#eastern lights header

[barrowedits]

Olá, poderia fazer headers da série bússola da Brittainy C. Cherry por favor?

[jamminvroomvroom]

I absolutely adore your writing,

For the celebration, could you please do virgin reader first time with Oscar?

sunshine.

op x fem!reader - 4k celebration

in which oscar arrives home to an unexpected guest…

hi hi hi! thank you so much anon, i hope this is what you wanted!! trying to get through requests, loving hearing from you guys! this one is so cute i think, let me know ur thoughts 😚😚

songs to set the mood: fall in love with you by montell fish, fade into you by mazzy star, like real people do by hozier

warnings: 18+!! minors dni!!! smut, fluff, friends to lovers, sleepy baby oscar, teeny tiny bit of angst, mutual pining, r’s first time, swearing

2.9k words

oscar’s exhausted, shoulders sagging beneath the thick material of his mclaren hoodie. he’s glad he left it in his carry on, the miserable london weather not even remotely living up to the warm glow of the middle eastern sun.

he craves his bed, dreamless sleep, entering the code to get into his building and slumping against the cool mirrored wall of the elevator. his eyes droop as the lift travels up, and the ding that sounds when he reaches his floor breathes life back into him.

the double header that kickstarted the season has knackered him, and he longs for alone time and silence to recuperate before he has to deal with the noise of going home and racing in front of a familiar crowd.

his key slides into the lock and he pushes the door open, throwing his bags by the door - he’ll deal with them later. the hoodie is shrugged off and dropped haphazardly on the floor next to the shoes he kicks off. his bed is calling. dazed, he trudges down the hallway, but he’s spooked by a faint sound coming from his bedroom.

as he primes himself to investigate, he hears footsteps, light and quiet against the floorboards. he goes to open his bedroom door, breathing heavy, but he just about jumps out of his skin when it swings open before he gets there. he yelps, and so do you, leaping into the air.

“you scared the shit out of me.” you shout, hand over your thumping heart.

“i scared you? what are you doing here?” oscar bites back, running his hand through his brown locks.

“sorry, sorry, i didn’t mean to be here without your permission but… it’s a long story. i didn’t think you’d be home yet.” you smile apologetically.

“sofa.” oscar mumbles, stalking past his bedroom and towards the living room. “what’s goi- are you wearing my shirt?” he splutters, finally looking at you properly.

your face heats up, and you cross your arms awkwardly.

“um, yeah? god, this is all so embarrassing.” you cover your face, falling onto the sofa. he plonks down beside you.

“tell me what happened.” oscar sighs.

“he dumped me.”

“oh.”

“yeah.”

“why?” oscar asks softly. “ugh, i knew i hated him for a reason.” he wrinkles his nose.

“i don’t know how to explain this without wading into major tmi territory.” your voice is small, quivering slightly.

“you can tell me, love.” he encourages gently.

“he found it weird that i’m, uh, a virgin?” you squeak, your voice raising into a question. oscar goes as red as you are.

“oh. oh.”

“oh god, you’re freaked out too. is there something wrong with me? like, why has this not happened? i thought i was ready with him, but then when it came down to it…” you ramble, trailing off.

“there’s nothing wrong with you.” oscar states, firm and serious. “him, on the other hand.” he shakes his head, disgusted. “he wasn’t good enough for you.” he spits.

“do you mind if i stay here?” you whisper, leaning into his side. “or, keep staying here?” you laugh softly. oscar joins in.

“you know you can always stay here.” he smiles sleepily. you’re just about the only person in the world he can stand right now, and always, actually. “but i need a nap, you coming?”

you nod and follow him to his room. the tv is still on, the one with monica and chandlers wedding playing quietly. oscar smiles. he knows it’s your favourite.

he flops onto his side of the bed, dropping off almost instantly. you watch over him, enamoured and sympathetic, in awe of him and the life he lives. you slip into bed beside him, leaving a respectable distance between you and the aussie.

you pass out right around chandler’s vows.

-

you stir between two thick arms. pale, warm skin is wrapped around you, oscar’s soft breath fanning your face as he sleeps.

you watch him, scanning each and every mole on his face, trying to ground yourself. you combat the anxiety of being in his arms, choosing to enjoy the moment, while he’s still peaceful. it’s nice to feel wanted, even if he’s unconscious.

for the first time, you’re glad your ex broke up with you, because how does it make sense that you feel safer, more wanted in the arms of your best friend?

“stop staring, ‘m gonna blush.” oscar mumbles, clearing his throat. his eyes are still shut, but he just knows you too well.

oscar opens his eyes slowly, blinking away sleep. you stare at each other, comfortable silence eating away at the palpable tension.

you kiss him.

because why wouldn’t you? it’s oscar, your oscar, and he’s sleepy and cosy and gorgeous, and you’ve waited too fucking long. you can’t resist it any longer, free from the bounds of being someone else’s.

his lips are warm, and he’s startled, but the surprise doesn’t falter him; just as quickly as you kiss him, he’s kissing you back. his large hand finds your face, and the other finds your waist, pulling you closer. you melt into him, impossibly closer than you already were.

he’s gentle with you, tentative but firm and you part your lips, letting him lick into your mouth. his tongue strokes softly over yours and you keen at the sensation. he pushes you onto your back, balancing on his elbow half hovering over you. your hair fans out onto the pillow, his soft fingers running through your strands, pushing them away from your flushed face. oscar pulls away, scanning your face.

“sorry.” you smile up at him, breathless.

“apology very much accepted. i’ve been wondering when that would happen.” he laughs incredulously.

“really?”

“what can i say? i’m irresistible.” he replies dryly, exercising his sense of humour that was a foundation of your friendship.

“yeah. you kinda are.” you giggle bashfully.

and then he’s kissing you again, pressing himself even closer to you. you welcome him in, wrapping your arms around his lean frame, feeling over his shoulders. he’s tense, restrained, groaning into you at the feeling of your hands raking over his back.

“we should stop.” he mumbles, noses bumping. you frown.

“why?”

“because you said earlier, you’re not ready for this and i’m… well, things are gonna get real awkward if we keep going.” he chokes out half a laugh, glancing down at his-

“oh.”

“yeah, i just, i don’t want to make you uncomfortable. we can go slow.”

“osc, i wasn’t ready with him,” you pause, collecting your thoughts. “but you’re not him.”

“i suppose that’s true.” he shrugs.

“then you better do something.”

oscar lays you back, climbing over you completely this time. his trails over your jaw, taking your chin between his fingers.

“are you sure about this? we can stop anytime, just say the words.”

“‘m sure, oscar. i want to do this with you.” you coo, reassuringly.

his lips run over your neck, your collarbone, and he mouths at the collar of the t-shirt that you’re wearing. his t-shirt. his.

“gonna take this off, yeah?” he asks, whispering low, right by your ear.

“yeah, please.” you say, your own hands running under his t-shirt and up his muscular back. he’s relaxed now, no tension between his shoulder blades, and so you push the material up, and he slips it over his head. his warm digits peel your shirt off, too, and you’re warm all over when his eyes trail over your chest.

you’d forgone a bra, ditching it when you’d arrived at his place, and his pupils are blown wide, hazel hues sparkling with desire. his hands slide up your ribcage, thumbing at the underside of your breasts, while he plants open mouthed kisses down your chest. your eyes flutter shut, gasping softly as he skims your nipple.

“oscar.” you breathe, the light whimper sending his blood rushing south.

“does that feel good?” he asks, searching your face for answers.

“more.” you sound strained, desperate, and he aches.

his sucks your nipple into his mouth, swirling his tongue around the swollen bud. he toys with the other one, massaging your breast with his skilful fingers, tweaking and pulling until you’re panting beneath him. he pulls away with a pop, licking over to the other side, deciding to test your limits when he nips delicately at the peak. you moan, bucking your hips, hypersensitive to his every move.

you can feel how hard he is, his grey joggers growing tighter with every passing second.

“want all of you, osc.” you plead.

“need to get you ready for me first, okay honey?” he rubs circles into your sides, warm and calloused. you relax fully, lifting your hips.

oscar mouthed over your belly, peppering sunshine-like kisses down your abdomen until he finds the band of your loose shorts. he mumbles something into you navel about taking them off and you nod, enthusiastic and frantic. you can feel his smile branding your sensitive skin. the material glides down your thighs, pooling at your ankles, and you kick them away. he parts your thighs, making himself comfortable on his belly, and thumbs at the crease of your leg, toying with your panties.

he drags his pointer finger over your covered slit, up and down slowly, applying more pressure every time he brushes over your clit. oscar can see where you’re starting to seep through your panties and he stifles a low groan, anxious to peel the cotton off of your body, the final barrier separating him from you, so he does, pulling them slowly down your legs. he studies your face as he does, keeping his eyes firmly on yours. your lip catches between your teeth, aching as you watch, helpless and wet.

oscar kisses your hip bone, sucking gently until he’s stained it purple, and then his warm breath is fanning your cunt. your eyes squeeze shut.

“look at me, baby. gotta keep your eyes on me.” oscar mutters. your pussy clenches around nothing at the tone of his voice. you pry your eyes open, just about managing to prop yourself up on your elbows. “that’s it, honey. has anyone ever done this to you before?”

you shake your head, no. he smiles to himself, like he knows something you don’t, and dives in.

his tongue works in slow strokes, dragging through your slick with intent, eyes locked with yours. you must look like a deer in headlights, pupils blown, shocked with pleasure when you collapse against the mattress. he wraps his lips around your clit, sucking, tasting, and your legs go weak, splayed open all for him. you whimper as he tugs your clit between his teeth, just enough to graze over the sensitive nerves. it sends your hips flying, bucking wildly against his face.

“osc…” you breathe, squeezing your eyes shut.

“‘m gonna give you some more, is that okay?” he asks, nose bumping your clit.

“yes, please.” you don’t know what more is, but you need it like air.

you feel a finger glide over your sodden flesh, rubbing over your entrance. you sigh out, oh, anticipation and bliss sending white heat down your spine. he circles his finger around your opening, coating it in you, and carefully slides it in, feeling out for any sign of tension or discomfort. when you grind your hips onto the single digit, he knows you’re okay.

it feels good, better than anything you’d ever felt on your own, and you writhe against his bedspread. he thrusts a couple of times, experimenting, seeing what makes you squirm for him the right way, and when his finger curls, hooking deliciously, he knows he’s struck gold. you arch off the bed, searching for more, more, anything.

“another one.” you cry, begging, and oscar’s not one to tease. not yet, anyway.

a second finger joins the lonesome first, and he finds some pace, fucking into you faster. he scissors the digits, stretching you out for him, enjoying the pretty view. he’s achingly hard now, rocking discreetly into the mattress, losing his mind as he watches how you drip around his fingers. he wants another taste of you, addicted already to sweet, salty honey, so he has to finish you off, lap your mess off of his long fingers.

“i think- i think-“ you can’t get the words out, they’re lost on your tongue, but oscar knows what you mean.

“that’s it, baby. so good for me, doing so good. cum for me.” he spurs you on, drawing it out of you.

you let go, crashing biblically, the high sending you to heaven and back, two times over. he grinds his fingers, softer, just enough to help you through it and you chant his name like you’re praying at an alter. you know that you’ll never be over this. your oscar.

“holy shit.” you giggle, smiling lazily as you return to the world of the living. he’s licking his fingers clean; you could black out so easily.

“did you enjoy that?” he punctuates with a kiss to your belly, crawling up your body until he’s hovering over you.

“maybe you should do it again, just so that i can really make sure that i did.” you tease. your hand rakes through his hair, pushing it back off of his face. he’s grinning down at you, eyes fluttering shut. “that was amazing.” you whisper. he’s blushing when he kisses you, and then you are too, when you taste yourself on his tongue.

he moans against your lips, making you pull back. your hand leaves his brown strands, joining your other, which is currently voyaging down his back.

“you’re wearing too many clothes.” you whisper, lips bumping his as your hands slide under the waistband of his sweats. something desperate emits from the back of his throat. you push them over his hips, fisting the thick fabric, eager to have him bare on top of you once and for all. oscar helps, kicking them away, boxers too.

you can feel him, thick and wet between your thighs, his breathing uneven. your nails graze his hip and he jolts, collapsing on top of you, his full weight covering your keening body. he kisses into the crook of your neck, frantic; you need him deep, immediately, his urgent change in form leaving you flushed.

“you want me?” he whispers into your ear, leaving you shivering.

“so bad.” you pant.

“i’ll be gentle.” he promises.

he guides himself through your folds, slippery and warm, all for him. he nudges the head inside of you, hips stuttering at the blinding tightness. you gasp, but he catches it in his mouth, softly moulding his lips to yours as he pushes further. you open up for him, pliant, and when he eventually bottoms out, he holds himself there, letting you adjust.

“oh, fuck.” your eyes roll back, nails leaving crescent marks in his shoulders.

“so good for me, so pretty.” oscar grunts. “say when, baby.” he breathes, rubbing soothing circles into your hip.

“move.”

oscar rolls his hips, rocking you into the mattress. he hooks your knee over his waist, driving himself deeper and deeper with every thrust. you’re boneless, lost to the delectable stretch, to the way his cock seems to touch every part of you that makes you quiver.

“tell me how it feels.” oscar murmurs, grip tightening on your thigh.

“fuck, oscar, it’s so good. ‘m so glad it’s you.” your voice shakes, raw with emotion.

“me fucking too.” he mumbles, increasing his pace ever so slightly.

his thrusts lull into more of a grind, reaching your depths and revelling in the way you only get tighter for him. you’re spilling around him, already so close to meeting your end, and all it takes is the calloused pad of his thumb brushing your bundle of nerves to have you convulsing. you’re somewhere else entirely, on a whole other spiritual plane, utterly and completely his as he fucks you through your second orgasm.

when he spills, white hot and sweat slicked, he gushes endless hushed whines of your name. it sounds perfect when he says it like this, rolling off of his tongue with dire urgency.

his dampened hair falls over his darkened eyes, full of stars and total adoration. you’re smiling sleepily up at him like he’s made of sunshine. you always thought he was, and now you know that he most definitely is.

the most beautiful sunshine man.

“hi.” he whispers.

“hi.” you whisper back.

an intimacy, different to the one you’ve just shared, blossoms between you, encapsulating you here with him endlessly.

“i’m gonna clean you up, ‘n then we’re gonna order food.” he gazes fondly, stroking your hair.

“perfect.” you agree.

“put friends back on, i’m gonna run you a bath.” he begrudgingly stands from the bed, trailing towards the en-suite.

“you’re gonna join me in there, right?” you admire his naked frame as he disappears into the bathroom.

“obviously.�� he pokes his head out once more to scoff, and you lay there, grinning like the worlds most lovesick idiot, your thoughts dulled by the sound of running water.

when the bath is full of hot water and too many bubbles, he gets in first, and you sink into the revitalising heat. oscar pulls you close, your back to his chest, kissing over your hairline as you mould yourself against him.

“thank god you broke in.”

-

oh i’m soft

-

taglist

@boysthatgovroomvroom @welld0nebaku @thegirlinthefandoms @mcmuppet @japanesekel @vinvantae @ggaslyp1 @dr3lover @smiithys  @rachstash @infinitebells @fizzpopsnap101 @gaily19 @icecoldtires @mysticalnightenthusiast @thatchickwiththecamera @oyesmendes @disneydaydreameralways @canyouseethesainz @ferrarifwendvale @fcbformulaeri @tony-stank3 @maih23 @soleilgrec @carolineworld @anthonykatebridgerton @allywthsr @iamasimpingh0e @ophcelia @lovelynikol16 @coffeehurricanes @jennx03 @blueflorals @lqvesoph @sidcrosbyspuck @better-dead-than-smeg @buendiabebeta @pjofics @kovalcin @wintergilmore3 @for-writing-shit @youdontknowmeshh @im-an-overthinker @jule239 @darleneslane @jazzy722 @weasleyswizarding-wheezes @therealone4r @pleasecallmeunhinged @theonlyadrienne

lemme know if you wanna be added or removed <3

[fruitcoops]

The Moon That Breaks the Night

Day 8: throwin' it back to the beginning. Characters from @lumosinlove's Sweater Weather, header from @noots-fic-fests <3

Yesterday's movie (as was so correctly guessed!!!): Scooby-Doo! Also, talitasami on Instagram literally drew the Marauders as the Scooby Gang on the 18th and somehow I missed it??? It's brilliant, go check it out!

The wolf was hungry, and the woods were stocked full.

He kept his nose low for traces of rabbit. Those never bored him. They were quick and vicious, always ready to leap into some new strange place or nip at his snout. Their strong back legs had battered him about the ears and eyes many times.

He could smell squirrel on the wind. Dull. Loud. Always scrambling up into the trees where he couldn’t reach for risk of splinters in his paws.

Hungry, hungry, searching.

Cedar and pine eased his way down the ridge, cautious steps muffled to nothingness. He rested his weight back and slid the last few feet in a spray of red-brown leaves. The wolf licked his lips, pleased, and shook himself free of debris. Fun fun fun fun fun. His tail thumped despite himself.

The forest was calm and cool this far into the night. His ear was itchy, but not so bad he had to stop as he trotted past the river. The lake would be sweet with late autumn. His journey was making him thirsty. He may even be able to catch a fish in the shallows, one of the darting ones with silver scales.

The howl of another whispered over the foothills and he sneezed. Ah, well. That limited his range, but he would survive. There was plenty hidden in the burrows and bushes of his own territory, and few who would challenge him for it. He trotted on.

Full moon tonight, loup. Fish-silver light lanced through the sparse canopy; Sirius’ voice buzzed in his head, in the soft space between his ears. The wolf shook himself again. He knew no people, just the dog and the antlered thing that played chase and tug and hide. Hungry. Would they be hungry? Had they gone away?

Loup. That was him. The voice was affectionate and low—it made the wolf want to stretch from his toes to his tail, to lean into the scritches behind his ears and whine until he was allowed to kiss kiss kiss the fondness that smelled like winter ice. The thought made him yawn happily as he moved toward the slope of the lake’s eastern bank. A friend would be good. Even the poor doomed rabbits would become wearisome if he remained like this.

The moon murmured to him through mouthfuls of cold, clear water. He drank deep, and listened. She had kind things to say to him most of the time. He missed his friend, with his thick black fur and lolling tongue. He missed the tall beast, whose antlers he was permitted to gnaw on as long as he was gentle when they napped near the end of the night. The little one was still too small to play on his spindle-legs.

He didn’t like to be alone out here. The other wolf was snuffling on the other side of the hills, too close, turning his stomach. His bones hurt. The moon couldn’t save him.

He would fight if he was caught, kick and scream and howl and bite. They would try to drag him back but he would clutch the boards with bloody hands and he would not lose his hold again. He would not leave the ice they could not take him from it. He had fought too hard to get it back. Teeth and claws, crimson and ivory. This time, they would bear witness. This time, they would understand.

A bark.

Bright, like the north star.

Close, closer than the other wolf, who would not touch him with the dog near.

Moony turned toward it and took off running.

[fairy-verse]

Once upon a time...

…there was a land filled with beauty and magic. Here there were no great cities, only small villages nestled between hills, mountains, valleys, and meadows. It is a fair and quiet land, and it is the only place you will find fairies and other magical creatures of various kinds.

━━━━━ ✧.* ━━━━━

Here is the Map of Fairy Island.

━━━━━ ✧.* ━━━━━

Fairyverse is created by valacre & lunnar-chan. I, Valacre, have created the concept ideas and am writing the lore and the stories for it. Dii has created the fairy designs and has helped me with the lore itself by coming up with suggestions and ideas of her own.

━━━━━ ✧.* ━━━━━

Nightmare 𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊 Ink 𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊 Error 𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊 Lust/Rosa 𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊 Dream 𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊 Killer 𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊 Cross 𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊 Horror 𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊 Dust 𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊 Nightlight 𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊

━━━━━ ✧.* ━━━━━

The world of Fairyverse is set in medieval-esque times.

Light and dark fantasy themes will be found here.

━━━━━ ✧.* ━━━━━

The Firstborn fairies are those who came before all, and they rule their own respective seasons within the Island of the Fairies.

They are – Dream, the firstborn fairy of summer. Nightmare, the firstborn fairy of autumn. Error, the firstborn fairy of winter. And Ink, the firstborn fairy of spring.

Coming after the Firstborn are the season fairies. They are born in the image of their respective firstborn, bearing characteristics not only from them but also from their hopes and dreams. They are their loyal followers. They are all Sans variants.

They are – The summer fairies, the autumn fairies, the winter fairies, and the spring fairies.

Also known as – The butterfly fairies, the mystical fairies, the moth fairies, and the dragonfly fairies.

The Firstborn and their season fairies reside on the western side of Fairy Island, but they are not the only fairy types that exist here. There are also – Monster fairies (Papyrus variants, Toriel variants, Undyne variants, Temmie variants, etc…), and Human fairies/Fae (resembling humans, often with blackened or iridescent eyes, brought to life by Ink and a human woman.)

There is also the Big Folk that has settled down on most of the eastern side of Fairy Island. These are regular humans and monsters who travelled over the waters to find new and peaceful lands to live on. A few of them hunt fairies (specifically season fairies) for their wings, blood, and bodies. The Big Folk that lives close to the Great Forest (Ink’s domain) are often victims of spring fairy bites, and while they believe these bites cause them to go temporarily insane, they are, in fact, filled with extra magic that makes them able to hear the trees talk, see the bees dance, and feel the winds collect their individual stories.

Other creatures that live on Fairy Island include – The small people/monsters (the same size as fairies but lack any sort of wings. They usually live in hollowed-out trees with tiny doors and windows), the mushroom people (born from residual magic dropped by the fairies, they wander along the forest floor on stumpy legs. They make soft squeaks, but no one knows if they are intelligent or not. Often used as pets by fairies), gnomes (the same size as fairies and wear tall, pointy hats of either red, blue, or green that cover their eyes. They live underground and are only active during winter), stonemen (resembling boulders and mountains, these are gentle giants that often remain asleep for most of their lives. They are immortal unless anyone chips them away), trolls (vicious and dangerous, they live in caves and underground shelters during the day and come out at night to hunt whatever they can lay their hands on, including fairies and Big Folk alike), and finally, the elusive flower people (little is known about them. They live on the Isle of Luna, south-east of Fairy Island.)

━━━━━ ✧.* ━━━━━

Helpful Tags

⤑ General Fairy Info

⤑ Fairyverse Lore

━━━━━ ✧.* ━━━━━

The image used as this blog's avatar and as the header image is made by @lunnar-chan, whilst the image used in the sidebar is made by @comyet.

𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼

[redsolon]

I suspect people miss my header image and assume its a Greek temple. If you look at the pillars for a second though, you'll see that it's very modern looking, even surreal. It is, in fact, a Serbian monument called "The Mausoleum of Struggle and Victory" from the socialist era. The aesthetic combines Modernism and Neo-Classicism. The photo itself is by Yang Xiao, as part of a series combining artificial lights with decaying socialist-era monuments at night, called "Eternal Monuments in the Dark."

By framing socialist bloc architecture as classical ruins, and placing the democratic revolutions of Greece along side modern socialist revolutions, I'm making a point about historical narratives and associations. Ancient Mediterraneans didn't associate themselves with Northern Europeans, and to this day people are shocked by how "Eastern" Greek culture is. In many ways Islamic culture is more Roman than Western Culture. The Fascist fantasy of the past is just that: a fantasy. A tool they use for their political goals. They homogenize the diversity of Rome, they whitewash Greek statues, and they impose modern Classical music on cultures that wouldn't recognize it.

Liberals talk about how Ancient Greece is the foundation of Western Civilization™️, but they have no greater claim to it than Muslims or Buddhists. (The Greeks got around.) There is nothing in bourgeois political forms that's reminiscent of Athens, except perhaps for their hypocrisy towards their slaves. Many of the things the peasants and proletarians of Greece and Rome fought for were actively despised by Hamilton, Jefferson, and that whole lot of grifters. They hated universal male suffrage, they hated mass assemblies, they hated ballot measures, they hated rotation and sortition, and they hated land reform and debt abolition. They didn't love "the ancients," they loved their aristocrats.

Socialists have long loved the defeated reformers and revolutionaries of the ancient past. The first modern communist called himself "Gracchus Babeuf." What I'm doing isn't special. The point is to take the things the bourgeois order claims it's built on, and show how fake it all is.

One day, the role the Classical Mediterranean plays in the modern superstructure will be replaced by the Socialist Bloc: a defeated experiment whose ruins global Communism will rest on. Their monuments, now covered in graffiti, will one day be visited by tourists the way the Parthenon is, to marvel at their glorious ambitions.

[atlantichurricanes]

Atlantic Tropical Weather Outlook issued by the National Hurricane Center in Miami, FL, USA

2024-10-08, 20:00 EDT

Active Systems: The National Hurricane Center is issuing advisories on recently upgraded Hurricane Leslie, located over the central tropical Atlantic Ocean, and on Hurricane Milton, located over the southern Gulf of Mexico.

Southwestern Atlantic: Last-light visible satellite imagery indicates that the area of low pressure located northeast of the northwestern Bahamas has become better defined on the northern edge of a region of showers and thunderstorms. The system is already producing gale-force winds, but environmental conditions appear only marginally favorable for additional tropical or subtropical development over the next day or so while the low moves northeastward to east-northeastward at around 15 mph. Upper-level winds are likely to increase further by Wednesday night, which should end any chances for further development. Additional information on this system, including gale warnings, can be found in High Seas Forecasts issued by the National Weather Service.

* Formation chance through 48 hours...low...30 percent.

* Formation chance through 7 days...low...30 percent.

Eastern Tropical Atlantic: A tropical wave is expected to move off the west coast of Africa in the next couple of days. Afterwards, environmental conditions appear only marginally favorable for some limited development of this system while it moves westward or west-northwestward across the eastern tropical Atlantic and through the Cabo Verde Islands late Thursday into Friday.

* Formation chance through 48 hours...low...10 percent.

* Formation chance through 7 days...low...20 percent.

&& High Seas Forecasts are issued by the National Weather Service under AWIPS header NFDHSFAT1 and WMO header FZNT01 KWBC, and online at ocean.weather.gov/shtml/NFDHSFAT1.php

$$ Forecaster Papin

[creativeideaau]

Color Psychology in Website Design | 2024

Color psychology is the study of how colors influence human emotions and behaviors, including feelings associated with certain hues such as blue or red evoking specific emotions (for instance blue can induce calm while red may spark excitement or urgency). Understanding these emotional effects on user engagement and perception are crucial for website designers in creating more effective websites with greater emotional resonance for visitors.

Role of Color in Website design Liverpool

A website's color scheme plays a key role in creating its initial impression and engaging visitors to stay longer on its pages. A well-thought out color palette can significantly boost user engagement and retention rates by encouraging visitors to explore additional content.

Color is an integral component of brand identity, helping communicate its personality and values to its target audience. Consistent usage across websites reinforces recognition and builds trust with visitors - any discrepancies between the brand's identity and website color schemes can cause considerable confusion while diminishing credibility of your business.

Color selection can have an enormous effect on the accessibility of a website, particularly for users with visual impairments. Some color combinations may be difficult for these visitors to distinguish, so choosing high-contrast schemes may improve readability for all readers while making the website more inclusive. Carefully considering color choices is vital in creating an inclusive user experience and cultivating user happiness.

Applying Color Psychology in Website Design: Strategies

Target Audience Analysis

Establishing your target audience is of vital importance when selecting a color scheme. Different demographics respond differently to colors depending on age, gender and cultural background - thus having a thorough knowledge of your audience will allow for optimal color choices that resonate well and thus add appeal and effectiveness to the website.

Cultural Considerations

Color perception can differ depending on your culture; while white may connote purity in Western societies, in Eastern cultures it may connote mourning. When targeting international audiences online it is crucial that websites account for these cultural differences when choosing colors for websites targeting those audiences.

Selection and Combinations of Color Schemes

Finding an appealing color combination involves more than simply picking colors that appeal; it requires understanding color theory and its psychological impacts on color combinations. By employing complementary, analogous, or triadic color schemes on websites it can create visual harmony while being psychologically effective - ultimately leading to improved aesthetics as well as psychological effectiveness.

Color psychology in Website design Fairfield affects how users perceive and interact with a site. Different colors evoke certain emotions, convey messages and have significant impacts on user experience. We will explore various color schemes and combinations used in web design as well as how best they can be implemented on websites.

Blue

Blue has long been associated with trust, calmness and professionalism - qualities which make it the go-to color choice for corporate and informational websites where trust is of utmost importance. Ideal for banking, healthcare and social media platforms. Imagine using a gradient of blue from light to dark in the header of a banking website as an expression of trust and security.

Red:

Red can evoke feelings of excitement, passion, and urgency - making it ideal for call-to-action buttons or sales promotions. Ecommerce websites often feature clearance sales or special limited-time offers that make these images especially appropriate. A bright red "Buy Now" button set against a white background stands out against its counterpart and grabs users' attention.

Green:

Green is commonly associated with health, growth and tranquillity - making it popular in wellness and environmental websites as it serves to relax visitors and provides an oasis of calmness for visitors. These designs are well suited to spas, organic products and eco-friendly businesses. A website for an eco-friendly brand featuring a light green background with leafy patterns to highlight nature and sustainability.

Yellow:

Psychology suggests that yellow can symbolize happiness, creativity and caution simultaneously. As it's an eye-catching color it can stimulate and uplift but should only be used sparingly to avoid overwhelming users. Ideal for creative agencies, children's websites and precautionary elements. A creative agency's homepage boasts an inviting yellow backdrop with subtle gray text for balance.

Common Pitfalls

However, there are certain hazards to be wary of when selecting colors for digital designs. Too much boldness in one area might cause user fatigue while too muted a palette may fail to engage users. Balancing color intensity with strategic use is key in avoiding these mistakes and errors.

While color psychology principles and design trends should both be kept in mind when making web designs, designers should find a balance between trendiness and timelessness to ensure that websites remain effective and appealing over time.

Color psychology in Website design Wetherill Park greatly impacts user perception, engagement and effectiveness of sites. By understanding the emotional and behavioral implications of colors, designers can create more captivating and user-friendly sites through strategic application, careful target audience analysis and adhering to best practices for successful implementation of color-powered Website design Sydney that help achieve business goals.

[laresearchette]

Friday, April 05, 2024 Canadian TV Listings (Times Eastern)

WHERE CAN I FIND THOSE PREMIERES?: GIRLS STATE (Apple TV+) SUGAR (Apple TV+) CAUGHT IN THE ACT (Season 2) (Paramount+ Canada) BAGHEAD (Shudder) MARY & GEORGE (HBO Canada) 10:00pm

WHAT IS NOT PREMIERING IN CANADA TONIGHT? MONSTERS AT WORK (Premiering on April 06 on Disney Channel Canada at 10:00am)

NEW TO AMAZON PRIME CANADA/CBC GEM/CRAVE TV/DISNEY + STAR/NETFLIX CANADA:

AMAZON PRIME CANADA ALEX RIDER (Season 3) AMBIVALENT BOYCOTT CHECKLIST HEADER BILLS HOW TO DATE BILLY WALSH KALI THE ZONE OF INTEREST

CBC GEM ALINE THE BORGIAS (Season 1)

CRAVE TV 13 GOING ON 30 EMPIRE OF LIGHT GODZILLA (2014) HANDS THAT BIND KONG: SKULL ISLAND MARY & GEORGE (Season 1, Episode 1) THE MENU ONE RANGER RIO SHARKNADO SHARKNADO 2: THE SECOND ONE SHARKNADO 3: OH HELL NO SHARKNADO 4: THE 4TH AWAKENS SHARKNADO 5: GLOBAL SWARMING THE LAST SHARKNADO: IT’S ABOUT TIME SIGHT UNSEEN (Season 1) SPENCER TITANE YEAR OF THE EVERLASTING STORM

NETFLIX CANADA THE ANTISOCIAL NETWORK: MEMES TO MAYHEM PARASYTE: THE GREY (KR) SCOOP (GB)

CURLING (TSN/TSN5) 8:00am: LGT World Men's Curling Championship: Canada vs. Japan (TSN/TSN5) 1:00pm: LGT World Men's Curling Championship: Canada vs. Switzerland

2024 IIHF WOMEN'S WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP (TSN2) 8:30am: Canada vs. Finland (TSN3/TSN4) 11:00am: Sweden vs. China (TSN3/TSN4) 3:00pm: Switzerland vs. Canada (TSN3) 7:00pm: Czechia vs. United States

MLB BASEBALL (SN) 1:00pm: Jays vs. Yankees (SN Now) 4:00pm: Orioles vs. Pirates (TSN2) 7:00pm: Diamondbacks vs. Atlanta

NHL HOCKEY (SN) 7:00pm: Rangers vs. Red Wings (SNWest) 9:00pm: Avalanche vs. Oilers (SN) 10:00pm: Knights vs. Coyotes

NBA BASKETBALL (SN1) 8:00pm: Raptors vs. Bucks (SN Now) 8:30pm: Warriors vs. Mavericks

RACE TO SURVIVE: ALASKA (MTV Canada) 8:00pm (SERIES PREMIERE): Just hours into the race, Alaska takes her first victim when a contestant is evacuated.

NLL LACROSSE (TSN) 9:00pm: Rush vs. Roughnecks

EMPIRE OF LIGHT (Crave) 9:00pm: A romance develops in a beautiful old cinema on the south coast of England in the 1980s.

CRIME BEAT (Global) 10:00pm: A Trail of Blood

HAUNTED HOSPITALS (T&E) 10:00pm (SEASON PREMIERE): Spirits seek to feed off of the energy and emotions of unsuspecting patients and medical workers. Featuring: Deborah Lantz, Tabitha Moore, Barb Dexter.

SHADOWTOWN (Super Channel Fuse) 10:00pm: Maya inherits an old house in Iceland from a schizophrenic grandmother she didn't know, then starts receiving messages from a mysterious source raising questions about her grandmother's death.

[dear-ao3]

and welcome back to imola. or sorry. the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrariwe are more than a quarter of the way done with the calendar and jumping straight into a double header weekend. today is may 19, 2024 and lets get into it.

before we even start. can we talk about the fact that i managed to get this out on THE DAY OF THE RACE. this never happens. im so fucking proud of myself. idk how i did it. but i did. this makes up for the fact that china and miami were both posted like a week late lol. and i even handwrote all of my notes instead of fumbling them into my notes app with a million spelling errors. and i managed to watch all three practices, qualifying, race and post race. but anyway. you are all here for the good stuff. and good stuff abounded:

first, some stuff that happened during the off week:

-xavi stepped down as charles leclercs race engineer. he will still be at ferrari just not as his engineer. the engineer is the person in their ear during the race giving them instructions. xavi is famous for saying the infamous "we are checking" to charles. it is truly the end of an era.

-there are rampant rumors that there will be a grand prix in chicago, Illinois, USA, starting in 2026. it was confirmed, then disproven. and if you are european and mad about the growing amount of gps in the states purely because you think the us has too many, might i direct your attention to this handy map that i made:

the us gps (plus canada) are in yellow and purple. the European (and middle eastern) ones are in red and blue.

to put this further in perspective:

lets say i live in new york city (which i do) and lets say i want to go to a race (which i also do). what are my options?

Montreal, 6 hour drive, 600 kilometers

Chicago, 13 hour drive, 1272 kilometers

Miami, 19.5 hour drive, 2068 kilometers

Austin, 26 hour drive, 2805 kilometers

Las Vegas, 38 hour drive, 4065 kilometers

just for shits, i looked up the distance between new york city and silverstone, england. 5488 kilometers. for comparison, there are 274 kilometers (2.5 hours distance) between monza and imola, the two Italian gps.

i rest my case!

now, if youre mad about the number of gps in the us cause you would rather there be more in other countries because you want to see other cultures represented and not just hating on the us, then youre justified. it would be cool to get some more in some other countries. give us more in south america, bring back some tracks like Malaysia or even portugal. but im tired of seeing just the too many in the us argument when no one clearly knows how Big the us is.

-sir lewis hamilton went to the met gala. he slayed.

he was wearing burberry and the outfit was honoring the first black gardener in the uk, john ystumllyn. the flowers on his jacket and his flower earrings represent the gardening, the thorn necklace the adversity he faced and overcame through the slave trade. and there was an excerpt from an alex Wharton poem on the inside of his jacket about ystumllyn that read "I hope the sun pours light upon our skin. And we melt into each other, into everything. Maybe the trees will speak, as they sometimes do. Whispers from the shade — Run, run away."

so in short, he was absolutely on theme and he slayed.

and of course. what did the internet think of it.

there were two trains of thought.

the first being: why is he posing like his pregnant (to show off his jewelry clearly ffs)

the second being:

which is correct.

(he also posted a my space esque selfie. which doesnt Quite count as a thirst trap selfie but it was truly something) (and i absolutely SCOURED THE INTERNET FOR IT and came up empty. this post would have been up a few hours ago actually but i was still scouring)

and he also helped the broncos (the american football team, he owns stake in them) reveal their season schedule. this has absolutely nothing do do with f1 remotely, but i am still including it because its a hilarious video

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Denver Broncos (@broncos)

-lando norris posted a birthday shoutout for martin garrix. which sounds innocent enough. until you see what it actually was:

the first was the original post. the second was what he changed it to. there was some speculation that he initially meant to post this on his private story and then accidentally made it public because it was taken down literally within two minutes. i dont have an explanation but it sure is Something.

(also while we are talking about lando, shoutout to that person on twitter who called me a norris dickrider. i think i was supposed to be insulted. i printed it out and hung it in my living room)

-oscar went wakeboarding. this is not really the interesting part (though why do they keep putting him in wet suits ???) the interesting part was that his mom flamed him on twitter for not knowing how to use a dryer:

-pierre gasly went to target.

this in itself is not really interesting, but as an american myself i am baffled. he went to target in what i can assume is miami and bought caramel pecan brittle quest bars and chocolate muscle milk.

for all of you non americans. quest bars are like literally blocks of chalk. like someone took several cups of protein powder and then maybe a half cup of water and mixed it together into a big hard brick of protein and coated it in kinda shitty chocolate. and muscle milk is like chocolate milk with protein in it, so its kinda thicker and tastes worse. in short, its the frat boy choice of protein (and as someone who dates a frat boy i say this with confidence)

also he decided to wear a yellow camouflage shirt??? im sorry i know hes french but this is just so frat boy coded

-george won the lorenzo bandini award. which is awarded to a driver or team that shows "commendable performance" and is pretty prestigious. he went to collect the award in a 1924 Mercedes Targa Florio:

-logan did lap of legends. what is lap of legends? you might be asking. well williams posted very little about it which is probably why you might be confused.

so basically logan was racing in his car on the track against 6 famous ex williams drivers (mario andretti, nigel mansell, alain prost, damon hill, jaques villenuve, and jenson button) (cause remember williams used to be a really really good team before everything went to shit a few years ago) though the power of ai. so logan was in his car and racing virtual cars. jaques, alain, and nigel actually all came to silverstone to watch it, jenson was one of the hosts and they even got crofty to announce it. overall a big ass deal, especially for logan who has as we know not been having the best season so far.

but williams only made one single instagram post about it. which is wildly insulting. and they did something even worse, actually that overshadowed the whole damn thing. but we will get to that shortly.

if you want to watch it, its here

-charles posted another video of leo. hes cute idk. not much else to report about that. people did compare leos smirk to baby charles's menace smirk.

-max participated in the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring iRacing event. this is kinda funny cause it was the exact same weekend as the imola race. did he do this on purpose? did he accidentally double book himself? idk. either way its kinda funny. and evidently max also thought it was kinda funny that people took issue with the fact that he was doing two races in the same weekend (given that he might not be as focused on the f1 race and crasher something):

" I am professional enough to see what can and cannot be done. I'm not someone who thinks anyway: if I hadn't done that yesterday, this wouldn't have happened today. Look, if you don't go to bed and don't sleep, it won't be good for your race on Sunday. But the last few races I have also gamed afterwards, there was just no focus on that then. It doesn't matter all that much."

max was also asked if he had to ask red bull permission to participate in the race and he said no:

"I decide that myself. You can't decide what people do on their Saturday night. It's my free time. I am professional enough to see what can and cannot be done."

-valtteri bottas. idk how to describe it but stake is really having him pop his pussy. stake in general has just kinda been off the fucking rails this week.

but enough of that. lets get to the good stuff.

silly season

now Technically no one Else has singed (else being the key word here). there are rumors that zhou and logan are both talking to haas. (gunther had already been interested in logan on account of the fact that hes american) and it looks like kevin is not going to keep his seat.

there is the fact that aparently valtteri had a meeting with james vowels in the williams hospitality. i say aparently because he was seen leaving the williams hospitality on practice day and the official reason that was given was that to was because valtteri had run out of coffee and was taking some from williams. which is just so stinking funny no matter which way you spin it. but there are rumors that both williams and alpine want to sign him.

and lewis hamilton said that he would support kimi antonelli taking his seat. "honestly i have no idea what toto's plans are, but i think for me, hiring a young person would be, if it were my job, i would probably hire kimi."

and i am pretty sure that carlos needs to give audi/stake and answer by monaco. which is next week.

and mercedes lost their chief aerodynamicist, jack vino, to ferrari. (im pretty sure he went to ferrari)

the real news here is alex albon

you might be wondering. hold on. didnt alex already sign with williams? yes. he did. this was announced at the 2024 williams car launch by james vowels (the team principal). his exact quote about being at williams past 2025 was:

“Let’s see. Time will tell. But my focus is on 2024. Let’s keep it like that. The real focus is on making sure that we make progress for 2025. That’s really where I’m at. I realistically want to be with the team — if the team are where I want them to be, it will be a long-term contract. We’re going to go all the way or nothing. That’s my idea of it, I guess.”

he said "I realistically want to be with the team — if the team are where I want them to be, it will be a long-term contract."

now, im no expert in f1 cars by a long shot but lets look at williams's stats for the 2024 season so far:

bahrain: alex p15, logan p20. alex made it to q2 of qualifying. during the race his car showed an error message saying that it was too hot and logan had steering wheel problems saudi arabia: alex p11, logan p15, alex made it through to q2 of qualifying australia: alex p11 after crashing his own car during practice and having to race in logans cause williams didnt have a spare chassis, alex made it through to q2 of qualifying, japan: alex dnf, logan p17, neither had confidence in the car and were racing in each others cars still, alex made it through to q2 of qualifying china: alex p12, logan p17, alex got into q2 of qualifying for the race, but not the sprint miami: alex p18, logan dnf, logan did very well in the sprint race and placed above alex, but still no one got points. Williams finally got a spare chassis.

that doesnt seem like very good stats. they've gotten no points. the car is a disaster.

and yet! alex albon signed an EXTENSION at williams.

why on earth did he do this?

well i have some speculations. lets belly flop right into the deep end, shall we?

(as a note. i found out about this approximately 5 minutes before arriving at work and sent approximately 53 unhinged voice memos of speculations to everyone i could think of during my breaks. i will attempt to recreate the seer unhinged insanity that i achieved there here)

number one: multi year contracts

everyone who has signed a contract so far has signed a multi year contract. charles is at ferrari through 29, lewis through 26, lando is at mclaren until 27, oscar until 26, nico hulkenberg signed at least a two year contract at stake, fernando signed a who knows how long contract at aston. NO ONE HAS SIGNED A ONE YEAR CONTRACT!!!! admittedly there are still a whole lot of seats left, but so far no rookies have been signed (often they get 1 year contracts) and likely wont be until later in the season. but if no one signs a one year contract, then theres relatively little options for movement at the end the year and the chance that you could get dropped.

who has signed a one year contract???? alex albon. at williams.

number two: 2025 contract sillies

so! originally! george, lando and lewis (and mayyyybe oscar??) all had contracts expiring in 2025. lando extended at mclaren until i think 2027, lewis signed with Ferrari for at least through 2026 (oscar also extended to 2026).

this leaves george with the only current contract expiring in 2025.

number three: saph loosing her mind and going off the deep end (im not even sorry)

so currently george is on a one plus one contract which is one year guaranteed and option of resigning for a second year if everything goes well and dandy (in short, essentially). 2025 would be the plus one part of the contract. so he has an out. basically. im pretty sure. he could leave at the end of this year if he wanted to. (will he? idk probably not but just embrace the insanity of this ok)

so. mercedes. they're going downhill hard and fast like a giant snowball in a parable you have to read for an ap english test which is not good cause like yeah they sucked last year a little, but they still came second in the constructors championship IN FRONT OF ferrari. this year right now theyre in fourth in the constructors championship with 62 points (mclaren are in third with 124 and aston martin are fifth with 42) and yeah were barely a quarter into the season but thats kinda bad stats, especially for a previously champion winning team.

SO WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR ALEX ALBON??? well williams is associated with mercedes cause williams uses a mercedes engine blah blah seen it lived it breathed it whatever SO alex COULD go to mercedes for 25 and take georges seat BUT mercedes is deep in their shit arc so he probably doesnt want to do that and lets not forget than george and alex are friends like best friends like sky sports implied that they hooked up one time so you reALLY THINK that george wouldn't give a few wink wink hint hints to alex about the fact that hey man merc kinda fucking sucks dont come here please???? like i know theyre not supposed to but people do stuff theyre not supposed to all the damn time!

OR the OTHER OPTION is that say alex WAS banking on taking george's seat which would become available in 2025 BUT george is on a one plus one and what if hes LEAVING. george would have Definitely told alex this esp if he knew alex was looking at merc as an option and also cause theyre friends and he would have been like hey hey man there wont be a seat for you to take because im leaving this year and your contract is up next year (why would george leave???? dance with a better team (tho tbh idk what team that would be) and more options in the driver market are available this year) so that COULD BE AN OPTION

AND LETS NOT FORGET that red bull wanted first refusal of alex albon for the 2026 season but this was kinda back when it looked like they still might have signed daniel ricciardo which would have probably been on a one year contract only and would have made sense then to want to have options for 2026 BUT NOW it looks like red bull want to keep checo and if alex albon is signing a multi year williams contract then red bull are probably multi year signing checo so there would be no more first refusal for 2026 and thus stupid for alex to hold out for them if they are already filling their second seat. that of course would mean that all the seats at the top teams are taken (provided that george stays at merc through 25 and they sign kimi or whoever for the second seat) for at least a few years cause george will likely sign another merc contract if he stays through 25 cause of the limited driver market, ferrari and mclaren have no open seats until 26 at least, and red bull have at least few years as well. this is all to say that alex would not be able to promote himself to a better team and if he wants to stay on the grid to potentially get back to a better team he needed to tie himself down in the shitbox car like a lady on a railroad track in the olden days.

does that make sense? no probably not. but i rest my case.

tldr: pretty sure alex albon knows something we dont. im watching you buddy. or he just wants a seat on the grid until he can get somewhere better (but i like my theory more)

also though. alex's contract news entirely overshadowed logans lap of legends which was something that Williams did specifically For Logan. and also also, alex signing an extension on top of his current contract doesnt look very good for logan at all.

aside from alex, carlos was asked when there would be news on where he was driving next year and he basically said "when i have it you will know" and that it is still a "long way off" which is. not so great sounding. if youre carlos sainz.

but with all that said. lets get into media day.

normally i dont Explicitly cover media day (i am an adult with two jobs taking college classes on the side ok i need time to sleep believe it or not), but this media day was kinda focused on senna so ill make an exception.

(senna was a Brazilian f1 driver who died at the 1994 imola gp, along with ronald ratzenberger who died in qualifying. i talked about them last week, if you want to read about that weekend in more detail i redirect you to here. it is not. fun story, theres a lot of death)

the senna tribute was organized by sebastian vettel, everyones favorite unproblematic, freshly shaven bloke and probably the only person capable of uniting the entire paddock.

essentially, as i said last time, this is the 30 year anniversary of ayrton senna's and ronald ratzenberger's deaths. in memory, sebastian vettel (4x world champion and previously a red bull, ferrari and aston martin driver who retired in 2022) returned to the paddock to organize a tribute and also drive ayrtons mclaren mp4/8 car in a demo drive around the track.

on media day he also organized a run around the imola circuit (most people ran, some people decided to bike and someone else (*cough* LEWIS *cough*) decided to scooter. they stopped at the curve where senna died for a moment of silence and a speech.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by FORMULA 1® (@f1)

he made all of the drivers custom senna shirts with their own driver numbers on them, and gave them all a lock to put on the fence at the senna statue/memorial site.

(everyone shit on max for not wearing the shirt. aparently he was late cause he got caught up in the media pen or something. i also saw that perhaps he decided to wear the red bull kit to honor ratzenberger who was austrian and red bull is an Austrian team, or some people even speculated he didnt wear the shirt because nelson piquet, his girlfriends father, hated senna for some reason. whatever the reason, it doesnt matter. valtteri was wearing a blue cycle suit and no one gave him shit for it)

the track walk run cycle scoot (as it was named by the f1 instagram account) was certainly....something

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by FORMULA 1® (@f1)

seb also took being back in the paddock as the opportunity to cause problems.

first he arrived in what is either a denim or linen dad shirt with a fresh haircut and shave and a paddock pass that says f1 world champion:

then he hung out in the red bull garage and had max sign the helmet that he had given him

then, he made fun of charles's pants

then he stood right next to logan (which is funny because logan said recently that he feels kinda left out of stuff and then no less than three retired world champions (nico, jenson and seb)came out of the woodwork to cheer him on)

and he (thirst???) posted a photo of lewis

the tribute lap he did in sennas car was done i think on saturday, but im throwing it in here with the rest of the tribute stuff.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by FORMULA 1® (@f1)

he bowed to the car in true sebastian vettel style

he was left very emotional

i could keep going on about seb, but unfortunately this post is too fucking long already

and we have several people whos home race this is. well kind of. its a home race for ferrari because they are an italian team so the tifosi are going to go crazy go stupid. and its also rb's home race because they are based in italy. none of the drivers are really From Italy though. but! yuki does live very close to the racetrack and helped out the locals last year clean up from the floods that affected the region and canceled the imola gp. pierre lives in i think milan (?).

and then theres oscar:

but onto the racing.

starting with the practice sessions.

very, very surprisingly, i actually watched all three practice sessions this week. and even more surprising, max verstappen was on the back foot. how far on the back foot was he??? well!!

in practice 1 he finished in 5th, and ended up driving across the grass in the middle sector and then later across the gravel on his last lap. he was loosing up to .4 seconds in the middle sector or the track. after the session he called his car a "catastrophe"

in practice 2 he finished 7th. he said that the car was better, but he was struggling with the grip. he went into the gravel again. the car wasnt really responding to his turning the wheel fast enough. there was speculation that he was going to have his set up changed overnight. the announcers said many times "all is not well with max verstappen."

in practice 3 he finished 6th. red bull cancelled their pit stop practice to finish the set up changes. red bull went out early in the session which was unusual for them to test the set up changes. at the beginning he was doing a little better .19 of a second behind charles (who was on soft tires when max was on medium tires). and max did say that the car "cant get worse."

and, red bull was on a redemption weekend. they had just lost in miami to lando and according to one ted kravitz, red bull "will make these comments and then qualify on pole by hand a second then win the race by 20 seconds" see: japan (post australia).

so if max wasnt doing well. and checo by default also wasnt doing well (and crashed in practice 3), who was doing well?

ferrari. mclaren. and yuki tsunoda.

ferrari brought massive upgrades to imola, and at least in the practice sessions they looked like they were doing well. charles went fastest in practice 1 and 2 and fourth in practice 3. carlos was a bit behind charles, the new set up seemingly favoring charles's driving style over his, but he managed to get a handle on the car as well, coming in 3rd in practice 1, 6th in practice 2 and 3rd in practice 3. ferrari was confident in the upgrades. charles was even favored for pole.

one thing was for sure, leo was excited about the success. (unfortunately since this was posted on charles instagram story this is the only version of this video i could find)

mclaren also brought upgrades. oscar now had the complete upgrade package that lando had had in maimi and they also changed the rear wing a little. lando and oscar came 8th and 9th in practice 1 respectively, still testing the set up. oscar came 2nd in practice two and lando came 12th, but didnt get to complete his flying lap. oscar came 1st (and fastest in all three sectors) and lando came 2nd in practice 3. (the mclaren instagram admin was personally thrilled with this result, posting the caption "nobody say its just practice). oscar even had time to insult alpine's driving style: "that's so intelligent...incredible."

and then there was yuki tsunoda. who Positively Slayed. the announcers first discussed that he was staying in his own apartment for the race weekend and "enjoying his own coffee machine." (one of the announcers, karun, said that he stayed at his own apartment before silverstone in 2010 and had to go to tesco on friday of the race weekend to buy cereal cause he didnt have any and it was "confusing"). in practice 1 he came 6th, in practice 2 he came 3rd and in practice 3 he came 13th. he was never very far from the top 5. it was incredible to see.

aside from that. there were problems abound.

danny rics did Okay. not nearly as well as yuki but Okay. according to him "half of it was because of the floor, half of it wasn't because i was a bit rubbish."

aston martin brought upgrades. they didnt really work. they said that this was part of a bigger upgrade package that was coming, but they still didnt do very well. considently in the mid field section. and fernando alonso crashed into the wall in practice 3 after loosing the rear on a gravel trap (imola has a lot of gravel traps).

williams had a decently williams day. alex albon had to retire his car in practice 1 because he ran over a curb and shorted out the electricity in the car. like it just stopped working. at the start of practice two both cars has the floors off of them with people working on them for at least half the session.

haas was pretty normal as well. ollie bearman was in kevins car for practice 1 and he finished 15th, hulkenberg 20th. aparently the drive to survive cameras were following him around the paddock (and hes not even in f1 yet!" the announcers regarded him, not for the first time, as a star of the future. nico hulkenberg has never raced in anything at imola before, somehow. and he did about as well as he usually did, which is better than kevin.

stake was also just kinda there, idk. they didnt get talked about much. in practice 1 they had some porpoising (car bouncing). and there was contract talk. the announcers were doubtful that zhou was going to be in f1 past this year.

alpine was, well, alpine. the french civil war was alive and well and the car was pretty mid. pierre went spin a few times.

and the french civil war was alive and well. at least on pierres side. post fp3 on the radio he said: "why! we are always in the same situation"

his engineer said "everyone bunched up there, nobody got a lap"

this was not acceptable for pierre. "yeah," he said "except esteban. except esteban. its always the same. i thought i had priority this weekend."

and mercedes. they also had upgrades. they were Okay. better than some, and slightly better than usual. but still not quite where they wanted to be. aparently these upgrades were upgrades that they had started planning around launch and testing, the real good batch of upgrades are going to come around summer break. they did have a few problems with the ride heights and some porpoising, but that was likely due to the track being bumpy and not the car. according to the announcers they were "better than usual" and ended up ahead of red bull quite a few times, but they usually do well in practice but not qualifying.

speaking of qualifying.

remember how max didnt do well at all in any of the practice sessions and was generally not having a good time? and the announcers were excited that there was finally a five way battle for pole!

yeah. max got pole.

even he was surprised, and he actually sounded excited. and he set a new world record for 8 consecutive poles.

so if max got pole, where did everyone else end up?

im glad you asked.

first, imola is a tight track, its twisty, theres elevation, only one DRS zone. your qualifying position is very important because its hard to overtake here. not quite as bad as monaco, but still not fun.

heading into q1, fernandos car was barely fixed. mclaren was slaying with lando saying his lap was "only average" before going fastest. nico hulkenberg briefly went fastest. pierre even got as high as fifth. and kevin magnussen got massively impeded by oscar piastri (who later got a three place grid penalty for it) and ended up out in q1. also out in q1 was bottas, sargeant (who had his lap time deleted and ended up in 20th), zhou, and fernando alonso who had to abort his lap due to a technical issue.

and kevin, when asked about visiting the stewards to discuss the impeding, said "it was nice to see the stewards again and make sure they are doing alright. it would be weird to go a whole weekend without seeing them."

(and some of you got pissed at me for not talking about kevins almost race ban last week and i didnt talk about it because it hasn't happened. but basically kevin has 10 penalty points on his superliscense for penalties and violations this year, if he gets to 12 he gets a race ban, so hes gotta be careful.)

q2 was a bit more exciting, with lecelrc briefly taking p1 away from max, and yuki tsunoda going third fastest. out in q2, surprisingly, was checo followed by ocon, stroll, albon and gasly.

which meant that for the first time this season, danny rics was in q3, continuing his 100% q3 appearance at imola streak. meanwhile. fred vasseur, ferrari team principal was stressed. andrea stella, mclaren team principal was not. but he never is. and one by one both ferrari and mclaren came up just slightly short. with the final order being max, oscar, lando, charles, carlos, george, yuki, lewis, daniel and nico.

notably!! max ended up on pole for one reason and one reason only. because nico hulkenberg gave him the slipstream. when asked about it, nico said that "he helped me out in q2 and i returned the favor." without this, oscar would have likely been on pole.

and, as oscar piastri said "you cant count out max in a red bull as we've seen."

and boy, was he correct.

everyone lined up for the race

well, except for fernando alonso who was starting from the pit lane.

and even though crofty was not there to say it, the lights went out and away they went.

lap one was fairly uneventful. actually the first chunk of the race was fairly uneventful.

oscar had been given a three place grid penalty for impeding magnussen and started from fifth, behind carlos. and as we saw last week, they do not quite get along on the track. and oscar barely gave carlos room to breathe for the first 24 laps of the race, riding his rear wing until he pitted.

and speaking of pit stops, imola has the longest pit lane of the calendar, you loose about 30 seconds pitting (from entering the pit to exiting it) so it was Ideally a one stop race. meaning tire strategy was important. and boy, did we see some Interesting tire strategies.

beginning with checo, who was the only one starting the race on hard tires, meaning that he planned to go really really long on the hard tires and then swap out for a softer tire towards the end to hopefully make up some positions because he was starting from 11th. it almost worked for him too.

fernando and pierre did the exact opposite, starting on soft tires with the hopes of overtaking many people on the opening laps (because remember its hard to overtake on this track), but that epically failed for both of them, mostly because there was no early safety car and before lap 10 both of them had ditched the soft tire. (with the added extra bonus of fernandos brakes lighting on fire after his pit stop! they went out tho)

everyone else was on mediums for the most part.

including alex albon who had a horrendous start to his race. he was starting from 14th, which was fairly average for williams. and he pitted on lap 10, but went extremely slow out of the pit lane and came on the radio to say that "i have a problem, tires aren't on properly"

which is indeed a problem, and also very unsafe.

we have seen this happen before, not really this season but definitely back in australia 2018 when it happened to both haas cars at the opening race of the season and they both had to retire the cars.

alex albon though, was able to somehow get back around the track and back to the pits safely, boxing for another set of tires. but he came out a lap behind everyone. and then he got a 10 second stop and go penalty (which is saved by driving through the pit lane) for an unsafe release (leaving the pit with loose tires), which put him almost two laps down. and! the tires that he had boxed for that had gotten screwed up were his only set of hard tires, meaning he had to do pretty much the whole race on mediums. not a good day for alex albon At All.

and if alex was having a bad first half of the race, yuki was having a fantastic one. after loosing two places at the beginning, he pitted for tires on lap 12. he had been running right behind nico hulkenberg, who pitted on lap 14 and yuki just managed to cut him off at the pit lane exit, overtaking him as he came back onto the track, with the announcers saying "this has unleashed him" and unleashed him it had, this would not be the last we saw of yuki slaying.

checo meanwhile took a little dip into the gravel on lap 15

but it was fairly standard for the first 20 or so laps. max was running out in front in p1, about 4-5 seconds ahead of lando, who was about a second and a half infront of leclerc, who had moved froward to catch lando and no longer had carlos in his drs to protect him from oscar who was between .5 and .7 seconds behind carlos.

it was becoming clear that mclaren was going to be fighting with ferrari for second and not with max for first as they had originally thought.

but then the top 5 all began their pit stops and things started to heat up a little.

lap 23. lando came into the pits. in order for him to get back up into fighting positions he needed to come out of the pits in front of checo who was in 6th. and he didnt. he landed just behind checo in 7th.

as this was happening, max got a black and white flag for track limits. meaning he needed to be careful or else he would be getting a time penalty if he did it again.

lando, meanwhile, was able to overtake checo on lap 24

also on lap 24, oscar pitted and came out in 8th behind stroll and checo. another not ideal position. he had ground to make up if he wanted to undercut sainz.

lap 25. max pitted and came out in 4th. oscar passed stroll for 7th.

so we had leclerc in p1 and sainz in p2. hamilton was in p3, verstappen was in p4, norris was 4 seconds behind him and with the fastest lap time.

hamilton had a dip into the gravel and pitted, coming out in 9th.

lap 26. charles pitted and came out, just like everyone else, behind perez in 6th. oscar them pulled out a fastest lap that was almost a whole second faster than landos fastest lap.

lap 27. charles passed checo for 5th, oscar passed checo for 6th. sainz pitted and came out behind perez, just like everyone else. almost like passing perez was some kind of community service.

and yuki! again! passed logan sargeant and nico hulkenberg in the middle of the pit stop drama.

so by lap 30 the top 5 were looking like this:

p1: verstappen, interval p2: norris, +6.060 p3: lecelrc, +3.490 p4: piastri, +0.968 p5: sainz, +6.500

mclaren were still confident. apparently the tire degradation was high on other cars than it was on theirs. this was good news cause no one was going to pit again.

but, this did mean oscar piastri was going to be stuck looking at the back of a ferrrari again. and he wasnt too happy about that. the race to the end was on.

meanwhile, oblivious to the fight raging ahead, yuki passed zhou for 11th on lap 33.

by lap 35 tho, lando was struggling. "why am i so much slower than the guys behind?" he asked on the radio "theyre using their tires much more than we are," will, his engineer said. "yeah," lando said, "but i have no pace"

and then charles starting flooring it.

meanwhile! perez. he finally pitted on lap 39. and he came out in 11th behind danny rics. by lap 40 he had passed danny and then by lap 41 had also passed hulkenberg for 9th, and also passed yuki for 8th on lap 43.

but, back to lando. he was loosing time against charles. by lap 43 charles was only 1 second behind lando. and the gap between max and lando had grown to 7 seconds. but lando was still fighting. he just had to keep charles out of drs (more than a second away from him) and by lap 48, after doing his personal best fastest lap, the gap was back at over a second. he was safe. for now.

checo was stuck behind hamilton. like 30 seconds behind hamilton. but he had been 30 seconds behind hamilton for a good several laps and hadn't even remotely started to close the gap even a little. despite having new tires, he was seemingly struggling for pace.

also on lap 48, charles decided that the grass needed cutting in one of the chicanes. and he ran over it, increasing the gap between him and lando to 2 seconds. which was bad news for him, but great news for lando.

by lap 51 something interesting had happened to lando's tires. they had come back to life. because max was only 4 seconds ahead of him.

and according to GP, max's race engineer, he was experiencing the most loss in turns 2 and 6. max's response was, very helpfully, "yeah my tires aren't working!" which was great news if your name was lando norris!

lap 52. lando was 3 seconds clear of charles. mclaren was officially bringing the fight to red bull. no safety cars, no luck, just pure racing.

weirdly, in the middle of this, george pitted for medium tires. because his tires were dead.

the radios previous to this pit stop were...interesting:

george was asked if he minded pitting. he would loose a position tho to lewis (george was 6 and lewis was 7, checo was 30 seconds behind so they had the window to pit) and george said "yeah I dont mind....but well do a switch at the end or...?"

and his engineer said "negative." they talked about the car some more.

and then george said "why would we box? i really dont get that"

(they wanted to box because they had been concerned about george even finishing the race on the tires that he had because they were so dead)

his engineer said as much "were just concerned on getting these tires till the end, up to you."

george was not pleased with this. "I dont want to confit a position for no reason" he said.

his engineer was silent for awhile. and then he said eventually "box, before we lose the window to perez"

so george pitted. and lost the position to hamilton.

he was asked about this in the post race, but seemed to be over it, saying that "you are never going to be happy with a P6 and a P7. at the end of the day, as a team, we scored an extra point. I lost my position to lewis. but, I am not going to sulk over losing a P6, to be honest."

10 laps to go!!

and things were finally, finally starting to heat up!

lap 53. max was told to mind the track limits because he already had a black and white flag and couldnt afford a 5 second penalty

lap 54. alex albon retired his car. mostly because he was so far behind everyone that it really didnt matter if he finished the race or not. later, everyone would flame williams on instagram for being concerned about logans performance when they themselves couldnt put wheels on a car correctly. alex albon though was weirdly optimistic in his post race interview about the dnf, saying that it was the "best the car has felt set up wise."

max, meanwhile, was only in the lead by a slim 3.5 seconds. insane when you remember that max is used to winning by 20 seconds.

the announcers were starting to speculate, and karun said what everyone was thinking. "could it be two in a row" for lando norris?? no one had done back to back wins after their first gp win since charles leclerc at ferrari in 2019!

lap 56. and max's car refused to turn.

by lap 57 lando had closed the gap to a very small 1.6 seconds. he told his engineer, who was trying to give him advice "im pushing as much as i can mate, thank you." it was was projected that he would be within drs range in 3 laps.

but! horrors! on lap 59 he had a snap of oversteer and lost a few tenths. the gap was 1.4 seconds and it increased to 1.8 seconds on lap 60.

three laps to go!

and landos tires were losing grip. victory was slipping away from him.

lap 62. max was almost out of battery power and he sounded panicked about it. he had 30% and lando had 60%. he could slow to change the battery but that would close the gap to lando which was already only 1.1 seconds. he would have to do it without the extra battery power.

lap 63. the final lap. the gap was down to less than a second, lando was still gaining, he was still going, he was still flying, but he didnt quite manage to pass max.

but he did come close. .7 seconds close.

yes. max had only won by .7 seconds. he had to work for it in ways we havent seen in awhile from him. the days of easy red bull wins seem to be done. the fight that the other teams have been saying that they are taking to red bull since 2022 has finally arrived.

"fuck my life," max said. "i had to work hard for that."

during the post race press conference, max said "im just looking forward to laying in bed, maybe taking some painkillers." and was generally very exhausted due to how hard he was pushing and the bumpy track.

lando said himself during his post race interview "were in the position to fight with ferrari and red bull" and mclaren has "to get used to fighting for 1st and 2nd now" which coming from lando, mr glass half empty, is really something. lando said that he could have gotten max of he had a few more laps. dare i say that we might have a title fight on our hands here.

by comparison, max said in his post race interview that it was "very tricky at the end" the hard tires didnt really work in the car, it was kind of "like driving on ice...so difficult to be consistent." and he even admitted that "ferrari and mclaren have taken a big step forward."

and so, the race finished with

p1: max verstappen p2: lando norris p3: charles leclerc p4: oscar piastri p5: carlos sainz p6: lewis hamilton p7: george russell (and fastest lap) p8: checo perez p9: lance stroll p10: yuki tsunoda p11: nico hulkenberg p12: kevin magnussen p13: daniel ricciardo p14: esteban ocon p15: zhou guanyu p16: pierre gasly p17: logan sargeant p18: valtteri bottas p19: fernando alonso DNF: alex albon

the cooldown room was really something. as in. well. for some reason they showed a clip of sonic the hedgehog before the race highlights? it was probably a sponsor, but max, charles and lando were entertained:

and when they showed the clip of lewis going off into the gravel, everyone had something to say about it:

lando: "someone went off in ahead of you"

max: "yeah who was it?"

lando: "someone went through the gravel. and I was like, please be max!"

max: "ah, it was lewis"

charles: "ah I thought it was you lando"

lando: "no i thought it was max"

max: "no you were hoping it was me."

they were properly silly. and it continued on the podium when lando tried and nearly succeeded to chase max off the stage with the champage.

speaking of the podium, we are now 3/4 lando podiums that haven't shown his full champage pop. but at least we have the mclaren instagram page:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by McLaren (@mclaren)

heading into the post race show, there was a lot of talk about max. mostly about how red bull might have hit a ceiling in terms of development. but remember!!! adrian newey has been taken out of the meetings now at red bull and is not working on the f1 car at all anymore....could be correlated. especially because max was not consistently the fastest car. we all saw where checo ended and where he qualified. max winning came down to his skill, and not really the car itself.

and zak brown said in the post race interview "i think we actually made max sweat a little...bring on monaco, we're ready to go." (zak brown also did tell lando that he should have shaved his beard and then he would have gone faster)

aside from max, yuki was pleased at his result and said that he feels like he has matured as a driver. and we got yoints!!! incredible day!!!

carlos on the other hand was anything but pleased. his energy and his body language were terribly off. like yes, he had a bad race, yes he was fighting with oscar again, but in the words of john mulaney, Something Hinky Is Going On. first. he didnt look once at the camera. second he read laura winter's notes as soon as he picked up the microphone, to see what she was going to ask him. which is odd. and based on his body languge, probably he didnt want to answer any contract questions. he also interrupted her a lot to jump straight into his answers.

he said that the race was "vowed tricky for me on the personal side" and a "far from ideal race" and he was "disappointed." upon being asked if it was a set up related issue he said "not related to set up, it is related to other things in f1 that we cannot comment about."

so, maybe something contract related was going on with carlos. or maybe even hes starting to get shut out of ferrari meetings, as is normal when a driver isn't renewed because they cant share future info with them.

oscar was not nearly as disappointed as carlos. he polite catted left right and center all over his interview. "i think as a team we finished in the two most painful positions, 2nd and 4th" he said. but he wasnt disappointed. he was very pleased with his start, but said that "it would have been good if we could have had a bit of fun at the end of the race."

and lewis was Slightly more confident in the mercedes. Slightly. Very Slightly. he said that "we dont have the pace at the moment but we are slowly ekking." which is progress.

and charles!! he had life in his eyes!! he was optimistic!! he didnt think they were far off the race pace!! and he was excited for monaco, his home race!!!

most importantly, we've had some changes in the drivers championship standings. leclerc is now up into second, ahead of checo. and lando is up into 4th, ahead of carlos. with oscar directly behind carlos.

and the constructors championship currently stands at:

redbull: 268 ferrari: 212 mclaren: 154 mercedes: 79 aston martin: 44 rb: 20 haas: 7 alpine: 1 williams: 0 stake 0

what else happened in imola??? a lot. but the best bits:

-max was running on the track in the rain holding a pizza. i dont know how or even why. i have no context. but he was evil laughing.

-lando and oscar did a tour of their driver rooms. lando called oscar a "freaking muppet" for hoarding all the hangers and was drinking his ""morning coffee"" at 2 in the afternoon. they also made up a handshake.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by McLaren (@mclaren)

-lando crashed max's post race instagram discussion and they booked a paddel match for next week instead of talking about qualifying:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing)

-logan said that new york pizza is better than italian pizza. he is correct.

-esteban ocon told sebastian vettel that he had "lost some neck"

-valtteri taught zhou how to do asmr, with some success. they also called the car pookie

-lewis hamilton tried to fix his car himself:

-george russell went around the garage and asked merc people what their favorite pizza toppings were. as usual, he was very British about it

-leo got a closeup:

-lando posted this instagram post:

max had an interesting comment:

-a fan flipped off max when he was driving, so he flipped them off back. the next time he came around, they were clapping for him. (the same fan also clapped for lando and gave oscar a thumbs down)

-zak brown got champage dumped on him and stole lewis's look. he also was wearing a ferrari cap ala fred wearing the mclaren cap in miami

-the red bull account compared george, max, lando and charles to one direction?? i cant find the source but i know it happened

-george also said during the fan stage that he would pay for lewis and max to go on a romantic date. i have no idea why.

-also on a fan stage, danny rics said we could all call him daniel "richardoe" (the italian version of his name)

-and lastly, rounding out what ive managed to find, carlos posted a video of charles and leo on his instagram story. leo pooped in the middle of the paddock. and it was very funny.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by F1 fan girl ☀️🕶️ (@f1_girrly554)

and theres more. theres always more. but i am one person. and this is all i got.

so so long, farewell. and since this is a double header week, i will see you all next weekend in monaco, where we will see if monaco will finally love charles back. thank you for reading and watch me continue to loose my sanity. i love you all.

Sorry i tried to scroll past but, i know nothing about f1 other than max verstappen is fast, my dad doesnt like lewis hamilton, fast car goes in a loop and sometimes expodes. Could you give me a crash course in f1 drama? Im very intrigued. Whats the tea as it were?

a terribly loaded question, but i will do my best. i’ve talked about some of the drama before like the red bull second seat and the chronicles of haas but allow me to briefly try my hand at explaining the nightmare that is the upcoming silly season

under the cut we go

silly season is when the drivers go through contract renewals, extensions and switches. usually it’s confined to the first half of the season (march-july) but it has been known to extend all the way to the last race of the season and they like to switch people around at random sometimes. driver contracts are complex, there’s a lot of money involved and basically You Are The Face Of The Team so if you have a shit season then you make the team look bad. but at the same time you could have a shit season because you have a shit car. it’s sticky stuff.

so. there are only twenty seats in formula 1. 10 teams. each team gets two drivers. (there’s also reserve drivers but we’re not going to get into that). who ends up with a contract is largely up to the teams, they can pull the contract out from under people they can also cut you mid season. they’ve done it before.

of the 20 drivers on the grid, 14 of them have contracts expiring at the end of the year. yes. 14. you see how this could get complicated.

so let’s meet the teams.

red bull racing. they came first this year (and last year) in the championship. like aggressively first. like they won the championship by over 350 points. they are definitely the team to beat. but if you end up with a seat at red bull, you do have to deal with max verstappen being your teammate and he won all but three of the races last year. he’s the golden boy. red bull are also notoriously silly when it comes to contracts and famously swap people mid season who aren’t performing.

mercedes. merc is home to 7 time world champion lewis hamilton and they have won the championship a great many times, though not since 2021. they are kind of in their flop arc and their car the last 2 years has been pretty garbage, but they have still made it work because they were able to come in second last year.

ferrari. god help the poor little meow meows with a ferrari contract. ferrari is a notoriously great team and they’re trying to get back to the top again but their strategy every single time has fallen short. to the point where their drivers are the ones doing the strategy in their cars while driving. they came in third last year and have been decently consistent at getting first in qualifying and then getting beat by max verstappen on race day.

mclaren. they’ve definitely worked their way up over recent years. they ended fourth last year and have had some championship wins before but not nearly as many as say merc and ferrari. their team ceo (owner? director?) is a little interesting and their car started out a pile of flaming hot garbage at the beginning of the year but they did manage to get their shit together.

aston martin. they are owned by canadian billionaire lawrence stroll, father of lance stroll (one of the drivers for the team). they’ve undergone several name changes over the recent years (force india, racing point, etc). they positively slayed at the start of the season and then one day they sucked. they finished fifth in the championship.

alpine. the frenchest french team. they’re (i think?) still partially owned by the french government. both of their drivers are french. (their drivers also hate eachother but we’ll get to that. just know they’re in the middle of a modern french civil war). they had the opportunity to have a good rookie driver (oscar piastri) this past year but in a thrilling twitter battle, he publically flamed the shit out of them and went to mclaren instead (and slayed). they're usually solidly middle of the pack. they ended sixth in the championship.

williams. williams has been one of the back of the grid teams for the last many years but they have finally started to get their shit together and don’t quite suck as much as they used to. all of the points this year were scored by only one driver though (except one but we’ll get there). they came in seventh.

alpha tauri. they are the sister team of red bull. so technically redbull owns both teams (meaning they can swap drivers between teams. they like doing this.) they’ve just kind of been There for awhile but they did slay towards the end of the season when one of their drivers led the race for several laps. basically tho, this team is the gateway to redbull. they came in eighth.

alpha romeo. recently renamed to stake f1 team (but sometimes they are going to be called kick sauber. this is a whole other drama post and i’m not getting into it). they’re also just kind of there. generally unproblematic. seems that really great drivers who get ixed out of a contract for a younger driver end up here or young drivers who are in their early years are here before they go to a better team. they ended ninth this year.

haas. oh haas. goofy team. they suck. point blank they suck. they keep loosing sponsors because they suck, they don’t win ever (one time they came first in qualifying last year). they cursed themselves in australia in 2018 by not tightening their tires and its been downhill ever since. they came 10th. their team principle got let go (fired?) who’s to say today.

so those are the teams. it is important to note that:

-there is a cost cap. each team is allowed to spend no more than 135m per year.

-not all cars are equal. some things are standard. they all undergo the same testing. but the cars are all very different. so you can be a good driver but stuck in a shitty car. which makes it impressive if you are doing well in a shitty car.

let’s meet our drivers!!!

starting with the guys who’s contract is not ending in 2024:

max verstappen. 3 time world champion. 26 years old. general beast on the track. he dominated the whole season. he’s currently racing for red bull and has a contract with them through 2028.

lewis hamilton. 7 time world champion. 39 years old. he drives for mercedes. he will not leave mercedes until he retires. he really really wants to win an 8th world championship and is willing to stick it out a few more years as long as merc still believes in him. his contract expires in 2025.

george russell. the other merc driver. 26 years old. hes aggressively british and says thinks like blimey unironically. walking meme. got his merc seat in 2022 right when they entered their flop arc by getting his tractor of a williams to finish second in qualifying in the middle of a rainstorm. his contract expires in 2025.

lando norris. mclaren driver. 24 years old. he has notably never won a race in his five years of formula one (mostly because right when his car finally was good enough max verstappen was 20 seconds ahead of anyone) but he is regarded as Very Good. he has only ever driven for mclaren. and even though there is another year left on his contract there is mass speculation that he will not renew his contract with mclaren after it expires and he may move up to one of the top teams (red bull, merc, ferrari) (tho i think he doesnt hate himself quite enough to go to ferrari). his contract expires in 2025.

oscar piastri. the other mclaren driver. 22 years old. this was his rookie season and he positively slayed. like people compared his rookie season to lewis hamiltons rookie season. he also had the positively funniest start to his rookie year because alpine announced that he would be driving for them (he had been their reserve driver and in the alpine academy) and he posted a tweet that basically said yeah thats false i never singed anything with you and im going to race with mclaren instead (he dodged a bullet) and then alpine tried and failed to sue him for $4m USD. he signed a contract extension with mclaren this year and his contract expires in 2026.

lance stroll. aston martin driver and son of the aston martin owner. hes doing ok, tho there was conspiracy that he wanted to quit and have a tennis career awhile ago. but basically since his dad owns the team it seems that hes guaranteed a seat for as long as he wants one.

so now. moving onto the good shit. the people who have contracts expiring in 2024. hold onto your hats people.

charles leclerc. (everyones favorite slutty little soup can). 26 years old. he is currently at ferrari and he has been since 2019. notably, he was given the longest contract in the history of ferrari after a stellar rookie season at sauber (renamed to alpha romeo, renamed to stake f1) where he got the tractor of a car consistently into the points. having the longest contract in the history of ferrari was a flex at the time, but now its likely how he will introduce himself at therapy sessions. ferrari have fucked this man left right and center up the ass with a plastic lunchroom spork. hes talented, he can drive, and he can drive well. but the strategy that ferrari has absolutely sucks. either something is wrong with the car (see him blowing out his gear box on the formation lap in monaco, his car completely crapping out and spinning into the barrier in brazil before the race even started) or they fuck up his pit stops or put him on the wrong tires and honestly its just frustrating. but will he leave??? likely not. you'd have to pry ferrari out of his cold dead hands and at this rate that might be where this is headed though there has been some minor speculation of him going to another team like merc or red bull, but merc doesnt have any open seats and red bull is a whole other dumpster fire of drama. ferrari are going to have to pay him a boatload of money to make him stay.

carlos sainz. the smooth operator. 29 years old. ferrari driver. previously carlos was at toro rosso (renamed to alpha tauri), renault (renamed to alpine), and mclaren before signing with ferrari. he has been at ferrari since 2021 and has voiced that he would like to stay with them for however long he can. there is speculation that lando might replace him at ferrari (but landos contract is not up until 2025) and there is also some speculation that alex albon might replace him. while charles is clearly the golden boy at ferrari, carlos is slightly slower but also definitely consistent. he was THE ONLY non red bull driver to win a race this past year, in Singapore after max verstappedn was knocked out of qualifying by alpha tauri reserve driver liam lawson (more on him later) and because he basically came up with his own strategy in the car while he was driving.

sergio perez. aka checo. red bull driver. 33 years old. and oh boy here's where we open the can of worms. checo was previously at racing point (renamed aston martin) and it was very near the end of the 2020 (?) season and he was out of a contract. he had a bonkers race where he was knocked to the back of the grid and then overtook everyone and somehow ended up winning (there is more to that story but just trust me) and christian horner, red bull team principle, mr ginger spice and definite disney villain called him and said congrats sir you have a seat at red bull! well. fast forward. hes been causing problems. problems as in crashing a lot, generally not doing great and pissing the crap out of red bull. it is basically guaranteed at this point that he will not be getting a contract extension. there was actually talk this year of him losing his seat mid season to one of the alpha tauri drivers, because remember, red bull owns both teams and they can switch them whenever they want to (and they have!) but ultimately this did not happen. even though checo has a seat at red bull until the end of 2024, its mass speculated that he is going to get switched with an alpha tauri driver, probably daniel ricciardo (more on him shortly) mid season because there is a speculated clause in daniels contract that says that if checo isn't performing well in the first few races daniel is getting his seat.

daniel ricciardo. 34 years old. alpha tauri driver. man oh man what a guy. outside of being the prankster of the paddock, he has one of the most batshit careers of anyone currently on the grid. he started out at red bull and was showing real talent and skill and was on track to win things (and was!) and was there until the end of 2018 when max verstappen (his teammate) started getting preferential treatment and also red bull started having a lot of problems with their engines (which were being outsourced from Renault (now alpine) and another team on the grid) and well very very long story short he made the surprise move of the century and decided to sign with Renault (which makes no sense they're the one with the engine problems) and was there for 2 years before moving again to mclaren where he was reportedly not treated very well and had a hard time driving the car so they mutually ended his contract with them early and he basically retired at the end of the 2022 season and became a red bull reserve driver. then halfway through the 2023 season alpha tauri ixed one of their drivers, nyck de vries, because he wasnt doing well and promoted daniel back up to a full time driver at alpha tauri (which we know is only a step down from red bull) but then he broke his hand in a crash in zanvort (?) and then he was replaced for a few races by formula 2 driver liam lawson (who we will also talk about) and then he came back to finish out the season in alpha tauri after he was cleared. daniel has admitted openly that he never should have left red bull and he was given bad advice to do so. hes towards the end of his career at this point and its well known that he Really Really wants to finish out his career at red bull again. he and max have already been teammates before and they do work well together and daniel is great driver (see his comeback in texas (or maybe it was brazil?) this year). so. Pretty Sure that daniels going to get either an extension at alpha tauri or go up to red bull. thats what we all want. get this man in a red bull we need him there biblically.

liam lawson. now technically liam is not actually a formula 1 driver. hes a formula 2 driver, but he was daniels replacement for five races and there has been some speculation and some confirmed news about him so hes getting included. when he was racing for f1 he was at alpha tauri. hes 21 and looks like he belongs in the movie grease. no one was expecting him to slay in formula 1 and he positively knocked everyones socks off. the scene: Singapore. which, if you'll recall, is the one race that a not red bull driver won. this was largely because liam lawson slayed the absolute game in qualifying. the qualifying part of racing determines what order the cars start in on the grid for the race and theres three parts, the first two parts the bottom 5 drivers each time get knocked out and then the top 10 complete for the last 10 spots. liam lawson knocked BOTH max verstappen and checo perez out of qualifying in the second round by going very slightly faster than them, effectively fucking up red bulls race and allowing carlos to win. and he also scored points in that race, which no one was expecting. now thats all fine and dandy, but here's the speculation: hemlut marko (im pretty sure) (who is somehow decently involved in the decision making at red bull though i couldn't tell you how) said that he thinks that liam lawson will be in an f1 seat no later than 2025. meaning that he will probably get offered a contract this year. and hes already raced for alpha tauri. red bull have sunk a good amount of money into him. they clearly want him. so if he gets offered an alpha tauri seat in 2025, that means theres a good chance danny rics is going to red bull. do you SEE how the plot here is THICKENED

yuki tsunoda. age 23. currently at alpha tauri. and fun fact, the only alpha tauri driver to race there the whole year. he had three separate team mates. he is slaying and hes often slept on. he has a bit of a temper and likes to shout on the radio and also hates working out (they had to force him to move to italy or something to work out, long story) but hes been kinda killing it. he led several laps in the abu dhabi race this year and hes decently consistent. people think theres possibility that he could get moved up to red bull on account of the fact that he is younger than daniel and clearly has more years in him,, but there is also possibility that he might not because red bull like to make stupid decisions. and if he doesnt get moved up to rebel, will he stay with alpha tauri? we don't know.

alex albon. age 27. currently a williams driver. alex albon is another one with a batshit career. he started out his rookie year in 2019 at alpha tauri then got moved up to red bull halfway through the year when red bull decided that pierre gasley wasnt doing a good enough job (more on him later) and stayed with red bull for a solid year and a half until he lost his seat in 2021 to checo. he has been with williams for the last two years and is basically carrying the team. like. williams as a team scored 28 points this year. and alex albon scored 27 of those 28 points. and as we know, williams is still kind of in their shit arc (though they are doing much better. they didnt score any points for a solid 2 (?) years. so this is an improvement.) and if you can get a shit car to perform you catch the eye of bigger teams. now, alex has already been a red bull driver. and he was on the cusp of podiuming two separate times when lewis hamilton ran into him. this (among a few other things) basically killed his chances at getting resigned at red bull because he wasnt ""performing"" and red bull are bitches who love to win. but some people think that red bull should give him another shot. like daniel, hes already been max's teammate and he can definitely drive. but theres also talk he might go to ferrari because ferrari think that he might compliment charles's driving style (or something). but going to ferrari at this point is kind of suicide. so.

logan sergeant. age 23. the only american on the grid. the other williams driver. he just finished his rookie year. he scored a grand total of one single point this season, in texas, and it was because charles leclerc and lewis hamilton both got disqualified because the floor of their car had more wear (by literally less than millimeters) than it was allowed to, bumping him up from 12th to 10th. he has never done better than alex albon. he was also the very last driver to get a contract for 2024, with williams waiting until i think december of 2023 to announce his contract extension. clearly, hes on thin ice. but people have also said that he needs time to get used to formula 1 (other people have pointed out that oscar piastri slayed his rookie season this year and this statement about needing time is largely false). where logan ends up next year though will largely depend on how well the 2024 season goes for him.

fernando alonso. 42 years old. many people like to point out that oscar piastri is actually younger than fernando's racing career. he won tiktok creator of the year (somehow) and is also a 2 time world champion. he retired a few years ago, just to show back up again and slay. during the first half of the season when aston martin had a zoom zoom car he killed it, and then they had problems on top of problems and he didnt do well. except for that one race in brazil where he came in third, beating checo by literally .05 seconds. he hasn't really made any hints about retiring a second time and he is kind of carrying aston Martin right now (he scored 205 points this season, coming in 4th and tying in points with charles leclerc, lance stroll only scored 74 points this year.) and they did have their best year yet this year. (though they are relatively new).

pierre gasley. 27 years old. french. drives for alpine. the french team. previously he raced with toro rosso (now alpha tauri), then got promoted to a red bull driver in 2019, then halfway through the season they decided he wasnt doing a good enough job and he got demoted back down to alpha tauri. then he won a race with alpha tauri just to stick it to red bull. after the great oscar piastri contract twitter war, he was signed as alpines second driver, with Esteban ocon being the other driver (more on him soon). estie bestie and pierre (both french) were childhood friends and now hate each other for unknown reasons and basically feuded on the track for most of the season. french civil war at alpine. he scored 62 points in 2023 and came in 11th. not really sure where he will end up, it is possible that he will stick it out at alpine.

esteban ocon. 27 years old. also french. currently driving for alpine. another one with a silly bonkers career. he started out at force india and had a baller few seasons there but his teammate at the time was checo, and checo didnt really cooperate with him too much and caused some drama that cost estie bestie some places and some points. max verstappen also beat him up in the garage once. thats not really relevant but it did happen. anyway, after the owner of force india was arrested for .... i don't remember what maybe it was embezzlement or bankruptcy or something money related, the team was backed by lawrence stroll and became racing point. but all of that happened mid season and lawrence was basically like look ill back you guys for now but next year my son gets a seat (lance) so one of you two (checo and estie bestie) have to go. and ultimately they let estie bestie go even though he was more consistent because checo had more sponsors and they needed money. so he was out of formula 1 for a few years (but was a merc reserve driver) and then went to Renault, which then became alpine. he did come in 12th though overall this season, just behind pierre. so. will alpine keep both him and pierre and keep the civil war going? whos to say.

nico hulkenberg. 36 years old. haas driver. in his 200+ f1 races he has never been on the podium and he really really wants to be on the podium. unfortunately this will never happen in a haas because haas fucking sucks. and everyone knows it. he is getting towards the end of his career though. though! stake f1 will become the mario Andretti and audi team in 2026 (don't question it) and they have supposedly voiced interest in nico. so we will see if he hangs on that long to end up at audi. for now tough, hes definitely hating it at haas. though, haas are going to have a different team principle next year so maybe that will change things. i have a sneaky feeling through that haas will probably end up with another 2 rookie drivers because everyone else is smart enough to not race for them.

kevin magnussen. 31 years old. haas driver. hes another deeply interesting character. he has had one podium. in his rookie season. in his first race. and none since. kevin started at haas in 2017 and then left at then end of 2020 when he basically got kicked off because the team needed money and they wanted to bring in drivers with more sponsorships. these drivers were mick schumacher and nikita mazepin. so kevin basically was forced to retire after the 2020 season. this went decently well for haas. until russia invaded ukraine right before the start of the 2022 season and, well, nikita was Russian and it was never distinctly proven that his dads company (who was sponsoring the team) wasnt also funding the invasion. so nikita got fired and they were literally like 2 weeks out from the start of the season, down a driver. who are you gonna call? kevin magnussen! and hes been back ever since. but hes clearly getting annoyed with haas. there was one great clip from this year where his car caught on fire and he kind of just stared into to, clearly hoping it would burn for a long time. so the likelihood of him extending his contract is looking slim.

valtteri bottas. 34 years old. currently a driver for stake f1 (alpha romeo, kick sauber, whatever you wanna call it). previously, he was a mercedes driver and notoriously helped lewis hamilton win a great many championships, until he lost his seat to george russell in 2022. there was a rather awkward part of the 2021 season where valtteri knew that he was out of a merc seat the following year and kind of just chose violence. he slayed. then he went to alpha romeo, grew a mullet and made a calendar of his ass. quite the glow up if you ask me. hes also very interested in cycling. honestly though, i have my own personal speculation that hes going to retire at the end of this year.

zhou guanyu. 24 years old. driver for stake f1 (alpha romeo/kick sauber, etc etc). hes doing alright. he just finished his second season, in his first season he was majorly out qualified by valtteri but this past season he managed to out qualify him a good 6 times. which is decently good for the tractor of a car hes driving. its possible that he could get a contract extension, but like logan, its probably going to depend on how the 2024 season goes for him.

and thats all the drivers. theres also a few others i didnt talk about, like some other f2 drivers who want seats and mick schumacher, who is currently a merc reserve driver, all of which could be contenders for f1 seats. but one things for sure. this is going to be the silliest fucking silly season.

feel free to add on and peer review me

[maddiesflame]

Eastern Lights headers

like/reblog if saved © maddiesflame

[lokilickedme]

The Queen of Springtown

I’m going to tell you a story.  It’s a true story.  There’s a bit of conjecture here and there to fill in empty spots, but not a lot.  It’s a story about my grandmother - my paternal grandmother, not my maternal grandmother - I feel the need to specify who exactly it is because mom’s mom has a bit of a story too, but that’s for later.

This one’s about the one I’m going to call Elizabeth.  Elizabeth was her middle name, it was a family name, it belonged to her mother and her grandmother I believe, though I didn’t know any of those people so I couldn’t swear by it.  The family records are long gone if they ever existed.

Elizabeth’s last name was one of those romantically ridiculous names that still clung to old families at the turn of the century.  It had a lot of extraneous letters at the end, a handful of unnecessary and partially silent sounds that looked beautiful in the flowery handwritten script of the time, a noble sounding -eaoux that did little more than tag a fancy sounding o onto the back end.  A lot of fuss for such a little piece of sound.  And when Elizabeth’s grandfather moved his family from France to Ireland and signed the manifests upon arrival in the new old land, he dropped the -eaoux and shortened the family’s name to four tiny letters and a single syllable.  They were Irish now.

Elizabeth’s father carried the new name and the new heritage, and when he was of age he went and married an Irish beauty named - yep, Elizabeth.  They say she was redheaded and blue eyed and fair skinned, though no pictures exist to prove it.  All that exists is my grandmother, who supposedly looked just like her mama.  She didn’t remember Ireland...she was too young when her daddy moved his family to a new land just like his own daddy had done, and she never really told anyone she was Irish.  No one actually knew, once her parents were gone.

But you could tell.  She looked it - flame red hair, china blue eyes, fair skin.  She had the bones of whatever French nobility had been in her lineage from way back, but her colors were the Emerald Isle all the way.  A beauty like you’d see in the movies, petite and ladylike and perfectly put together.

But my god that woman had a wild streak that dated right back to the Celts whose blood made up half of what she was.

(continued under the cut because long story)

So Elizabeth grew up in America, the daughter of an Irish mother and a French father.  She had brothers and sisters, quite a few, though I never knew any of them.  I believe I met two of them when I was too young to remember much about the encounter, but I’ve always found it hilarious that one of her sisters was named Bill.  Bill, like the man’s name.  I never found out why and I’m not entirely sure there was ever actually a reason.  It was just one of those things.

The newly American family settled in Texas.  And when Elizabeth was very young - probably not yet in her 20′s, though nobody knows for sure just how old she actually was because it’s likely she tended to fib a bit about her age to get into places she had no business being - she got herself involved with the Texas mafia.

Now let me tell you a thing or two about the Texas mafia.  It wasn’t an official operation - not like the Italian Mafioso or the Eastern Syndicates or whatever the hell was going on between Florida and Cuba at the time.  But it was every bit as dangerous and vicious and bloody and corrupt as any of those bigger organizations, and it was led for the most part by a man I’m going to call Big Joe.

This was the early 1940′s or thereabouts.  Elizabeth was a party girl - up for anything, always out and about, girl-gang at the swing club, the works.  And Big Joe saw her in the club one night, it may very well have been his club she was dancing at, and the proverbial first-sight thing kicked him hard in the gonads.  This girl was a looker, and she was dancing with everyone in the place, whooping it up, living life like tomorrow it was all going to take a header into the sea.  He had to have her.

And he did.

Big Joe was likely in his late 30′s, maybe early 40′s.  There’s not a lot of information on him other than a handful of facts mentioned once and only once by my grandmother to my aunt - that Big Joe was a handsome man, big and tough and a snazzy dresser, and he always had enough money in his pocket to take Elizabeth anywhere she wanted to go and buy her anything she wanted to buy.  And Elizabeth, party girl extraordinaire, was all up for that.

So Elizabeth and Big Joe become a thing.  Everybody knows she’s his squeeze - and suddenly not a male soul in Dallas or the surrounding metropolitan areas will dare to lay an eye on her, not even a quick glance, because she’s Big Joe’s girl.  And that means something.  Elizabeth doesn’t know quite what it means because she’s likely not even 20 yet, but Big Joe is fun and romantic and he takes her on trips and buys her nice clothes.  He buys her a ring, a blood red garnet, a ring that I inherit many decades later.  He’s going to marry her, he says.  She doesn’t care much one way or the other, she’s having too much fun dancing every night in his club, traveling with him, going shopping, rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous of the Southwest.  She’s all but a star, protected and adored.  Big Joe’s men follow her everywhere she goes when she’s not with him.  And Big Joe starts going out of town without her a lot, taking care of business that he never tells her the details of.

She’s cool with that.  He’s a businessman, that’s what he’s always told her.  Things to take care of out of town.  The Boss.  He has a lot of operations to oversee, operations that make all that money he spends on her.

She has no idea what he actually does.

All she knows - or cares to know - is that when he comes back to town he ushers her around town in his big fancy black car, buying her furs and expensive dinners, showing her off to society.  When he isn’t slapping her around...but hey, that’s part of the deal isn’t it?  It’s the 1940′s, and Big Joe is very much a man of the era.  Women grew up knowing they’d have to take the back of a man’s hand from time to time, and Elizabeth knew which side her bread was buttered on.  She kept Big Joe happy, put a smile on his face, did the old grin-and-bear-it on the rest of it.

And then one night Big Joe comes banging on her door.  He’s frantic.  He pushes a set of keys into her hand - keys to the fancy black car that takes her everywhere - and tells her to keep it there, at her house.  Don’t drive it anywhere, just keep it there.  He’ll contact her soon and tell her what to do.

He leaves in another car with one of his men, and that’s the last time Elizabeth ever sees him.

A few weeks later she gets a letter from Big Joe telling her to drive the car into Grapevine Lake, on the far side by the shoals.  Don’t open the trunk, he says.  Put a brick on the gas pedal and put it in drive.  Do it at night and make sure nobody sees you.

That night Elizabeth picks up her best friend and they drive the car to Grapevine to do as Big Joe said, sinking it in the murky green water on the far side of the lake.  The two girls - just girls, barely even women yet - stand on the shore watching it disappear into the deep dark.

A week later Big Joe is shot to death.  A deal gone bad maybe, or a competitor moving into the territory.  Nobody really knows - grandmother never said.  Don’t think I haven’t done my research...I know what I know, and according to a nearly nonexistent little trove of newspaper articles microfiched in a tiny little library in Azle Texas that isn’t even there anymore, odds are very likely that Big Joe went down in a shootout with the Dallas Police Department.

Elizabeth never opened the trunk of that car.  At least she said she didn’t...it’s one of the many things that nobody ever knew or will ever know, because once she shut the door on that part of her life and moved on, it might as well have never happened.  Getting this much out of her was outrageously difficult.  Thanks to my very tenacious and very persevering aunt, what I’ve just told you managed to survive.  It’s very likely my aunt was the only person she ever told, and it’s very likely I in turn am the only person my aunt ever told.  And now my aunt is in her 70′s and in poor health, and this little unknown family story has started poking around at the back of my skull.  I don’t want it to be lost.  I don’t like the idea of soon being the only person alive who knows it.  It’s not a spectacular story, but it’s testament to the fact that extraordinary things happen to ordinary people, probably more often than you’d think - and that those ordinary people sometimes take it all to the grave with them.

Elizabeth - my dad’s mom, my grandmother, the one I look like and act like and laugh like, the one whose cheekbones and eyes and hair and size I was born with, passed away twenty-something years ago.  She lived through some extraordinary things.  After the demise of Big Joe she married an oil roughneck, one of the semi-transient oilfield workers that were prevalent in the Texas Panhandle at the time, and had two children with him - one of whom was my father.  The roughneck was the epitome of the James Dean romantic brooding bad boy type, handsome and manly, but unfortunately also a scoundrel who had a second family in another city that he went to every other month when he traveled to another rig for work.  She left him when she found out.  It was almost unheard of at the time, a young mother taking her two little kids and leaving her husband to be on her own, but she did it.  And when my father was 12 she met and married a very tall, very handsome, very Cary Grant-esque railroad worker who loved life every bit as much as she did.

They were together for the rest of her life.  I’ve never to this day seen two people more in love than Elizabeth and Jesse.  I spent many summers in Texas with them and not a night went by that I couldn’t hear them giggling in the next room after lights-out, talking and laughing quietly until granddad’s wallshaking snores echoed through the house.  It just about killed him when her heart gave out.  But she was old, and she’d lived a life worth living.  There was nothing in her face in those final moments that could ever convince anyone she wasn’t ready and willing to go when the time came.

I’d been married for a couple of years when she died, and my husband and I traveled to Texas for the funeral.  The first night there, as my aunt brought out grandmother’s jewelry box and told me to take whatever I wanted, the story was passed from her to me.  And when it was all told I opened a little drawer in the bottom of the jewelry box and pulled out an old garnet ring that I’d seen before, when I was a small child snooping in grandma’s stuff.  I’d always been fascinated with it...it just looked like it had a story to tell.  That’s it, my aunt said.  That’s the ring he gave her.  That’s all she ended up with.

It was the only thing I took.

The church was so full the next morning you’d have thought it was the final sendoff for some local celebrity.  Everybody loved my grandmother, everybody, but this was sort of astounding.  Some of them I knew from my childhood, from many many summers spent in the Panhandle, but people came from all over to say goodbye and nobody in the family knew who a lot of them were.  They just showed up, some of them cried, some just stood in the back of the church all stoic in black suits.  Some were very old.  And when it was over and I turned around to watch a group of distinctly important-looking old gentlemen quickly and quietly leave the building, I looked over at my aunt and pointed at them.  She arched her eyebrows in that way she always did, that way, the way that said What did I tell you?? - and I wondered if maybe all those years ago some of Big Joe’s men hadn’t pulled that car out of Lake Grapevine and found the trunk empty.

I mean...this is Elizabeth we’re talking about.

[sortasirius]

I cannot physically believe this, but it has officially been one year since I started posting “Line Between Tattoos.”

So I wanted to show it a little love today, and post a scene that didn’t make the cut in the first draft AND a little epilogue as well.

Pairing: Dean/Cas

Words: 81,174

Hope y’all enjoy, and, of course, go check out @protectyourdarlings for the killer header!

“Can I ask you something?”

Cas twists his head to look up at him, sprawled out on his couch, watching Tombstone for the fifteenth time.

“Of course.”

Dean steels himself, afraid of the answer but more afraid of not knowing it, if that makes any sense.

“Why didn’t you take the job?  The one in LA?  You called it your dream job, yet here you are, still here,” he starts second guessing himself and starts babbling, “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m like obviously glad you didn’t, I don’t want you to think that I like wanted you gone or anything, that’s not it.  I was just, I don’t know, I was thinking about it, thinking about how much you said you liked LA, how you liked the weather and everything and I was just-”

Cas quiets him by putting a gentle, warm finger to his lips.

“Take a breath.”

Dean does so, it comes out shaky and he doesn’t know why.

“There are a couple of reasons,” Cas sighs, sitting up to face Dean, “The biggest one is probably just New York.  I wasn’t ready, even though I liked to think that I was, to leave yet.  I went out there for about a week before I came to see you.  I really thought about it, spent a lot of time just in the city, trying new things.  It was fun, I liked it, I liked the vibe, but…it wasn’t the same.  It felt like a vacation, not somewhere I could actually live long term.  I didn’t feel the pull there that I feel here.  What can I say?  The city’s a part of me.”

Dean takes in the words, tracing the raised ridges of the fabric of Cas’ couch.

“And the other reason?”

Cas huffs a laugh, raising Dean’s chin so their eyes could meet.

“You really do want to hear how much I can’t let you go, huh?”

Dean smiles, looking down at the couch again.  He raises his face to trap Cas’ lips with his own. It’s slow and soft and gentle, Cas pressing him down onto the cushions with ease and with reverence, letting his body press on top of Dean’s a welcome and intoxicating pressure.  It’s kissing not meant to lead to anything else, just a form of connection and pleasure that they both enjoyed.

They break apart after awhile, Cas still on top of Dean, tracing the lines of the rose tattoo on his neck with one long, delicate finger.

“For the record,” Dean whispers, pushing his hand through Cas’ hair, “I’m glad you didn’t.”

“So am I, my favorite restaurant is here.”

“Oh yeah, because there’s no pasta in Los Angeles.”

“Not what I’m talking about,” Cas looks a little smug as he says this, picking up one of Dean’s arms and starting to trace the lines of the ink there as well.

“Okay, I’ll bite, which restaurant is your favorite then?”

“It’s a great place, called Restaurant Dean.  Open whenever you feel like cooking.”

There’s something behind Cas’ eyes, behind the humor and the smugness of his joke, that makes Dean’s heart pick up.  It wasn’t lust, it was tenderness…maybe even…nah, they had promised to take it slow this go round, it wasn’t that.  

                                                ___________

After they finally close up the gallery, Cas hugging and congratulating his staff, showering them with praise and bottles of champagne, he and Dean walk to the subway, hand in hand, heading back to Cas’ apartment in the sky.

Cas is so tired he leans his head on Dean’s shoulder as they rock back and forth on the train.  Dean nudges him as they arrive at their stop, pulling him up gently and walking up the stairs to the street, still bustling, of course, despite the lateness of the hour.

Cas’ apartment is warm and inviting, the glittering city still as breathtaking as it had been the first night Dean had been here. He didn’t think he was ever going to get used to this, and he intended to be here a lot.

“You hungry?” Dean casts a glance back at Cas, who scrubs a hand down his face and heads straight for the TV, turning on Netflix immediately.

“Yeah, if you wouldn’t mind-”

“Come on, you’re the man of the hour, Restaurant Dean is open for business.  You have anything in mind?”

Cas smiles over at him, a tender look on his face.

“How about you surprise me?”

Dean throws something together, half-listening to the episodes of The Office that Cas had put on, relishing his laugh at a joke he had heard at least a thousand times.  It was fortunate that Dean had started making sure that Cas’ fridge was stocked, or else he would have been forced to feed him old cereal without any milk, because Cas still never ate at home unless Dean was cooking, which was dumb for a grown man in his thirties but also a fierce point of pride for Dean.

He pads over to Cas after about forty-five minutes, handing him a really spectacular looking burger and chips to go with it.

“Oh fuck yeah,” Cas barely pauses before he starts to eat, and Dean grins into his own burger, thoroughly satisfied with his good work.

“You’re acting like you haven’t eaten in weeks,” Dean points out as Cas clears his burger in like two minutes, “I’m usually the one who eats like a vacuum cleaner.”

“I haven’t eaten without anxiety in weeks,” Cas corrects him, leaning back into him with a contended sigh, “Jesus that was good.  Thank you.”

“Anytime,” Dean sets his own plate down, running his hand down Cas’ arm.  Cas stills a little, leaning into his touch.

“Do you want to, I don’t know, not spend the whole evening in a suit?” Dean asks him, and Cas twists around with his eyebrows raised.

“Are you trying to seduce me?”

Dean laughs.

“I was going to suggest pajamas, but no clothes sounds even better.”

Cas kisses him hungrily, pulling them both up in one smooth movement, pressing them together as they backed into the bedroom, giggling the entire time.

They lie, tangled together afterwards, breathing deep and even, watching the city glitter around them.

“Hey,” Dean whispers in Cas’ ear.  Cas turns to look at him, his eyes bright in the dim light of the room, “I love you.”

Cas’ smile could light up the Eastern Seaboard.  Dean is never gonna get tired of it.

“I love you.  So much.”

They lean into each other again, breathing and moving and loving in tandem, two halves of a whole.

[avatarfromtheashes]

[Image ID: A header image with a low opacity painted background of the Fire Nation at sunset and text that reads “So, what is Avatar: From the Ashes?” //End ID]

Hey everyone! @yueqqi here, but I respond to anything including “dumbass (friendly).” 💙 From the Ashes has been a project I’ve been working on over the course of the last 8 months, first incepted in late May 2020 as a small Dungeons & Dragons campaign between friends. After the campaign ended with the first arc, I was inspired by the awesome fancomic work by @legendofgenji, @avatarhanami, and @niikocomic (please check them out if you haven’t already!) to realize all of mine and my friend’s (massive shout out to Magpie and Josh) worldbuilding and plot building into this project starting late fall of 2020. It might not be a fully fledged comic since we’re new with only a small team of worldbuilders/writers and 1 main writer/artist, but for now we will focus on sharing our story in the form of fic writing and concept art.

This is a fun project done on our own time, first and foremost. It is also an important project, for me anyways, to build on what Avatar could be, written by POC for POC, written by LGBT for LGBT, and to be shared with people who want to learn more about our communities and support us. The story’s narrative is supposed to expand on Chinese and other Eastern cultures and address serious topics that mirror our real world problems. As a Chinese diaspora author from a family who immigrated from post-war Vietnam, those topics are what I hold with importance and I hope to be able to share it with you. I love interacting, so the askbox is officially open! ☺️

What is your story?

From the Ashes, also titled Tian Hui Yuan (天灰園, meaning “garden that grows from the sky’s ashes”), is set during the time of the second earthbending Avatar of Korra’s cycle in a world ravaged by the Great War—which, wasn’t as “great” as it says on the tin until the end of the 36 years of battles with long intermittent periods of silence, when it devolved into an all-out nuclear war between the democratic Earth Republic and the Fire Nation. Who instigated the war? If you live in the modern Earth Federation, history lessons at mandatory school left it pretty fuzzy until recent years but everywhere else, including the remaining Southern Air Temple and the Northern and Southern Water Tribes, agree that it was President Qin Namyao of the Earth Republic who first developed nuclear technology for non-peaceful purposes and his successors that dropped the first bomb, the effects rippling even today in 539 AG, the rough equivalent to the 1980s era.

The three-month-long catastrophe led to tragic losses not only in the initial blast and ensuing fallout, but the generations of famine it triggered after the decade-long nuclear winter. With the first airbending Avatar’s help, society managed to rebuild itself within a century, though still long ways away from returning to how things used to be in peace times in between turf wars and fighting over resources. With the rise of Avatar Niraq, the second waterbender, the period of warring factions was put to an end—at the great cost of destroying autonomy and bringing down the working middle class in the act of rebellion against the upper class with the creation of the (now Old) Order to unite all the nations and their factions under a single banner.

After Avatar Niraq’s assassination and the New Order taking over and returning control to world leaders, 18 years later the new Avatar is (still) missing and the original plan to take the Avatar young to prevent another tragedy becomes more loose as tensions rise and the New Order has to reconsider their game plan on how to handle the Avatar—including arrest at best, or making them “disappear” at worst.

As for our new Avatar? He has no idea what’s coming, nor that he’s even the Avatar.

FtA focuses on Leaf’s story years after all hell broke loose, where things seem better, but the picturesque peaceful times keep unraveling to reveal a very ugly truth where what seems to be the right path is one in darkness and the seemingly amoral one is the only one that can make a change.

Who is the Avatar?

[Image ID: A young man in motion appearing to be in mid brake while running, earthbending shards of grey rock and kicking up a dust cloud. He is lightly tanned with slight pink undertones to his skin, with hazel eyes that lean more deep green, and he wears his brown curly hair in mullet, sadly missing the hair spray and mousse, with a slight chin scruff and a ratty mustache. The man wears a red shirt with its sleeves ripped an a v-neck ripped to expose his collarbones and a part of his chest, paired with a silver dog tag on a chain necklace, light wash skinny jeans with a brown and brass belt, and green canvas high tops with drooping flaps that look suspiciously like Converse. //End ID]

The Avatar is this idiot right here and his name is Leaf (Ye in Chinese, but to emphasize strangeness of his name, it stays in English except for nicknames) because he never knew his birth name. He hasn’t even mastered his birth element yet, smh. (Backstory? Well, that will be revealed. :) All you need to know is that he has a stack of crimes hiding there.)

Team Avatar??

The team is called the Vine by the writers (ha, get it? Leaves from the... *crying*). You’ll see them around as I post their finished sheets! They aren’t the only main characters, though. :)

Who are the villains?

For now, all you need to know is that the Order acts as antagonists (obviously), but it gets heavily into some grey areas on who’s right and wrong here. There are bigger sharks in the sea, eventually.

Okay, so we know the rough backstory of the story. What about the plot?

Now, that would be spoilers. :) But if you want something to start guessing with, many game changing events can be described with Bon Jovi, Metallica, and Bonnie Tyler top hits. Here’s a Jon Bon Jovi pic from the 80s who may or may not have been the inspiration for Leaf’s aesthetic. 💙

[riddikulusfest]

“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.” 

-Prisoner of Azkaban

With so many things going on in the world, Riddikulus Fest is putting on a special event to light up our little corner of the fandom! Ha-Ha-Halloween is a Harry Potter mini comedy fest on Tumblr/Ao3 for fanfics and fanart. All ships are welcome!

Dates:

Prompting: September 21 - September 30

Claiming: September 21 - October 23

Submission: through October 29, 11:59 PM Eastern Time

Reveals: Throughout the day on Halloween!

Fics: 

Word count: 500 min/ 3K max. 

Rating: G to M only

Content not allowed: pedophilia, bestiality, incest, non-con/rape

Art: 

Traditional art, digital art, photo manips

Rating: G to M only

Content not allowed: pedophilia, bestiality, incest, non-con/rape

This is a Halloween-themed fest, but anything autumn-related is fair game: from pumpkins to PSLs, to costume parties and Halloween heists!

Prompting:

Leave your comedy prompts here! Anything from rom-com to dark comedy, dry humor to crack, as long as it’s a Halloween/autumn comedy prompt, you are welcome to submit it!

Claiming:

-Choose a prompt from this list. (List auto-populates as people submit prompts, so keep checking back if you don’t find any you like the first time around!)

-Fill out this form to claim your prompt. Please indicate your first and second choices. You will receive an email within 24 hours with your assignment. First come, first served!

Submission: 

All fics/art pieces are due on October 29, at 11:59 PM Eastern Time.

Please submit your work to the Ha-Ha-Halloween 2020 collection on Ao3! Please tag your work appropriately.

Once you submit, please fill out the header and email it to riddikulusfest@gmail.com. In the subject line, please use the following template: “FIC or ART - TITLE by AUTHOR”

Title:

Author OR Artist:

Characters/Pairings:

Rating:

Word Count OR Media:

Content/Warning(s):

Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended. No profit is being made from this creation.

A/N:

Summary:

Rules:

-You may initially claim only one prompt. If you would like to claim a second prompt, contact mod at riddikulusfest@gmail.com.

-Each prompt may be claimed only once for fic or art.

-Creations must have never been published. 

-This fest is NOT anonymous, but please do not crosspost until November 1.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask! Email riddikulusfest@gmail.com.

[eightyonekilograms]

The antitrust complaint against Google was unsealed (albeit with redactions) today. A lot of it is stuff we already knew; stuff that reasonable people could disagree on as to whether it merited antitrust action. There are good-faith arguments on either side of questions like “is AMP anti-consumer”, “is the Bork standard good”, “should aggregation theory change what antitrust means re: digital platforms”, etc.

But afaik nobody knew about this:

12. Google grew increasingly brazen in its efforts to undermine competition. In March 2017, Google’s largest Big Tech rival, Facebook, announced that it would throw its weight behind header bidding. Like Google, Facebook brought millions of advertisers on board to reach the users on its social network. In light of Facebook’s deep knowledge of its users, Facebook could use header bidding to operate an electronic marketplace for online ads in competition with Google. Facebook’s marketplace for online ads is known as “Facebook Audience Network” or FAN. Google understood the severity of the threat to its position if Facebook were to enter the market and support header bidding. To diffuse this threat, Google made overtures to Facebook. Internal Facebook communications reveal that [redacted]. As one Facebook executive acknowledged, [redacted]. 13.  Any collaboration between two competitors of such magnitude should have set off the loudest alarm bells in terms of antitrust compliance. Apparently, it did not. Internally, Google documented that if it could not [redacted]. Indeed, Facebook understood Google’s rationale as a monopolist very well. An internal Facebook communication at the highest-level reveals that Facebook’s header bidding announcement was part of a planned long-term strategy—an [redacted]—to draw Google in. Facebook decided to dangle the threat of competition in Google’s face and then cut a deal to manipulate the auction.

IANAL, but I agree with the other HN commenters (who are also NAL) that, if true, this seems like a knockout blow, regardless of those questions above. When you and Facebook are the #1 and #2 biggest players in Internet advertising, forming a secret alliance to manipulate ad auctions is absolutely beyond the pale. tbh I can’t believe Google was so stupid.

[mvneyshot]

𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐃𝐔𝐂𝐈𝐍𝐆

          [  simay barlas  .  20  .  female  .  she/her  ] just saw 𝐀𝐘𝐋𝐀 𝐂𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐖𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐑 dragging their suitcase up the steps to 𝐁𝐀𝐗𝐓𝐄𝐑  .  good luck living with 𝐇𝐄𝐑  ,  i hear that that they’re 𝐍𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐈𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐂  ,  𝐀 𝐏𝐄𝐎𝐏𝐋𝐄-𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐄𝐑  ,  𝐅𝐑𝐄𝐄-𝐒𝐏𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐃  &  𝐎𝐁𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐀𝐍𝐓  .  makes sense the chose that house now  ,  doesn’t it  ?  let’s hope this new living situation doesn’t affect their 𝐉𝐔𝐍𝐈𝐎𝐑 year of 𝐀𝐃𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆 & 𝐏𝐇𝐎𝐓𝐎𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐏𝐇𝐘   [  oliver  .  22  .  they/them  .  est  ]

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒

          sports run deep in your family. your grandfather, your father, your older brother : the triple threat of sports, each cutting their way through their own league ( the mlb, the nhl, and the nfl — RESPECTIVELY ). you were never as gifted as any of them athletically — good enough, smart enough, but nothing more than a decent athlete that could hold your own. no, instead you picked up a camera and this is how you fit in.

          AESTHETICS: she is like the summer nights when the stars are far away and the fire is dying out, the sun’s warmth a comforting memory and all the potential of tomorrow ready to be spread out before you ( worn out timberland boots, pink lipstick, short and flowy dresses, fireflies in a jar, a denim jacket covered in patches, the heat of a sparkler against your fingers, do no harm but take no shit, coy smiles because you want something, the smell of balsam and pine needles )

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘

— she was adopted when she was just under two years old from turkey when her parents decided they wanted a little girl, so the clearwaters have always felt like her family to her. she knew the greater part of growing up that she was adopted, it just never was an issue for her. recently, though, she has felt like she should reconnect with her native middle eastern heritage.

—  the clearwaters are a triple threat in sports : her grandfather retired mlb player and coach, her father a retired prominent defenseman in the nhl and current dartmouth men’s hockey coach, and her older brother michael ( 26 and always mikey to her ) is making a splash in his third year in the nfl as a wide receiver.  however, her parents made sure she and her brother had a ( fairly ) average “middle class” bringing up, though they had their fair share of money in the bank. didn’t have to struggle, really, but didn’t get everything she wanted either. had a summer job scooping ice cream for two years in high school.

— grew up in norwich, vt, real big on nature and hiking and all that jazz. she’s always down for an adventure and to go hiking.

— when she was ten she got one of those kid’s polaroid cameras ( u know the ones where the film is only a little bigger than a postage stamp ) and she was obsessed. she worked her way up through cameras over the years, having a natural eye for it.

— one of the first games she ever shot was one of her brother’s high school football games which sounds sweet but it was actually because she was so bored out of her mind and wanted something to do. needless to say, though, that was the start of it. some might say it was kind of inevitable she gravitated toward sports somehow — she was a clearwater at heart. since then she has gained a lot of knowledge and respect for all different kinds of sports.

— for college she was torn between dartmouth, nyu, and halston. she ultimately chose halston because it was somewhere new, though the elite photography program at nyu was hard to pass up.

— her freshman year ayla was at as many games she could physically get it every weekend, shooting and shooting and shooting, until eventually the office took notice of her. her sophomore year she split time between the men’s hockey and football teams ( and a few other games of other sports where she could grab them ). a couple of her photos have been used for the banners outside the football field and hockey arenas, one across the header of the football team’s website, and several in the yearbook, including a two page spread shot of roo carlson that she’s very proud of.

— PROFESSIONALLY, she has managed to shoot a few kings, dodgers, and lakers games as well. she’s held an internship with the la galaxy from the spring of her freshman year to early fall of her sophomore year. she then accepted an internship with bernstein associates, official photographers of the la kings, clippers, dodgers, and lakers, this past summer.

— she does a little freelance work as well ; mostly for friends or friends of friends, though she’s been considering lately trying to make her skills and business available in a more professional manner to begin building an image for when she graduates. she does do a lot of photographing for herself — a lot of candids ; she thinks they capture the true spirit of a person moreso than when they’re posing or prepared for a photo.

𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐂

— just got a new camera + lens ( nikon D500 + fancy zoom lens ) last summer as an early birthday present to herself. she practically become one with it over the course of the summer and she’s rarely separate from it. that thing cost her so much money and is her baby okay.

— she hopes someday to be the team photographer for a professional team, hopefully in one of the “big four” ( mlb, nfl, nba, or nhl ), and she thinks her prospects are looking very good.

— she played field hockey and lacrosse through high school.

— ayla thinks she’s better at shooting people. part of what she loves about being a sports photographer is how active and unpredictable it is to shoot a game. she’s had to learn a lot to try to predict what she can. they say you make your own luck and for a sports photographer that is true. part of it is down to chance, but there are things you can learn about the game in order to increase your chances of being in the right place at the right time.

— very much a morning person. has never had a problem waking up in the morning. typically goes for a run at sunrise, and has showered, gotten ready for the day, and is at a local cafe shop editing photos / making graphics and drinking an iced mocha by 8. truly couldn’t be me… 

— you can often find her watching practices, not just to practice shooting but to learn more about what makes each team and player tick in order to improve her ability to predict their tendencies ( which in turn makes her chances of getting a good photo go up ). she takes her craft very seriously.

— she has a policy of not sleeping with or dating players on the teams that she shoots — it’s called professionalism, boys !! she likes to be respected and somehow doesn’t think that sleeping with the players goes very far for her in that regard. that doesn’t mean the players don’t try, though...

— she has struggled a bit with people who think her opportunities have only arisen because of her family pedigree ( which some have gone so far to tell her they’re “not her family” — which, don’t even go there, lads... ), and that has made ayla work all that much harder to prove that she’d gotten where she has on her own merits.

— so desperately wants to be that girl with tons of cute aesthetic plants in her room but tragically plants always die in her care no matter what she does. probably has gotten one of those tiny tabletop sand zen gardens to make herself feel better tho she still keeps trying with plants. so far the only ones that have lived any length of time are the air plants. there is no hope.

𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘

— she’s generally well liked, with a hint of sass and humor. she comes across as a bit of an air-head at times, but that’s part due to a persona she put on from a young age. she has an observant eye that drew to her photography in the first place and will often allow her to draw certain conclusions about people. 

— ayla has a very down to earth outlook and approach to life, often taking things as they come. she’s adaptable to situations, but manages to usually stay to the original path she saw for herself.

—  she’s well versed in all the sports she shoots, something that tends to surprise a lot of people, but how is she supposed to be good at her job if she isn’t ? if she gets bothered during games she typically shuts people down with wide eyes and some obscure bit of knowledge in her cute, raspy lil voice. dareisay… elle woods, what like it’s hard ? energy ?? she’s a hard worker, and strives for everything she posts or hands in to be perfect.

— a few of her downfalls include her narcissism and need to be liked. she looks to look and feel pretty, by her own standards, and is a queen of the self-timer and remote self photography : has two instas because of it – one for her sports photography and one that’s a “personal” and mostly just pictures of herself. 

— her need to be liked is something she doesn’t even realize. she likes to be seen in a positive light and it can on occasion lead to her agreeing to do things she doesn’t really want to. at the same time this is constantly in conflict with her desire to be independent and be her own person. 

— she also just believes that everyone just does like her because she is a likeable and very down to earth person — both of which are true for the most part, but reveals the blurring line she has between confidence and arrogance. she can be quite judgmental at times, especially towards those who are overly dramatic, but they’re confined more to just thoughts than any actual voiced words or actions. in a way, this feeds into a sense of her own self-arrogance.

𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄

—  alya stands at 5′3″ with a slim but athletic build. she has a runner’s body, deceptively strong, lithe, and built for distance.

— warm brown eyes that look like they’re laughing more often than not.

— her hair is naturally brown, but is dyed to have blonde highlights near the bottom. often styled half up & half down, kept down and loose, or in a messy bun.

— she does not need glasses or contacts and has no tattoos.

— piercings & jewelry: both lobes and cartilage. often wears simple black studs in all of them ; has an affinity for simple silver rings, often wearing two on each hand ; a black timex watch she bought for $20 at target that’s waterproof

— style : she’s almost always wearing the same pair of beat up timberland’s she’s owned since like sophomore year of high school. she likes to be able to move easily ( bc homegirl absolutely cannot walk in heels at all ). despite this, she also likes to look cute at the same time, often pairing them with short, flowy sundresses or skirts + crop tops. when she shoots games, however, she’s dressed rather practically in skinny jeans, a crop top, and a cardigan ( if necessary ).

— PINTEREST BOARD HERE

𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒

— pretty girl like you ( any ) : someone who does not understand why ayla is “wasting” her talents on sports and thinks she should try moving into the fashion or modeling business. i don’t think this is necessarily a negative connection — it could be well intentioned, or maybe it is truly just meant to be scathing.

— you & me were never meant to be ( any, female wld be real lit tho 👀 ) : an ex from her earlier years at halston. i imagine they broke up either before the summer of her sophomore year or early in her sophomore year. there’s not much ayla loves more than her photography, and i think maybe they didn’t understand. could have been mutual, could have ended poorly, could have just.... fizzled out. pretty open !! i’d just like her to have an ex.

— you just don’t get the message ( male ) : someone who is just relentlessly pursuing her ( not in an overly creepy way, y’know tho ). someone she’s told no multiple times and yet he still keeps trying rip. — TAKEN BY OWEN

— my brother, what ? ( any, probably female tho ) : just someone who is a big fan ( honestly fan or like... fan 😉, y’know ?? ) of her brother and she’s like please stop my poor ears don’t want to hear this.

— and i just love to vibe ppl !! ayla is a pretty friendly and outgoing person so... let’s just have at it :)

𝐎𝐎𝐂

hello friends. oliver/ollie back here again ( 22, est, they/them ). i also play caz !!