border.” The president…wanted to talk about creative options…. He had an idea: “a big, deep moat.” She muted the line. “Did he just say what I think he said?” “I want you to figure out how deep you can dig it, okay Kirstjen?” Trump proposed filling the moat with “snakes and alligators” to eat people alive if they fell into it. “How much would this cost, honey?” She unmuted. “We’ll look into it, Mr. President.” He kept pressing the point until she assured him again we’d get back to the White House. He wasn’t joking, and we weren’t laughing anymore. The call derailed the morning as DHS cobbled together a back-of-the-envelope estimate for digging a border-long ditch and filling it with snakes and alligators.

A moat with snakes and alligators along a nearly 2,000 mile long border. It sounds like the addled machinations of a tyrannical fairy tale King in the throes of madness.

Needless to say, the people who need to hear about these offstage Trumpian dramas the most never will, ensconced as so many of them are in cultish information bubbles. Worse, even if they did hear, it probably wouldn't matter.

Consider by contrast to Trump's ravings the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (121-180 CE). Here's from the fourth book of his Meditations, with this writing chosen almost at random:

X. These two rules, thou must have always in a readiness. First, do nothing at all, but what reason proceeding from that regal and supreme part, shall for the good and benefit of men, suggest unto thee. And secondly, if any man that is present shall be able to rectify thee or to turn thee from some erroneous persuasion, that thou be always ready to change thy mind, and this change to proceed, not from any respect of any pleasure or credit thereon depending, but always from some probable apparent ground of justice, or of some public good thereby to be furthered; or from some other such inducement.

Downward and upward the ages.

[reasonablywittyatbest]

So, I watched the third episode of tlou hbo, and i want to start off with, i want to start off with even if this had been the greatest love story ever written, it still would have been a shit episode of tlou. If it had been an Emmy winning episode of television, it would have still been a shitty episode of tlou. Unfortunately, it's not. It's really fucking not. It's a saccharine pile of shit.

In the first five minutes of the season the show writes have heavy handedly stayed thier thesis, much like a middle school essay. Love and dependence are the same thing. And this entire episode is them wankinging themselves off to the cleverness of their own ideas.

It was such a disgrace of an episode its fucking hard to even know where to start. Do I start with Bella as Ellie continuing to be a charmless as an eel? Should I focus on the butchering of her character a la basement clicker? Perhaps how the show keeps fucking making references to its own lack of infected and having the characters explicitly state in the last two episodes it's totally normal to never run into infected so as to excuse their absence? Or how instead of anything interesting, we have Joel spoon feeding us exposition like the drooling little toddlers this show apparently thinks we are? While they stroll safely down a sunny country backg road with nary a threat in sight? Or perhaps even the extremely heavy handed explanation and then cut to flashback just so any fetuses watching understand what's happening? And that's all under ten minutes, because after that , the show seems to completely forget that it's a show set in a brutal apocalypse that is supposed to challenge and horrify. It also seems to forget completely that it's about two characters named Ellie and Joel, though it does manage to make Joel a background character in a scene that made me feel like i could feel the edges of my mind peeling painfully off the insides of my skull. I am of course referencing the garden party scene.

Anyways, it is a shitty love story, we never really see what makes them love each other, other than forced proximity and necessity. Any interesting conflict that could come from these two very different men falling in love is swept under the rug in favor of a twee widdle wuv stowwy. When Frank said 'from an objective point of view its increadibly romantic' no the fuck it ain't, and that's when it hit me 'love and dependence are the same thing'

I... Look, people far more coherent and far less high than I am have written eloquent and thorough articles about why it's shit just, go read those.

-----

My @winterpunk has told me as I write this that they have outright said thier goal was to make conservatives mad, and i guess I'm going to finish writing this post when I stop vomiting blood

-------

In the sense of the show as a whole, of the story, this entire aside serves absolutely no purpose, it kills and then shits on the rotting corpse of any kind of narrative momentum they built up in the first two episodes. Which wasn't fucking much to begin with.

And the premise, the premise is basically yeah those gun nut Republicans were tooootally right and they would suuuper know how to survive an apocalypse, and not only that they will create a tiny slice of heaven by being shitty. But what if...... They were secretly gay. Oooohhh shit we're so clever.

And back to the garden party which literally felt like having needles shoved into the backsides of my eye, in light of this, it makes sense that Joel and Tess are blundering incompetent fools. Look at this twee little couples gathering! Oh look now the sensitive gay and the woman have gone off and left the men folk to grunt at each other.

The entire thing just, undermines the entire story, the entire setting, everything. It's bad story telling, it's bad TV, and everyone who was involved in making and everyone who likes it should feel bad.

It's basically an hour of twee bullshit to explain why our protagonists are so clean and well stocked, far far far from the struggle, the grit, the action, the fight, the horror they go through to get a car battery in the game. Reminder, this is the part of the game we meet our first BLOATER, yeah? Instead they stroll into a beautiful clean house and they take showers and they stock up on tp and deodorant, they get a letter telling them it's aaaaaaall theirs, they whip up a car battery and wow now they're all happy and clean and ready to go... Probably wander down some more sunshine happy paths with no threats on them to infodump exposition at me again, I suppose? I guess I'll find out when I inflict the next episode on myself, thank fuck it's only 46 minutes long and not a 72 minute long fucking torture session.

[regenderate]

15 and 31 for the fic asks :)

15. What’s your favorite AU that you’ve written?

ohhh my god unfortunately my favorite aus are all still wips. like i love tattoo au but like. well i think as far as concept goes my favorite au is the 90 day fiance au where jack, rose, and thirteen are stuck in england and the tardis is stuck in the us and instead of like. doing anything that makes logical sense they're like "okay well we're immortal anyway so we might as well take our good sweet time" and they do a series of green card marriages (jack poses as a us citizen, he marries rose, rose gets her citizenship and divorces him and then marries thirteen) and they go on 90 day fiance. the story is told through episode transcripts and news articles and such and i haven't figured out how to execute it yet but i want to show the audience like. slowly figuring out that these guys are weird. (i also want to set it like. just after covid lockdowns start to ease up so i can have an exchange in one of the episodes like "how were we supposed to know there was going to be a pandemic? it's not like we're time travelers" because of course they are time travelers and they just didn't remember)

my other favorite au (also a wip) is this like. thirteenyazrose thing that started as a fake dating au where rose is like. being hit on at work and thirteen is a new hire who comes up and is like "hey get away from my girlfriend" but like she does her threatening little growl But Also rose and yaz have been dating for years and so when rose tells this to yaz yaz is like "okay well if she's pretending to date one of us she's got to pretend to date both of us" and everything snowballs from there. this one also involves the pandemic because i was thinking about how canon yaz and rose both spend a lot of time away from the doctor and i think it would be interesting to adapt that to a human au by having the doctor be doing some kind of study abroad and not be able to come back on time. but this one has like a ton of prequel material of yaz and rose getting together but all of it is like. really rough around the edges and self-indulgent and not really like. in good shape yet to publish. and i'm having to rewrite the single chapter i had of the main fic because i remembered about making rose a mechanic. so now it's going to be where rose and human thirteen are mechanics and yaz is an emt. but like this au is my favorite because it's like. a comfort fic at this point it just is like a little home to me so i don't know when i'll ever post it but i do love it

31. What’s your ideal fic length to write?

ough this has actually changed in the last year! i used to mostly write shorter stuff, but lately i've had a ton of trouble keeping anything short, everything i've written has expanded a ton. which i think is a good thing, i've been adding a lot more depth and detail to my works. like at one point i looked at like. a first kiss that i wrote when i was fourteen and compared it to a more recent one and literally the more recent one was like. whole paragraphs longer. which might also tell you how many people i'd kissed at fourteen but anyway. i've been enjoying the really long fics, my current long wip (tattoo au, aka when i run away (you're who i run to)) is at 75k and counting. but those fics do require a lot of commitment-- i love writing that length but i can only sustain one at a time and there's always a risk that i'll lose interest in it or ability to write it partway through. i've been trying to finish stuff or at least write super far ahead before i post too. so anyway i think my ideal length for like. regular posting is somewhere in the... 7-20k range? long enough that it feels meaty but not so long that it takes a huge commitment to write.

huh these were long but in my defense if you've read my authors notes you should expect me to be Like This