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Phoebe may be older, but she’s the younger sibling. Dani forgets this, just as she forgets that she’s younger than Phoebe but the older sibling at home. Sometimes it drips from their mannerisms, though.
Like right now as Dani struggles through a Sonic level, trying to keep her cool but shouting, “Fucking fuck on a boat,” when she makes the poor hedgehog crash into a wall for the eighth time.
It’s not the game Dani is best at, that’s for sure. But sometimes Phoebe doesn’t want to play, sometimes she just wants to watch like she used to do for hours and hours growing up with Martyn. Dani and Adrian have a bit too big of an age gap for that to have been their norm— by the time Adrian even showed interest in video games he didn’t want to play anything “girly” that Dani played. And since Dani played pretty much everything, the closest she’s been able to peg as “girly” games is “story-based” which, to be fair, isn’t exactly what Sonic could be considered.
So she’s struggling to get past this level. The frustration isn’t helping. She’s starting to make dumb mistakes.
“Not like that,” Phoebe says. “Jump… jump!”
“Don’t backseat game,” Dani pouts. Then she dies again.
“You’ve gotta jump twice,” she says. “You keep missing it.”
“Why don’t you show me how?” Dani hands over the controller. “You’re so fucking good at it, why don’t you just take over.”
Phoebe pushes the controller back into Dani’s hand. “Shut up, don’t be like that.” She sits up and nudges Dani’s shoulder. “You can do this, you don’t need me take over. It’s just a game. It’s supposed to be fun.”
Dani rolls her eyes. “It is fun. I’m having fun!” but her pout implies otherwise.
“Try again,” Phoebe insists. “Jump twice.”
Dani tries to shake off her frustration, and her annoyance at Phoebe’s ability to embody both younger sibling and older girlfriend energy. She takes a deep breath. She remembers to jump twice. She still dies, but this time is much further along in the level and Phoebe cheers her on.