#the last of august: i had a good time but it made no sense<3 i was just there for charlotte and jamie and i can't complain!

[goodlucktai]

the soft animal of your body (1/3)

rise of the tmnt daemon au word count: 4k title borrowed from 'wild geese' by mary oliver

this au is the brainchild of myself and my dearest meeks, @gibbouslunation on ao3, @mykimouser on tumblr. it's inspired by 'his dark materials' but we're playing fast and loose with canon so please dont take it too seriously <3

the daemons so far !

read on ao3

x

“Mikey,” a persistent voice says, “wake up!”

“Mmmmno,” he mumbles, rolling over. “Five more minutes.”

The mattress gives beneath him with a bounce and a furry body wriggles its way close, shoving a wet snout against Mikey’s cheek. He giggles despite himself and tries tugging the blanket over his head, but it’s caught carefully in a set of teeth, and a game of tug-o-war starts immediately. 

“I thought you wanted to make Raphie and Teddy’s favorites for breakfast this morning! If you sleep in there won’t be time!”

With a start, Mikey remembers the significance of the day and shoots upright. A second later, his arms are full of a very enthusiastic Border Collie. Helianthus is always excited to see him in the morning, like she didn’t just see him the night before. She’s always excited to see everyone, and Mikey both understands her and loves her with his whole entire soul. 

He gathers Sunflower’s head in both hands and kisses her firmly between the eyes. She holds as still as a statue until the deed is done and then explodes into action, licking his face like it’s the last thing she’ll ever do, entire body wagging from the force of her happy tail. 

Dodging her affections and untangling himself from the blanket, Mikey manages to climb out of bed. He’d wanted a hammock when he was little, but when Sunny settled, it didn’t make sense to have a bed that was so tricky for her to get into and out of. 

She was the first of all his siblings’ daemons to settle, even April’s. She knows exactly who she is, and always has. 

“Breakfast!” he reminds her.

“Oh, right!” she says, and shoots out of the room like an arrow. 

A startled squawk in the kitchen probably means Donnie and Terror are up already, which probably means they pulled an all-nighter. And if they’re awake, their twins definitely are.

Leo’s relationship with sleep is hot and cold on a good day, but there isn’t a force on earth that could persuade him to lay around in bed while his counterparts were getting into trouble somewhere without him. 

Sure enough, Mikey rounds the corner to find the four of them clustered around the kitchen table. Lucky perks up when she sees Mikey, and waves with one of her tiny paws, and he takes that as full permission to swoop in and steal her from Leo. 

Leo smiles into his coffee mug and lets his little daemon be the one who says, “Good morning, Angie!”

She rubs her face against Mikey’s cheek, as outwardly affectionate and sweet as Leo likes to pretend he isn’t. 

“Good morning, Lucky girl,” Mikey tells her, giving the ringtail an extra squeeze before letting her climb nimbly up his shoulder and perch on the lip of his carapace. 

With his daemon already smothered in love, Leo leans into Mikey’s hug immediately, none of that new reluctance they’re all trying to maneuver present in any inch of him. That’s how you game the system. 

(April was surprised by it when they first met. She was nine years old at the time, and absolutely fearless about following her new friends to their subterranean home. She greeted Splinter with the brisk, unbothered attitude of any native New Yorker and was an order of magnitude more impressed by Yumemi, who landed on August’s head in greeting as gently and prettily as a snowflake. 

Mikey had been pretty sure that nothing on earth had the power to surprise this girl. 

But less than an hour into her visit, Terror had gotten into trouble, as usual. She was scampering up the cabinets as a red-knee tarantula, because she’d made a bet with Lucky that she was just as fast climbing as she was flying. But when she was little, Terror tripped over her feet constantly no matter what form she was in, and eight legs was way more than she was used to keeping track of.

A panicked little squeak was their only warning when Terror slipped from the top of the cabinet, and maybe she would have thought to shift in time not to get hurt or maybe she would have kept scrambling to catch herself. It didn’t matter either way, because Raph reached out with both hands and caught her in the cup of them, safe and sound. 

April had sucked in a startled breath, but the twins and their daemons all chorused, “Thanks, Raphie!” as he stood on tiptoe to place Castor carefully back in the spot she’d slipped from. And the spider raced off again, lesson totally unlearned. 

“It’s okay, she won’t fall again,” Mikey had piped up, six years old and completely misunderstanding April’s reaction. “Terror is super clumsy but after their game she’ll probably turn back into something that flies!”

“It’s not that,” April said, looking between Raph and Mikey and Teddy and Sunflower like she had just discovered something besides their green skin and turtle shells that made them very strange to her. “Didn’t it—feel bad? To hold someone else’s daemon?”

She hugged Augustus to her stomach like the thought of anyone getting too close to him was enough to upset her. 

But Raph tilted his head in confusion and Teddy, a fluffy baby cow at the time, tilted hers with him. “It felt the same as holding mine,” he said. 

Any silly scampering part of Donnie was a part of Raph, too. Obviously. 

They hadn’t known it was anything strange growing up, as insular as their family was. Of course, they hadn’t known about their ninpo back then, either—that secret mystical connection they inherited the second Splinter became their father, that tied them all together, that made their souls neighbors to each other. 

And only a few years down the road, on a random summer afternoon in a busy comic book convention hall, when the big crowds were causing Teddy to shrink into a miserable little ball on Raph’s shoulder, April would say, “Come here, baby.” 

She wouldn’t overthink it or second-guess herself when Theodora crawled into her arms, even though a random kid in the crowd who clocked the exchange would do a comical double take. She would just scoop her little sister up and make her feel safe, like it was the simplest thing in the world. Because by then, April would be Hamato, too.)

While Leo’s occupied, Terror hops across the table and dips her beak into his cup. He clocks it and sighs deeply but doesn’t wave her away. 

Terror can get away with most things by virtue of being able to out-talk literally anyone, or by simply flying around like a maniac until her siblings get tired of trying to scold her and move onto damage control instead. 

“It’s not my fault your coffee tastes better,” she complains, feathers ruffled. “Donnie’s still trying to pretend like he likes to drink his black, and it’s gross!”

Sunflower laughs out loud, then tries to pretend like she didn’t. Donnie’s head snaps up from where he had it buried in his phone, an expression of theatrical betrayal painted across his face. 

“Castor!”

“Buy my silence! Use some syrup and creamer!” the hooded crow screeches back. 

Leo is giggling too, slumping down in his chair so he won’t be Donnie’s next target, and Pollux springs from Mikey’s shell on his way past the table to rejoin her person. She has her own little cup of coffee but she dips her weasel-like snout into Leo’s instead, because whatever Terror does, Lucky wants to do. 

“Good morning, Michelangelo,” a melodious voice greets him as he ties his apron on. 

Mikey beams at the little moth perched on the upright handle of a wooden spoon and says, “‘Morning, Emi. Did either of those bozos make you tea yet?”

The moth hums, an amused, affectionate sound. “Yes, my dear. They’ve been awake for an unfortunately long time already.”

“Ugh, that’s what I was afraid of,” Mikey grumbles, but his heart isn’t really in it. There’s no sunlight in the lair, but the company of his dad’s daemon is warm and bright all on its own. 

Yumemi is all the parts of Yoshi he doesn’t know how to express. Even back when his bad days could turn into bad weeks and he couldn’t muster the strength to get out of bed, his children never had the opportunity to question his love.

Not when Yumemi remembered all of their favorite things, and oversaw meals with watchful eyes to make sure everyone was eating their vegetables, and woke them from bad dreams with lullaby soft Japanese that needed no translation. 

Of course dad loved them. His soul was proof. She told them every day. 

Since he’d prepared the batter the night before, Mikey makes a decent headway on breakfast and has a tall stack of thin, flaky crêpes to show for it by the time Raph and Theodora wander in. 

They look surprised and then pleased to see everybody waiting for them, smiling at the lively chorus of “good morning”s and “happy birthday”s they’re accosted with right out of the gate. Terror is quick to flap around them at speed, talking a mile a minute, and it detracts from the weird bit of tension between Raph and Leo that still exists in the margins. 

Lucky quivers eagerly where she’s perched at the corner of the table, uncertain of her welcome and waiting on a cue. But the second Raph puts his hands out for her, she’s leaping into them. 

“Happy birthday Raphie, Teddy! We picked out the best best best presents for you!”

“We helped!” Terror interjects, incapable of being sidelined, or silent for longer than thirty seconds. “It was a team effort!”

“With all four of your heads together, I bet it’ll blow us away,” Raph says, gentle in that particular way he saves just for little siblings. 

To his credit, he doesn’t hesitate at all to pull Leo into a sidelong hug at the same time as he does Donnie in the opposite arm, and Leo sinks into it readily. Things have been a little weird and different, but not necessarily bad. 

When you can hold each other’s hearts in your hands on the regular, it’s hard to miss how loved you are. 

(About a week after Splinter’s abrupt announcement two years ago, shifting the leadership mantle from Raph, who had always held it, to Leo, who had never given indication he even wanted it, things were tense, to say the very least. 

Yumemi was downright chilly with her other half in a way Mikey hadn’t witnessed since the disastrous flu incident when they were kids, that time Donnie’s fever had to officially break 101° before Splinter could be convinced that Something Was Wrong.  

And unfortunately for dad, Leo had decided he was fully not on board with the decision, being his most contrary, uncooperative self at every turn. You have never seen malicious compliance until you’ve seen Leonardo with a point to prove. 

It all came to a head in a big blowout argument that really everyone should have seen coming. 

Looking back, Mikey doesn’t remember what started the fight, but it had been festering for days. Raphael was frustrated and his feelings were hurt. He’s been replaced out of nowhere, and his replacement didn’t seem to care about the job one way or another. 

And to make matters worse, Leo almost seemed to be baiting him. He had his arms folded and his hip propped in the doorway, a mean little smile on his face that Mikey almost didn’t recognize—he had never, ever seen Leo smile like that at Raph before. 

“Can’t you take something seriously for once in your life?” Raph said, fists clenched at his sides. “This is important and you’re acting like you don’t even care.”

“I think it’s safe to say you care enough for both of us,” Leo replied blithely, unmoved. 

Mikey felt a sharp spike of worry from Sunflower, who was reading all the high emotions in the room like a book. Teddy was still trying to mediate, but her soft voice got shouted over. 

“What if you goof off and one of your siblings gets hurt, huh?” Raph yelled, at his limit. “What if somebody gets killed cause you couldn’t bother to just grow up!”

Leo’s expression didn’t change at all, every inch the irreverent, unbothered teenager fully prepared to breeze past everything his big brother had to throw at him. 

But Lucky burst into tears. 

It drew everyone up short. The entire room just froze, like someone took an ill-timed screenshot. The only sound was Lucky crying, and then the scrabble of nails on concrete as Sunny raced across the room at top speed to comfort her, and Terror clicking her beat anxiously, all puffed up to twice her size. 

Raph looked like someone punched him in the stomach. Leo didn’t look at anyone at all. At least his mean little smile was gone. 

“Okay, boys and girls,” Yumemi said suddenly, startling them all out of the tense tableau. She was perched on the back of a kitchen chair, having observed the argument for who knew how long. Long enough, probably. “Family room, now.”

She was using the no-nonsense mom voice that got everyone moving. Seemingly between one blink and the next Mikey found himself on the sofa, Sunflower pressed into his side and panting anxiously. 

“I won’t pretend not to know what this is about,” the moth says. “Yoshi has certainly spent the last few days hoping it would resolve itself before intervention was necessary, but that clearly isn’t the case, and I’ve let this go on for too long.”

She wasn’t scolding them. She had a soft spot for her turtles and their daemons that was a mile wide on all sides. But she clearly expected to resolve this issue right then and there and wouldn’t tolerate the usual time-wasting tactics. 

Beating everyone to the punch, Terror bated her wings and blurted, “They don’t want to be the leaders, duh.”

After a beat of silence that felt extremely loud, Donnie added, “I would have thought that was obvious.”

Raph seemed shocked and Mikey felt that way too. Their whole lives together were a multi-part series of Leo stepping up and smoothing things over when they got out of hand, convincing his brothers to wait half a second instead of diving right in, scheming a way to get them out of trouble—or into trouble, as the situation called for it. He always seemed to live for it when a plan went off without a hitch. 

Mikey had never thought about it before, but now that it was laid out in front of him, it was weird. You’d think Leo would jump at the chance to lead. 

“It’s not really my bag,” Leo said instead. He had a hand on Pollux, almost hiding her completely. “All that extra work and responsibility, and not even a decent pay raise? No thanks. Besides, Raph does a great job. Why fix what isn’t broken?”

He refused to bend, sticking to his story. Knowing she was the weaker link, Lucky pressed her face into his plastron and wouldn’t answer any direct questions. Raphael looked like he was afraid to even breathe too loudly in their direction after making his littlest sister cry, and nodded rapidly when Yumemi asked if he was alright with things going back to the way they used to be. 

“Yeah. Of course. Whatever—whatever’s best.”

The moth sighed, but not at any of them. 

“Very well. I will speak with your father. He was wrong to handle this the way he did. Any future changes will be discussed beforehand, as a family. As for right now, Raphael is the eldest and he will continue to lead you.” 

Leo was out of his chair and out of the room so fast that Mikey wasn’t entirely sure he didn’t teleport. Donnie followed right behind him, their regular roles flipped. Raph didn’t move at all, hands squished between his own knees as if he didn’t trust them. 

Teddy was talking to him in her gentle voice. It was always so obvious to everyone who knew him why Raph’s soul took the shape it did, this soft thing that carried around a love so big it was better suited to someone ten times her size. 

Mikey couldn’t hear what Teddy was saying, but it wasn’t for him to hear in the first place. He couldn’t bear to leave his big brother like this, but he couldn’t bear to leave another brother hurting out of sight either.

Their bond pulsing both ways with white-hot worry and impatient, leaping love, Mikey could tell when Sunflower absolutely couldn’t wait another second. She hopped off the couch and circled around to where Raph was sitting and laid her head on his knee. 

It was delayed, but still a knee-jerk reaction for their biggest brother to give her the attention she was begging for. After a few minutes of petting her soft glossy fur, it was Raphie’s turn to cry. 

Lingering, still not entirely willing to leave them and feeling torn in two about it, Mikey looked at Yumemi. The moth waved her antennae at him gently, an unspoken assurance that she would stay and make things right. 

So Mikey left his heart behind to work her magic, and followed the twins from the room to work some magic of his own. If he could wheedle at least one smile out of each of them by dinner, he would call it a win. 

That evening, when everyone had been dragged to the table not quite kicking and screaming but close to it, Splinter stood up awkwardly and apologized to the far wall for how he had handled the situation. From his expression, Mikey wouldn’t have been that surprised to find someone holding a gun to his head. 

“The important thing is that you are a team,” Splinter went on, the formal stiffness fading from his tone and something more natural, more rueful and affectionate, replacing it. “You have always been a team, and a very good one at that.” 

Yumemi fluttered from the table to his hand, wings opening and closing slowly in approval. Splinter took strength from her, and added, “It does not matter who leads and who follows, as long as you remain on each other’s side.”

Leo darted a quick, sidelong look at Raph, who met his gaze hopefully. Some line of tension in Leo’s shoulders went slack and he said, “Where else would we be?” and smiled as easily as if the last handful of hours had happened to somebody else. 

Forever the more honest of the two, Lucky crept across the table inch by inch until Teddy could draw her into a tight hug that lasted well into dessert.)

Now Sunflower hops down from her padded bench and scrabbles like crazy around the counter for Raph’s attention. She’s such a good girl for waiting when all she ever wants to do all the time is run right to the people she loves as soon as she sees them. 

Raph scoops her up as easily as April can scoop up August, a full size Border Collie dwarfed in his big arms. She shrieks gleefully and bellows “Happy birthday!” loud enough for all of Manhattan to hear. Mikey smiles as if her joy is his own and carefully flips the next crêpe. 

“What do you want to do after the party tonight?” Donnie asks, setting his phone down. “The world is your oyster, Raphala.”

“But no patrol,” Terror pipes up. “It’s an important holiday.”

“It is an important holiday,” Sunflower agrees, tilting her head to the side so deeply that her floppy ear matches the upstanding one. “So are we going to the arcade? The movies? The park? New Jersey??”

“Hey, watch your language,” Leo says faux-sternly, causing her to yip with laughter. 

“I was thinking ninja tag,” Raph says. He crosses the room to Mikey as he speaks, and wraps both arms around him from behind to lift him off his feet in a big bear hug, spatula and skillet still in hand. Mikey giggles and holds breakfast as steady as he can. “We haven’t done that in ages,” Raphael adds. 

It’s an activity that rides the thin line between training and play, but if that’s what Raphie wants to do on his birthday, then that’s what they’re doing. Leo falls in line now as agreeably as he did two years ago—maybe even moreso. There’s some whining and complaining when the situation calls for it, but no more than any of the others are prone to; average annoying little sibling stuff because it’s good for Raph’s constitution. 

Mikey thinks the biggest difference is that Leo doesn’t really suggest his own ideas anymore. He doesn’t test Raphael’s authority the way he used to, even when sometimes they could really use his voice of reason or his lateral thinking. He so adamantly does not want to lead them, for whatever reason, that he won’t do anything that might give someone the right idea he’s leadership material. 

It’s something Mikey desperately wants to bring up, but every time he starts to, he can’t help but remember that uncomfortable family meeting and at that point his courage always deserts him. 

The last thing he wants is for Lucky, that easily hurt part of Leon’s heart that walks around unguarded outside his body, to feel small or sad because of something Mikey said. He doesn’t know if he’d ever recover from that. He doesn’t know how Raph did it. 

Two years ago, Leo would have thrown up his hands and said something like, “Ninja tag? For your eighteenth birthday? Come on Raph-a-doodle, think big! We’re hitting the Cheesecake Factory and then your favorite karaoke club. We can play ninja on the way home, how about that?”

Today, Leo stretches his arms above his head and then folds them, leaning back in his seat and telling Raph in his good-natured teasing kind of way, “Whatever you say, big guy. But don’t think I’m gonna let you win just ‘cause it’s your day.” 

It’s a change you have to squint to see. But Sunflower told Mikey in a whisper one night that she missed how playful Pollux used to be. She missed the little ringtail who used to want to be everyone’s friend and solve everyone’s problems, who used to run around in circles trying to be helpful and good, never worrying about making herself a nuisance because she knew better than to think her family would love her any less for it. 

“Maybe she’s just growing up,” Mikey had whispered back, stroking Sunny’s soft ears and ignoring the uncomfortable feeling in his stomach his own words put there. 

“Maybe,” Sunflower said, but she didn’t sound very sure either. 

[starsandhughes]

Penalty Box Series— Shoulder Check Showcase Edition

photo credits via instagram by _msfilms, henchcliffe_media, and greghorowitzphoto! all accounts are public dw! look at the tagged photos of the shoulder check on insta for more pics and the videos i took screenshots of!

22-23 Season & Summer Masterlist

p.s. kreider is in this bc it makes sense… sue me. tw to non rangers fans on him ig??

this is a long one to make up for all my short ones recently <3 (lie i just couldn’t shut up)

yourusername

liked by trevorzegras, shattdeuces, and 11,469 others

yourusername “the shoulder signifies something very important. it’s a commitment to reaching out, checking in, making sure everybody is okay. it’s a small gesture with a very big impact— the impact being that kindness is cool.”

on august 3rd, trevor participated in the shoulder check showcase for the HT40 foundation post being drafted first overall for said showcase!

he was captain of team moulson (the black jerseys!), scored the eighth goal for the team with a pass from my good friend nesty! the fifth slide is his celly where the damn fool kissed his stick. (this was post him failing at the michigan about nine million times) (it’s your signature move, babe. get it together.)

🚨he also committed the only crime of the night!🚨(the refs didn’t penalize him and i’m guessing that was just to keep the fast pace going) (the crowd had other opinions) (so did i) what was the crime? HE TRIPPED CHRIS KREIDER! aka his summer training partner! don’t worry though! he was belittled at dinner with chris and i AND i made him sit in the bathroom for two minutes to account for his crimes<3

sorry you lost in a shootout, my love! but you missed two shootout goals so this is all your fault, captain!

thank you, father zegras, for being a founding board members for the HT40 foundation and being a huge part in this cause. as someone who has struggled in the past, the work that this foundation does really means a lot to me.

p.s. i loved seeing shatty/mom, nesty, sonny, and spencer! i’ve missed you guys! mwah!

remember besties: reach out, check in, and make contact. because kindness is a contact sport🩵

tagged trevorzegras and theshouldercheck

view all 433 comments

trevorzegras i’m so proud of you for all that you’ve overcome❤️ i love you, forever

yourusername i love you, always, z-baby❤️ (except when you make me cry like rn ihy)

trevorzegras i’m not taking it back! p.s. tackling me for a hug is not what was meant!

yourusername kindness is a contact sport and i chose football <3

trevorzegras can’t you choose any other sport?

yourusername i could choose water polo and drown you out of love

trevorzegras football it is!

yourusername kisses can be my field goals!

trevorzegras what about your two point conversions?

yourusername foreplay!

jamie.drysdale @/yourusername @/trevorzegras don’t play football in front of me

_quinnhughes @/yourusername @/trevorzegras i don’t think you two gave water polo enough thought

user42 he really tripped that old man… so trevor zegras of him

_quinnhughes you forgot to mention that when he called me to have you let him out you turned his penalty into a five minute major

yourusername two minutes for snitching->📦

_quinnhughes you’re in stamford?

yourusername update: i facetimed quinn and screamed until he sat in the bathroom

trevorzegras update: i’m giving her a penalty for screaming

yourusername update: trevor has a penalty for attempting to give me a penalty

trevorzegras update: kisses got me out early

_quinnhughes update: i hate you both

yourusername update: quinn has a double minor

yourusername update: jacky boy has two minutes just because

jackhughes update: i’m looking for a new soulmate

user6 the fact that if the refs were calling penalties z wouldn’t been starting the season with -1 games since his last penalty 😭

jackhughes strongest girl i know alert!

yourusername pls don’t make me emotional online i have a reputation to uphold mr. “heart not boobs”

lhughes_06 @/yourusername accept that you’re basically wonder woman

yourusername @/lhughes_06 accept that miley cyrus’s song wonder woman makes that comment 1000x more emo for me

jackhughes @/yourusername accept that you’re loved (despite the speech comment)

lhughes_06 @/yourusername very loved

_quinnhughes @/yourusername extremely loved

yourusername @/jackhughes @/lhughes_06 @_quinnhughes i love you all too! now stop before i sob!

user17 tell trevor thank you for signing my brother’s forehead! he was so happy!

chriskreider19 thanks for having z pay for his crimes against me!

yourusername ur so welcome thank you for feeding us occasionally!

trevorzegras please don’t thank her this has now become a common thing

yourusername @/trevorzegras mwah!

shattdeuces i’ve missed you, daughter! i’ll miss your post roadies gift bags next season!

yourusername you’ll get one when you play the ducks next season! i’ll start fires to give it to you if i have to!

shattdeuces just don’t get caught!

yourusername i never do! i’m a stealthy ninja

trevorzegras @/yourusername i’ve been catching you from falling since we were sixteen i’m not sure that qualifies as “stealthy”

yourusername @/trevorzegras that’s all part of my elaborate plan to never be caught when it’s important. no one will see it coming. my clumsiness is an act.

jackhughes @/yourusername an act that started at five years old?

yourusername @/jackhughes yes!

user4 announcers before the game started: we might see trevor do the michigan in person tonight! trevor: *attempts and fails 3 times*

_alexturcotte yeah babe! it’s your signature move! get it together! @/trevorzegras

trevorzegras don’t tell me what to do

yourusername @/trevorzegras get it together!

trevorzegras @/yourusername …yes dear

_alexturcotte @/trevorzegras I’VE KNOWN YOU LONGER DO I MEAN NOTHING TO YOU?!

yourusername @_alexturcotte jealousy isn’t a good color on you

trevorzegras @_alexturcotte ily babe

_alexturcotte @/trevorzegras ilym babe

yourusername @/trevorzegras ten minute major for infidelity!

trevorzegras @/yourusername worth it

user66 I CAN HEAR THE FIRST PICTURE 😭

jamie.drysdale i fully expect to be tackled next time i see you ms. “i choose football”

yourusername trevor will want to ask us to get a room because I MISS YOU SO BAD JAMIE BABY

trevorzegras @/yourusername what do you plan to do?!?!

jamie.drysdale I MISS YOU TOO

yourusername I LOVE YOU WITH MY WHOLE BUTT

jamie.drysdale I LOVE YOU TOO YOU WEIRDO

trevorzegras @/yourusername WHAT DO YOU PLAN TO DO?!?!?!

yourusername @/trevorzegras commit infidelity

trevorzegras @/yourusername ten minute misconduct

yourusername @/trevorzegras worth it

jamie.drysdale @/trevorzegras technically she was my wife first

trevorzegras @/jamie.drysdale ejected from the game

yourusername @/trevorzegras hold up you can commit infidelity and i can’t?!

trevorzegras @/yourusername correct

yourusername @/trevorzegras misogyny at its finest. you’re kicked out of our mojo dojo casa house.

jamie.drysdale @/trevorzegras ejected? nah. evicted.

trevorzegras update: i’m now homeless

_quinnhughes @/trevorzegras you’re not living with me this time

user97 this game just made me miss hockey more

slknight35 you wouldn’t ever give me a penalty right?

yourusername never. you and coley can do no wrong ever. and if you do, i’ll cover it up or take the fall. i’ll kill for you. i’ll sell trevor. i love you.

slknight35 i forgot that you’re so violently endearing😂 i love you too

jackhughes @/slknight35 she’s gotten worse since high school

colecaufield @/yourusername i love you best friend number two!

slknight35 @/jackhughes that’s terrifying

yourusername @/slkight35 yes i am <3

yourusername @/colecaufield I AIN’T GONNA EVER STOP LOVING YOU B(est) (fr)I(end) (number) T(wo) CH

colecaufield @/yourusername you ain’t slick

jackhughes @/yourusername but you are cringe

yourusername @/jackhughes bitch <3

yourusername in hopes that this comes up as a top comment for someone: you are all so loved. every single one of you. thank you for all the support that you give me, the boys, and to all the other teams, players, and their families that you share your love to. check in on your friends. even the ones that always seem to be the happiest person around. spread love, spread hope, and spread kindness🩵 mwah!

[imisscherryboy-blog]

running back 2 u

enemies to lovers - football player! ajax x sports med! gn reader

part 1 part 3

spotify playlist (it’s good i swear)

3k words…………….💀

story: you and ajax have known each other since elementary school. those years haven't been always the best, as you both parted ways due to your differences in personality. that is, until one hot august night, where the stadium lights illuminate the turf, you find yourself running back to him again.

notes: !mature themes! (no smut) enemies to lovers, modern au, gender neutral reader, childe is referred to as ajax, last name tartaglia, american football, all characters are 18+ as seniors, highschool setting, part 2/3, gn reader, ajax is bi (since it’s gn), alhaitham and kaveh are gay, tbh kaveh kinda ooc imo, ajax is a bad boy ⛓️🥀 california coded

side characters featured: kaveh, alhaitham (alhaitham x kaveh), mona, albedo

warnings: mature themes, themes of sexual harassment (not described), reader almost gets kidnapped, drugs, alcohol, smoking, swearing, reader tells childe to kys (satire we in love w him)

★ part 2 of an ongoing series ★

ajax and his mom’s car drove further and further from the empty school. it was 11pm now, and you made your way back to the field to help clean up. the walk to the football field among the poorly lit school lights filled you with a sense of nostalgia—akin to how you first felt when you met ajax. you were snapped out of your thoughts as you saw kaveh jogging toward you.

“hey—you okay? what took so long?”

“oh boy.” this was gonna be a long night.

you drove kaveh and yourself to a nearby denny’s to debrief. you ordered pancakes and kaveh ordered probably the most, intricate, dish on the menu. over sharing food, you two both explained what happened while separated. you went first in retelling the events of taping him up to meeting his mom.

“he’s definitely not over you.” kaveh said taking a sip of his hot chocolate.

“dude, i feel like that’s such a mom thing to say though.” you argued.

“oh yeah my son talks about you 24/7 even though you haven’t talked in years!! let’s be serious y/n.” kaveh always knew had to make you laugh.

“i’ll think about it… but i wanna know what happened with you and alhaitham.” you tried to move the conversation away from yourself.

“you will never in a million years guess what happened.” kaveh said, loudly whispering.

“okay, so i won’t guess. what happened?”

“he gave me his number.” he said as his hands flew up to his face. “i’m still in shock.”

“oh my god.” you said, almost in disbelief.

“and that’s not all.. he invited me.. to a party. his party.” at this point, kaveh was practically standing up.

“don’t even lie..” you said.

“oh i’m not lying.” he took out his phone and showed an imessage thread of alhaitham sending kaveh a date and time, along with an address. your hands covered your mouth. he was serious. “and you’re coming with me.”

“yeah right.”

“oh, you’ll be there alright.”

you were there alright. the two of you stood outside the large house, viewing the students and strangers scattered across the lawn. it had been two weeks since the incident with ajax. not a word had been exchanged since then. but you cared more about kaveh, who has always been there for you, than some now stranger that presumably hates you. so you decided to accompany him. ajax and alhaitham were close, so you knew damn well you’d be in for a long night.

“well.. my future boyfriend is waiting inside. let’s go.” kaveh said as you both walked inside. it was a big house to say the least. alhaitham’s parents were some high ranking officials for the state school board, so they had money—and the ability to pull strings at any school they pleased.

“these high ceilings… and oh my god these exposed beams..” kaveh started to ramble on about the architecture of the house. he was into that stuff. you just nodded your head and pretended like you understood. you two walked to the drink table, and you both took a shot of pink whitney (it was disgusting) and a hard seltzer as a chaser.

“’m glad you guys made it.” an unfamiliar voice could be heard behind the two of you before you turned around. it was alhaitham.

“hi alhaitham!” kaveh sounded a little too happy. you also said hi and let the two of them go. you didn’t want to third wheel so you talked to some friends that were also at the party.

you couldn’t find ajax, though.

you hated that he was the first person you wanted to look for in this crowded room.

you figured he was off with someone, but nonetheless continued to keep and eye out for him, to steer clear of him, of course.

“and i just knew off the bat he was a scorpio.” your friend in your government class, mona, said as she took a sip of her drink.

“you’re so talented.” another friend of your’s, albedo added.

“if he was a cancer, it’d be a whole other story. everyone likes cancers..” she trailed off.

ajax was a cancer.

“hey y/n, let’s go take another shot.” mona suggested. “you down?”

“sure.” you figured saying no would leave you alone. albedo followed the two of you. after a couple of shots, mona kept talking.

“weren’t you the one that went with ajax after his last game?” mona’s question snapped you out of your daze.

“oh, yeah. that was me.” you explained.

“you didn’t hear it from me, but ajax’s fan club kinda hates you now..” well that was great. you didn’t even do anything.

“oh for real?”

“mhm, i even heard you two go way back.” albedo added. how would anyone know that..? let alone care that much? you thought to yourself.

“who’d you hear it from?” you asked.

“i heard two girls talking about it in econ.” albedo nonchalantly said.

“oh.”

in that moment, you felt a pair of eyes staring at you. you looked to the right of albedo’s head and saw ajax leaning against the wall, beside another guy. the guy was looking at him and talking, but it seemed like the only thing he was focused on was you. he took a sip from his red solo cup as you both held contact for maybe a second, before he looked away. it seemed he was already staring at you.

“y/n?” mona said.

“oh, sorry. why don’t we take another shot?” you suggested. something in you wanted to forget about him for a little bit to relieve yourself of the jealousy you felt. you knew that guy was his next victim, and it made you upset that that’s the person he’s become.

you, albedo, and mona took more shots after that. mona was gone by that point, and you were pretty sure you were drunk. luckily for you, you weren’t too much of a talker when you got drunk, you just felt dizzy and tired.

“i think we should go, mona. you need to sleep.” albedo said as he ushered a tipsy mona out of the door. you said your byes and stood at the steps of the house, watching them leave. you shouted a small “text me when you’re home” to which albedo nodded. you checked your phone for the time. it was 11pm now. you figured you should go find kaveh.

you walked along the twisty halls of alhaitham’s house. it felt like everything was spinning. you just wanted to sleep. you couldn’t go home unless you found kaveh. you didn’t want to leave him, and he’d understand if you wanted to go home. you recalled you didn’t see ajax after only seeing him for a second. maybe it was just the alcohol talking, but you felt as if you were being watched. you didn’t know by who, though.

you ended up in the living room again. you sat down on the large couch next to a couple making out, keeping your distance. you put your hands on your face, rubbing your eyes and trying to stay awake. you kept telling yourself that you needed to find kaveh, but every passing second made you feel more and more tired. a short nap wouldn’t hurt, right?

and just like that, you fell asleep on the end of the couch. you would admit it’d be kinda embarrassing to fall asleep at a party like a little kid, but you couldn’t help it. you were in a daze, half asleep and half awake. you could still hear the loud music, but your body was asleep. you saw two blurry figures in front of you.

“let’s take them …”

“my house? …”

“let’s go …”

what we’re they talking about? maybe they were talking to each other. why were they looking at you though? all of a sudden, you felt yourself being lifted up by the two guys. you honestly thought it was kaveh trying to get you back home, but he wasn’t that big. you felt yourself leaning against one of the guy’s arms, as the other one held you up. you felt yourself heading for the door before another guy stopped you.

“fuck are you guys doing?” a familiar voice said.

“oh—they’re our friend. they had a little too much to drink.” the two guys laughed. that was when you realized those two men were indeed not your friends but probably two low lifes trying to take advantage of you.

“y/n you know these guys?” the voice asked you. you nodded your head ‘no’ in response. you felt yourself being pried off by the person in front of you.

“who do you think you are? huh?” the guy that was trying to kidnap you said loudly. you had a headache now. all you could feel was a warm arm around you, and your head resting on.. ajax?

“who even are you two?” you heard alhaitham’s voice now. when those two guys carried you, they felt way too big to be high schoolers, college students?

“that’s none of your fucking business. get the fuck out of our way.” one of the two guys said. you felt a hand grab for you before ajax pulled you away from them.

“it is my business dipshit, i’m the owner of this house.” alhaitham retorted. by now, there was a small crowd around the five of you.

“alhaitham take y/n upstairs, i’ll deal with them.” ajax said as you felt alhaitham after a couple seconds pick you up with ease. usually, you’d be up and well awake by now, but that pink whitney had you paralyzed. you wanted to just say you could walk, but if you did, you’d probably collapse on the spot. contrary to some beliefs, alhaitham wasn’t a bad guy. kaveh liked him for a reason. he wouldn’t jump from girl to boy like ajax did. he carried you up the stairs and stopped in front of a room, before muttering something to himself.. about kaveh? then walking to another room and placing you on a bed, before immediately leaving, shutting the door behind him. you looked around the room before falling asleep. needless to say, it was a really nice room. it had a balcony and a big tv. it was a good size and the bed was pretty comfortable. there was a sports duffel bag on a chair that had your school’s logo on it. there wasn’t any equipment in it, just clothes. were you in alhaitham’s room? you looked a little closer and saw a hoodie laid out on the edge of the bed. it had your school’s name and the number 11 on it.

number 11?

why would ajax’s hoodie be here?

your headache only got worse, especially after almost getting kidnapped. you could heard the commotion downstairs, most likely ajax trying to get those two college guys out of the party. you slowly drifted to sleep.

after what felt like a couple hours, you woke up. you felt severely hungover but you tried to ignore it. it was still dark outside, and the room was cold. too cold. you picked up your phone that was on the charger and saw the time, 4:00 am. you had a couple of notifications but none of them were from kaveh. wait, you didn’t plug your phone in before going to sleep? who plugged it in?

“sleep well?” a voice could be heard from the balcony. the door was wide open, and you looked over. ajax stood at the door to the balcony with a cigarette in his hand, wearing that same hoodie you saw before going to sleep.

“no—what’re you doing here?” you said as you rubbed your eyes, slowly getting up.

“alhaitham had the bright idea to put you in my room.”

oh.

you were in ajax’s room.

“sorry.” you said. it went quiet for a minute. “you shouldn’t be smoking.” you pointed out.

“it’s either this or the oxycontin they prescribed me.” you’d much rather have him smoking a cigarette then.

you were sitting on up on the bed now. you needed to get kaveh and go home. you still were processing the events from last—a couple hours ago.

“you kept saying my name in your sleep..” ajax said blowing a puff of smoke outside.

there was absolutely no way. you felt your face heating up, were you actually??

“just kidding.” he ghosted the smoke.

“genuinely kill yourself.” why’d you believe him so easily? that would’ve been the worst thing to happen to you that night. after almost getting kidnapped. “where’s kaveh?” you asked.

“he’s out, alhaitham’s room.”

oh my god.

you’d need to debrief again with kaveh later.

“where’s alhaitham’s room? i’m taking him and going home.” you stated as you began to look for your belongings.

“how’re you getting home?” ajax asked.

“uber.” you said.

“like an uber’s gonna accept your ride at four in the morning.”

“you gonna drive me then?”

“if it comes down to it, yeah.” why was he being.. nice?

“you shouldn’t be coming to these kind of things if you leave yourself this vulnerable.” ajax said, taking a drag of his cigarette. “you haven’t changed, y/n.”

“well you sure have.” you said under your breath.

“grow up, y/n. just because you’re stuck in the past doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing that i’ve changed.” he had a point, but you’d never say that. “we’ll never be those kids again.”

you chuckled, “at least i can stick to one person. it doesn’t seem like you’re very good at that.”

“who? you can stick to who?”

you. that’s what you wanted to say. that’s what he wanted to say, too.

“nobody—just tell me where alhaitham’s room is.” you wanted to leave. remember how you thought he was being nice?

“down the hall on your right.” ajax said, walking back to the balcony. it felt like talking to a stranger.

you followed his instructions and arrived at the door. should you knock? or just go in really slowly? you put your ear against the door, trying to listen for any, sounds you wouldn’t exactly want to hear. it sounded quiet. you reached for the door handle and slowly pushed down, but it stopped there. it was locked. you cursed kaveh in your head, once again that night. you heard ajax’s agitating, grating voice down the hall, laughing. you just rolled your eyes and tried texting kaveh.

“y/n, it’s not gonna work. just wait until morning and you guys can uber back together.” he had a point. what was a couple more hours? at least you wouldn’t be leaving kaveh either, but you’d be stuck with ajax. that’s not something you really wanted, but it was for kaveh.

“do you have any food?”

you and ajax ended up in the kitchen, eating cereal. you pushed the cinnamon toast crunch around in your bowl as you sat at the island. ajax was in front of you, pouring himself out more cereal. it was quiet for the most part. one thing about the two of you was that you’d both be too scared to be the first to do anything. but that was a long time ago.

“how’s your knee?” you made some attempt at making conversation.

“recovering. what’s it to you?” of course he just had to say something that would piss you off.

“absolutely nothing.” you responded, taking a bite of the cereal. “did you fight those college guys?”

“oh yeah the ones that tried to abduct you and you just let them?”

that pissed you off. it wasn’t your fault, if anything, it was whoever let them in.

“if you did fight them i hope they beat the shit out of you.”

“maybe you should learn how to be more careful at parties. also another reason why you shouldn’t even be here.” he retorted.

“you’re such a bitch, you know that? i came with kaveh because i’m actually a good friend. it’s not like you ever were.”

“don’t start with that shit y/n.” he looked angry now. “i saved your ass and i don’t even get a thank you?”

“thank you. happy?” ajax’s phone started buzzing, it was closer to you than to him, so you saw the text messages.

myqb😘: kaveh’s w me

myqb😘: you should talk to y/n while you have the chance 🤑

myqb😘: and help me clean my goddamn house

that’s all you saw before he took his phone back. what the fuck was with the emoji? and the name?? ajax texted him and laid his phone screen down now. he didn’t see you reading the messages. you and ajax have argued twice in one night, you started to remember why you two aren’t friends anymore. you put your hands on your head, rubbing your forehead. you felt your headache coming back.

“what’s wrong with you?” his look softened a little when he saw your face.

“nothing. just hungover.” you responded.

“you need painkillers?” it was like he read your mind.

“i’ll take some if you have any.” you admitted.

“i got opioids, cigarettes, and tylenol. your pick.” you couldn’t help but laugh a little.

“tylenol.” you said.

“you sure?” he asked. you nodded your head in response. he went upstairs to go get your pain killers. why was he doing this? his face when he saw you in pain made your heart melt. why did it seem like he still gave a fuck about you? more like you two both gave a fuck about each other. you started thinking. you helped him out, and he’s helping you. your headache only got worse.

-> part 3

tag list - lmk if you would like to be added :)

@zamorazz

[alittlebitofsainz]

a place in this world (carlos’ version)

Chapter 2: Enchanted

an invite to dinner with team 55, a weekend where your driver doesn’t even start the race, a late night hotel room visit to lift both your spirits. life is a rollercoaster, as they say.

pairing: carlos sainz x f!reader, slow burn colleagues to friends to lovers, angst/comfort if you squint

warnings: the usual swearing

a/n: yes I know the sainz family would probably never rent a holiday villa on villaplus dot com, I just needed a quick link to fit the texts in the story

masterlist | chapter 1 | chapter 2 | chapter 3 | chapter 4

13th August, 2020

three days to the Spanish GP

two weeks. that’s how long it had been since carlos sainz had last texted your number. well, one week and six days. not that you were counting, or anything.

you’d seen him in between, of course, for the 70th anniversary grand prix at silverstone, and this weekend for the spanish gp, which had gone markedly better than the two in the uk. he’d scoffed when he’d seen his name in your phone: cs55? is that all I am to you, a pair of initials and a number? it had been playful, of course, but you wondered whether there was a part of him that had been genuinely hurt - you could swear you’d heard it in his voice. but then it was your turn: y/n engineer? what, in case you mix me up with other other y/ns you know? and that was how you’d ended up changing each others contact names (and, of course, carlos had insisted on taking a photo of you to add to your contact details, and you felt obliged to reciprocate, so now you were greeted with his goofy, lop sided smile every time you opened your messages app. a fact you weren’t exactly mad about).

you weren’t exactly mad about the message which confronted you right now, either - surprised, confused and once again intrigued were more appropriate words that sprung to mind. your mind was going into overdrive. dinner? with carlos? like, out in public? surely the rumour mill would go absolutely mental: carlos sainz spotted with mysterious brunette at restaurant in barcelona. but if he seemed to think it was a good idea…

one week and six days, that’s how long it had been since carlos sainz had felt that feeling of relief, of letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, when she texted him back.

as he’d reread his text over and over after sending it, he realised that it very much sounded like he was asking her on a date, god forbid. In reality, he was going out with a group of mates from his team at mclaren, and seeing as she’d mentioned that she’d never been to barcelona before, he’d only wondered if she’d wanted to join them so she could see some of the city. he was starting to wonder whether perhaps he should’ve lead with that fact.

but it hadn’t seemed to have phased her, thank god, although carlos would’ve given a pretty penny to know what was going through her head right now. in fact, he seemed to wish to know what was going on inside her head most days recently, her paradox being that she seemed so straightforward yet complex at the same time. how could a girl who was such an open book still be such a mystery to him?

a group meal. of course. of course! that made so much more sense, a thousand times more sense in fact. why had your mind immediately leapt to some weird, intimate, romantic dinner date with carlos when the obvious explanation was staring you right in the face? do you want to come for dinner with me and the team, seeing as you are in fact part of the team was so much more normal than hey, I’ve known you for five months and I’m a world famous, very wealthy formula one driver, would you, a regular degular race engineer from the south east of england, like to go on a date with me? yeah, no, you’d been a grade a idiot for that one. was there a small part of you that was disappointed? you decided that now was not the time to overanalyse your own feelings; now was the time to find an outfit.

carlos couldn’t hide the grin on his face, all the way to the restaurant. it only started to falter when they arrived bang on 8 o’clock, and then waited, 8:04, and waited, 8:07 and waited, 8:11. it reappeared again when she rounded the corner, slightly flustered and breathless.

“god, I’m so sorry, I got lost.” she apologised with a deep inhale, trying to get her breath back. carlos shook his head and chuckled, the sound low in his throat.

“don’t worry about it. we haven’t been waiting long.” he reassured her. it almost surprised him; usually he would take any opportunity to tease her, especially for being late like she so always was. But there was something about the way her cheeks were flushed that shade of red that gave away that she’d been rushing, and the way her eyes flicked nervously, apologetically, from person to person, that made him feel almost guilty. and when she offered him the warmest, sweetest, most grateful smile he thought he’d ever seen, carlos’ face lit up like a christmas tree.

he pulled her seat out for her when they reached their table, making sure to choose one next to him. an expression crossed her face as she whispered a ‘thank you’ that carlos had never seen before from her - was she nervous? shy? he couldnt put a finger on it. perhaps it was the fact that she didn’t know the rest of the people at the table that well - yes, that must be it. so why, when he knew everyone at this table, and very well he might add, was he feeling the exact same way?

“woah, this place is gorgeous.” 

a marbled kitchen adorned your phone screen, and you swiped to the next photo to see a similarly tiled, much smaller room. wow, even the bathroom was fancy.

“and you go here every year?” you continued, swiping again and again to reveal several photos of the master bedroom, all from different angles. you and carlos had been discussing family holidays whilst you all waited for your plates to be cleared, and he’d decided to show you, rather than tell you, about the holiday villa that he and his family often frequented on the costa blanca.

“not every year. as often as we can get out there, though.”

his breath tickled your neck as he leaned over your shoulder to watch as you continued to flick through the photos, the glistening aquamarine pool so large it took up the whole screen, the pale blue glow reflecting on your face. you both leaned back for a moment to allow the waitress to clear the empty dinner plates, before returning your attention to your phone. there was a loud laugh from down the other end of the table, clearly a hilarious conversation was happening between the rest of the group - you both seemed oblivious to it.

“well, it’s no costa blanca, but we love it there.”

carlos’ eyes crinkled at the edges as he grinned, now swiping through pictures on his phone. he let out a chuckle at her comment, as he swiped to reveal the kitchen, a tiny little alcove with slightly dated wooden cupboards and curtains on the windows that were covered in pictures of farm animals.

“where did you say it was again?” carlos asked, fingers swiping again, this time showing a picture of the dining area. his eyes were focused on the french doors at the back of the room, leading out to a patio and a small garden, but beyond that was absolute nothingness - just trees and open sky as far as the eye could see.

“north yorkshire. it’s like, five hours north of london.” she explained, knowing that london was really the only point of reference carlos had when it came to england. she reached out a finger, swiping on his phone to reveal the next picture.

“and that-“ she pointed to a railway line, a large, old fashioned steam train in the process of chugging up the hill, frozen in time by the image. “- is why we go there.”

“and that’s right outside the cottage?”

“and that’s right outside the cottage.” she repeated back to him, an almost proud smile on her face. it was the little things that made her smile. 

“that’s really cool.” carlos replied, almost surprising himself by how genuinely he meant that. since when had he been impressed by a tiny two bed cottage in the countryside, with nothing around but trees, hills and a steam train? but when her eyes lit up, her face cracking into a grin, he understood what had changed.

“really?” she asked, the same hint of surprise lacing her voice.

“really.” he replied, glancing up to meet her eyes. “I never got to explore much of the english countryside, and now I’m moving to italy I guess I probably won’t be able to.”

“I always saw you as more of a city guy.” she picked up her wine glass by the stem as she spoke, giving it a small swirl before tipping the wine glass back and taking a final sip, finishing the drink. carlos mirrored her, considering his reply.

“I don’t think I could live in the country.” he explained, “but it’s a nice escape from everything.”

“yeah,” she set her wine glass back down, a small, imperceptible sigh escaping her lips, “I know exactly what you mean.”

30th August 2020, Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps

Belgian Grand Prix, DNS

you stared into the mirror on the wall of the bathroom you were getting changed in, and found your scowling face staring back at you. in the past four races, your driver had had rotten luck in three of them, and you could tell how frustrating it was getting for him, and you.

which was why you were surprised when you took out your phone from your pocket and read his message. you were sure he’d leave as soon as he could, which was half the reason you’d disappeared off to the bathrooms to get changed out of your overalls and into a pair of jeans, grand ideas of heading back to the hotel and catching the latest episode of love island going round in your head.

but carlos was staying? you loathed him for it - you now felt you ought to stay too, pulling your top on over your head and combing through your hair in the mirror before grabbing your things and heading out into the corridor. but as you stalked back towards the garage, a thundercloud still hanging fairly low over your head, you realised that you also admired him for it. not everyone would stick around after failing to even start the race. heck, the majority of drivers probably couldn’t be out the door fast enough. but there was something about carlos sainz. 

she was there before he’d even had time to pull out his phone, all fake smiles and an ingenuine spring in her step. faint, fading creases around her eyebrows were the only indicators that she’d ever been frowning, ever let herself be unhappy about the situation, now being replaced with new lines from forcing her lips to curve upwards just like that. how come carlos had only known her, what, five months now, and yet he felt like he knew her so well?

“hey.” he greeted simply as she made her way over to the monitors where carlos was stood, a pair of orange headphones around her neck, the same as he had round his. as she came to stand next to him, he threw an arm round her shoulders, squeezing her into a side hug. was he imagining things, or did she lean oh-so-delicately into his touch? the next moment she was pulling away, looking him square in the eye.

“you okay?” she asked softly.

“not really, you?”

“no, not at all.”

and then they were both smiling, almost laughing, all curved lips and sparkling eyes, nothing fake or ingenuine about their expressions. how did she always manage to do that? turn such a shitty situation on its head, leave carlos smiling when all he wanted to do was crawl into a dark hole and avoid everyone for a very long time? as he looked at her, really looked at her, he was beginning to understand that maybe, just maybe, he had the same effect on her.

you’d used that phrase a few weeks ago, after the second race at silverstone, the second thirteenth place in a row, and now carlos couldn’t stop using it. you’d noticed him picking up a lot of your phrases and mannerisms recently, his friends teasing him whenever he pulled out a ‘swings and roundabouts’, or god forbid a slap on the thigh and a call of ‘right!’ to announce that it was time to leave. they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

it was several hours after the race had concluded; you were now bundled up in a pair of leggings and a sweatshirt, splayed out on your bed mindlessly scrolling through instagram when his message came through. you were becoming increasingly less surprised every time carlos texted you, a level of understanding developing between you that you enjoyed each other’s company, and you wagered that you could both do with some cheering up round about now. 

it had been a bit of a long shot, carlos realised. the two of them had never hung out one on one outside of the events of the race weekend, but right now there was no one else he’d rather speak to, rather while away the hours of the evening watching all the trash tv they’d spoken about over dinner a few weeks ago. no matter how frequently he messaged her nowadays, he still always got butterflies when she texted back.

it wasn’t even five minutes before she was knocking at his door, the orange of her mclaren sweatshirt picking up the flecks of amber in her eyes, still somehow shining through even in the low light. since when had he started to take notice of things like that?

her presence lit up the room immediately, both metaphorically and physically.

“anyone would think you’re a vampire, considering how many times I’ve found you sitting alone in the dark.” she chastised as she flicked on the lamp in the corner, adding a soft warm glow to carlos’ hotel room. he chuckled.

“can you blame me?”

his tone was light, a soft smile across his lips, but there was a hint of sadness to his voice which gave him away. her own smile faltered, as she went over to join him sitting on the bed. she sat shoulder to shoulder with him, as she had done on the pitwall earlier, watching the remainder of the race in companiable silence; the warmth seemed to radiate through carlos’ body from the spot where her upper arm met his, as it had done then as well.

“no, I suppose not.”

she sighed, brushing a stray strand of hair off of her forehead. carlos turned to look at her; she appeared to be thinking before she finally spoke.

“you know, I admire what you did today.”

“what, not start the race?”

that earned him a playful bump to the shoulder and a small, musical laugh.

“no! no, I mean staying around to watch the race. not many drivers would do that in your position.” the corners of her mouth still twitched with the remnants of the way he’d made her laugh, but he could sense some sort of sincerity behind her words. he shrugged his shoulders, as if trying to shrug off the swelling sense of pride he was feeling as it sunk in: she admired him.

“I’m sure many drivers would have done the same thing. I’m not special.” he replied, feeling suddenly very humble under her gaze. she shook her head, the movement almost immediate.

“you are special.” her voice caught in her throat slightly at the first word, causing the other two to come out quietly, her voice almost a whisper. if the room hadn’t been completely silent, carlos might have been able to convince himself that he hadn’t heard them, that he’d imagined it. 

they spent the rest of the evening as he’d imagined it - talking about anything and everything whilst netflix took them through episode after episode of selling sunset in the background. it was nearly midnight by the time she returned to her own room, latching her arms round his neck as she said goodnight to him with an embrace. her hair tickled his nose; he swore he could still feel it now, even when he was lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, several hotel rooms separating them. her words were still going round in his head. he reckoned they probably would stay there for quite some time.

you are special. you are special. you are special.

taglist: @itsjustkhaos

message/comment if you want to be added!

[episims]

A Peek to My SFS Stats

I know some creators prefer not seeing their download numbers and that's fair! This kind of stuff can easily cause pressure and/or feelings of underachievement.

For me though, it's just statistics. And since it's pretty precisely 5 years from when I first uploaded anything to SFS, I've gathered some data to play with.

So, this very self-indulgent post is solely about my SFS stats. Just because I'm a total nerd I find it interesting, and I like being open about things. It's long and blabbery so the rest is safely under the cut.

For the background: I tend to create whatever I need for my own game. I share my weird stuff because I feel like it's a trade for everything I download from others.

Probably due to the lack of any consistency or branding at all, my CC has a wide range in download numbers. I have some popular pieces, sure, but also some niche mods like no snow accumulation that has only interested 126 persons in nearly two years.

Even though saying "only 126" is an illusion created by the internet. Imagine if those 126 individuals would come to you in person. That's more people than I've probably even had a real talk with during the last year!

The raw data of my SFS main folder is (calculated with a sheets program): it has 227 files and the average download count for each file is 1557, but 74% of the files have been downloaded fewer times than the average.

So even though my CC isn't usually downloaded that much, I've shared a handful of things that have been downloaded so much more than everything else that they pull the average up.

What are those things? Time is an important factor here, as most CC tends to gather downloads over time (not a single post from 2023 on this list).

1) Subtle wrinkles (January 2022)

17313 downloads (674 hearts; ~3,9% of all downloaders) Post notes: 1112

That's several thousand more than the second most downloaded thing I have, and it's such a random thing.

I'm sure most people have downloaded them to get those 4t2(ish) forehead wrinkles. I have no other explanation as the rest of them are hand-drawn by a person who can't draw. Also the preview is frankly hideous, I used about one minute to take it... safe to say I didn't expect this post to gather any attention at all.

2) Cellphone default (January 2021)

13547 downloads (565 hearts; ~4,2% of all downloaders) Post notes: 1133

Noteworthy that it's been updated a couple of times which pushes people to redownload.

This was a quick passion project, since at that time I couldn't find a cellphone default I was completely happy with. If it hadn't been a quickie, I would've used more time to find a good base mesh oof. Many thanks to @pforestsims for later improving it.

3) Tombstone defaults (December 2019)

12477 downloads (582 hearts; ~4,7% of all downloaders) Post notes: 1064

I was so proud of these when I made them. Those were my first mesh defaults ever! Today, I'm proud of my past self for doing them. That's crazy many meshes and subsets to handle for a total noob.

I couldn't do anything with BHAVs back then, so those defaults would've never ever happened without @midgethetree. She endured a lot, working with a noob who went through several meltdowns because of subset issues that didn't make any sense.

4) Baby personality mod (February 2020)

9724 downloads (489 hearts; ~5% of all downloaders) Post notes: 1193

The first mod on the list! Absolutely essential one for myself and apparently for some others too.

Also the actual first mod of my own ever. I can't really recommend starting with something this complicated, I had zero ability to perceive the scope of the mod when I asked if @midgethetree was willing to help me through it. She deserves all the praise for doing it, I've realized later that I couldn't ever teach anyone the way she taught me. So, if you read this: thank you, Midge.

5) Rabbit pen default (August 2022)

9628 downloads (442 hearts; ~4,6% of all downloaders) Post notes: 1305

This was completely @deedee-sims' idea and project! I just hopped in (hah) to help. I'm only hosting it for practicality, as the BHAVs most often need updating, and those are by me.

6) Turn On/Off replacements (July 2021)

8644 downloads (388 hearts; ~4,5% of all downloaders) Post notes: 1470

This post has more notes than any other post of mine, yet it's not even nearly the most downloaded thing I've done. The two don't always go hand in hand.

I've also shared an updated version of these lately in a new post. It's unlikely they'll get the same amount of attention, which on paper doesn't make much sense since it's practically the same thing but done better. But I'm sure everyone knows that the hype and the quality don't always match.

7) Pixelry’s KKB fridge recolors (February 2022)

8147 downloads (329 hearts; ~4% of all downloaders) Post notes: 662

This is such an oddity on this list since it's the only recolor set and the post has fewer notes than the other ones, too. People just (secretly) really like cute fridges, apparently.

8) Crib teeth anim fix (August 2022)

6157 downloads (431 hearts; ~7% of all downloaders) Post notes: 1408

This list is already long enough, but I wanted to show how fast the number starts dropping at this point.

This got posted a day before the bunnies, and I find it funny to think that for about 3000 people it's more pressing to have bunnies in their game than fixing their toddlers dropping teeth while crying lol.

No point in continuing the list forever, but among my most note-gaining Tumblr posts are also:

Puppy/kitten want replacements (October 2022, 1114 notes, 3849 downloads)

Improved biotech station (July 2022, 1110 notes, 3893 downloads)

Camera overhaul mod (January 2024, 1059 notes, 1752 downloads)

Newspaper default (March 2022, 970 notes, 5052 downloads)

While I don't have a real conclusion to offer, it's clear that notes don't always get realized to downloads, and likewise many people download without interacting with posts.

One more thing I'd like to point out is that the percentage of people who hit that SFS heart button seems pretty constant. I feel like it shows that some people just have that habit and some don't, and it's not likely directly related to how much they like the thing.

The amount of SFS hearts that crib teeth anim fix has gotten doesn't follow this pattern lol. It's really not common to see the percentage change even that much.

[sgiandubh]

I was wondering if anyone else had this same fear as mine? I’m not sure it’s really a fear but I think there are going to be sex scenes in Sam’s upcoming project and who knows maybe Cait as well.

Is it crazy to feel uneasy, fearful, nervous or any of those emotions about watching Sam or Cait do sex scenes with people other than each other? I know it’s their job if the script has these scenes but maybe I’m worried that what I see on screen with them in their sex scenes with each other and how special it is isn’t as special as I think?

It’s probably an irrational fear and no it’s not the only reason or even the reason why I am a shipper. Their chemistry on screen sent me down the rabbit hole and it was really what has happened off screen that made me a shipper.

Sorry I think I rambled quite a bit there but you seem to welcoming and friendly and most importantly rationale.

Dear Uneasy Anon,

Let the woman in the audience who was NOT even mildly - how can I put it elegantly - ehrm.. unsettled by The Reckoning cast the first stone at your question and my answer.

*crickets*

I thought so.

I remember my stupefaction on a balmy late August night (not unlike this one) when I watched these scenes for the very first time. Shouted like a crazy woman at 4 AM something along the lines of OH, DEAR ME, WHAT THE HELL (literally: what the mother of all devils, told you that being a native speaker of obscure idioms is infinite fun)? And then immediately hit rewind, questioning my sanity and grateful I was under the radar.

I had never seen anything like this on a screen, let alone in what I thought to be a whachamacallit divertimento (Sam, who? Caitríona, who?). And chemistry is a paltry, almost sorry term to describe sexual attraction, in their case: these two were not blocking anything, and I do not mean it in a lewd way, but in an emotional one. A much more serious affair than a, heh, hydraulic incident while having to put up with carpet burns.

What we saw there were two people very much attracted to each other and yes, clearly in the early stages of falling deep and hard in love with each other. And I do not mean Jamie and Claire, here, for I have never made the confusion. Let's not be hypocrites: what consistently happened on and off-screen, in the Season 1- Season 3 interval, despite all the hurdles and the shitshow, is a real story on the constant brink of taking over the performance side of things. So much so, that at some point I almost completely blocked the characters and had to re-watch, for the sake of keeping up with that neglected storyline: it was embarrassing, but in a good way.

That was not acting, dear Uneasy Anon, and bless his heart, he repeatedly spilled the tea about it. Knowing that and having experienced that Mach3 impact yourself, I doubt you would feel uneasy by S/C shooting formulaic sex scenes with other people. An example: When the Starlight Ends. I howled in my popcorn. That is to say that particular movie was a doomed project. That is also to say: you'll know how 'not special at all' that is, when you watch it.

So, in a nutshell, I can only offer you this answer, along with the hope that it makes sense or helps you somewhat: you may feel uneasy because you know how rare and fragile that is and also because you are probably afraid of breaking that spell. But you immediately tell me that it is their off-screen shenanigans that made you a part of our rank and file: what you call fear is nothing else but maybe a bit of projection and certainly a deep fascination. You are desperately normal, dear Anon. Last but not least, remember FDR: the only thing to fear is Fear itself. Go ahead. Watch those with an honest eye. I guarantee there will be absolutely nothing to write home about.

This, however (emphatically NOT The Reckoning). This always punches me in the damn gut. This is better than Mantegna's Saint Sebastian. Objectification, schmobjectification:

[the-words-we-sung]

Thoughts and pictures - S3E3

The great rewatch of season 3 continues! And we're halfway through with episode 3. As usual, it's probably gonna get a bit long so proceed with caution 😁

And we're starting off with some big big pressure on Wilhelm, for a change... "I don't know if I can handle it" => ma'am, you're the queen, you're an adult, you're his mother. Get a fucking grip!!

How can she put so much pressure on her son's shoulders? I understand that she's unwell, she hasn't grieved Erik's death properly in season 2 so this break down was bound to happen I guess, but how can she (and Ludwig) just abandon Wilhelm like that? And not so long after his speech (and the "trial" with August). Did either of them talk to him about it? About this huge coming out he just did? About how brave he was? One day I'll write a post just about Wilhelm and his parents because I have A LOT of feelings.

And I don't know a lot about how a monarchy works but would Wilhelm really have to step up and replace his mother if she was suddenly unfit to lead, despite being 16? That doesn't make a lot of sense, does it? Especially in this case when Wilhelm has been Crown Prince for very little time (and even needs a special Crown Prince school during summer to learn his duties).

"You wouldn't have been able to handle it. That I can fuck up too" => oh Simon, my sweet sweet boy... I have to say that I really like his scenes with his mother this season, I really needed to see Linda actually act like a mom, and Simon to become more "real" with her. So I love their scenes and dynamic this season!

Is Wilhelm still seeing Boris? Or is he really all alone in dealing with his mother's health and everything else? My boy needs help...

I'm sorry but Simon with helmet hair is just the cutest thing!

But gosh their communication is just so awful this season... On one hand Simon frustrates me a tiny bit because I didn't think he would be so "naive". I mean, of course it must feel truly awful to receive to many hate comments, but he's a teenager who knows how to use social media so I would have expected him to know that these people are trolls and responding to them would lead nowhere? The people writing these are not interested in knowing him or the truth or anything, just in being nasty because it's easy to do so anonymously. But also I guess he's 16. He's super young, I'm probably expecting too much maturity here and not being super fair ><

And on the other hand, Wilhelm also frustrates me because he barely stops to listen and to actually see what Simon is going through. And yeah, he's got the crazy pressure from his family and his mother being unwell but still, he's being very selfish. And he has always had a tendency to be, but it's 10x worst this season ><

(Also why did he not say anything to these mean girls mocking Simon's song when they entered the music room together??)

I'm realizing now that truly, these Boris sessions with Wilhelm and August are really fucked up: the sessions with Boris helped Wilhelm so much last season, he felt safe enough to talk there, to be honest, and he was able to work through the hard stuff in his life. And now they put August there? The person who made him feel unsafe, who recorded him and leaked the video online. They put that person here in his safe place with him? Which might explain why there's no more therapy sessions for Wilhelm this season (outside of the ones with August). It's so fucked up...

Wilhelm is feeling so cornered...

And Simon is breaking my heart... Omar is such a good actor, he portrays sadness way too well, I wanted to cry almost every time I saw Simon in this episode. He's so depressed, thinking everyone hates him, it's hard to watch... Why did season 3 have to be so cruel to him?

It's hard to enjoy the sweet moments between them (this scene for example, which I forgot was gonna happen there :p) when we just had a sad Simon, bad communication between them, Wilhelm being mean to him... It makes it hard (for me) to enjoy the cute scenes because it just feels like a small band-aid put on a gaping wound ><

I really liked that we got to see Felice's dad again, and this scene is so important! I love Felice's decision to go without her dad and to be honest in the end. I still think she should have had a stronger storyline throughout the whole show. She's a great character and she deserved more!!

Sara and Micke singing in the car: 💛 "I'd rather have a papa with bad spells than no papa at all" => I don't know August... I guess it's the eternal dilemma..

Just because he looks so incredibly beautiful here 💜

This Sara and Micke conversation was so important and needed! I really liked that we finally got a bit more information about Micke and what happened to their family.

And another scene that I forgot was happening in this episode ^^' I got too used to seeing the cute (and hot) scenes from this season with gifs here that I know them without the context around :p

Why is it that every time something good happens to Simon this season, it backfires immediately and Wilhem makes him sad about it? 😩

3 more episodes to go, wish me luck >< This season is even more depressing than I remembered ^^'

[scotianostra]

Ooh, what’s Edinburgh like? Moving there next year hopefully, from Africa, and after a few quick trips I can’t say I’ve gotten too much of a sense of the city :(

I'm kinda biased, but it's a good place, quite small and easy to get around, the main bus serice is Lothian Buses, for a flat fare of £2 you can get from ato b on one bus, for £5 cash you can hop on and off, the best value is paying by debit card , what they call TapTapCap from as little as £4.80 per day and £22 per week, so if you are one 3 or more buses in one day it caps at £4.80, and £22 is the most you will pay fr a week. The bus service is very good and I use their bustracker, find it on Google Play "My Bus Edinburgh" The vast majority of Museums and Art Galleries are free, only charges tend to be if there are special exhibitions, like The National Museum of Scotland had a Doctor Who exhibition last year. There are two main train stations, Waverley and Haymarket, and several small ones and stops.

Most people don't realise that Edinburgh and the surrounding areas have some great beaches, Portobello is the best in the city, ad has plenty of places to eat and drink at there. Cramond Beachis a mecca for dog walkers, there is a Causeway there where you can explore Cramond Island, just watch the tide times. There are plenty of parks and green spaces, the city is officially the greenest city in the UK, with almost half the city (49.2%) being classed as 'green space'.

If you are relatively fit there are plenty hills to climb to get great views, some are very easy, Calton Hill, Corstorphine to name but two. Arthur's Seat offers different routes to the summit of varying difficulty, but you can actually drive so far up and just make the easy climb to the top, there are three man made "Lochs" around Arthur's Seat, if you're lucky you will see Otters at Dunsapie, Duddingston and St Margarets have plenty swas and ducks. For more serious walkers the Pentland Hills are a great place to explore, there is even a herd of oor Highland "Hairy Coos" up there. If you can ski, there is a dryslope on The Pentlands, the longest in the UK.

Pubs and clubs are a plenty, I have no idea of your age as you have decided to remain anon, but many places cater for students, prices vary, I pay between £2 and £4 for my drinks, although the touristy places will charge you up to twice this amount, over £6 for a drink is not unusual.

Of course we have the Festival, well there are several throughout the year, Edinburgh gets the tag of Festival City at times. The main one is in August and the population of Edinburgh is said to double in the time, licensed premises are automatically given an extension to their opening hours, some open to 5 in the morning.

It's a safe city  with a low crime rate, but as with other places you have to be aware of your own safety. If you plan on taking in the paid attractions The Castle wil set you back about £20, as will The Palace of Holyrood House. Opposite the Palace is The Scottish Parliament, you can visit thisfor free and sit in while it is in session. If you are planning on venturing around Scotland and like your history I recommend a membership of Historic Scotland, again I don't know your age, but prices start at under £3 a month and are less than a fiver for adults over 24. National Trust of Scotland also offer meberships from £3.35 to £5.80.

Can't really think of much more to put for now, perhaps my followers can make suggestions, or ask questions?

Oh and pack your umbrella get a waterproof jacket, even in summer we can get some heavy showers, naturally you will be aware it can get cold as well, invest in a decent winter jacket and layers to keep warm.

I hope this has been helpful.

[pastafossa]

The last day of 2023.

And holy shit has it been a chaotic ride, one which you all shared with me, or that's what it feels like!

The Major Moments:

Feb: Cato's cancer diagnosis and discovery of weird mutated cells that likely won't be explained until after he passes away. He's still with me, fortunately! No idea how much time he has left but I'm grateful for every second

April: a small leak in my dining room ceiling turned into a bigger leak which turned into a massive hole in the ceiling, at least it wasn't winter???

May: DD Born Again Photos give us all a goddamn heart attack

May: I FUCKING REACH MY OVERALL 1,000,000 WORD COUNT ON AO3. 🎊 🎉 🎊 Next stop is 1mill for TRT!

June: Went to my first con since Covid! Drove all the way down to Philly to see Charlie Cox, WHICH WAS FUCKING AMAZING, HE HELD THE RED THREAD FOR OUR PHOTO, MY FANFIC DREAMS HAVE COME TRUE, AND I TOLD HIM WHAT DD MEANS TO ME AND HE WAS SO NICE I COULD CRY

June: At that same con, I finally FINALLY got to meet my bff @wonderlandmind4 in person after many many many late nights of chatting, and we just CLICKED like we'd been friends for years, which I should have expected, but still! And then I got to meet a bunch of my readers, too! Best con experience EVER

July: enter Whoops Covid Finally Got Me After 3 Years But Charlie Was Worth It ™

July: Finally dusted off my draft of Pasta's First Dark Fic cause even if my brain was too fuzzy to write, I figured I could edit a bit. And I did! And was pretty happy with the results!

August: Shit Now There's A Long Covid Heart Issue And I Can't Be Seen Until Late November Thanks Covid ®

August: leak in the garage leads to me losing about 65% of all the beautiful, special woods pieces I'd gathered over the course of six years for carving. Within a week I am gifted a huge bin of wood from a kind soul at my local witchy shop

Sept: TRT's 6th anniversary!

Nov: I was slowly getting back into the swing of things, doing a bit of writing in between learning to manage whatever was going on with my heart (which we'll hopefully figure out in January when I get all the results of testing in Jan)

Early Dec, and the worst week of my life: mom got sick. Within one day she went from not feeling good to needing an ambulance. By the next day, she was in the ICU - flu induced double pneumonia that was interfering with her breathing and heart issues. And with one more day, she was put into an induced coma and ventilated, without any of us sure if she'd pull through. They told us she'd likely be under for two weeks, potentially longer even if she made it. The amount of messages and supportive comments I got from all of you, the talks I had with @wonderlandmind4 and @shouldbestudying41, just the general sense of having a community to help me means more than I can ever say as you all helped me through that terrible, horrible moment, even if it was just gently messaging me to remind me to try to eat.

Mid Dec: against ALL odds, Mom was off the ventilator in a week. By week 2, she was out of the ICU. By week 3? Off to the physical rehab center. She was there a grand total of 1 week before she was allowed to come home to finish her recovery. Early December was the worst moment of my life, and yet it was also bookended by the best Christmas of my life even if it was spent at the rehab center, because I got to have my mama back, and hug her and tell her I loved her and make jokes, and now she's home and we've been watching Christmas movies and eating grilled cheeses, and as far as I'm concerned, that's what the holiday is to me: not presents and snow and lights, but this moment, this time with her. 'In all the places you find love, it feels like Christmas.'

In just a few hours for me, it'll be 2024. I have no idea what to expect going forward, or even what to plan for, much less a resolution. I know I want to get back to TRT when mom's a bit better (she still needs a lot of help, understandably). I know there are wood carvings I want make; friends I want to visit; witchy events at my local shop I want to go to. But other than that... who knows? If I'm lucky, things will be calmer than this past year. But even if they aren't, at least I know I have dear friends, all of you, and my family, including Pasta Mama, to help me through it.

Goodbye, 2023. Hello, 2024.

[bleachbleachbleach]

8/12 - 8/18/2024

I wrote a version of Renji 11 what is at this point several years ago (RIP me), and have since just been throwing random stuff/required additions into that Note with no rhyme nor reason, so it took over two hours this week just to sort it all out. But! It is sorted!

Modern-era Renji 11 consists of 3 new scenes and 3 already-existing scenes. I wrote 1.5 of the new scenes. As far as how well I think this Chapter is going, I dunno. As a narrator, Renji’s kind of like, oh hey, here’s a thought I had. And here’s another one! Which feels legit but I’m not sure if it allows the reader to understand which pieces of information are actually important for following the narrative.

You know those reblog memes that like, ask people to identify hallmarks of your writing? The concept is fun, but it wouldn't work in practice because 0.02% of anyone who might see that post would have any familiarity with my writing. SO. I WILL SIMPLY TELL YOU. My hallmarks are that I love an interstice—love having things that should be on the cutting room floor not on the cutting room floor—but am also a firm believer in stories not needing to have every scene the characters experience to exist on the page. This combination means there’s a good chance that actually relevant, defining scenes simply do not exist and only the interstitial nonsense does. I think in certain stories this can be a real thing that works. I think it can also have the effect of nothing hanging together, making any sense, or meaning anything, without certain bits of key information/certain scenes that I simply did not include because they exist in my head and therefore exist everywhere right. I think that’s where this chapter is.

Maybe the remaining 1.5 new scenes will help ameliorate that, but I feel like that’s asking a lot of them. And then, theoretically, you’d think fixing the existing scenes would go more quickly than writing from scratch, but I don’t know that they will. Because the story leading up to this point has changed enough that the characters are in very different headspaces and perceptions of each other than they were when I first wrote those scenes. Well, that’s not true—Kensei and Renji are in a very different place with each other. Renji and Hitsugaya need to have the exact same conversation but, you know… better. And FRANKLY, I do not know whether entirely overhauling Kensei and Renji will be harder or easier than merely line-editing Hitsugaya and Renji. =_=;;

I’d really like to finish Renji 11 by the end of next week, and then take some time to finish out the revisions on Rukias 7 and 10, which are the most related to Renji 11. Then I’d like to go back to do final line edits on Chapters 4, 5, and 8 before heading into the big mess of revision that is Hisagi 9, because those revisions will be most related to Hitsugaya 12.

I’m not anticipating getting much done in September, because I have a major work deadline September 30th, and the rest of autumn will probably be kind of garbage, too, and I probably won't exist. But I would love to finish Part II (so, Chapters 12 and 13) by December. Well, speaking honestly, my original hope was that I would finish Part II by May, but here it is, August, and I am still working on Chapter 11. So: I would LOVE to finish Part II by December.

—

I did a low-res mockup of the fic banner several months ago (okay, this might have been last November). I pulled out some high-res assets to work with on Friday and played around with a new design I thought was fun, but it turns out design-wise the old mockup looks much more polished. Or it would, if I were using higher-quality materials. XD So I’ll probably go back to the old design. The only reason to continue with the new one is that it reflects the clusterfuck spirit of everything that happens in this fic, but I kind of like the way the old banner puts a pretty bow on the clusterfuck lurking beneath the surface. Maybe I’ll solicit opinions once I’ve made a more serious mockup of the first version.

[momo-no-tane]

Peach-Pit Artbook Scanning Project - Complete!

On August 1st, 2015 I made the first post of this artbook scanning project to provide high quality scans of Peach-Pit’s illustrations, because there was barely anything available online, or if there was the quality was absolute garbage. 7 artbooks and 648 illustrations later, the Peach-Pit Artbook Scanning Project is finally complete... really, really late.

I was supposed to finish this project in April 2018. I finally uploaded the last illustration yesterday - July 8th, 2023. Unfortunately I was never able to finish it back in 2018 like I wanted to. Life got really busy, I had gone back to school, my computer battery died, I started getting lazy... when I only had 5 illustrations left to post. I’m so sorry it took so long to finish. I really hated myself for not finishing it back then. I was constantly beating myself up over it. I really wanted to get it done this year though. Thank you so much for all the likes and reblogs over the course of this project. You can find each of the artbooks below.

Artbook 1 (Peach-Pit Artworks DearS)

Artbook 2 (Peach-Pit Artworks Sui Mitsu Kyo)

Artbook 3 (Peach-Pit Artworks Zombie-Loan)

Artbook 4 (Shugo Chara! Illustrations)

Artbook 5 (Peach-Pit Artworks Rozen Maiden)

Artbook 6 (Shugo Chara! Illustrations 2)

Artbook 7 (Rozen Maiden Illustrations: Rose Maiden)

Now for something really annoying... Tumblr’s recent bullshit is another reason why I finally forced myself to hurry up and post those final 5 illustrations.

Tumblr has decided to be completely and utterly stupid, getting rid of the legacy editor and replacing it with a garbage new post editor that makes posts look absolutely hideous on desktop. I initially made this post with the new post editor, but I was so disgusted at how ugly and awful it looked I deleted it. For some stupid reason, all posts automatically become text posts even if I specifically select the photo option. It makes no fucking sense. I realized that all the posts I had saved in my drafts still had the legacy editor, and thankfully I had a few photo posts still in there. So I was able to repost that news post.

The problem was that I only had less than 10 photo posts saved in drafts. If I had known Tumblr was going to be fucking stupid and get rid of the legacy editor, I would have saved dozens of posts to prepare. But I only had enough to make a few news posts and those last 5 illustrations. Now I have nothing but text posts left in drafts. I’m behind on some posts already (Nagi’s birthday post, new SC! Princess Cafe goods, new RM SOLWA goods), and I can’t make a post about them because Tumblr fucked everything up and I’m trying to figure out how to fix the posts on my theme so they don’t look like shit.

I don’t know what to do. I’ve been giving them grief almost daily on their change blog and support section. So many other people are also upset. I don’t want to get too backed up with news posts because there’s so much information that comes out monthly lately. Does anyone know how to fix this? Any code I could add to my theme to make my posts not look like shit because of the new post editor? It pisses me off that I have to waste time and energy focusing on this instead of the project I plan to do next - high quality manga caps. How can I even make nice looking manga cap posts when the new post editor will just destroy it? It’s so frustrating. I’m sorry this post turned so negative, I really needed to rant about this.

[valpoupdates]

AUGUST CALENDAR POSTING...

So much to see, so much to do, so little time ! Lucky for you, here in the Valparaíso Region, we keep track of it just for you ! Unless stated otherwise, these activities are optional. Residents do not have to take part in these if they don't wish to ! These can be used for threads throughout the month but new threads can't be started for these activities once the month is up. Please track the valpocalendar tag to stay updated month to month ( ©️ )

BUT FIRST ! A word from VALPOFM... Transmitting...

"Gotta be real, guys: being stuck in a tent at a snowstorm at El Carnaval De Invierno was not on my bingo card for July, and judging from the stats I'm looking at, I don't think very many of our listeners had a great month either. While we were all pleased to hear the newest tracks from both my sister Luna Dominguez-Herrera and great friend and ValpoFM co-host Tobias North, produced by the brilliantly talented Spencer Westin, some of you chose instead to listen to… a Nancy Drew audiobook ? Mountain lion growling noises ? Oi guëy, whatever. I'm Sebastián Herrera and this is the ValpoFM July 2024 playlist, made by residents- but listen: if you like real music, stay tuned later this month for a special session hosted by Salem West, because her new album drops soon. "

Casablanca Activities

August 1-30 : It’s not agosto, it’s aGATO!  This month, El Café de los Gatos is hosting a special adoptions in August event.  Every weekend, the cafe will be featuring different cats for adoption: staff will have poster boards made for each cat; they’lll be featured on staff’s social media; and the adoption fees will be discounted for those specific cats for the weekend.  Even if you don’t adopt, come spend an afternoon with some baked goods, sweet coffee, and feline friends.  We promise it’ll be a purrfect time!

August 3 : Inesperado celebrates International Blues Music Day with a live performance and a special dinner menu inspired by cuisine from the southern USA ( with a Chilean twist ! ). The special dinner and live performance will be from 6:30 PM - 9:00 PM.  Tickets will cover the seat and the 13-course meal—and they’re going fast, so reserve your table now!

August 6 : Chile and Peru will be coming together for this year’s Global Grape Convention held at Isidora’s!  Major retailers and prominent organizations will be hosting conferences and open dialogue to discuss critical industry issues, provide the latest market information, and offer innovative solutions and strategic insights for sector opportunities.  The convention takes place from 8:30 AM - 5:00 PM, with an after-ceremony cocktail event from 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM held at Agustín’s Jazz Lounge, and food catered by guest chef and famed Argentinian chef, Julieta Sáenz.

August 20 : Buen día, ¡Valparaíso!  Tune in at 9:00 AM today for a very special interview that you won’t wanna miss.  ValpoFM has quite a guest for you!  She’s beauty; she’s grace; she’s a star finding her place!  She’s Valpo’s very own Salem West ( @cybermuses ) and she’s here to talk to the ValpoFM AM hosts about her upcoming album, Moment! Pitchfork describes it as “a rare species of pop-soul that evokes a real sense of spiritual uplift.”  This album tells us we’re meant for more: we’re not just succeeding, we’re made for better things—and we’re excited to ask Salem what better things she has in mind.

August 31 : For Every Season sends their warmest regards and most sincere apologies to all those caught in the sudden and freak snowstorm back in July.  As the winter season comes to an end, the amusement park would like to extend a special invite to those trapped during that time ( and a discounted rate to the rest of the public ) for the last winter day of the season.  For Every Season welcomes you back with open arms; come back and make some snow angels!  Come back and make better memories!

Quilpué Activities

August 1 : It’s International Mahjong Day, and the Plaza de Sol invites all mahjong players, beginners and veterans alike, to their food court turned mahjong court!  From 11 AM - 5 PM, if you think you’ve got what it takes, come grab a seat and test your luck and skills!  If you’ve always wanted to play, now’s the time to learn, as there are several beginner tables with a knowledgeable player, ready to teach you the ropes.  If you’re just feeling peckish and wanting brunch and a show, come do a little bit of shopping, grab a meal from the 40+ food court vendors, and watch mahjong players do what they do best. Peace, love, and good luck to all!

August 15 : Los Fantasmas has scary stories, drinks, and ( potential ) ghosts—but you know what else they have?  A roller derby champion!  Los Fantasmas’ very own Poet Hawley ( @wishingbcnes ) leads the Los Fantasmas team in their very first roller derby competition!  The competition will take place from 4:00 PM - 8:00 PM.  Tickets to compete and watch will go towards a charity of the winner’s choosing; winners also will receive free drinks at the most haunted bar in Valpo ( it is not transferable to other people; staff members retain the right to cut off drinks per their discretion ).  Do you think you have what it takes to win?  Are you going to be the jammer, or are you going to get jammed?  

August 19 : Cosmic Connections wants you to know that not only is this moon a full moon, but it’s a supermoon!  This is the ideal cosmic time to practice manifestation and invite positive change.  Intentions, goals, prayers, and wishes are more likely heard and supported by unforeseen forces during this time.  If you were ever to wish upon a star, you should make it during a supermoon—even better, make it with the professional, spiritual, and expert guidance of those at Cosmic Connections!

August 27 : You’ve heard of Taco Tuesday, but what about Tobacco Tuesday?  If you haven’t, swing through to Puro Chile and they can tell you all about it!  While you’re there, why don’t you take advantage of their Tobacco Tuesday sale?  Special discounted rates on stock as they’re trying to clear out for the season, a nice little BOGO, and some special strains you can’t find anywhere else except in the Jewel of the Pacific.

Valparaíso Activities

August 17 : Pequeños Eruditos will be celebrating Black Cat Appreciation Day by decking out the entire place with cat-themed decor and paraphernalia.  The children will learn all about cats ( from big ones to small ones! ), and there will be a fun photoshoot at the end of the day where kids can wear different colored cat ears.  Gift bags containing photos from the photoshoot, a cat plushie, building blocks, and a kids’ book ( La suerte de ser un gato negro ) will be given to each child. 

August 18-24 : Calling all ( amateur & local ) photographers!  Casaplan is hosting a photography competition, specifically for the beginner, the amateur, and the lover of photography.  The title and theme of the competition is A Mis Ojos: Paraíso.  For the entire week, submissions will be open to all Valpo Region photographers.  All entries will be judged and selected by a panel of expert photographers, and all selected photographs will be featured in next month’s public exhibit.  Send up to three ( 3 ) photographs to casaplan.submissions@gmail.cl.  ¡Buena suerte!

August 29-30 : Valpo Universidad presents TED Talk x Valpo, a yearly conference where students from all over Chile ( and some neighboring countries ) as well as a variety of organizations come together to exchange ideas on education, technology, business, and creativity.  This year’s speakers and topics range from quantum computers to the musicality in sign language to folklore—as Valpo's very own Luna Dominguez-Herrera ( @divinctions ) will be presenting their research and thesis: “The Earth’s Unseen Powers: Seasonal Pagan Ritual Magic in Popular and Unpopular Culture.”  From 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM, come support your colleagues; come watch the next generation of academics, scientists, and creatives; come and learn about the world around you and the people most excited to teach you about it!  ( Snacks, appetizers, and beverages will be provided by the culinary department. )

August 31 : Ilustraverde is working with the Writer’s Org to make sure your manuscript is in tip-top shape.  From 9:00 AM - 1:00 PM, several Ilustraverde Editors will be there to give a presentation on manuscript, writing, and submission tips; there will also be time carved out for a workshop with your fellow writers and with the editors; and lastly, there will be time to network while eating lunch provided by the culinary students of Valpo Universidad. 

Viña del Mar Activities

August 6 : Nido de Nomadas invites its hostel guests to a special community cookout!  From 6:00 PM - 10:00 PM, the hostel staff will be cooking caldillo de congrio, a delicious seafood concoction served in a bowl, and baking bread from scratch ( fun fact : caldillo de congrio was a Pablo Neruda favorite ! ).  Hostel staff encourage participation from their guests, but if cooking or baking isn’t your thing, you can still spend time with your fellow wanderers as board games will be provided— and, if you’re not a hostel guest, have no fear!  This event is open to the public, as tours of the facility will also be offered to prospective guests ( or to hostel guests and their friends ) all day.

August 23 : If you’ve got nowhere to be at 8:00 PM, come on down to 12 Pulgadas as Un Breve Concierto is being live-streamed!  You can’t make it in, but you can peek inside from the windows—and who’s the talent?  Why, none other than Valpo’s very own Salem West ( @cybermuses ), whose new album Moment is set to hit the shelves, digitally and physically.  Critics are already raving about her musical genius, writing that she “excels at striking a tone that’s classic, sexy, and understated . . . under a veneer of fantasy and metaphor, like how it still counts . . . as a dress even if it’s mesh.”  You heard it here first, folks, so cancel those 8:00 PM plans and come watch un breve concierto!

August 25 : Just because it’s winter time doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the local park!  Jardín Botánico invites you to spend a Sunday exploring the 370 acre national botanical garden with 2 clubs of your choice: The Bird Watching Club ( at 7:00 AM - 11:00 AM ) and The Foodies ( at 12:00 PM - 4:00 PM ).  There are a variety of birds that thrive in the Chilean winter, and the Bird Watching Club has put together a little bingo card to help you out.  Whoever gets a BINGO will receive 4 tickets to go to the Quilpué Zoo.  The Foodies will be working with a famous forager ( known for their informative and fun foraging TikToks ) to show members how to identify edible and poisonous plants, how to sustainably gather local plants, and how to prepare them.  The Foodies will be grilling for lunch, and all foraged foods will be part of the meal.  If neither of those clubs interesting you, maybe you’ll be excited to know that the Combi Coffee Stand is debuting two new drinks: La Avalancha, a sweet caffeinated concoction that’ll warm you right up, and The Snowman, a hot chocolate drink that mixes 3 high quality chocolates.

[sollucets]

beloveds @khaotunq, @pranink & @alexshenry tagged me to do:

every month of 2023! list your favorite/most popular gifset for each month.

i started making gifs in march this year, so january/february are off the table for this. it's funny that it hasn't even been a full year yet. it seems both somehow a lot longer and also like i remain some kind of photoshop baby at the same time. the images in this post will remain undescribed until i have some energy in my failing body, unfortunately

in any case:

march: midnight museum invades all 2 of my braincells. i download photoshop. the end is nigh

most popular: msp/eclipse pool parallel set

favorite: the bams i made for sof

(notes: it's hard to look back at these lmao. what is coloring and why don't i know her. why is everything so dark. who told me to use noise dithering and why did i ever think that was a good idea. anyway)

april: the eighth sense is airing! i meet many mutuals and friends. i figure out about the curves tool (thank god)

most popular: taehyung getting dunked on

(very deserved dunk; very bad set. the coloring of this scene was extremely questionable and i did nothing to fix it it looks so dull and gray. augh)

favorite: feet lining up / jihyun & jaewon on the beach

i really like this coloring actually. it's bright enough to actually see them, their skin doesn't look as weird, and i like the soft pink i made the beach. a win for baby photoshop user rowan

may: the purple is in full swing now

most popular: purple yok

first set to cross 1k! the purple is still very good but in hindsight there are things i now know i couldve done to help his skin. in any case. a banger. beloved

favorite: pink our skyy 2 hands set

[through tears] you're my space. also my first try at typography

june: i lose the will to gif some in the back half of this month, but i also learn to do a Lot of new things, like gradient maps & more complicated typography and transitions and such

most popular: puzzle piece hugs!

deserved! hard to gif and fun to look at

favorite: i think it might be the heartliming i made for vi now! but i still like khathadome from eden too.

july: i try giffing a few different shows. the only friends trailer comes out on the last day and i enter some kind of terrifying fugue state

most popular: sand and ray fighting / crying in the ofts trailer

do you guys remember the trailer 1080p? life was so good

favorite: nobody appreciates my ride enough

august: only friends airs, eclipse anniversary is concurrent, i lose my mind. i also learn to use the method of brightening that i still use & several other fundamental gif tricks

most popular: sandray car makeout

good for them! i start using significant grain on my ofts gifs from here on out and can never decide how i feel about that

favorite: orange/blue eclipse episode seven set

september: the madness continues

most popular: sand cooking for ray / special

ive giffed this scene three times and this is my least favorite coloring but what can you do. this is my third post to cross 1k

favorite: new rules set! i had mixed feelings when i posted it but it's really grown on me.

october: the madness is so much worse. only friends ends and i am left near-catatonic immediately, apparently. also, i learn to blend and use overlays and some other cool things. i join userdramas :'>

most popular: raysand afterglow. as it should be. cheek kissie

favorite: space girl!! show me the stars!!!

loved making this. purple and sparkly and gay. still super proud. that said other runner-up favorites in october are ray's o-face & the boyfriend shirt & akkaye's thumb thing collection

november: i am left cavernously empty after ofts ends and i fill the void with namtan

most popular: last twilight episode one porjai

she <3

favorite: gaipa userdramas set

again, i learned to use musescore for this set just so i could have those pretty notes. :')

december: i am punched in the face by seasonal depression. all is not well. i made just one gifset this month, but at least it was good? :')

and here we are today !! it was very fun to look over everything; thanks so much for playing and have a happy new year everyone

[drama-nonsense-v]

10 BL boys I want carnally <3

Thank you for tagging me to do this @blneobin <3 I'm a little behind on this but i FINALLY have time today to write it so here we go! I've had so much fun reading all the one's I've seen thus far~

Keita Machida - Kurosawa (Cherry Magic Japan)

I absolutely ADORE this man. Attentive and kind and he's ssooo pretty. He is 5'11" (180cm), I want to climb him like a tree, thank you. I would do anything he asked. I have watched this show so many times in the last 6 months since i first watched it, its a little ridiculous. (eepy Kurosawa...oh how i adore him)

Khaotung Thanawat - Ray (Only Friends)

I love this man so much it hurts. I adore everything I've watched him in thus far but there is a /reason/ Ray is pictured in my about me on this blog. I related to Ray so much and his and Sand's scenes....oh wow... I have so many edits and gifs saved in a folder on my computer of this man, I am unwell about it (someone should recreate their dancing in the parking garage scene with me...)

Nut Supanut - Solo/Way (Oxygen/PitBabe)

I adored Nut in Oxygen (is it a little stiff, yeah, but i still liked it) I am a sucker for puppy like characters like Solo and hes just so incredibly Handsome. And Way is just...oh my god. Nut is legit the one of two reasons I started watching PitBabe. (Obsessed with the fact that Way is still kinda Puppy coded. He can take his frustration out on me, I'd consent to that)

Jimmy - Peun/Mohk (Vice Versa/Last Twilight)

I enjoyed Vice Versa and Jimmy immediately caught my attention when I watched it. And now with watching Last Twilight, many of my friends know just how UNWELL I am about this man. Mohk is so kind and attentive and he's so so handsome I cannot handle it. I made so many people watch the clip of him getting angry with August. When he got super quite? Lost my mind. (Look at him...look at his arms, are you kidding me??)

Ja Phachara Suansri - Leo/Punn (Don't Say No/Be Mine SuperStar)

THIS MAN IS 6'2" (188cm) THAT'S NOT FAIR. HE'S SO TALL (i'm a little jealous...) Ja is so pretty and him just throwing around First in Don't Say No like he was nothing? I lost it. The scene in the pool in Be Mine SuperStar where Punn and Ashi are talking and then Punn stands up? I was UNWELL (Punn is also another Puppy coded character and I will forever be a sucker for it)

Perth - Ae/Kanghan (Love By Chance/Dangerous Romance)

When I tell you some weird things came out of my mouth when I was telling my friends about Perth, I wish I was kidding (@darkroseespeon can attest to that). He's so incredibly ridiculously handsome and his smile is absolutely infectious. He's another that I would do anything they asked. (cue to me just repeatedly saying "he's so pretty" as i was trying to find a gif...)

Nat Thewphaingam - Nawin (Laws of Attraction)

I was living with some roommate when I was watching Laws of Attraction and they had a good laugh watching me LOSE MY SHIT when this man came on screen. I was immediately obsessed with Nawin. The bgm, the bloody tank, and the brass knuckles? I was a gonner. Truly in love with his antics and i would give a lot to be under him. (do you see his arms? the lighting? just...HIS FACE?)

Ji Sub - Jae Won (The Eighth Sense)

OMG one, this show is so important to me. Two, Ji Sub is a meal I could eat every day. I don't even have much more to say than that. He's just so handsome and he had such sad eyes... Jae Won, once they're finally boyfriends, is so sweet I just adore it so much. I love this man. (He was so cute in this scene I cant...)

Us Akkarachotsopon - Tay (Kinnprosche)

Tay is fully the embodiment of my never ending delima of do i want him or to i want to /be/ him???? His fashion sense is glorious and I will never be over it. The minute I start talking about it, its hard to get me to shut up. I would give ssoo much to take care of Tay and love him like he deserves. (Where the post that's like "i'll do anything for a boy with big brown eyes" or something like that. Also, this shirt?? I need it.)

Kiseki: Dear to Me

Am I cheating a little bit by talking about all four of them? Maybe. But I have made SO many people who are not into BLs watch this show FOR A REASON. I love it so much and I love all of them so dearly. AiDi and ChenYi's fashion? IMPECCABLE I'm obsessed and want to recreate some of their looks so bad. All their scene once they're finally together??? unbeatable to me. omfg. ZongYi and ZeRui's kitchen scene?? In shambles. SHAMBLES (I have a stuffed animal I named ZongYi cause he's so precious to me...and I want to get one to name AiDi)

Aaaahhh this...took me way longer to write than anticipated. Though part of that time was looking through endless amounts of gifs. to which, thank you to the gif makers, y'all make my day (haha xD) I have no idea who hasn't done this yet, (@mb-bls idk if you have or would want to?) but if you see this and want to do it, tag me so I can read it!!!!

[pixelatedraindrops]

Happy New Year Everyone💜

(Rambling below)

Tbh: This year has been one word for me. Awful. Too much happened and I’d rather not talk too much about it... x-x

My first half of the year was just dreadful. But the second half of it (around July/August) was a lot better. And I have RainCode to thank for that. After losing a close friend, I was in a pretty depressive funk for quite some time. And what I usually do in these times is escape into my current passions and interests and go wild on it.

And boy did I ever. I had just finished RainCode and was officially obsessed. And I wanted to contribute to it. So at first I made some sprite edits, and a Pokémon crossover. Then as I do for every fandom I have a fixation on, I decided to write my very first sickfic of it. And it received so well that felt a bit more secure in indulging in my hidden guilty pleasure some more.

I made more sprite edits involving Yuma and the more I indulged the more obsessive I became. Soon I was making analysis' on his character and making all sorts of whump headcanons for him. Then I realized I became like most sick whump users on tumblr, and I finally had a fandom and whumpee I could call my own... and the feeling I felt was indescribable. I was so happy. Blissful. (Though it did kinda rot my brain from the inside out. But in a good way? If it makes you happy it's healthy....right? XD)

After some time I interacted a little bit with more of the RC community and honestly?? Its such a fresh new and fun community. And there's a lot more adults in it. My last fixation (demon slayer) had too many minors in it so I felt like I didn't belong or have any right to be in the community at all. But with this one?? I feel right at home. I eventually became known here for making sick related content of the series, even dubbing myself the CEO of a tag I made up myself. Whumpcode.

RainCode even inspired me to start drawing again. Something I sadly gave up on for years. And Its helped me find a style for myself and draw things that make me happy c: (aka sick/fever whump lol)

I found a few very nice people to talk to. (mostly because I'm shy and don't talk too much w others online) And I'm surprised my work even inspired some of the community to make some sick art/fics of their own for raincode. It made me feel such indescribable pride. In a sense I am like the other whump users on tumbr, but at the same time I'm not. (mainly because its not a kink to me) I'm more a member of the raincode community than the whump community. And I'm perfectly fine with that.

I first joined tumblr back in 2014 and after some time, took a 5 year hiatus from it. But upon coming back, I'm so happy to have finally found a fandom I truly feel like I'm a part of. And thank you to everyone that supports and enjoys my work. It makes me so happy that there are those that agree with me and don't see me as a freak despite my odd fixation. But focusing on this has made the second half of my year better. So much better...

So thank you, both RainCode and RainCode tumblr. For making me feel like a part of something. And for making my year end on a positive note c:

have a tiny yuma <3

(part of my big collab wip :3 Coming soon! )

[lizardthelizard]

OKAY! I have to know your thoughts on the idea of august as the author? I never really thought henry made sense as the author, & august literally was able to seamlessly add pages to the story book & had untold knowledge about the previous author. PLUS an indepth knowledge of the 'correct' version of fairytales & how magic worked in the enchanted forest despite being like 7 when he went through the portal. [have been discussing this theory with others & we all seem to agree that august shouldve been the author BUT 👀 as the president of the august fanclub I'm curious about your thoughts 👀]

(90% of the below was written last October and I'm SO sorry that it's taken this long for me to finish and publish this ask 😭😭 I was HYPED to get the ask, it was just sent at the wrong time)

HI!!!!! 🥰💕💕 It's always a delight to see you in my inbox, but ESPECIALLY with a question like this HELLO??? <3

okay okay SO .

I think that, for me, I understand why OUAT picked out Henry to be the Author. And imo, Henry ~kind of~ worked as the Author. I mean, he was the one that had been so involved with the storybook in the first place (and, in a way, bringing to life the characters in the book when he brought Emma to town to break the curse).

That said...I did read and enjoy a post you made a while ago about how Henry hasn't ever been a particularly avid reader (the most we ever see him read are comic books) and most of his focus is very specifically around THEE storybook and the change it brought him in his real life, rather than the stories and fiction itself. And, like.....you're RIGHT.

Anyway.....August. I have...mixed feelings about this.

On the surface, it's very appealing. August is already a writer. He DOES have knowledge of the previous Authors, yes, and a good handle on the storybook itself. And yes! He really does he have an indepth knowledge about the characters in book, thanks to his past in the EF. He was only a child, sure, but he was a child for a long time. He was a puppet for 20 years (thank you Season 6 for making that canon). He's met David's dad. He's seen Regina as the Evil Queen when she visited their village. He's been with Emma during several key points in her life and story.

AND YET...There are a couple of reasons as to why I can't quite jive with this theory, and one of them is simply that...He isn't allowed to be a good narrator. He's THEE unreliable narrator (he's literally named after the man that coined the term 'unreliable narrator'). And we've already seen how unsuitable Isaac was when he strayed from the path of 'recording everything exactly as it was'.

Now. I'm not saying that August would go full rogue like Isaac. But what I am saying, is that August has canonically already edited the storybook because he didn't like what was there. He took the Pleasure Island arc out of the book and hid them away somewhere because he didn't want other people reading that part of his story because he felt ashamed of it. I definitely don't think it would be a stretch for him to tweak elements of his own story (and maybe potentially other people's) if he felt he needed to. And ultimately, this would make him a bad Author.

The second reason that I can't quite support this theory is because...August is too involved in the storybook himself. To me, it feels wrong for a character in the storybook to also be the Author of said book. Isaac was literally just some dude from the 1960s that liked writing stories. Henry, although entwined with the book, was never actually in the book himself, so he can claim some distance between it too. And the only other Author that we see mentioned (?) is Walt Disney in a throwaway joke line, so...

Not to mention, despite talking constantly about 'being a writer' the only thing we ever actually SEE him writing is....The Adventures of Pinocchio. The main story he's interested in right now is clearly his own. (THAT SAID, I obviously won't deny that he loves to tell a tall tale (lemurs in Nepal, bullfighting ect). I'm not trying to deny that he doesn't enjoy telling stories, only saying that his main focus is HIS story right now).

Also, I hear you saying that August was super involved in the storybook and its history, and that he had a lot of knowledge around it (after all, he knew about the door and how to add and remove pages from the book) however, I would like to introduce here two wise old men: The Dragon and The Apprentice, both able to aid him in the Land without Magic, even at a time when August was seemingly doubting his own past/magic.

The Apprentice is particularly important here because I'm of the opinion that he gave August the missing pages from the book. I know that it's not unreasonable to assume that August typed those pages himself, but the illustrations make it a little more difficult to believe, if I'm honest. Can August draw? Yes, very well. We've seen his drawing of the Apprentice and it's very good (not to mention his skill as a woodcarver). But...to remember exactly what David's dad looked like, to the point that Killian is able to recognise him from that drawing..? Seems a little implausible to me personally.

Anyway, I've rambled a lot here but TL;DR:

imo, August is too involved in the story, too unreliable as an author, and probably not as knowledgeable about the book as he claims to be, in order to be a good candidate for the Author.

BUT!!!!! I do think it would be a fascinating avenue to explore in an AU ....👀