actuallyitsstar
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if we make it through december, we'll be fine by actuallyitsstar
Fandoms: Top Gun (Movies)
26 Dec 2024
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It's just one of a million pieces of wisdom, accidental or not, from Goose; words Maverick now carries with him, that he knows he'll carry til the day he dies. Christmas is about having people around who care enough to remember you. It's a philosophy that had felt unexpectedly right until he'd realized that he didn't. Year over year, December 25th has been about the same thing for Maverick: what he doesn't have. And what he doesn't have isn't about material goods or money or fortune; it's people, and ever since the day he was born, one by one, he's been losing them. Forgive him, then, if the holiday never held much significance, but he tries his hardest to celebrate on behalf of the people he loves who love him anyway, right up until there's no one left to bother trying for. And until, for the first time, Christmas is not about what Maverick doesn't have, not this time- for once, it's about something he's getting back, and it might just be enough to make up for every shitty Christmas he's ever had.
Or, five Christmases of Maverick's that are defined by what he has lost, and one that is all about what he's finally, at long last, gained. -
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we have mostly wasted time / half-asleep and half-alive / waiting for the faintest lie / and waiting for these wounds to heal
but we're never as lost or as found as we think we are
this is the classic, the saga: the drawn-out story of Maverick and Bradley and the family that they built and lost, and how they came to reconcile with each other in the end. heart, fluff, and angst in the beginning, plenty of anger and bitterness in the middle, and just enough self-indulgent hope and comfort at the end to (hopefully) make it up to you. told in chronological snapshots & eventually a few consecutive ending chapters. complete; now with an epilogue! this fic is the main, branching work of its series, though chronologically, it is not necessarily the beginning.Series
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Maverick taught him how to build a fire when he was eight years old.
Now watch what happens, kiddo, he’d said, and Bradley had, attention rapt and gaze unwavering. The orange-yellow flame had started small and wavering, but it had touched the edge of a crumpled sheet from The San Diego Union-Tribune and the ink and paper had melted into a shrinking, retreating ring of ash and char, and it had sprung to life just like that- strong and hot and ever-growing.
That’s why you never, ever play with matches, sweetheart, Maverick’s voice in his memories still warns him, but he remembers it- and he thinks about how unfair it is, that Maverick turned on his word. That Maverick came to play with matches. By extension, Maverick teaches Bradley how to really build a fire, an inferno, when he is eighteen years old.
He doesn't learn how to let it go, how to want to let it go, until fifteen years later, when everyone else is letting go around him. -
all this effort to make it look effortless. by actuallyitsstar
Fandoms: WKRP in Cincinnati
19 Jun 2023
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Jennifer's eyes are on his face. "Would you ever just disappear, and leave Bunny and little Herb alone with their mother for days on end?"
Herb presses his lips together, a rueful expression settling over his tired features. "Months," he corrects her softly, "and no." He still looks steadfastly away.
"Then you deserved better too." Jennifer never thought she'd say such a thing to Herb Tarlek, but she also never thought she'd find out a single human thing about him. A lot can change in an evening.
During the historic blizzard of 1978, the WKRP family gets snowed in at the station. It's not exactly what anyone wanted for their Wednesday night, but they're all prepared to make the best of it- except for Herb. Something's going on with their sales manager, something more than usual, and it's up to the station family to figure out what. Complete. -
to find what none could sell you. by actuallyitsstar
Fandoms: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
16 Nov 2019
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there was a morning when chris larabee's entire world fell apart, and he didn't have enough pieces left anymore to rebuild it. he's a regular customer at his local corner drugstore, the sole market investor of jack daniels whiskey in the large bottle, and a well-known fixture of the store's commerce. it's funny how much people who don't really know you might think about you, might care about you- and it's funny how one small change can lead to a whole new life you never saw coming. it is to everyone's great excitement when they can see the new pieces chris has acquired- when they can see the the world that he's rebuilt.
(as chris builds team seven, his life changes for the better; this story is told from the perspective of a cashier at the store).
Recent series
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the years pass like a ferris wheel (in the rearview mirror) by actuallyitsstar
Fandom Top Gun (Movies)
23 Dec 2023
Summary
(everything is clear in the rearview mirror, the coast highway and the golden hour
everything fits when you tell your story, the blurry portraits in the halls of former loves gone
but nothing was lost)
Maverick doesn’t have a home, never has, never planned to, but he has people that feel like it. Assembling a family like mismatched puzzle-pieces snapping together comes unnaturally to a boy who'd bounced throughout foster care and early adulthood like some unwanted stray, but they fit together anyway, and as quickly as he learns to hold them together, he learns what happens when they are ripped apart. Even in loss, there is solace, though; there are memories and polaroids and the grace that Maverick carries those things with, forever and always. There is a photo collage, like a constellation of love on the wall, and everything that it implies- the reminder that families, by nature, are strong, and hard to break; and that the ones Maverick is dedicated to keeping are somehow even stronger.~welcome to star's silly lil top gun cinematic universe, branching out from time takes no prisoners (you'll see) to share everyone's stories 💗~
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Hank was sad to see Connor move out of his home and into an apartment with his girlfriend, but they had four years together. And besides, Connor insists that he'll visit all the time.
He never does, and when he starts acting strangely, Hank takes it upon himself to try and figure out what's going on. But maybe he's imagining things - after all, Connor says that he's fine, and Wendy seems nice enough...
Something in his gut tells him to not let it go, and he didn't become the youngest Lieutenant in Detroit history by ignoring his gut instinct.
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Prompt: Treasure
Series
- Part 11 of Promptober 2020
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“You need to leave Detroit,” Connor says, at the same time as Hank says, “You need to get to Canada.”
Grappling to understand his new emotions, a freshly-deviant Connor defaults to the instruction that has always made sense to him. Hank, it seems, has a similar idea.
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New Brother by Kale (PechoraFlow), PechoraFlow
Fandoms: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
15 Dec 2020
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When Gavin and Connor are kidnapped by a new drug ring and taken to the middle of nowhere in Michigan winter, Gavin finds himself having to rely on Connor.
Gavin isn't happy about it, but they're in it together. They'll get out of this together.
Connor has different priorities.
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Prompt: Bruises
Series
- Part 16 of Promptober 2020
- Part 2 of The Gavin Reed Redemption Project
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But I guess that's love (I can't pretend) by 99MillionMiles
Fandoms: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
05 Jun 2021
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“I'd like to inform you that, according to our instructions, we'll start tomorrow at 9 a.m. I suggest we put up a more...united front, or else I suspect we won't appear very believable as a couple."
Inexplicably, Gavin smirked at that.
"Trust me, Barbie", he nodded, "we will."
Or: the Gavin/Connor undercover fic nobody asked for! -
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Summary
“Lieutenant?” Connor asks. His voice, at least, sounds closer to normal. Subdued, sure, but nothing like I’m okay or I felt it die.
“You look like shit,” Hank repeats. Because it’s easier than trying to address the obvious trauma the deviant-hunting android beside him is trying to process.
Connor is traumatized by the death of Simon at the Tower. And, Hank? Hank has a long-overdue epiphany.