I found an unfinished Carlando draft from last year! Some notes at the end so you can have a peek into how my writing process works 🤭✍🏼
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I even had an aesthetic ready, wow 😔
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Lando smiled as he held up the camera, snapping a photo of Carlos taking a photo of him on his phone. His boyfriend had been granted an extra day off before flying to Italy for all his Ferrari Monza duties, and they’d spent the whole of yesterday wrapped up in Lando’s bed together.
Ferrari were strict on a normal race weekend, but with Monza, the Scuderia home race, they turned it up to eleven. Carlos was off-limits once they stepped off the plane and would remain so other than their unavoidable shared space over the weekend such as the driver’s parade on Sunday. They weren’t even allowed to share a hotel room over the weekend, hence why they’d made the most of the day before.
What infuriated them both the most this year in particular was that Sunday was Carlos’ birthday. They’d both had a whine about it when the calendar first got released and they’d immediately known it would be an issue. Not even the fact it was Carlos’ final Monza race as a Ferrari driver was enough to change anything.
The sooner Carlos was free from their strict rules, the better.
Lando wasn’t a complete dickhead though and so had arranged for Max to come to the race and spend his free time with instead. His best friend had jumped at the chance given he’d missed both his wins so far, and truth be told, Lando wanted him in the garage even if he’d been able to be with Carlos at night. Max helped keep his head on straight, wasn’t ever afraid to tell him like it is, and Lando could rant to him as much as he liked because he’d just sit and listen and then make him laugh with his sarcasm.
Max would share his hotel room because he slept like shit on his own.
“We still going for dinner Sunday?” Lando asked, stretching out his legs to rest them in Carlos’ lap opposite him. His boyfriend automatically placed a grounding hand on his ankle, stroking his thumb on the skin showing between his socks and the bottom of his jeans.
“I’ll make sure of it. Depending on the outcome of the race it might be later, but they cannot keep me captive the whole evening. My father will not allow it, even if it is my last year.”
Lando snorted, imagining Carlos Sr bodily dragging his son out of the Ferrari debrief because he had a birthday dinner to get to.
“Fuck, I’m so pleased my birthday isn’t during a race week this year.” He said it offhandedly but he caught Carlos tensing up.
“Me also, cariño.” He was looking out the window but Lando saw his throat move as he swallowed. He instantly moved out of his seat to sit sideways in Carlos’ lap, warm and gentle hands securing his waist as he moved one of his own to cup Carlos’ jaw.
“That is never happening again. I took on too much and paid the price. Andrea actually yelled at me for it and he never does that.”
Carlos nodded, resting their foreheads together. “I’m sorry you can’t be with me this weekend.”
“Me too, querido. But once debriefs are all done, we’ve got a week off all to ourselves anyway.”
“And then the fly-aways start again.”
“And then the fly-aways start again,” Lando echoed. “Can’t wait to spoon you in first class and nap the flight time away.”
He felt Carlos’ soft huff against his cheek. “Are you ever going to listen to my jet lag advice?”
“You know how fucked my sleep schedule already is. I can never keep up with whatever strict schedules you manage to pull off. What’s wrong with sleeping and then just running it off at the destination?”
Carlos stroked a hand through his hair. “You are so weird.”
Lando grinned. “One of us has to be!”
Carlos hummed, chasing a kiss.
~ END OF UNFINISHED DRAFT ~
Notes:
Title: in this and every life I choose us every time
Summary: It’s Carlos’ birthday, Carlos’ last race in Italy for Ferrari (need to finish)
Carlando Monza Carlos birthday fluff
Song: Carry You Home (feat. Ella Henderson) by Alex Warren, Ella Henderson.
Carlos’ 30th birthday
Lando is the same age Carlos was when he joined McLaren and when Lando joined F1
Lando teases him that he’s old
They can’t stay together in Monza as it’s Ferrari’s home turf and there’s strict team rules and customs. Lando invites Max F instead as he can’t sleep alone and Max is a bit jealous Martin was at Zandvoort for his win.
The scene from the video where they’re all teasing Carlos about forgetting his birthday. Lando’s wearing shorts as an extra tease as he can't really see Carlos away from the track.
Lando gets pole and Carlos is glad it was Lando if it wasn't him and he can win the race again on the Sunday.
Oscar invites Lily (best friend) as he's a bit down over losing Logan (which explains his weird mood over the weekend). Alex is pissed over Logan and flies with Oscar.
Lando has Max and Oscar has Lily and Carlos has his family and the Tifosi.
FINISH ✍🏼
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Thought I’d share while I’m busy with my ongoing works in progress 🧡
so tadc, @hootbon 's au, jester sonic, and that one circus episode of sonic boom gave me chronic inspiration so guess what this new au i was talking about is.
yeah it's an eggmanland freakshow au.
i'm still working on designs but i'll give yall a cute little idea dump to ponder on while i get a first wave of designs settled on.
(Under cut)
Eggman is the ringmaster and owner of this park. Eggmanland is separated into different sections with many different rides and attractions, all of which are manned by alien animal creatures who don't exactly want to be there.
The most popular of these attractions is the Big Top, a circus show featuring SuperSonic Hedgehog: The Fastest Thing Alive!, as well as a few other acrobats.
I kind of want this to focus on two different characters, Amy entering as a new 'employee' akin to Pomni joining the circus in TADC, and Chris (yes Thorndyke. You know the one.) as a frequent park goer with his heart set on helping the animals in any way he can. Him and Amy would be close i think.
A few other characters I'm on the brink of working out are this world's Sonic and Tails.
They would have a long history of being trapped at the park, apparently attempting to escape multiple times but always getting foiled. One such attempt would leave Sonic very physically and mentally scarred, with him becoming unable to speak. Eggman tries to mask this incident to the audience by giving him a radio collar the plays pre-recorded show phrases.
By this point, he's given up all hope. And Tails just does their best to support him.
(Tails is a clown/jester, and kind of a Ragatha type character in this scenario.)
And that's it for now. I'll get to work on that art, and I'll talk to you all again soon!
Oop I've got another one for my silly plot point notes thing:
"... her grandparents had never gotten over how insane she was to be pregnant for nine months only to be shocked when she suddenly popped a baby outta there"
“Debbie,” The blonde pleaded, the ring on her index finger sliding on and off. “Give me this one thing. Please. I’m asking you to save our asses. That’s it.”
Lou never asked for much of anything from Debbie. But this was where she drew the line. When she knew they were going to get hurt. When Debbie was going to get hurt.
“You’re asking me to cross Becker. I don’t walk from jobs. I don’t back out.”
Lou was silent.
“I’m not you, Lou.”
Me to my midnight brain: put that thing back where it came from or so help me
Anstix is a delicate, sickly dragon who cannot leave the Fortress of Ends. Her only knowledge of the outside world comes through stories, and she lives almost entirely in fiction.
Sovari is her one link to reality, an Ice demigod completely enamored with Anstix. She uses her power to bring stories of the outside world to Anstix ... and to keep their characters around so that Anstix can live out her fantasies. If they reject or upset Anstix, well, have fun in the freezer -- or worse.
At first you think Anstix is innocent and all you have to do is get her to appeal to Sovari to stop this and escape. But actually ... Anstix fully knows what’s going on and doesn’t see a problem with it. She’s happy to just keep discarding dragons in the search for the “characters” who will fulfill her fantasies forever, without complaining.
Takes place in a large city of dragons and beastclans (not sure whether I want dragons to default to humanoid form or not)
Kind of anachronistic setting with a mix of like early 20th century culture but also some medievalisms
3 subclans:
City leadership
Gibralt & Imsai
maybe bring back Lioska?
Nomadic storytellers who travel across Sornieth
led by Adragna and Cristan
the “home base” for the nomadic storytellers -- dragons who are part of their clan but don’t travel (may also have a printing company attached that publishes the nomads’ stories & a newspaper)
Frip, Cypress, Sovari, Ammanas
Everyone gets a glow up w/ new lore but it’s mostly based on the lore they had before
Everyone who doesn’t get a glow up goes in the HibDen but might be let out as I develop roles for them