#you get used to this set of mechanics but halfway through you have to switch gears to an entirely different set of mechanics

[orcelito]

Guys I think the writing for fire emblem engage is somehow worse than fire emblem fates. Im a longtime fire emblem fan, I've played every recent game, and this... this is just Awful lmfao

Im still having plenty of fun & I have my handful of characters I love soooo much. But God fucking damn this writing is just some of the worst I've ever seen in a game

(Major spoilers in tags. Ran out of tags so I can't spoiler tag hfkshfj.

Final conclusion (since I ran out of tags): What Even Is This Fucking Game. Definitely my least favorite fire emblem game in many respects, but By God I'm going to finish this bitch and I'm gonna have plenty of fun as I do so. And I'm also going to make fun of every narrative choice it makes along the way bc the writing in this game is just SO fucking bad holy shit. I just need to finish this game and get on with my life already. God fuckin damn.)

[justforbooks]

The actor Matthew Perry, who has been found dead at his home aged 54, brought a wry sense of humour to the role of Chandler Bing in Friends, the American sitcom featuring six twentysomethings in Manhattan facing the ups and down of everyday life.

“Chandler’s a guy who’s just not comfortable in his own skin – he’s got a great excuse to be funny,” said Perry of the sarcastic, neurotic character in the programme that ran from 1994 to 2004. “He’s an exaggerated form of me.”

The neurosis partly came from Chandler experiencing the divorce of his parents when he was nine and using humour as a defence mechanism. It echoed Perry’s own life, with his mother and father splitting up by his first birthday.

Through his work in “statistical analysis and data reconfiguration”, the character pulled in more money than the other friends – Rachel (Jennifer Aniston), Monica (Courteney Cox), Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow), Ross (David Schwimmer) and Joey (Matt LeBlanc) – although he hated his job.

Chandler had already met Monica Geller at college before they became neighbours in Greenwich Village, where he shared an apartment with Joey. By the end of the fourth series, the relationship had gone from being close friends to lovers and, three years later, they were husband and wife. Unable to have children of their own, they adopted twins, with their birth as a central storyline, alongside Ross and Rachel reuniting, in Friends’ final episode, which attracted more than 50 million viewers in the US.

By then, the programme’s impact on popular culture had spread well beyond its homeland. Joey’s “How ya doin’?” and Chandler’s “Could I be any more …” broke into the language of its young audience. The part earned Perry worldwide fame that continues with Netflix bringing the sitcom to a new generation.

Nevertheless, stardom did nothing to help the actor to overcome his own vulnerabilities. In 1997, Aniston said: “His feelings get hurt. He cares what people think. He even bruises easily.”

Perry’s battles with his personal demons first hit the headlines halfway through the sitcom’s run. In his 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, Perry recalled a journey to alcoholism that went from beer and wine at 14 to drinking vodka by the quart, as well as getting addicted to prescription drugs.

In 1997, he checked into a Minnesota rehab clinic for 28 days when he became hooked on a painkiller and appetite suppressant after a jet-ski accident and a 35lb weight loss. Three years later, he was hospitalised with pancreatitis. In 2001, he abruptly left the set of the film Serving Sara (released the following year) to go into rehab again.

Perry reflected that by 2018, at the age of 49, he had spent more than half his life in treatment centres. That year he suffered pneumonia and an exploded colon caused by opiod overuse, resulting in time on life support and two weeks in a coma.

He converted his Malibu home into a drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre, Perry House, in 2013, but closed it two years later, citing expensive running costs.

He had been drug and alcohol-free for 18 months before the screening in 2021 of Friends: The Reunion, a one-off special bringing back together the programme’s six stars.

Born in Williamstown, Massachusetts, Matthew was the son of Suzanne (nee Langford, later Morrison), a Canadian journalist, and John Bennett Perry, an American actor. He grew up mainly in Ottawa when his mother returned to her home country and eventually became press secretary to the then prime minister, Pierre Trudeau. In 2017, Perry revealed that he and another pupil at Rockcliffe Park elementary school had beaten up Justin Trudeau, Pierre’s son and current Canadian premier. Trudeau responded on Twitter (now X): “I’ve been giving it some thought, and you know what, who hasn’t wanted to punch Chandler? How about a rematch @MatthewPerry?”

While studying at Ashbury college, Perry became a top-ranking junior tennis player. He practised up to 10 hours a day, but switched that determination to acting after travelling to Los Angeles when he was 15 and being reunited with his father. “I wanted to be famous so badly,” he told the New York Times in 2002. “You want the attention, you want the bucks, and you want the best seat in the restaurant.”

He made an impression with leading roles in sitcoms: Chazz Russell in Second Chance (1987), retitled Boys Will Be Boys for its second series in 1988, Billy Kells in Sydney (1990) and Matt Bailey in Home Free (1993) before Friends came along.

Perry’s big-screen debut came as River Phoenix’s best friend in A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon (1988), but he never became the film star he hoped to be despite appearances in Fools Rush In (1997), Three to Tango (1999), The Whole Nine Yards (2000) and its sequel, The Whole Ten Yards (2003), both alongside Bruce Willis.

He stuck with television. Switching to drama, he had a short run as Joe Quincy, a Republican lawyer, in The West Wing in 2003, and starred in another Aaron Sorkin series, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006-07). His own sitcom idea, Mr Sunshine, with him playing Ben Donovan, a San Diego arena operations manager, was dropped after a short run in 2011. The following year he starred as Ryan King, a sportscaster, in Go On and later played Oscar Madison in a revival of The Odd Couple (2015-17). He also wrote and starred in the play The End of Longing, which debuted in London’s West End in 2016.

He had relationships with many high-profile actors including Julia Roberts, Minnie Driver and Lizzy Caplan. From 2020 to 2021, he was engaged to Molly Hurwitz, a talent manager.

His parents survive him.

🔔 Matthew Langford Perry, actor, born 19 August 1969; died 28 October 2023

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[aplacetodoze]

A Little Gift

Note: A fluffy one shot for Mando, just as he deserve.

Humming your favorite song, you put the pieces you've prepared together, cut the extra thread, wrap the material in the right way, you're halfway there...

"What are you doing?" comes a cold modulated voice behind you.

Frighted by his sudden appearance, your whole body jerked but your hand was quick to dispose of your work and back into your bag. You turn to face him and smile nervously, hiding the mess you've left with your body. "I was just- working on some of my em, broken tools, clothes, and stuff." He tilted his head, a rather cute motion for someone as deadly as him. "Well, if you need new tools and clothing you could just ask me." You shake your head, mortified. "NO, it's fine, I'll just fix it." you couldn't waste his credits just because of your stupid lie. He observe you for a while, and you were sure he was about to call out your lie, he simply gave you an "Alright." before walking away. You exhale rather loudly, you swear having a deadly Mandalorian jump scare you on daily basis will give you a heart attack one day. You turn toward your temporary work desk, which is just a few crates you see around the ship, and put them together, especially those unused ones (why does he keep so much random stuff on the ship but never use it?) You sigh and massage your sore neck for looking down half your day, it's quite peaceful lately, Mando's work and all the running are finally slowing down for once since rescuing the baby, and most of the bounty he takes in now is just steady income, nothing too dangerous. And you, as his mechanic and nurse, finally have the time to settle down. And you thought it would be nice to take this time to do something special for him. Maybe this would help melt his icy personality then you could openly take care of and love the true Mando you've been craving for. You're halfway through your work, better finish it off before Mando runs himself into trouble again. You sit back down on the not-so-comfortable floor and swear to yourself you'll force him to get a carpet. (or you'll make it yourself.) Unknowingly to you, an watchful eyes were trained on you the whole time.

Mando forced himself to tear his eyes away, you were clearly lying to him but it is your privacy that he has no right to pry. Though he was wondering why you would hide from him but he'll leave it to you.  Mando went back to the cockpit to check the destination. He pull out a holo map to went through it again to make sure there was nothing dangerous on the planet that he didn't know of, but a three-finger tiny hand appear on his knee. He turned toward it and chuckled at the sight of the green child struggling to climb onto him. Mando picks him up and put him on his thigh, the child coo while looking up at him."You want to see this?" Mando gestures his hand toward the holo map, the child tilt his head and lets out a curious coo. Mando takes the map closer and shows it to him, "Alright, Udarvis, a water planet, peaceful with a popular civilization, I think you going to like it there."  The child cooed again to reply and let out a happy noise when Mando open a beautiful photo of the planet. Mando chuckled before switching to another planet.

FINALLY! You have finished it, a brand new scarf made in a material that would change the temperature in different environments, and a new set of warm clothes for Mando, the haunting experience of the ice planet still burn you. Plus a new improved bag for the baby to rest in while going out. Now, you don't know if Mando will like your work, it's not something he counts as efficient or needed, but you believe it would help. Maybe you would change your gift into something more weaponry if he doesn't like it. But to be honest, you were more concerned about his health more than anything. Climbing up a ladder with a handful of stuff isn't very pleasant, but is a skill you need to master. Your joy washes over the struggle as soon as you reach the top, you recheck your gift once more, suddenly feeling nervous.

You step closer to Mando, and he tilts his head toward you when you're standing right behind him. You were about to speak up when something hit the crest, the whole ship shook as you lose balance and slam into the wall. "Dank Farrick!" you heard Mando curse， taking hold of the crest again. You stumble toward him and hold on to his pilot chair to keep yourself upright.  "You're alright?" Mando asked as he check on the baby, you open your mouth to reply but you feel something drip down your cheek. Kniff you must have hit your head pretty badly, but it doesn't feel urgent. It might be just a scratch. You tumble backward a bit when Mando turns around, and you could hear his breath hitched as his eyes trained on the blood dripping down your face. You smile sheepily at him, "It's fine, Mando. It's just a scratch.“ You blink and he was in front of you, his helmet was inches away from your face. You feel a sudden heat rush toward your face, leaning back away from him on instinct but his hand stops you from moving further. His gloves hand brush over your hair to inspect your wound, you couldn't focus on anything other than how close Mando is, the pain is nothing compared to the way your heart was losing control. Mando leads back and lets out a sigh, "It's a surface wound but you still need bacta, come on." Mando takes hold of your wrist and gently guides you toward the seat. He did it so naturally like this is a normal interaction for the both of you but you can't help but linger on the way his hand fit so perfectly around your wrist. Mando left you on the seat and went down the deck to look for his med pack. You cling onto your gift waiting nervously for him to come back. Well, this isn't an ideal situation for your gift, but you suppose it helps you get his attention. Now you just need the courage.

Mando returns to you rather quickly and before you could form a word he kneels down to your eyes level. You watch him work in silence, heart skipping at his gentle touch. He'll stiff and hesitate to continue whenever you hiss and flinch away. Your heart melted by the time he finish, and your eyes flutter as he gently wiped the blood on your face away. You lead into his touch slightly, he tensed slightly but didn't comment on the action. You just wish he would treat himself just as tender as he does to you.

"It should heal in a few days." You open your eyes to watch him putting the med pack back together. Mando takes a step away and you dart out your arms to grad onto his wrist. “Wait!" He turns to you instantly, "Is something wrong?" the concern in his voice pulls at your heart-string, having you carving for more. "I have something for you!" you said cheerfully, giving him a big grin as if you didn't suffer a head injury. Mando picks it up wordlessly, inspecting the item intensely. "oh, the new scarf will change temperature due to the environment you're in to cooperate your body heat." He looks back at you, his silence is unsettling but you ignore it as best you can. “The clothes are more warm and comfortable, so they should help you on a cold planet and makes sleeping in your armor more comfortable." Mando put the scarf gently on his seat and palm the clothes even though he's wearing his glove. You wait until he put the clothes away with the scarf, leaving only the bag left. "That is for the baby! Now it's comfortable, and I've stuffed a little defense system in there too, so whenever a fight breaks off, a shield would appear and protect him." a happy squeak comes from the floor, and you look down to see the baby happily cooing at you. You giggle and pick him up, tickling him so you could hear his cute laugh. You hug the baby against you and look back at Mando.

Mando watches as you interact with the child, his clan happily together, safe. What you just did is too precious, the love he has carved for is being given right into his hands. He could feel the warmth in his chest bloom when you start explaining the meaning of every gift.

He has received a lot of  'gifts' in his past but never has someone gift him something made out of love.  The gift is small but it fills the biggest hole he has in his heart. He watches as you smile sweetly at the child, and the smile stays when you turn to face him, taking his breath away.  He slowly kneels down, putting his hands on your cheeks, "Mando?" He lean down and put his helmet against your forehead. He almost chuckled at the way your flutter, trying to jerk away. But he waits until you're calm enough to enjoy the moment. "Mando?" You repeat with a whisper, afraid to break the moment. "Din." "What?" "My name is Din." He watches your smile grow and his face under the helmet matches yours. "Din." he sighs contently, he will never get enough of your voice.

You lean closer to him, quietly asking the question you had in mind for a long while, "I love you, do you know that?" You heard Din inhale sharply, "Yes, I do. " He pauses and you wait patiently, knowing he's not used to being open about his emotion. "And I love you too, Cyar'ika." You smile again, this time with your heart full of love. "Good."

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Misha_P/works

[aquilamage]

Rain world is really good but the difficulty is defo one of my biggest gripes. Like, it sets out to be a hard game, and it is, but there are straight up some areas you may fall into that are so hard to get out of people suggest just restarting! Which feels weird and bad, to me at least. The wall jumping also drives me crazy, I feel like I can only sometimes get the rhythm right for it. I’ve found tho that if possible, putting a stick in the wall as a kind of ‘check point’ helps (you may already be doing that tho haha)

I am all for a game being designed to challenge the player in whatever ways because you can genuinely get some cool things out of it, and it's fine if that's considered the 'default' mode. But there's two caveats to that.

There's a difference between well-balanced and reasonable difficult and stuff that's hard either just for its own sake without thinking about whether it's enjoyable to play/overcome or hard because it's not designed as well as it could be. I'm by no means an expert on game design but having parts of the game where the common advice is just "yeah if you end up here just restart the game" that's not like. a glitch. Doesn't seem the greatest to me.

People have said this way more eloquently than me but even if the intended experience is for the game to be difficult, even extremely so, putting in features you can select that make the game literally as easy as possible should just be the default because that just means there are now more people who can or will play the game and it doesn't actually take anything away from people who want to play it with the highest difficulty.

Literally I think my game experience would be so much improved if there was just an option for more forgiving wall-jumps or even just a plain wall-climbing option. (I don't have that much platformer game experience overall but like. I've done all of Hollow Knight's platforming challenges except the White Palace and I'm almost done with chapter 7 of Celeste and iirc those are at least considered somewhat challenging as platformers. So I think I'm allowed a little bit of saying this is related to how this game's mechanic works). And if there were other options to make things easier I might take those too and that's fine! Because otherwise you have me sitting here contemplating whether I can keep playing a game I genuinely like because of it just being too much stress on me to be healthy probably! And y'know, maybe not fun enough to be worth it, I don't know yet.

It's like how about halfway through playing Subnautica I got too frustrated with being attacked and just put in the cheat code that let me not be attacked by the monsters. Even turned off oxygen a couple times when watching that made me too claustrophobic and it was great because then I just got to concentrate on playing the game and enjoying it; and it didn't feel like a lesser experience.

And yeah depending on how popular the game is overall and how many people might feel the same there may be a mod for this kind of stuff out there. But! As I said I have the switch version and I shouldn't have to buy the game again and play on a platform that doesn't work as well for me (or at all depending on how much it demands of a computer) just to get a version that's more accessible!

All that aside I do still think it's a neat game with some great design aspects to its gameplay. Wouldn't be talking about this so much if not or contemplating other options to experience it; I would've probably just dropped it.

(Oh yeah I definitely have been doing the spears-in-the-wall to facilitate climbing. All the time, including some spots where I made a ladder of several because searching for more spears was easier than doing the climbing. Super appreciate the tip though because if I hadn't that would've been SO useful to know)

[beantothemax]

Hollow Cleric au boss fight

Relentless Lightning Spear: Jin Mei

Notes: You literally have to choose between siding with Kazan or Jin Mei. No one wants to kill more than they have to and in Temenos’ case this is a bad choice to make. You fight Jin Mei and you unearth a lot of bad feelings for him and make him think that you don’t care that he was murdered by Kazan, having him lose trust in you. You fight Kazan and you lose a lot of information about the Moonshade Order and Roi and accidentally prove his mindset right as well as make him incredibly uncooperative with you. Either way, both of them are extremely unwell and Temenos is accidentally strengthening the incredibly unhealthy mindset they both have no matter what choice he chooses.

This is a choice that just makes you feel uncomfortable either way. Hikari and Rai Mei are both present with Temenos for this choice and will not offer their input as they feel too closely connected. Both of them feel genuinely sick over choosing one over the other

The canon route is that Temenos fights Jin Mei.

We’re back at Stormhail! Everything bad still happens. It just that there are more horrors.

The cutscene before the fight is Jin Mei shouting at you to get out of his way and let him out of the Clan Mei fortress so that he can get to Kazan and just kill him

Which you know. That’s a fair want to have. He kind of deserves it not going to lie but at the same time Temenos needs to know everything about the Moonshade Order and Jin Mei is getting worse as he gets closer to the goal.

Jin Mei realizes that everyone is just going to not move and he gets incredibly angry at that, thinking that they took Kazan’s side and that his own feelings about the whole thing doesn’t matter which no god Jin Mei please go and sit down and talk pleASE-

At that, Jin Mei takes out his spear and tells them once again to get out of the way.

Temenos and Company Refuses.

Stormhail unfortunately decides this is the perfect time to have monsters spawn from underground and Rai Mei has to leave to fix that and trusts that Temenos, Hikari, and company will stop her brother.

Jin Mei lets out a warning shot of lightning and once again says to get out of his way.

“Jin Mei, please, stop this. I understand you’re angry. I’m angry too. But this is too much. I barely recognize you now. Stop this and talk to us. We don’t need to spill more blood than we have to.”

“…Out of everyone here, Hikari, I thought you would understand. If you refuse to get out of my way, then draw your weapon.”

Boss time! This isn’t fun.

Jin Mei will have the first set of weakness be Swords, Knives, Wind, and Light. Once you reach halfway we get Axes, Knives, Fire, and Shadow.

If you bring Hikari along to the fight Jin Mei will gain 6 turns of an Attack Boost at start

Mechanically he is similar to Rai Mei, the spear and lightning attacks she has, he will have.

You know the Thunderclap and Levin Stance Rai Mei has? Jin Mei has the same except he switches through them without needing to be boosted and doing the charged attack.

The difference is that once you break him once, he starts to raise his evasion and use attacks from the Runelord and Conjurer set. You know how Balogar and Priestess Hinoekagura uses Ice and it depletes your SP or something? Yeah that.

He will also have a counter so if you hit him with a Physical Attack when he’s countering, he’ll go and let out an AOE Lightning Attack that lowers everyone’s Elemental Defense.

Steadily he will get faster and take more turns. The strategy of his whole play is to hit hard and fast to make up for the fact that he has lower than average HP compared to other Late Story bosses

Charged Attack for first phase is Balogar’s Blade. The Elements all hit random different targets in order of the Elemental Wheel of Octopath Traveler but any status ailments from the Elements will have a higher chance to inflict on the character.

So you know. Have fun with Silence, Blindness, and Terror.

Fun fact, once you get him to below half you have a dialogue scene where he is just in complete grief and distress on what happened to him as well of just the one-track anger he has. He did not cope with the whole thing well

“I DIED. I DIED AND NO ONE CARED. I died and it was from a friend and it was for the cause of bringing the end of the world. The world is dying already but like hell am I going to waste this chance of life to just rot away without achieving justice!”

Ah this is painful. You can see everyone getting more and more distressed by this.

Charged Attack for Second Phase is Lightning's Glow. Basically if you don't break him in time he's going to take a stupid amount of turns the next battle turn and he will go and rain down Lightning Attacks that is guaranteed to cause Unconscious and will go and use Spear attacks that will always slow you down and lower physical attack

Once you beat Jin Mei you just have him seemingly unable to fight further.

Seemingly unable to fight further.

In reality he still has enough to launch a powerful AOE Lightning Attack on everyone and escape to track down Kazan

Revenge is going to happen and now Jin Mei is teetering on the edge of just losing himself to it

party noises as Temenos and Hikari look on in horror and think about the implications

WAAG I UH SSSDDTIICERJV????,,,,??????? AAAAAAAAUGH?!!!!!!!!!! KIWI IM HOING TO DODSOLVE

having to choose between opposing Jin Mei or Kazan and both choices being terrible for everyone involved is just. ack

‘Jin Mei gets 6 turns of attack boost if hikari is in the party’ kiwi are you trying to kill me through text alone

[darklight-owl]

Celeste (from a dyspraxic point of view)

So a couple days ago I finished my first run of Celeste. If you know anything about this game, you probably know it's very very good and also very very difficult. But it wasn't until I started playing that I realized how much of a challenge it would be. Obviously it's not supposed to be easy, but aside from the game itself, my dyspraxia made it an entirely different beast. Dyspraxia is a developmental disorder that affects coordination and fine motor skills, as well as making learning a new skill more difficult and time consuming. All important skills you need when faced with a game like this. I heard about the Assist Mode built into the game later on, but decided not to use it for the main storyline. I wanted to put myself to the test and see if I could beat it in spite of my disorder. I'm making this post as a sort of insight/retrospective on how dyspraxia affects me, as well as a way to encourage other dyspraxic people by showing that you don't need to drop your hobbies because of your condition.

I have no idea if this first thing is specifically because of my dyspraxia or if it's something every player goes through, but in the first level, it took a long time for me to get used to the wall grip mechanic. I would do the same jump over and over again, completely forgetting that I had to hold Z. I didn't know about Assist Mode at the time so I looked around the pause menu and settled on switching the controls a bit so Madeline would now automatically grab on to the wall and instead slide when I held Z. It helped a lot when I was getting started since now I had to make a conscious decision to move, but it became a bit annoying as I got a feel for the controls, so I shut it off after a while.

Something else that persevered throughout the entire game, however, was the classic dyspraxic "my hands won't do what I tell them to" problem. It's a pretty common symptom, you want to do something but the weird dyspraxia filter in your brain decides to do something ever so slightly different that somehow ruins everything. Either you do something with too much force, start twitching when you're supposed to be sitting still, or use your index finger when you meant to use your middle. In the game this meant that a LOT of the times I would mix up the controls very often, sometimes jumping when I meant to dash, dashing when I meant to grip the wall, et cetera. This would also happen more often in tight jumps that required faster reaction times for some reason. There isn't an actual workaround to this one, I just had to hope I'd get better as I went along. Although I did find myself planning the moves I'd have to do ahead of time and practicing the button presses. Since I have very poor reflexes, I considered it better to think of a segment as one swift action.

It caused a few hand cramps as well (and now that I think about it maybe I should have used Assist Mode for this reason alone). I tended to press the buttons way too forcefully. Especially in more difficult bits my hands were very tense. The cramps happenned very rarely, however, and they never lasted long, but they prevented me from actually sitting down and binging the game.

Despite the issues my dyspraxia caused me, I do think I got better at the game. Of course, I learned slower than a neurotypical person would have, but because of that I would appreciate my progress that much more. Dying right before the end of a segment wasn't a punishment at all, because it proved that it was possible for me to get that far.

As I said before, I didn't use Assist Mode for the base game, but just recently I decided to try it out for the b-sides, since around halfway into the first one the game began feeling far more frustrating than in the normal levels and I'd gotten sick of it. I'm gonna mention the settings that helped me the most for other players with dyspraxia to try out: This mode is made for people with all sorts of disabilities, so some settings, like the Dash Assist, just made the game more difficult for me. But one I did find to be extremely helpful was the option that let you slow the game down. Like I said, my reflexes are garbage and when I needed to make tight jumps my dyspraxia would mess me up. Just making the game slower made everything feel so much easier, like a breath of fresh air. And for jumps where I tended to screw up and waste my dash instantly, I tend to toggle double dash on and off so I have another chance just in case I press the wrong button again.

Fitting, that a game about someone who wanted to push her limits and feel in charge of her life again became the centerpiece of a post like this. I really do love this game, and I love how it means something to so many people.

Thank you for sticking with me through this tangled mess of a post. So to wrap this up, what I would say to any dyspraxic people reading this who want to try something challenging for people like us, whether it be games or art or music, is: YOU CAN DO IT. It will take you longer than your piers, but it IS doable. Remember that there will always be options and tools made to make your climb easier, and if anyone tries to shame you for using them, tell them they can eat my ass-ist mode.

[songder-bot]

hi there! I'm relatively new(ish) to tumblr and was looking to make my own "bot" via a long queue, and was wondering if you could give me any tips? I'm not super familiar with the queue system, so any advice you can give me would be good! Thank you!

hello, anon!! welcome to tumblr!

(interloper)

it's an honor to be your tutorial npc :D i will do my best to walk you through the "bot"-making process/queue system!

first of all: this is how many posts are currently in this blog's queue.

[ID: Screenshot showing "Queue: 924". End ID.]

this is a kind of insane amount. i believe i started this bot with....700 posts in the queue? and then just kinda kept adding on more? a lot will depend on how often you want your bot to post. at the current number of posts in my queue and the current schedule of 4 posts a day, it could run for 231 more days without running out of quotes! if i bumped it down to twice a day, it could run for over a year!

what i'd probably recommend doing is adding posts in batches of, like, 20 at a time, and keeping the post amount low until you get up to a number where you feel okay just letting it run for a while without adding anything new. then just put new stuff in whenever you want!

but how do you do the "adding stuff in" part? great question! this is the part where we segway into the mechanics of the queue! this is also the part where i put a readmore because hoo BOY this got long. i am prone to overexplaining lmao

tl;dr: find the queue, make the posts, set times for posting and amount of posts per day, use mass tag editor to do tags, and shuffle queue!

the queue is one of tumblr's most special functions, imo. it will automatically put out a certain amount of posts every day between certain hours-- basically like scheduling tweets, except that the site schedules them for you! some people on tumblr actually queue basically every post they see rather than reblog it-- i call them "queuetuals" :P

Step 1: find the queue

so! first you go to your blog controls, where you can view posts and follower counts from, and then look down. under "drafts" is a section called "queue". hit that, it'll take you here.

[ID: The Tumblr "queue" page. Up at the top is a text box that reads "The queue lets you stagger posts over a period of hours or days. It's an easy way to keep your blog active and consistent. Automatically publish a queued post (dropbox with 4 selected) times a day between (dropbox with 12 am selected) and (dropbox with 12 am selected) Timezone: US/Eastern (change) Note: This timezone only affects the queue schedule, as well as timestamps on custom themes. The publish times on posts below are displayed in your local timezone." It then shows a Shuffle Queue button and the icon of this blog next to the icons and text for making text, photo, quote, link, chat audio, and video posts. End ID.]

FUN FACT: hitting the text (or whatever kind of post it is you want to make) button from here will automatically set the button that usually says "post now" to "add to queue" instead. i found this out like halfway into making all these posts and it was so helpful to not have to make the switch manually every time. i now pass this knowledge on to you, my protege. use it in good faith. okay where were we

Step 2: make the posts

right. okay . so you hit button you make post you hit other button (make sure it does say "add to queue") and it will automatically be put in your queue!

[ID: A drafted post from songder-bot reading "i'd like to take you through a wasteland i like to call my home!", with no tags and the post button set to "add to queue". End ID.]

now just do that like 100 more times and you're set :) (highly recommend, if you're going to be making a text bot like this, writing all the stuff you want to put in down in a text file so you can just copypaste over. i write new lyrics like the above in manually, but i was copypasting for my first couple big chunks)

you can also see up there the places to adjust when and how often your "bot" posts! i have it set to between 12 and 12 so it just posts day-round, but if you want to set it to only post while you're awake or only while you're asleep, that's cool (i did do that for a bit)

from this screen down you'll be able to see what's coming up next in the queue and at what times it'll post!

Step 3: tags and shuffling!

while i was insane enough to manually input over 700 posts in a few days, i was not insane enough to tag them all individually. for that, i used the Mass Post Editor!

found at the very bottom of the list that posts, followers, queue, etc. is on is a little item called Mass Post Editor. this is one of tumblr's other most helpful functions and i truly cannot recommend it enough.

so once i've gotten all the lyrics from a song that i want to get in there, i go in to MPE. up at the top it says "published, draft, queued". go to queued, i select all the quotes from the song i just put in:

[ID: A screenshot of the Mass Post Editor with several posts selected. End ID.]

i go up top, i select "add tags", and i add the tags i want for those posts! boom! mass tagging: SOLVED.

i will add here that the reason my tags are stuff like "lyric - green day" rather than just "green day" is because i don't want these posts to go directly into the main tag. especially if the bot posts often, it'd be pretty spammy and kind of annoying for people trying to look at posts about green day to have to keep seeing random green day lyrics instead. tag etiquette is important!

and the last tip i will give (i promise) is this: remember that screenshot from earlier and the shuffle queue button? whenever you add in new posts to your bot, especially if they're all from the same song or book or something, make sure to hit the shuffle queue! queueing something automatically puts it at the end of the queue, and shuffling ensures that your new posts are equally distributed and can come up whenever!

hope this was helpful!!! i love explaining stuff but also get very very wordy at times, so if you need a tl;dr version or further explanation of something let me know! oh-- and if you're gonna do quotes, lyrics, art, or anything at all, always credit the original creators!

[z-cerulean]

Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition (2020)

My first main exposure to Xenoblade was, as I'd imagine with a decent number of people, Chuggaaconroy's playthrough of the game. On first attempt to play it I'd admittedly not been that drawn into it initially, but Shulk's announcement for Smash 4 convinced me to give looking at the series another shot through his playthrough and this time I had to force myself to stop watching it halfway through for want to play the game myself and not be spoiled on everything.

Fortunately, I'd get my chance to do so in 2015 when the game got a re-release on the Wii U eShop, and I was pretty hooked on the game. Though I ended up pretty badly underlevelled from doing no side stuff because I wanted to see the main story continued.

I hadn't actually played the game since that initial 2015 run, until about now when I managed to pick up Definitive Edition and, being in a situation where I pretty much only had my Switch and 3DS for a game machine option, figured I'd use now for my second run through the game. Though this run of the game was now with both Xenoblade X and Xenoblade 2 well behind me, and not recalling as much of the game as I'd like, Definitive Edition and wanting a primer for when I get to Xenoblade 3 was enough of a reason for a revisit.

Effectively, these are my spoiler-free thoughts on what I recall from the Wii version, how that was improved in the Switch version and my general thoughts on the game as a whole. Future Connected will be covered later, I am yet to finish that. Once again, opinions are solely mine.

Changes from the Wii version

Surprisingly, not... much. The primary difference is the game used to look like this:

but now it looks like this:

Which, definitely a warranted graphical update, something had to be compromised to fit this on the Wii. Hell, I'm surprised they got the game on any version of the 3DS on that note.

The other main difference, of course, is the addition of the Future Connected story and the game's soundtrack being rearranged. I'm not that much of a music connoisseur so I'll leave my comment on the rearranges as 'sure they're generally fine, if not necessary'.

The game also added a separate time attack mode which gives a separate currency to buy items, armour, etc., which, cool, but i admittedly never did much with it personally.

Otherwise, the original version's story is left untouched and is largely 1:1 to the previous versions, so unless you really wanted to replay the game you probably just got Definitive Edition for Future Connected if you already had played any previous version.

World and Story

The primary draw of the game I found to be its worldbuilding and overall story. For those uninitiated, the game's setting is the corpses of two titans that died in a battle against each other, with the game focusing on the denizens of the Bionis, enduring attacks from Mechon, mechanical automatons from the Mechonis seemingly out to destroy all Bionis life. The game follows Shulk, the main protagonist, and companions he meets along the way as he sets out for revenge following an attack on his home, Colony 9, at the foot of the Bionis.

The world of Xenoblade 1 is easily my favourite aspect. Everything about it is phenonemal, between the setting conceptually to the vast areas you can explore while playing the game, it's one of the best open world experiences I've had in a game. The world is further enriched by entirely optional quests you can choose to do to see the relationships between a number of the citizens.

The game's story definitely overall hits as well, though I have some grievances, mainly that some characters end up oddly starved for their screen presence and often won't get suitable screen-time outside of Heart-to-Hearts, an effective equivalent to something like Fire Emblem supports.

Gameplay

The game's battle system follows a real-time system, with automatic attacks done at given intervals with the player able to execute special attacks, or Arts, at will. One player is designated as player controlled, with 2 other party members controlled by an AI. A primary gameplay feature is having visions of the future, notably a devastating enemy attack, to provide a window to respond by way of protecting the target or changing who the enemy is aggro'd towards to save the initial target.

The system definitely works, though I do have some slight issues. Mainly, only certain characters can be trusted in the AI's hands. Most notably, Shulk and Melia, the former frequently using Battle Soul (half HP to restore talent gauge) and Monado arts (fueled by talent gauge) for seemingly little reason, and Melia's elemental summon focus often being squandered by the AI for sake of extra damage. Generally though, the other party members play fine in the hands of the AI.

My second major gripe is some Arts having terrible frame data. Chief example is Shulk's Shaker Edge, an Art that inflicts Daze on a toppled enemy. Though the attack takes so long to actually come out, half the time the toppled enemy already recovered from Topple by the time it lands. Not the case with everything, but it occurs enough to be annoying.

Additionally, for doing optional quests along the way as you find them you're generally on track for staying on level the entire game without need to grind. This is the case until the final stretch, where everything suddenly level jumps by about 10 and most lategame quests become too challenging without grinding. It's annoying it lets down on that front so late in, but I suppose only the 100% players would be as concerned by that point.

And while I did praise exploration in the story segment for those reasons, on occasion finding low drop rate items can be incredibly tedious and is the main reason I did not go for 100% beyond bloating my 62 hour playtime to a 160 hour playtime.

Characters

For sake of not spoiling anything, I'll not be covering all characters and instead go over a few highlights.

Primarily, of the main party, Shulk and Melia were my easy favourites of the main cast.

Shulk manages to both be a pretty compelling main character while also being sort of hilarious, ending up going on this grand adventure when he's actually just this freakin nerd who wants to sit around and poke a legendary sword all day in a lab. His story transforms from one initially of revenge but later pivots to a more fundamental focus, and is generally executed pretty well.

Melia is one of the later party members to join, whose arc follows living up to her family's legacy primarily. Though in later parts of the game she's also a noted victim of the limited screen-time, with a huge gaps between her story relevant scenes.

The other party members range from generally pretty good to mostly... fine. Again, Shulk gets the majority of the screen-time focus, so the side cast are often left wanting.

Antagonists wise, not much can be said about them without spoilers, but of the roughly 10 or so primary antagonists I'd call one maybe my favourite character in the game, another not quite there for me but about as compelling, and the rest vary from pretty good to villain of the week, mostly on the latter side. Usually character writing is my compelling force for a game, notably with Fire Emblem, but in this case I have to admit I find the character writing comparatively lacking to the overall story and worldbuilding.

Soundtrack

The game's soundtrack was handled by a mix of Manami Kiyota, ACE+, Yoko Shimomura, and Yasunori Mitsuda.

Overall I do admittedly recall liking this game's soundtrack a bit more overall. My favourite tracks from the game are most likely Colony 9 (Day), You Will Know Our Names, Mechanical Rhythm, and the last few I'll spare mention of due to being far into late-game.

Though the game's main battle theme, Time to Fight!, is admittedly pretty underwhelming, and I don't recall too many of the game's area themes.

My single most disliked song in the game though is Vision of the Future, which plays when the future changes in a battle over whatever was playing previously. Even in boss battles. The future changes a lot typically, and it gets old very fast, especially when the battle theme in question is You Will Know Our Names. It's pretty rare that a given battle theme is exempt from being overridden by it.

Overall

On the whole, I definitely enjoyed my time with going through Xenoblade 1 again, though I admittedly felt far less drawn into it compared to my first runs. Maybe it's just getting older, knowing how the game plays out or being more aware of the game's flaws on this run, or something else, but I wouldn't put the game as highly as I might have done about 7 years ago.

Regardless though, the game is still a pretty good time around in spite of those flaws, and I'd encourage anyone who hasn't played it yet looking for a decent action RPG to give it a shot.

Xenoblade 2 is another game I want to give a similar revisit at some point, and I'm yet to play Xenoblade 3, so I'll cover those eventually. Next writeup will be for Future Connected.

Thanks for reading.

EDIT: had to put images in again because why does WEBP format exist

[krcdgamedev]

Deytah loading

I was halfway through writing the post about the battle system when I realized I didn't actually have the moves data loaded yet, lol.

Like I mentioned before, I'm working on a Pokemon X/Y remake to fill in the gaps not yet created for my original game (maps, plot etc). At the moment it's kind of a hybrid situation, where the species and mechanics are for the original game while the maps and scenario are from X/Y. But at some point I'll need to decouple them, making a full original game map and scenario for the one, and a Pokemon game system for the other (not really necessary, but if I want to show it off as a portfolio piece it actually being Pokemon would be less confusing. Also I just want to). And you know, I'd really like to just keep them both in the same Godot project for as long as possible. And I'd like to be able to just cut the folders for those projects out and release the base code with a default/sample project.

So what I'm trying to say is, my method for loading species/move/etc data is going to be a little bit stupid.

Since I have two game projects that need to be easily swapped between, I don't want to have species etc data loaded directly as a singleton, which would probably be the most sane and normal option. So I'll do it like this:

A data-handler.gd file, loaded globally as just 'd' for easy access, contains the project folder string. On loading, this file uses the folder name to load the required data files- species, moves, map list, a few other things like the default starting map (which might be a title sequence or new/load game menu, but during dev it's whichever map I'm working on at the moment). For example, species.gd is loaded into the "species" variable. You can access the species data dictionary directly with like "d.species.species["species-ID-goes-here"]["name or whatever data you're getting"]" but ideally you'd want to call d.species.get_whatever(speciesID).

If the folder isn't found, the game loads "default-project" instead, then loads species, moves etc from there. So, if I just dump the project files minus the original and Pokemon project folders onto Github, people can just download it, fire it up and it'll Just Work(tm), loading a little demo project they can play around with, without changing anything. Thus, none of my original content do not steal will end up in the open source files and the only evidence of me volating Nintendo's copyright will maybe be the string "pokemon-project" somewhere in the data file.

While doing this I realised that the scripttags file already had project-specific tags in it, namely types, but fixing that is as easy as adding another layer of extension and using that instead:

You guys can have this default NOTYPE tag though, that's free

Anyway, while I was at it I wrote a basic move-file-re-writer for moves like I did for species. This one is a bit more complicated as not all tags are needed; for example, if a move doesn't have a secondary effect it doesn't really need the effect tag, nor does it need the "effacc" (effect accuracy, ie chance of the effect happening) tag. I also decided that moves with a guaranteed effect (like moves that do the effect and nothing more) don't need the effacc tag either. For the moment status-only moves aren't properly marked as such, just having damage set to 0 or -1 to indicate it. (Not that status moves are implemented yet anyway.) For Monstars there's no special-physical split, so it might not need anything but that, but for a real Pokemon-like engine you'd need a tag for physical versus special so you'd just put the status tag there too. Could a damage value of 0 versus a damage value of -1 or lower be used to indicate something? I dunno, probably not. Also included as "moves" are player actions like switching, using an item and trying to run, which have special coding to not fill them out with any data aside from a high priority. (Of all things move priority is one of the first thing fully implemented in the battle system lol)

With that I'm probably ready to move on to implementing the battle system in this version of the project.

[mxsquibby]

Pokémon Violet Adventure Progress + Pictures!

Quick Intro: Hi! Going to try posting some of my Pokémon progress here instead of Twitter and see how it fairs here. I’m holding off all my final thoughts of the game until I beat the post game (assuming there is one) but I also have hours of footage that I will be going through for a future video. So I will post clips eventually!! And Since the game still in its first week release I’ll put a spoiler below my starter choice.

Starter choice: Quaxly! Or my nickname for him…. Scooter!

My in game character lore (that I made up) is that I’m some sort of ethereal being hence my glowing yellow and blue eyes and here to be cool.

So far:

4/8 Badges

2/5 Team Star Bases

3/5 Titans

Shiny Count: 3

Shiny 1 -Makuhita, Hariyama or nicknamed “Glamor”

Found her at level 16 (South Province Area Three!) Rash by nature.

Almost missed her if not for the other Makuhita’s around her.

Shiny 2 - Donphan or nicknamed “Adrastine”

Met in the Asado Desert at Level 26 lonely by nature

I’m surprised I was able to get her since she was overpowered than me and I she was really far away when I first saw her and I was stuck in a battle when I did!! I’ve seen some shinies de-spawn 2 feet away from some people. It’s scary out here… So I consider myself lucky!!

Shiny 3 - Charcadet, Ceruledge OR nicknamed “Valiance”

Found in West Province Area One. Bold nature.

(He/She, wanted a boy got a girl so now my hc is they are genderfluid hehe) He’s the best boyo but hated taking pictures. Literally all he did was zoom around me

She might not have the coolest looking shiny but I was happy to find her nonetheless. Technically the other two were “full odds” but this one was found with sandwhich boosts. ( Fire encounter 1) -some many of these little guys were spawning just on level 1… wild.

Side tangent lolol: (I don’t really encourage myself in participating in the mind-set of “full odds superiority” I can’t wrap my head around some people discouraging or being mean to others for using in game mechanics that help you find shiny’s faster… its really weird to me. And I can’t understand being mean or think it’s more impressive depending on how you found a shiny…so I try to stay away from people with that mindset since I think any method of getting a shiny is fine as long as it has legal stats, moves, and can legally be shiny.

Bonus Pics, My Goals, + Other Thoughts

My main goal now is to find 3 more shinies and then beat the game! Preferably I want to hatch a shiny Quaxly but let’s see if that can actually happen before I end up beating the main story

Teal hair or light blue… I still can’t decide. I enjoy the light blue but in some lighting it gets grayed out really bad. The teal gets grayed out in the sandwhich mini game as well but holds up better around other light sources than the light blue….so not sure if I will stick with teal or not... I just noticed the light blue was fading out in some pictures and I wasn’t liking it. So almost halfway through the game I thought a color change might suit me well. But I might switch back eventually since the light blue fits my outfit better I think…

Also arven annoyed me at first and reminded me of that annoying guy in legends arceus from the diamond clan… they had a beanie (I think) and really long hair.

Idk BUT they weren’t like him. thank god. I love arven the more I hang out with him!! He’s so nice and such a cutie!! Which is good! That’s what I wanted when I saw first saw him lol.

okay I think that everything for my first Pokémon violet post!!!!also it’s 4 AM…I sleep now…I NEED to stop writing posts before I go to bed lol 🤦🏻‍♂️

[schearers]

Why Isn't My BMW X5 Electric Windows Closing All The Way?

Are you having trouble rolling your BMW X5 power window all the way up or down? Because, if that's the case, it can be really stressful and is usually a sign of trouble. If this is not taken care of, you might end up spending thousands of dollars.

But don't worry, this article will provide some useful information that will help you to figure out what's going on with your car. In addition, by going through this article you will be able to troubleshoot power window-related problems in your BMW X5. But, before we start, let's find out how an electric power window works in a car.

The power window- How does it work?

Put simply, the power window is a mechanism that basically enables the driver to roll the windows of a vehicle all the way up and down by simply touching a set of buttons. And, yes… your assumption is correct, this thing needs an undistributed supply of electricity to function.

Some of the major parts that make up the power window of a vehicle are- a power window regulator, a motor, and a set of gears. And, of course, a battery for a continual supply of electricity. Technical issues with any of the above-mentioned components can put the entire power window system of your vehicle in jeopardy and you might not be able to roll your windows all the way up or down.

Fortunately, there are a few things that you can do to deal with power window malfunction in your car. So, what comes next is a list of causes and signs of power window malfunction in a car.

The power window- Reasons why it may stop working

Interruption in power supply

If your BMW X5 power window is not functioning correctly, it could be due to an obstruction in the power supply. As we have discussed earlier in this blog post, for a power window to operate smoothly and efficiently, it needs an undistributed supply of electricity. If there is something off with your vehicle's electric system, you are likely to experience some major performance issues including a failing power window.

Regulator not working

Another potential problem that can result in power window failure in a car is a defective regulator. Just so you know, the regulator is nothing but a set of switches- that provides the driver the means to regulate the power window. So, naturally, if it is not functioning properly, the driver would not be able to control the power window of a car.

Window motor not working

Isn't it obvious? The motor is responsible for generating rotational energy so that the power windows of your car can slide up and down. You can think of it as the heart of your vehicle's power window system and if it goes bad, your power window will stop working immediately. That's why if your BMW X5's power window is not functioning the way it usually does, get its motor tested, and if the motor is faulty replace it.

Harsh weather conditions

Yes… in some instances, bad weather conditions may cause a vehicle's power window to malfunction. So, ensure that your BMW X5 is well protected during extreme weather conditions like heavy snowfall, a thunderstorm, and heavy rain.

The power window- How to know if it is faulty?

The next big thing to discuss in this article is- the signs of power window malfunction in a car. Below pointers define the signs of power window failure in a car. Have a look…

If there is a fault with the power window system, the first thing you will notice is that its regulator is not transmitting your input to the motor. Also, if there is a fault with the power window system, you will notice that the speed at which the window is operating is abnormal. If your window gets jammed halfway up or down, it is also a sign of power window malfunction.

The power window- What to do if it goes bad?

The power window system is a very complicated piece of machinery designed to make the opening and closing of windows effortless. And, needless to say, that power window malfunction in your BMW X5 will make your driving experience uncomfortable. Fortunately, there are a few things that can be done to troubleshoot power window-related problems in a car. All you have to do is to take your BMW X5  to a reliable car repair shop in your locality.  

Closing remarks

The power window system is a thing of luxury and was designed to make the modern ride comfortable and effortless. If it stops working for some reason, you will experience all sorts of problems while driving your car. That's why if you have a feeling that the power window of your BMW X5 is not functioning properly, the first thing you should do is to take it to a nearby auto service center so that the exact cause of the problem can be identified and repaired.  

[gradualee]

Oooh could you do like a one-shot for engeespee? The prompt is "Engineer upgrades his gunslinger to make it move more like a human hand but it needs more tweaking cuz it twitches and squeezes at random" I think you and I already know how this will go down snsndn

Mmm romance s'il vous plaît

That is it, that is the request. You can go wild with anything else 👁️👁️

-Spense

oh my god, hi!! i super enjoyed writing this, thanks for being so patient! i hope this lives up to your expectations, i'm not super used to writing the mercs yet

read it on ao3

The gunslinger makes a sound like a mechanical gasp when Engie tightens (and then loosens) a joint in one of it’s fingers. Not… a bad sound, necessarily, but it still makes him frown.

When he has it on, on the days he feels like having it on… it does breathe with him, in a way. But there are improvements that he’s been meaning to work on since he got the thing and just never had the time to do. And now that he’s finally sat down to work on it, it’s doing… something. He’d like if there was a little more control over the fingers. The ability to hold something delicate would be nice. He’s absentmindedly snapped more pieces of chalk (and entirely crushed eggs) than he’d like to admit.

One of the fingers twitches when he tries to move it, and then clamps down on his wrench like a vice, wiggling and straining. Pops right back up when relaxes back.

From the way it’s acting, it has to be something a lot smaller than a few adjustments to the gears. He has to switch out the motor and lose horsepower, in turn getting rid of a lot of the reason he uses it on the battlefield, or figure out how to keep all that and make it more sensitive to the things it’s holding.

Which will make it less effective on the battlefield again.

Which gives him a choice between abandoning this project halfway through, at least for the day, or switching out the motor temporarily and making it slightly softer to remove the risk of it breaking entirely in case it squeezes too hard.

-

He ends up switching the motor, just so he doesn’t have to go through the pain of building a new one. This doesn’t solve the twitching and squeezing, but it’s quiet enough that it’ll look like he’s just flexing his hand, trying to soothe the phantom-soreness that pops up every once in a while.

Pyro likes it though. He goes through dinner one-handed while they look at it, poke at the palm and giggle when it snaps at their fingers.

“Hike-a hiragha!” They whisper to Engie, their eyes shining behind the glass in the way that always makes him smile a bit in return.

“It is kinda like a piranha at the moment, now that I think of it,” he says. That’s a nicer way to look at it, the lack of control over his hand. “Be careful there.”

Engie glances across the table.

It’s supposed to be a passing thing. A silent greeting for Spy and apology for being holed up in his workshop all day. Usually he’s a bit better about that sort of thing, especially since they got together.

Spy is, however, occupied.

His gaze has locked onto the gunslinger, mouth slightly parted as though he was going to take another puff on his cigarette before he noticed the thing. For some reason, it’s become incredibly distracting as of late.

“Spy?” The words are quiet as they can be while still carrying across the table, above all the racket that Scout and Soldier are making, the clink of cutlery and occasional thunk of a drink being set down on a table.

Spy does not respond to this.

Engie clears his throat, leaning a bit closer. “Spy, you okay?”

With a grimace and a long pause as Spy tries to sort out his words. “For now, we will talk about it later.”

As Engie tries his best to not worry about what might be wrong, or think about the way Spy says the word “later” like “lay-turr,” dinner finishes around them.

-

Predictably, Spy disappears entirely after all the plates are cleared and scraped, piled up next to the sink and ready to be washed. He doesn’t even say goodbye.

Heavy offers to do the dishes before Engie can even ask, leaving him to run after silent footsteps, checking every single room that Spy might be in before retiring to his own in defeat.

He takes off his hardhat, his goggles, his glove, and then sits back on his bed with a long sigh. Sound can still be heard from downstairs, but it’s almost entirely muffled. He could fall asleep now, just like this, if he wanted.

“Ingénieur?”

He startles out of his little trance. Cold hands grip his forearms as gently as they possibly can while Spy looks at him with a soft smile, down on one knee.

Engie responds with a grin. “Howdy. What’re you doing down there?”

“Just…” Spy’s thumbs rub small circles into Engie’s muscles, tilting his head to the side. It’s nice. Calm and quiet in a way they don’t often get. “Just saying hello. Tu me manques.”

“I’m right here now.”

A kiss is placed to the center of Engie’s chest, right above his heart, and then Spy is clambering up onto his lap like the giant cat he is. Foreheads pressed together even though Engie always thought it looked a little silly. His hands rest gently on Spy’s hips as he leans in for a kiss. And it’s good like this. Long and warm and sweet.

Until Spy goes still, save for some twitching. As if he’s trying to pull his hips away without making a big deal.

It takes a moment for Engie to put the pieces together, but when he does he swoons.

“Oh, doll, was that it? You sat in front of the team for all that time just thinkin’ about me tickling you with this malfunctioning hand of mine? You could’ve just said so.”

Before Spy can say anything, Engie’s wrapped him up in a hug and started kissing down his neck, snickering along to the way he giggles. It’s such a lovely sound, but… it could be a little louder.

The gunslinger twitches erratically against Spy’s belly, sending him laughing and gasping, holding onto Engie’s shirt like it’s a lifeline.

“Please,” Spy’s voice shakes a little through his smile with the effort of staying up and the clenching of his stomach. Engie eases a little now, taking his prosthetic away. He breathes a little sigh of relief, going limp in Engie’s arms. “Un moment, s’il te plaît. I don’t want to fall.”

“Oh, is that all?”

He stills. “Oui.”

“If I lay you down, will I get something in return?” Engie goes back to Spy’s hips and lifts him up a little, pressing a kiss to his stomach. “A chance to munch on this tummy o’yours?”

Spy nods. Nervously, and like he’s thinking about the consequences, but he still nods. Engie picks him up as gently as possible and drops him down on the bed (with some careful maneuvering). It’s a nice, quiet moment for them, this little break in the action. Even when they’re both busy thinking about what may happen next, they stay close in some way. Engie’s good, functioning hand rests on Spy’s stomach. He traces a heart there.

And then ever so slowly starts to pull up Spy’s shirt.

This is as much fun as the actual tickling is, watching the way Spy tenses and does his best to stay calm. Which he’s quite good at doing under normal circumstances. But these aren’t normal.

“I wish I could take a picture of ya’ right now, darling,” Engineer says quietly, taking a moment to kiss the top of Spy’s knee. Even through cloth, he twitches and giggles. “Or freeze this moment in time. I bet you’d love it. Just lying here, in front’a me, anticipating tickles you have no idea when will come. Or where.”

Engie takes a nice, big, deep breath…

And holds it.

And then blows gently across Spy’s belly.

And then he does it again, and again, and once more for good measure before blowing a raspberry right above his navel. Nuzzles and licks and digs all his fingers into Spy’s ribs and sides like he’s being paid per-nanosecond of tickling.

Spy wiggles and screeches and pushes at his head to no avail. Throws his head back so hard that it bounces off the bed. Protests as much as he can through what little breath he has.

His laugh cuts through the silence like a hot knife through butter. It’s beautiful, he’s absolutely beautiful. In a way that’s hard to accurately describe, even with the amount of practice Engie’s had before all this.

The gunslinger, ever content to do its own thing, wheezes and clamps down on the inside of Spy’s leg, just gentle enough not to hurt, and squeezes and releases in a spot so bad that Spy goes tense all over and stays as still as he can.

Which is… interesting.

Engie lays off for a minute, twists and rests one of Spy’s legs on his lap. It’s a needed break for him and he takes it without asking. Chest heaving with effort. He’s already so tired he doesn’t even notice when Engie starts to undo his shoelaces. He only reacts when the whole boot is dropped to the ground and a hand has wrapped itself around his ankle.

He makes a soft, confused noise before he looks up and all the blood in his body rushes to his head so quickly Engie’s a little worried about him fainting.

Over a thin sock, the gunslinger twitches across the ball of a helpless foot.

[semischarmed]

Chrysalis

People say that college is where you “find yourself” and I can’t help but agree. It’s just, well, how I truly found myself was through my roommate Kyle. Or rather, inside him.

How to describe Kyle? He’s basically the perfect roommate. He’s kind, quiet, studious, relatively clean. He goes to soccer practice for some kind of campus league every weekend. Kyle is also rushing one of the frats on campus- Sig something or the other, so I get quite a few long nights to myself. Long, hot nights where I can’t help but scramble over to his side and pleasure myself in a pile of dirty Kyle-scented undergarments. The biggest treats were the nights when he had to do his frat stuff after a match. The nights when I could slip on his unwashed sweaty gear and just lie in the bliss of being surrounded in him. Every few days, we go out to grab a bite to eat and shoot the shit- the guy’s been a great friend to me, despite his typical serious demeanor. Since he was rushing this semester, he’s been busier and busier but he still makes time for me, even inviting me to some of his soccer team or frat bro hangouts. What can I say? I lucked out with Kyle. Still, I’m a greedy son of a bitch, and I wanted more of him. 

I decided fairly early on that I would possess him, make him wholly mine. I can’t even quite explain why Kyle specifically. He’s cute-sure, tone-definitely, but he isn’t super buff, he isn’t red-carpet-movie star hot, so it’s really hard to place why, out of anyone I could take in this entire school, I decided he would be my target. My forever home. Something about him was just enticing. Maybe it was the way his coffee brown eyes relayed a sense of mystery and serious matters, but lit up with the faintest twinkle of amusement when he recapped his games. Or maybe the way his body only gave me the briefest of glimpses at his musculature when he switched shirts. Maybe it was his kindness, unexpectedly bright for a frat-boy-soccer-star-roomate. Or maybe the way his scent lingered in the room after a workout. God, that scent. Pleasant, warm, humid, musky- like summer rain. Doesn’t matter. I wanted him. I wanted to spend my every moment with him. In him. I wanted to be wrapped up in Kyle’s flesh till the end of time, to wake up with Kyle’s eyes, to take every breath with his lungs, feel every beat of his heart pump as mine.

This possession was going to be special. I prepped for weeks- months even. Truthfully, it’s not all that difficult to possess someone for sometime and when you’re as good at it as I am, you can even maintain it indefinitely by putting the smallest pieces of yourself in them. Kyle would be different. Full, integrative possession- a one-way ticket. I wanted this shit to be permanent. I was going to stuff my entire physical form inside his. To take someone at their core, to violate every law of nature both physical and metaphysical- this, this needed setup, needed planning, needed Kyle to be present during the entire process. Therein lies the issue- how to get a lucid Kyle to sit still long enough for me to complete the slow process of integrating to him. 

I came to the conclusion that a catalyst of sorts was necessary. Something that could lock us in together physically, could stop him from leaving or stopping process, could break open after let the new and improved me emerge. Guess who drafted plans for a one such catalyst? Guess who switched majors to Material Science, who befriended a professor just to figure out a good semi-permeable material to use? No one can say I didn’t love him- at least in my own special way. After weeks of trial, weeks of iteration, I decided on a tight-fitting, sleeping-bag-esque contraption. The material and shape were special- virtually impossible for a human being to break out of, kept fluids in but let some air flow through for ventilation, shaped such that we could only fit directly stacked on top of each other, leaving him unable to escape the process. I also set the release mechanism in the back, so only a completed Kyle could escape. Like any good invention, I gave it a name befitting its purpose: Chrysalis.

I settled on a day where he would be weakest- cardio day, a day where I could easily slip some compound into his post workout mix. I finished preparations with the chrysalis, secretly hidden in his bed.

“Hey dude, sup?” He asks nonchalantly with a slight head nod, as he enters our room, visibly tired from the workout. “Nothing, man” I reciprocate in amusement. I watch in secret anticipation as he downs his special post-workout mixture, scratches his cock through his boxers- unconcerned, comfortable, and gives off a loud yawn. “Hey man, I-I-don’t....feel..” I rush to help him, corralling the grimy, tired, post-workout Kyle into place. He asleep almost immediately. I strip us both naked, marveling at my new vessel. Damn. A light pelting of hair covers the deceptively muscular soccer star. A blanket of sweat surrounds him while a bit of the spiked post workout drink pools at the corners of his plump lips. Deliciously plump lips beckoning for a taste. I aim to lick it off and give him a kiss before I immediately realize what the repercussions would be. Shit. Close call. I stroke his hair, leaning in to tell him how much I wanted this. I take a quick sniff at his pits, at his groin and god they smell fantastic. I roll him to his side, as I take my naked form beside him and pull the Chrysalis around ourselves. I roll to have my back face the bed and the bottom of my cocoon, pulling Kyle on top of me and engaging the the contraption to wrap around us. I find the button to tighten it, effectively locking the position of our stacked bodies in place. I find the final button to lock the Chrysalis into its release valve. No going back.

When I seal us together in my little love cocoon, I begin to feel the gravity of his form above mine, slick with perspiration. My future body was dense, probably from years of building muscle, perfectly tempered, toned, streamlined by every game, every win. Inside our encasement, I rocked back and forth, getting into as comfortable of a position as I could and rubbing our sweaty bods together. I lock my legs around his, intertwine our fingers together and wait patiently for Kyle to come to.

The scent was indescribable, orgasmic even. I’ve never felt closer to him. I am in tune with his slightest movements as he lay on top. With every breath, every inhale our bodies rise and fall in sync. With every steamy inhale I draw in his breath. like we were breathing in each other. No one else deserved to experience Kyle this way, not even his girlfriend Steph. Kyle was mine and mine alone. With mine still intertwined with his, I drag Kyle’s limp hands around his belly, his light abs, give him a feel for himself.

An intrusive wave of uncertainty hits me. Oh god what am I doing? Am I really doing this? This, this is unnatural. I release my hands from his grasp and reach them around him, lightly dancing them across my future body and feeling the new vessel so close, feeling his damp, gently sculpted abs for myself, squeezing his supple ass. Stupid natural order shit. I tug on his hefty, limp dick, which begins to harden involuntarily at my provacation. This is mine. Fuck the natural order, not giving you up baby.

He wakes, disoriented in the Chrysalis. “Uh...I...What the fuck...” Panic sets in, as he feels my immobile flesh behind him and he tries to get his bearings to no avail. He keeps moving back and forth, trying to dislodge himself from the Chrysalis, from me, but it’s far too tight and too strong. I made sure of that. “Oh god, oh god...” he trails as he tries to rationalize the past events. I decide at that point to reveal my identity, faking the sounds of myself waking up before sleepily asking him “Kyle? Uh... w-what are you doing here? What are we doing? W-Where is this? Did you do this? Kyle? Kyle!” I’m a shitty actor but he seems to have bought it. I relish the moment when he sighs in relief at the realization that the naked form on his back was mine. I guess he trusts me. Cute, but you shouldn’t trust me, Kyle.  

“Oh thank god, dude I don’t know, I just woke up. I- uh- sorry, I’m gonna try to get us out of this thing,” He states as he wiggles to try to release us from my cocoon. And fuck did that feel good. 

“Mmmmm Kyle” I trail, as my dick starts to harden and poke at his ass. The wiggling does not helping him, as every movement gets me harder and pushes my dick further in him. 

“Oh! EW! Fuck! What the fuck man!” He shouts, before he realizes all this was turning me on. “Fuck dude stop!” he exclaims. 

“Why would I stop this, baby, we’re just getting started.” I give his back shoulder a quick lick. “I’m gonna make you feel like a new man”.

“Y-You! YOU! You did this! the Fuck! Get me out of here!!” He spat, only for it to rain back on to us through gravity. 

He squirms, trying to escape once more only to be met with the Chrysalis’ tight hold on our forms and my engorged cock. “Only one person can come out of this thing” I moan, as I start gyrating myself into him. “Get the fuck off me, Fag!” He screams in vain as parts of me already start connecting into him. The parts of his body connected to mine light up, like sparks dancing across mine. Euphoria. “There’s that soccer rage” I state seductively as I wrap my arms around his torso and abs and push us impossibly closer. “Suits you... suits...me”.

By this point, My body was halfway submerged into his and he finally starts to feel my nerves, my cells as his. With our shared senses, he feels my arms pushing us together as if his own self was doing the deed. “AHHHH OH MY GOD. Oh! nonononono” He exclaims in terror. He is reduced to incoherent babbling as he smells the suffocating concoction of his post-workout filth. The air is thick and brimming with pheromones. He is reduced to disgust, when he tastes the droplets in the air of our putrid selves locked inside my Chrysalis. Of course, in our connected state, I taste them too, only I love this taste. His taste. Our taste. I can only moan as I continue merging into him and my limbs and his are one. I feel my new biceps as I trace them around the new me. Tone. Nimble. Champion. And I feel my new, experience-tempered legs. Vascular. Virile. Powerful. I’m a goddamn athlete.

Animalistic, guttural sounds escape his mouth as the last of my torso and neck coalesce into his, and all that remains is my head, firmly planted to the back of his. I take a deep whiff of his now-drenched hair with our new, shared, workhorse lungs. “We’re so close, baby.”

Inserting myself into his mind was equally orgasmic. He screams at contact. The first plunge of my forehead tp the back of his was some useless frat shit. Whatever. I dig my head deeper into him and felt his years of soccer practice leak into me. More goodstuff. Then deeper still- and fond memories with friends, fond memories of school bleed into me. I plunge further and further in, taking in every piece of him I could, while he pants and winces at my insertion. His first kiss, grandfather’s funeral, deepest urges all MINE. Fuck. I pull back slightly, as I feel his him gently sob, before I push more myself deeper into his psyche. He screams at the injection of more of my memories and at the realization that this was a one way trip for both of us. “FUCK! FUCK! Stop Please! Too much! Too much!” I mentally sneer as I thrust even deeper into his mind, grabbing some more of him, and leaving more of myself. Childhood memories and feelings flood into my mind and I experience everything that has led to Kyle becoming Kyle. The feeling of winning my first game. The feeling I felt the first time I masturbated. More. Kyle’s deep love for Steph.

Damn, this guy was ready to pop the question and start a family with her-Not Anymore baby. You’re with me now, Kyle. I corrode this particular aspect of him with my own innermost desires. My perversions, the pure lust I felt in finally taking him. He laughs, moans at the lust he now had, before catching himself.

“Oh god what... doing... me!” he whimpers as his body convulses and drools. Our shared pupils dilate at the process as his body thrashes in futility. And yet, I press into him deeper still. Deeper and deeper inside until all but the very last of my old self is left. His deepest secrets, his dreams, self worth belong to me. He cries, mouth mumbling incoherently into a crescendo as I worm in that last bit my head into his and my own life become his. My old body’s childhood memories, My old thoughts, feelings, knowledge, secrets flood his. I give all of it to my new self, ingraining me in him, and cementing us together.

“AHHHH DAMN IT! Fuck Fuck! get-get the fuck out!” he screams as his hands start pulling on his hair, as his head shakes left and right trying to get the intrusion of my mind out of his. He recoils as I briefly take control. “No way dude, this [moan] oh god this is fucking great.” We continue panting, continue convulsing as his body is forced to accept me. “M-My name is Kyle, and I feel fucking good!” He shakes a bit more. “STOP-“ I cut in to force him to tell me “God I fucking love you inside me. Take me! Use me!” He begins gently sobbing, but I make him do it with a smile. “My name is Kyle and I’m a sick fuck who’s gonna cum inside and possess his closest friends”. I make us moan. 

Eventually, the seizing stops, and Kyle finds a moment of clarity. With my memories in him, He finds the release built into the Chrysalis and we emerge out of our slick cocoon as one. Sweat and cum trickle out as we come out a new man. A changed man. He walks to mirror in horror, checking himself to look for any wounds in his form. Instead he finds pulsing of my flesh-or what used to be my flesh-at various parts of his body beneath his skin. Abberant. Inhuman.

“Oh god oh god oh god this-this-this, this can’t be happening”. My new heart quickens as Kyle continues to panic. He tries to slap himself awake, but with each slap my control tightens and I make him moan in approval. He feels impossibly full with something-someone pulsing deep inside his skin, integrating. A natural violation of the highest order. He whimpers as he takes nervous, shaking hands all around him, feeling the intrusiveness of the eroticism I feel in being in him. The pulsing in him stops. “Keep going, baby [moan] fill me up. Make me you,” I force him to tell me with a tone that oozed sex. A tone that was alien to his voice. “My name is Kyle and I love dick. I love dick because the man inside me, the man controlling my every action loves dick. And he’s never leaving me. I love that too, because he’s inside me, making me love that.”

“Kyle I’m giving you one last morsel choice before I take it all the way- I decide everything for us from now on” I state to my reflection in the mirror, giving it a slobbery kiss. “We got a cute ass...I’m sure we can snag a few more bodies to play with... I wanna get a little party going. You know, our teammates are pretty cute, aren’t they? Maybe we can stick some me inside them”. I make him lick his lips. “Your frat bros are pretty cute too [moan] you wanna be frat president? I can arrange that, once I make you put me inside them...I’m getting ahead of myself... Let’s start with one. Pick someone...someone we can take, can use, can fuck” I force his face into an out of place, lustful, deranged smile before returning control to him. “Stay the fuck away from my bros! I..... uh...sorry. S-Sorry for shouting. Just please-please! Get out!” he whimpers in desperation, before descending into more hysteric sobbing. Hysteric sobbing which becomes cute, unsettling giggling, which becomes a roaring laughter as I wrestle back control of my new meat-suit. I wipe his tears off my new face, giving it a quick taste before taking a tour of the new me. “You and I both know there is no going back. The old me? Doesn’t exist. I am You, now. This is your body doing these actions, your brain thinking these thoughts”.

A tremor begins from our extremities, limbs become numb as our shared nerves light up in stimulation. More internal sparks fly through us. This was it. Like an earthquake in my new body, a wave of new feelings wash over me, rocking me to my core. The world around us shook, as the final pieces of my physical self interlocks with his and two become one. 

I reach down to pleasure myself, before deciding instead to first push Kyle’s consciousness to the front so he can watch. This would be my first time in this body. Lets make it special. I do a quick reverse crunch, holding the position. Fucking easy in this body. And then pull the crunch close till the body starts to struggle “Arrgh Fuck! Stop!” he screams. I pull even further and he cries from the uncomfortable position I put us in. “This is mine now” I state with his voice, “I decide how far..[pant]..how far we go” And decide I do, as I pull us even further back, prompting another pained “FUCK” from Kyle. I line my growing hard on-our growing hard-on, up to our shared mouth. “Look.. look at what you can do” I moan as him, before letting his consciousness back in front, leaving only control of his face. He is in hysterics as I keep him locked in his position and continue breaking this new bod. 

“Look at what we’re capable of when I’m driving” I state in our shared mind. His head thrashes back and forth before I freeze it in place. I take brief control of just his plump lips and mouth, and position his thick dick inside. Fuck we taste good. Salty, with the smallest hint of bitterness. I continue, pumping head faster and faster, forcing my occupant to feel every motion. We make little noise beyond the soft smacking sounds as we continue. The feeling was fucking euphoria. Im sure he feels it too, since he’s been uncharacteristically quiet. I’ve seen him do his warmup stretches before. I knew what he was capable of- with just a little push from me. When he shoots, when I let him shoot, I keep our shared mouth firmly wrapped around our engorged dick, guzzling our creation greedily. This mouth cannot contain it all and a bit spill below. Even more dribbles out of as I slowly release our position. Wet cum spills and pools on our shared chest and abs. I smear it around like a lotion. 

I jump and stretch myself into straight standing abruptly, forcing a slight jolt of pain from previously contorting this new body in a way it never had to before. His blood rushes through me, through us, and I let out a sigh of relief and contentment in the afterglow of my possession. I lick my new self clean, exploring all of Kyle’s crevices, before I coat our mouth in my new seed for a taste and swallow the excess in one gulp. We taste Delicious. Kyle, you sexy, tasty fuck, I knew there was something different about you. That last stunt seemed to have satisfied him as he recedes into me. I am in a dreamy smile as I tap my head gently with my finger. “All me now”.

The alarm on Kyle’s phone-my phone rings suddenly. Oh Shit. Kyle-er I had a game in a few minutes. I head over to the field with a breeze behind me, to the sight of slight discomfort and subtle gagging from my teammates. Fuck that. Smell more of me motherfuckers. They smile with strained faces as we do some small warmups for the game. His teammates really were cute- I briefly consider possessing them right there in broad daylight. Fuck it, what can anyone fucking do? I’m Kyle. And when Kyle wants something, Kyle gets it. Still, I only came for a test drive, so I decide to postpone their fates.

The match was tense. My teammates were alright, sure. But Kyle? Me? I played his body like an expert- no movement wasted, every single action carefully considered and executed. It was my brain in here after all. Onlookers stared in awe as, almost inhumanly, I block everything that goes my way. Despite my brain’s expert calculation, his body also deserved to praise. His muscled legs gliding my form through the grass, effortlessly, the twisting his body at just the right spot for the most efficient block. This body following my every command, like I’ve owned it for years. The old me was not one for sports, but this? Working his musculature into these complex maneuvers? Straining his form to just the right amount to maximize performance? Bliss. I can see why some people like this shit. The more I move through him, the closer I felt. Despite my heavy panting at the end, I can’t help but feel energized. Being in him is invigorating. I could keep going at this for days and days- this was truly an athlete’s body. 

I do a little dance as, in the end, we squeeze a 1-0 victory. All thanks to me, of course. My teammates brace themselves slightly-likely from the deep, concentrated musk and gallons of sweat I was emanating- before they surround me in a group huddle. New and improved Kyle is kinky little shit though, so I grab and pull their sweaty bodies uncomfortably close, and then squeeze them to me even closer so they can leave with the scent of my sweat on them. They recoil at my actions, at my words, as the normally stoic Kyle gently coos “Great job, team”. They laugh nervously and try to pull away, but I keep them in the embrace just an awkward second too long, sniffing each of them and remarking them. One day, you’ll all be mine.

After the game, I return to our room and look at my sweaty, dirty self in the mirror. I take a whiff of the freshly filthy soccer game and  soccer team smells we impregnate our room with. I take a quick sniff of our shared armpits, deciding to forgo showering this bod. Exquisitely noxious. Not getting rid of this.

I called his girlfriend Steph to break up abruptly over phone, citing my “newfound” sudden onset homosexuality. She was upset, understandably, but supportive. Really, I had no issues with the girl, and in another life, we’d be best friends fawning over the same straight dude. But this was Kyle, new-Kyle, new-gay-Kyle-who-only-loves-possessed-dick. My Kyle. He was mine, and mine alone.

Having finished my short list of post-takeover errands, my new self was on the prowl for some new recruits, new bodies to take, to possess, to pleasure me. Since he never really gave me an answer to my question earlier, I search through the remnants of the Old Kyle in my mind, force them to give me the name of someone to to take. I smiled. In the echoes of my mind, one face, one name reverberated in my head.  

Red.

I start giggling in a cute tone, out of place coming out of jock Kyle before I break out into a full cackle. “Kyle, you sick, sick, fuck...Red? Big Bro Red? After all he’s done to try to bond with you? Sick, incestuous son of a bitch.” I let out a soft moan as I drag my new vascular hands all over myself, stopping at my new nipples to give them a slight tickle, and my eyes flutter. I give them a hard twist, whining in elation when his body delivers the sensations to me. The smells we’ve been emitting has been pungent, concentrated, putrid from that sweaty group hug earlier. “Traitorous, depraved fucks like me don’t deserve a shower” I make him say in dirty whispers.

Red was Kyle’s big bro at the frat, and someone I had only met once previously. Once was enough to leave an impression. Unlike cute, naturally introspective, reserved athlete Kyle, Big Bro Red was extroverted, artsy, and fucking hot. Apparently, he’s been trying to connect to Kyle ever since the two were paired. Well, Kyle’s under new management, and I planned to use every bit of their tenuous relationship to get Big Bro Red under that same management. This was going to be fun. 

I am stopped abruptly as my phone vibrates. “Hey, wanna grab a bite to eat?” I close my eyes in sweet satisfaction, lick my lips seductively and shift my mouth into a filthy smile when I catch the name of who it’s from:

Red. 

—————End—————

Took a bit of inspiration from some past stories I’ve read in writing this one. The story implies a continuation but I’m still a bit on the fence. Hope you liked it/ Happy New Year’s!

[lightsovermonaco]

His Good Sweater: Chapter 10

Masterlist

Shoutout to my bestie @acollectionofficsandshit for all the drunk comments she made while betaing this one... Wish you guys could see them lol

Word Count: 4.8k

Recommended song: “Amnesia" by 5SOS

Pierre paces in his dinky trailer at the Circuit of the Americas and desperately tries to forget you exist. He had already taken down the pictures on the wall but the images were burned into his brain. He had shoved your shirt under his bed, having absolutely no idea how it had made its way halfway around the world to taunt him.

He was slowly unraveling like a spool of thread on a loom as you wove him irrevocably into the tapestry of your life.

The race in Austin started in less than two hours and you hadn't texted him. Not once in the handful of years he'd known you had you neglected to wish him luck before a race, even if it was 2 am your time or you had exams, you always took thirty seconds to warn him to be safe and finish well.

He was beginning to think you hated him for how he'd acted at the gala last weekend, jealous and possessive from afar. Talking to you would have been the better choice. But seeing you laugh and dance the night away had hurt too much. He’d slipped out early after Victoria assured him she could find a ride and sped home to fall apart.

He had only barely managed to piece himself together in time for the race.

Pierre checks his phone for the third time in as many minutes and swears under his breath. He didn't know why he expected it to ring and for your face to pop up at this point. Even if you called to tear into him, he'd still fall to his knees at the sound of your voice. He just wanted to hear you speak, didn't care what was said, only that he could latch onto your words and lose himself in them.

Hope sparks when his phone chimes but he nearly throws it across the trailer when he sees Charles' name.

Heard from her yet?

No. At this point I'm beginning to think I never will again.

Maybe she fell asleep early?

It's 5 pm in London. I'll bet you she's eating a bowl of takeout from the Chinese place down the street, not sleeping.

Its still possible. Don't dwell on it. This isn't the headspace you wanna be in before a race. Block it out. I don't wanna see my best friend wind up hurt today.

Pierre didn't reply, if only because Charles was right. Worrying would get him nowhere. After his shitty qualifying yesterday, he started thirteenth on the grid so he had his work cut out for him. Austin offered plenty of opportunity for overtakes; he could get the job done if his team made the right calls. 

And if he made it to the podium, you would have to text him.

The thin mattress groans when he sits to unlace his hastily tied race boots. He folds his legs to sit criss cross and places his palms on his knees. The familiar pose already has some of the tension leaving his shoulders as his eyes slide shut. He breathes in for ten seconds, reflecting on what ails him. He holds the breath for five seconds before releasing it slowly.

He repeats the process until he comes to terms with the fact that you won't be wishing him luck. That was your choice; there was nothing he could do about it and therefore no sense reading into it. He had done all he could to convince you to trust him. The ball was in your court; he had to be patient and wait for you to take a shot.

“Focus,” he murmurs to himself, forcing any erroneous thoughts from his head. “Walk through the track.”

The circuit at Austin was challenging, consisting of a mix of 20 sweeping corners and scattered hairpins. He was almost lucky in a way to be starting so far back on the grid because turn one was only a few hundred meters from pole and their tires would be slightly colder and less grippy upon arrival than his would be. The few extra seconds afforded to him by starting thirteenth could mean the opportunity to leap frog past his rivals in the first corner.

The counterclockwise circuit meant he would have to keep an eye on his front left tire too, as it would wear faster than the others. He'd change gears an average of 66 times per lap, higher than similar length tracks like Monaco. Pit stops cost an average of nineteen seconds, meaning he would need to build a significant gap to the driver chasing him in order to avoid the threat of any undercuts.

There were too many variables occupying space in his mind to afford you a sliver of it.

Some time later he decides that his four leaf clover tucked safely in the worn leather of his wallet will provide all the luck he needs and switches on his pre race playlist after popping in his ear buds.

"Sights on the podium," he murmurs to himself, hand on the doorknob. "Let's race."

The bass flows through him as his feet carry him to the Alpha Tauri garage on autopilot, through the back entrance and to his plain white driver room. The familiar beats are a numbing salve spread on his frayed nerves, his anticipation rising like a crimson wave in his veins. He leaves his clothes in a haphazard heap in the corner and changes into the white fireproofs hanging nearby, thoughts momentarily veering to you knocking on the door and stripping them right back off.

Shaking his head to clear his mind, he runs through his usual stretch sets until Pyry arrives to walk him through reflex exercises.

"How's your head?" Pyry asks, running him through more cool down stretches. "Do we need to take a minute and do some meditation?"

"Beat you to it," Pierre grunts out, pushing back against the hand on his head to work his neck. "I'm good."

"You sound better than you have all week, I'll give you that. Keep that focus, use it to propel yourself forward."

"Run me through the lineup again," Pierre requests, "I need something else to think about."

Because if he let his mind follow the path it wanted to, it would inevitably lead to you and undo the work he had done to avoid that. He needed to be empty of anything that wasn't racing, anything else was an unnecessary distraction that had the potential to end in disaster.

Pyry rattles off the grid in order of who Pierre needs to overtake, pausing between each name to give him time to recall their driving styles and potential chinks in their armor to exploit. He knew from tapes of previous years that Stroll often ran wide into turn one, giving Pierre the option to brake late and sweep up the inside. Vettel was half convinced the track was cursed, so his mind would work against him enough that Pierre could exploit it and get past at some point. He continued until he got to Hamilton and Max locking out the front row, where he would need a bit of luck to overtake.

"You got it?" Pyry asks, stepping back.

Pierre rolls his shoulders and nods. 

"Get shit done mate," Pyry says and bumps fists with his driver. He slips out to allow Pierre a moment to center himself before slipping into his race suit, leaving it half unzipped and tying it around his waist before following his trainer.

Pyry leads the way to where the matte navy and white car waits, mechanics swarming it like studious worker bees tending to their queen. No one talks to him save his engineer because words from anyone else threaten to break his carefully constructed race mentality. If they wanted him to bring home points, they knew to leave him alone once he was suited up.

His mind is blank of anything but statistics as he twists his ear buds in and pulls on his balaclava and helmet. As his vision narrows to the sliver of track he can see through his visor, so does his focus. With forty minutes to lights out, he's directed out onto the track. He rips the wheel to the right as he exits the garage, getting a decent powerslide for his efforts.

There was no doubt in his mind that he would land on the podium, if only to see the look on your face when he did.

**********

It took an unfathomable amount of restraint to keep yourself from calling Pierre to wish him luck.

You texted Max instead, wishing him a safe and comfortable podium a half hour before lights out. He hadn't responded, likely already in the garage with his trainer going through his pre race routine.

The pace Max had set the day before had awarded him pole position and the margin between him and Hamilton had been enough that you were confident in his ability to hold off the Mercedes for all fifty six laps.

If you were honest with yourself, you were disappointed that the Alpha Tauri you so desperately tried to ignore would be starting in thirteenth. You try not to think about it, instead queueing up SkySports and opening your laptop for pre race coverage. You avoid the interviews in favor of listening to the commentators analyze the grid.

"It should be an easy win for Max as long as he fends off Hamilton until the first round of pit stops. The undercut works well here, as Red Bull proved last year, and I'm sure they plan on doing the same thing this year."

You hum in agreement, gingerly sipping your steaming tea. You really ought to consider a career as a sportscaster at this point based on how often you came to the same conclusions they did.

"I think one of the biggest shakeups is Russell starting all the way up in eleventh after his amazing qualifying for Williams yesterday. Think he can hold onto that position?"

"He's got some fierce competition not far behind in the form of Alpha Tauri. Gasly starts thirteenth- surprisingly far back on the grid given the otherwise flawless performance he's shown this year. But it seems likely that he should be able to overtake-"

You flick the tv on mute, unable to stomach listening to them sing his praises. You numb your mind with social media until the Formula 1 theme plays on your laptop, alerting you that there's a few minutes until race start. Tire blankets are peeled off and the drivers weave their way through the formation lap with the exception of Kimi who takes his traditional straight line approach to warm up his supersoft tires. 

Most of the front runners are on ultrasofts, indicating a two stop strategy. It was Pirelli's recommended approach, and you were glad that Horner heeded their advice for once and let Max use the ultras in Q2. It would give Max the upper hand over Hamilton who starts on the yellow sidewall tire and thus slightly slower lap times.

Crofty and Brundle break down the notable turns as the cars line up on the grid, pointing out the sharp hairpin only a few hundred meters from pole position. If Max got away clean, he would be ahead of the cramped pack and have an even better edge over the silver arrows who would be forced to queue behind him.

The traditional "lights out and away we go" kicks off the grand prix, engines roaring into the first turn. Max does manage to get away clean and is awarded with an immediate advantage. Turn one proves tragic for the Alfa Romeo of Raikonnen and the Asthon Martin of Stroll who collide and cause Kimi to spin. They rejoin at the back of the pack, your eyes snagging on the navy and white of an Alpha Tauri as it streams past. 

Your heart spins in a similar fashion when the GAS driver tag leaps up two places in the timing table, suddenly in eleventh due to the incident. Your gaze snaps to the laptop humming on your legs before you remember its Max's driver cam you queued up. The Dutchman is silent as his engineer relays information about the incident and informs him of the widening gap between those chasing him. 

“Confirm received,” Gianpiero says calmly. No matter the situation or how heated Max got, he always kept his head. It was what made the duo such a good match and had likely kept Max from going off the rails on more than one occasion.

“Yeah,” Max says shortly, clearly pissed about how quickly Hamilton was approaching. “Let me know when I’ve got enough charge to get out of range.”

“Yep, will do. Just keep this pace and you’ll hold him at bay.”

Live coverage replays the incident between Stroll and Raikonnen from the view of onboard with Pierre. The instant the 10 on the halo appears in the center of your screen you suck in a breath. He yanks the wheel to avoid colliding with Ocon, who had to do the same to keep from hitting his teammate as they navigate through the carnage.

You chew on your lip and try to refocus on the battle between the front runners. Not much is happening in the midfield for the next thirty or so laps and Max just barely manages to build a solid enough gap between himself and Hamilton to dive into the pits comfortably without losing places. 

Your phone rings and you answer it without checking who it was as the only person you wouldn't answer was currently occupied.

"Hello?"

"Why the fuck didn't they pit Daniel?!"

You grin, noting the blistering beginning on his front left tire as SkySports switches to his onboard camera. "Because he's about to pass Charles," you tell Dan's girlfriend. She didn't call you often during races. It was likely that she knew you were nearing your wits end and this was her way of offering support.

"He won't be able to with those tires- oh." She breaks off when Daniel passes a DRS detection zone and his rear wing opens, allowing him to pass the Monegasque with ease. 

"Told you," you say with a touch of reprimand. "You're always too nervous about those things. Daniel knows how to drive, just trust him to get the job done and he'll bring home another trophy for your apartment."

"I don't live here," she points out and you roll your eyes. She had lived in London as long as you had known her, but she was almost always at Daniel's apartment whether he was in town or not. Daniel digs in as the camera follows him for a lap, highlighting the widening gap between the McLaren and the Ferrari.

"You basically do. At this point, you're paying rent for a dusty one bedroom apartment on the east side that you set foot in maybe once a month." She scoffs but you push on, "a waste of sterling if you ask me, when you're at Daniel's every time I ask you to do anything."

"You act like I never- there goes Pierre!"

His name sparks dread in your gut as your attention flicks back to the screen in time to see him overtake Bottas on the inside of turn one. He'd managed to claw up to fifth with the move, somehow gaining places while you weren't looking.

"Good for him," you croak, trying your best to be genuinely happy for him. He was pushing the car to the limit and you'd be amazed if he didn't wind up on the podium along with Dan and Max. Charles and Hamilton were the only ones in his way, and something told you Charles wouldn’t put up much of a fight when his mate reached his gearbox. Hamilton would prove a challenge but he had been making tiny mistakes all day. Nothing significant, though enough to add up to him barely holding onto second while Daniel rode his gearbox.

"He's got ten laps to get past those two," she murmurs as if momentarily forgetting you were on the phone. 

"Can we talk about literally anything else please?" You whisper, half tempted to shut off the race completely. 

"Babe, you have to face the music at some point. Either you never want to see him again or you love him, which is it?"

She never failed to be anything but brutally honest. You appreciate it because everyone else let you brush off your problems, but she called you on your bullshit. She would needle you about it until you folded.

"I think it's better for both of us if I pretend we never met, don't you?"

"Easier for you, yes," she agrees. "But it'll kill Pierre. You don't think you could keep in touch with him, just as friends?"

"I don't know if I can handle that. I can barely look at him without wanting to bawl my eyes out."

She sighs, pausing to contemplate what to say. Voice soft, she continues, "Why don't you just take him back? Clearly it's ruining both of you. Are you really gonna let the press wreck the best you ever had? I know its hard but-"

"I'm not like you," you cut in. "I can't just ignore the articles and the comments and pretend there aren't people out there that hate me for being with him. They came to my house, disrupted my family. Hell, Ben can't even go to school without being mobbed by his classmates demanding answers. If my suffering is what allows my family to go about their lives then so be it."

"If that's what you wanna believe."

You sigh, tangling your fingers in the hem of your shirt. "It is."

"Alright," she says, voice teetering on a knife's edge. "I know better than to try to change your mind when you're like this. He's on the podium by the way. Oh, and watch what you say to Max- Pierre will read into it."

She hangs up without a goodbye, leaving you to deal with the realization that the podium is indeed VER RIC GAS on your own. Your eyes are glued to the Red Bull and McLaren drivers, blatantly ignoring the one in the white suit as the anthems play and the champagne is sprayed, turning away to busy yourself with making coffee when Daniel hands his liquid filled race boot to third place.

You weren't quite sure how you were supposed to watch what you said to Max- there was no reason to in your mind. Max was your next closest friend on the grid and you had every right to congratulate him if you wanted to.

Resolute in your decision, you text Max and Daniel a quick congratulations before shutting off the TV and closing your laptop.

Max's insane custom ringtone he'd selected for himself nearly makes you jump out of your skin when it blares from your phone.

"Hey great race-"

"Did you see it? I wasn't sure if you'd watch it- did you see my move on Hamilton when he tried to get past me?" He was talking a mile a minute like he was still out on track. "I was like- and then Dan tried to overtake me on the final lap and I was like no way! And then-"

"Max," you chime in, dragging out the 'a' with a sing-song voice. "You're rambling."

"Oh right. Yeah but I made it! Led every lap and finished with another win."

"That's great." You force as much enthusiasm in the words as possible, trying to match his chaotic energy. "You did great. I know it probably doesn't mean much, but I'm proud to be your friend. You beat a world champ!"

"It means a lot-" 

"Who's that?"

You stiffen at the familiar cadence. You had assumed Max was back in the garage when he called, but he must have still been in the podium room. You could picture him in his race suit, smudges of grease and dirt staining the pristine white. Beads of sweat probably ran down his neck, begging to be brushed away by your tongue. 

"Uh, no one," Max says in a lame attempt to cover up his digression. "I gotta go," he whispers to you. 

"Let me talk-"

"Wait don't," you start, but the call ends abruptly and you blink. You stare down at your phone, completely dumbfounded. Of course his instinct would be to talk to you, to share the euphoria of a podium with you. It was the first victory in three years he wouldn't have you to celebrate with.

It was only a matter of time until his resolve popped like the cork on his champagne.

**********

Pierre's phone is in his hand as soon as Max hangs up. He hefts his trophy in the other, a wild grin on his sweaty face as he snaps a picture. He makes sure he's the only one in the frame, shamelessly wanting himself to be the center of your attention.

"Mate," Daniel pipes up, catching his eye, "you think that's a good idea?" 

Pierre sighs, cutting the Australian a glare. "I'm just trying to fill her in."

"Wasn't your plan to give her space?"

"It's been a week, isn't that long enough?"

"Take it from me, sometimes it takes months for someone to figure things out. Hell, you know how long it took me to sort through my feelings for-"

"I know," Pierre cuts in. "I know. I just- a snap can't hurt can it? C'mon, I just got a podium! If it goes bad I can blame it on the post race jitters."

Daniel holds up his hands and shrugs. "You're a grown man. Do what you want."

Pierre studies the photo, scrutinizing the way his hair was plastered to his head and the awkward way he'd posed to keep anyone but himself out of the frame. It's his genuine smile that he knows will do you in, and ultimately the reason he sends it.

His phone is a lead weight clutched in his grip as he winds through the paddock, constantly stopped by vips and team members congratulating him. None of what anyone says registers, he just tries his best to match their mood and sputter praises about his team's contributions to his podium. 

The snap you finally send back is only from the eyes up, but it's enough. He's surrounded by people in his driver room, but for ten seconds it might as well have just been him staring at a sliver of your face on a screen.

The tiny lines at the corners of your shining eyes tell him you're smiling, which is a step in the right direction even if you won't let him see your entire face. It's enough to reignite the hope that slumbered in his chest while waiting for you to pull the trigger and make a move.

He sends back a video of the people in the room, who cheer when they realize they're being filmed. 'Wish you were here,' is what he captions it and sends it without giving himself a chance to overthink.

Ten minutes pass with no reply.

The beer he’s already consumed have given him a pleasant buzz as well as an excuse to make a bad decision or two. He takes another video of the room to post to his Instagram story, 'Missing you' written in the lower left corner.

Fuck, he hopes you'll see it and regret leaving him on read. Instead all he gets is a text from Charles chastising him for stirring up drama.

Really Pierre?

Blame it on the alcohol, he texts back. 

I know you aren’t drunk. You can’t form a coherent sentence when you are.

Guess i gotta drink more then

Pierre doesn’t turn anyone bearing alcohol away. He's two celebratory shots deep when Daniel finds him sulking in a corner. "You've got my girl texting me freaking out over your story. I've seen it and I gotta agree with her. Was that really necessary?"

"She left me on read," Pierre says like that was enough explanation. His head was spinning and it was getting hard to keep the room upright. "And it's the truth. I miss her like hell. I want her here. She was supposed to come, you know? I was gonna have her fly in with me on the jet. She doesn't start class again until June. I had this whole week planned out. I was gonna show her Texas- she’s from New York and..." 

He trails off when he notes Dan’s pitying smile. Daniel sighs and runs a hand through his curls. "I know. I get it, okay? I know it's hard but you can't force it. You've gotta let her come back on her own, all you're doing now is pushing her away."

He was fucking clueless when it came to these things. He'd had you for a few precious moments and now that he'd lost you he didn't know how to act. His mind was running on hazy autopilot; he barely knew which way was up, let alone did he trust himself to make any sort of important decision.

He stares down at the shot he'd been handed at some point before throwing it back. The cheap whiskey burns his throat but he barely registers the sting. "Should I take it down?"

"She already saw it," Daniel says gently, as if he anticipates how bad the fuck up will hurt. And it does. It hits him like a tire wall at two hundred kph, knowing that you were probably ranting or crying on the phone with Daniel’s girlfriend. "But yeah, that's probably best. People are already wondering what happened between you two, no need to throw fuel on the fire."

"You're probably right-" Pierre cuts off when Charles arrives with a grimace on his face. He shakes his head and gives his friend’s shoulder a squeeze. 

"For once I'm not the dumb one."

"You're a dick, you know that right?" Daniel says, allowing Pierre to delete the post. It takes him a few tries before he gets it down, but undeniably rumors will be circulating in the morning if they weren’t already.

"Honestly what were you thinking?" Charles demands, edging towards full blown yelling. "I told you to leave her be. The gossip stemming from this isn’t gonna help.”

The last thing he needed was someone else telling him how stupid his decision had been. At least Daniel had the decency to show sympathy. 

"Honestly?" Pierre responds with the same intensity, his anger flaring. "Honestly, Charles, I was thinking that she was happy for me but was too afraid to take the leap. She haunts me. Every second I’m awake I have to force myself away from her. Even when I’m asleep I can’t get away from her. So I don’t know, maybe I wanted to haunt her too."

“This isn’t the way you win her back and you know it.”

“I know!” Pierre throws up his hands. “But what else am I supposed to do? She won’t talk to me. She has no problem talking to Max or Daniel but apparently she draws the line at me.”

“You know it’s not-” Daniel's eyes flick to his phone and he fights back a grin. All it does is remind Pierre that he lost the person that could bring that sort of smile to his own face. "Fellas I wish I could stay and help but I gotta get going. Charles, I think Pierre needs another drink." He slaps five American dollars in the Monegasque's hand. "First one is on me."

Pierre is too deep in a spiral to care when his friend drags him from the party to a bar just south of the circuit. Somehow it was within walking distance; the floor was sticky and the lighting was for shit but he didn't care.

Pierre's focus was on downing shot after shot, erasing the broken image of you his mind had conjured up. He never should have posted the story. It only served to feed into what the media had been speculating for the past week and dredged up more tension between you.

Pierre stops checking his phone two shots later. The liquor provides a wet blanket over his senses, dousing him in cold water and scrambling his brain. He could barely remember his own name, but yours still lived in the corner of his mind.

Even drunk, he refused to forget you.

Two hours and who knows how much alcohol later, Charles helps Pierre back to his hotel room.

Pierre falls asleep as soon as he hits the mattress, head too blurry to dredge up memories of you.

[theringers]

V-card anon: hi sorry about that first ask i kinda went into a fugue state (spelling?) altered state of reality maybe when i wrote that and damn near outlined a fic in your inbox

The way we played hot seat was either part of a larger drinking game when a certain card was pulled from a deck, or just on it's own. You sit in a circle, everyone has a drink, usually a beer or cider. In the card pull version, the one who pulls the card gets asked a question by every person playing and if they refuse to answer they drink from their drink. In the standalone, you do that but everyone gets a turn being asked until people get bored and leave. Fun way to find out shit about people. Usually the unwritten rule is that you can't lie. I imagine everyone sitting on shitty chouches and chairs in a semi circle around a table full of cups and bottles playing it

Questions i have been asked: are you a top or bottom? Do you like anal? Wheres the weirdest place you've fucked? Body count? Favorite position (sexual)? Fuck marry kill/ignore people in this room (EVERY TIME I PLAYED I GOT THIS QUESTION)? Tits or ass or other? Favorite non sexual body part ex. Thigh? Ideal fuck buddy? Sex regrets? Etc

Also more weird details i have head cannoned out for some drivers and most likely does not fit with irl personalities, do with this what you will, use it or don't i just have feelings. Also everyone is like compressed in age to like 20-27ish except for some of the grid who i will just think of as younger alumns who come back:

Danny R: social chair, owns a jeep he takes the doors off of in the summer, walks girls home at night to make sure they're ok, tries to DJ house events and is rebuffed by literally everyone, has like 30 pairs of vans you trip over in his room, stolen roadsigns everywhere, masters in something arigcultural or physiological, cutoff frat shirts for days, fuckboy but nice, a bit cringe, will drive around with you at night so you can scream, met reader bc she had a band tee on and wanted to talk to her about it (no gatekeeping)

Charles: some kind of engineering or math degree but no one has any idea how the fuck he's gotten so far, 4.0 never studies, games with other house members, will show up at events randomly you will have no idea how he gets on your couch but he is there, the best and worst taste in clothes, is the only one allowed to play the piano in the house, sweet, cannot help you with studies but is always down for helping you out after, has to be reminded to clean stuff, disaster bi, reader met his gf first and they probably met through that

Pierre: good fashion and music taste, shirt is gone halfway through the night, also fuckboy but wholesome, actually studies, plays a sport for sure probably soccer in some way either club or Division he's too good for rec, will hold your hair back so you can throw up, will tell you your outfit sucks, good at math, also part of the squad that games, econ major, workout buddies with reader anday have taken a math class together

Max: is part of the hockey team he will go pro, also actually studies, got into gaming because of Charles, has the nicest car, is serious until he gets a couple drinks in him, he and Daniel are close and roomed together at some point, owns like 30 sets of the same outfit a white tee and jeans, knows reader through Dan and they get dragged by him to some of the same stuff

Lando: is a pledge or new member his big is Carlos, undeclared major, just happy to be here, gaming squad, used to play lacrosse or something equally obscure, king of knowing where the good snacks are, weirdly good at beer pong, growing into a fuckboy wholesomeness level tbd, probably sweet with reader as she helped him through a blackout or something, met her because she's basically house mom for some of the new boys (the kind of mom who will teach you to do laundry or iron ONCE)

Carlos: hockey flow but does not play hockey, actually studies and is smarter than what people give him credit for, came from a private high school and uni really opened his horizons, also good study buddy, gets along with most people, goes to office hours the most out of the actually studies gang, fun at parties, owns the frat dogs, he and reader met at Office hours (they were the only students) and found they had mutual friends too

Lewis: is/was president of frat, great grades greater bod, did full evolution from fuckboy to good man, has the back tests and the moral support, up for late noght talks about life, definitely was a D1 athlete, best fashion game, implemented no hazing policy, fits into notable alum or PhD category

Mick: undergrad like Lando, also plays soccer or something, too sweet, also walks girls home/holds your hair back etc, cleans parts of the house that aren't his responsibility, higher alcohol tolerance than you expect, everyone is bizarrely protective of him, legacy member (his dad was a legend), drives a motorbike around campus and can't decide between law and psychology, actually studies, met reader through the frat and she would die for him, brings her to class on the bike sometimes because the bike is faster

George: business major, frat treasurer, three ring binder business casual in class kind of guy, nice enough, shirt comes off when drunk, runs marathons and a podcast about investments, best notes in the game and great study partner, actually studies, is drinking monster at 6AM but not because he stayed up late, he and reader met through the frat and sometimes drink wine and bitch together

Lance: hockey player, legacy member, studies sometimes, sarcasm on point, great at stack cup, very chill, knows every good nap spot on campus, also has high alcohol tolerance, is the kind of person who does well in the cold but does not like it, wears headphones so people don't talk to him, great one on one but not in crowds, business major and minor in computer science, probably also met thru Lance's gf but vibe as more introverted people and will cover for each other if one does not want to go out

Nicky: a good boy, part of the walks people home squad, sets up designated drivers for parties, good snack game, future in medical field, good listener, pretty good study buddy, midnight snack enabler, met reader through frat and his gf he and reader are on babysitting duty together sometimes when others get too drunk/high

Yuki: also a pledge or new, majoring in games or computer science as they gave me the same energy as him, games squad, bit of a mad lad, has several stolen street signs, good, met reader through frat and Yuki is the only one patient enough to explain some games to reader, they cuss people out on mic

Esteban: good man, has a full ride scholarship, actually studies, also good study buddy, Dan's little, plays soccer but maybe on a rec team because he prioritizes school, very sweet guy as well, probably chose a really practical major/dual major, met reader through Dan and are also dragged similar places by him

Antonio: manbun, philosophy or classics major possibly business dual, generally good natured but can be seen supplying his own wine at parties, used to be really into metal but kept the hair, does not know that people find him attractive, soccer boi, met reader through frat and she's the only one who will (pretend) to listen to him rant about philosophy

Alex Albon: another full scholarship guy, somehow gets along with everyone, switched majors due to an asshole professor, electrical engineering or computer engineering, actually studies, helps with frat pets,will show you pictures of his cats at home, sweetie, another contender for will hold your hair or walk you home, probably met reader through a class or club and found they had mutual friends and that reader is friends with his gf

Notable alums:

Checo - dad, successful in finance somehow (he looks like an really successful accountant of CFO to me idk why)

Kimi - dad but people forget he is, holds the record for most drinks in 24 hours that will never be come close to by anyone else, shows up on random alum weekends with 2 kegs, legally cannot tell you what he does or he would actually have to murder you

Valterri - was good at a sport when he was there, now a very effective lead engineer at an architectural firm

Seb - environmental or mechanical engineering, all around good guy with someone the best grades in frat history

Alonso - legendary for sexual exploits (consensual)

Anyone I put as actually studies is probably the type reader would hang around for more serious stuff/schoolwork and would probably be closer to, with the exception of Dan bc I feel like he'd be like we're friends now :)) we shall hang or Charles bc he will just show up. I also imagine she has a pretty good friendship with any existing gf, however if a driver does have a gf and he is the love interest sorry bb girl u gotta go for the purposes of this fic

Sorry this is so long hahaaaaaaa glad you liked my Charles thoughts ilu

i honestly wasn’t going to share this like the rest of the anon asks i’ve gotten that i keep close to my heart but this was just too good to keep to myself.

LOOK! AT! THIS!

f1 drivers as frat bros/college students headcannon

i’m writing a series - each “chapter” will be a smut with a different frat bro and i’m hoping to post a sneak peek this week some time but here’s something to hold you over and give you some ideas

to my vcard anon - i appreciate this so much. my inbox is always open for ur thoughts bc they are SO GOOD !! can’t wait for you to read the first part of the series bby

PS if some of this doesn’t make sense to u feel free to send in asks (i know a lot of this is focused on american college culture so if u don’t get it i’m happy to explain)

[writing-on-the-wahl]

Writing Snippet #7

She slid silently through the compound, her black clothes blending with the shadows as she made her way to the main building. When she reached the side door, she quickly pulled the glove off her left hand and brushed her fingertips across the electronic keypad. Her eyes fluttered as millions of numbers flooded her mind. Twelve seconds later, she entered a six-digit code using her gloved right hand. The door swung open, and she stepped inside, carefully wiping away the fingerprints as she crossed the threshold.

That was easy.

She repeated the process at three more doors as she made her way up to the third floor, her heart catching each time the sound of footsteps sent her darting into open office spaces or behind potted plants.

After what felt like an eternity, she reached the correct corridor.

They do not pay me enough for this.

She counted doors as she walked: ehu, riau, silu... she paused in front of a plain wooded door with a traditional lock.

Slipping a set of lock picks from her pocket, she knelt and felt the lock with her bare fingers. Then she twisted the tools until the lock clicked open.

Entering the office, she took stock of the bookshelves along walls and the large window before stepping forward and taking a seat at the desk. She pulled off her black beanie and removed the sharpie holding her bun in place. Long blonde strands fell around her face as she pushed up her left sleeve before resting her fingers against the sleeping computer.

The flood of information was overwhelming, but she was used to it. Mentally scanning through dozens of files, she searched for the information she’d been sent to receive. She pulled the cap off the sharpie with her teeth and began scribbling on her forearm. She was nearly done when the handle of the door—which she’d foolishly left unlocked—began to turn. She ran the side of her fist against the computer screen, clumsily smudging her fingerprints as she looked around desperately for a place to hide.

She was halfway towards the heavy window curtains when a deep voice stopped her in her tracks.

“Well, well, well. This is most fortuitous.”

The lock clicked into place.

She lunged for the window, but a gloved hand caught her arm and swung her around.

“It will be much easier to learn directly from you what Supervillain is planning....”

Villain’s voice trailed off as he took in her mask and black clothing.

“You don’t work for Supervillain.”

She pried her arm free and skirted back a few steps, heart pounding. She’d never met or fought Villain before, but knew what he was, and his powers were more dangerous to her than most.

“No.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to be here, little hero.” He narrowed his eyes, “What language is that?”

Hero hastily pulled down her sleeve to cover the writing. She had to get out of here. Now. But Villain was standing between her and the door. Like her, he was clad in all black, and it seemed like he wasn’t supposed to be here either.

“Listen,” she began to edge to the side. “your battle is with Supervillain, not me, so I’ll just be going.”

He mirrored her movement and pulled off his gloves. “I don’t think so.”

She swallowed.

“It seems like you already retrieved the information I need, and it will be much quicker get it from you than try to locate it on Supervillain’s server.” He took a step forward. She took a step back and switched the marker to her bare left hand.

Her back hit the window, and then he was right there.

Much much much too close.

She steeled herself and met his gaze.

“Go right ahead.”

His eyes widened as she offered him her right arm.

He pushed up her sleeve, eyes flickering across her face, expecting some sort of trap.

Tightening her grip around the sharpie, Hero let her powers flow through her.

Villain’s long fingers closed around her wrist as her mind went black.

She stood impassively, letting the blackness wash through her mind, erasing all conscious thought. His brows narrowed in concentration, and her knuckles turned white around the marker. His fingers tightened briefly before he released her and stepped back.

“You’re a mind reader as well?” He asked, pulling his thin gloves back on.

“Um what?”

“Only other mind readers are immune to my powers.”

Not only.

And she wasn’t immune to his power exactly. She’d just focused on the information stored in the sharpie, which, coincidentally, was the color black.

She shrugged. “I guess I’m just special.”

“Special enough you managed to break into Supervillain’s lair and hack his computer?”

“Something like tha—“ but he jumped forward and pressed a gloved hand over her mouth.

Shouts and hurried footsteps sounded in the hallway, and Villain leaned in close, breath brushing her ear. “If Supervillain catches us, we’re worse than dead.”

“Truce?”

He nodded then promptly shoved her to the side. Pulling on a length of wire spooled in a cylinder at his belt, he hooked it onto the window frame.

He bent to flip the lock.

“Wait!”

Hero stretched her hand out and touched the electronic locking mechanism.

“It’s alarmed.”

Villain looked at her curiously. “Can you disarm it?”

“Not from here.”

“I guess we’ll just have to be quick then.” He gestured to the desk. “You might want your hat though.”

She rushed to grab it, shoving the ends her hair into her jacket and pulling the beanie on to cover the rest.

Peeking through the glass at the ground below, Hero swallowed. There was a reason she didn’t have flight powers.

The handle on the door rattled, and Villain pushed open the window. Blazing alarms split the air as Villain put a foot on the windowsill.

“If I take you with me, I want all the information you have on him.”

The door burst open.

“Deal.”

She didn’t have time to think about the looming drop before he pulled her against his chest and they fell through the air, bullets whizzing above them. They hit the ground with a jolt, and Villain grabbed her hand, pulling her to her feet and away from the guards streaming towards them. They made it to the perimeter fence, and he boosted her over before easily swinging himself up. He led Hero into the trees, where a motorcycle sat concealed behind some bushes.

“The flash drive,” he gasped, bent over, hands on his knees.

“What?” she wheezed back, clutching her side.

He straightened. “Before we go any further, I want the flash drive you copied.”

“I don’t have a flash drive.”

His eyes darkened, and she rushed on, “But I do have the information on what Supervillain is planning.”

“So you read the files, know all the details.”

“I, well... not exactly... with my powers...”

She pushed up her sleeve.

“Look, this is what I have. But can we please have this conversation somewhere else.” She glanced back nervously at the fence and the flashlights that were growing closer.

Villain grabbed her shoulders, pulling her towards him, green eyes gleaming in the light from the compound.

“First, you’re going to tell me: what exactly is your power?”

She sighed.

“You ever heard of osmosis?”