i'm the NASCAR rpf longfic problem guy (ao3 username hatedthat_thanks ) known for the existential terror timeloop and the mecha political thriller about abandoning sports to become a gay communist class traitor. anyway i would protect shane van gisbergen w my life. he/him while we're at it
time for a NEW PINNED POST hi hello it's me i'm hatedthat_thanks on AO3 and you may know me for writing DEALER'S CHOICE but i have dedicated the first half of 2026 to something else entirely.
DEPTH RECORDER is:
a motorsports RPF longfic
a WIP, currently 400k words of likely about 450k-500k when done
a PLOT HEAVY sci-fi political thriller
rated mature for character death, violence, and sexual content (consensual, among adults) and violence. and character death. did i mention the violence. violence and character death. okay.
main pairing: connor zilisch/shane van gisbergen on a very slow burn also feat. endgame pairings bubba wallace/scott mclaughlin, lewis hamilton/valtteri bottas, martijn wydaeghe/martin järveoja, & max verstappen/daniel ricciardo.
IT'S ON AO3 AND THERE IS FURTHER INFORMATION BELOW.
note i said slow burn and i am not kidding, including: not actually unrequited love and mutual pining and friends to enemies to lovers and second chances and, due to sci-fi circumstances, an adult age difference where the numbers will end up closer together.
a lot of hurt/comfort : the former via grief/mourning and touch starvation and implied/referenced torture and emotional manipulation and guilt; the latter via sexual intimacy AND non-sexual intimacy and literal sleeping together]
structural note: this fic has 2 rotating third-person POVs. the main "Act" segments are with Connor Z and are longer (40k-60k words) Dale Jr. is our POV character for the prologue + intermissions, which are shorter (10k-25k words) but are plot-critical to show you things that Connor doesn't see, do not skip them, you will get lost.
niche warnings: people will sleep with each other outside of the endgame pairings, and we can all be mature about it; [mild spoiler] that "friends to enemies to lovers" tag involves one half of the main pairing almost getting the other killed; [MUCH LARGER spoiler but maybe thematically interesting to you if that's your thing] that tag is there because we're functionally spending acts 1-3 with a minor villain, and then meeting up with him in act 4 when he's got his head together and knows who his friends are, but there will be consequences.
The AO3 Summary as of 5/12/2026, which has big spoilers for the prologue so this is your last chance to go in sight-unseen and scroll down to the fic quickly:
Up in orbit, it's the year 318, and 21-year-old mechanosports pilot Connor Zilisch has come in 2nd in the Exo-L finals, losing to his former best friend, Jesse Love.
Up in orbit, it's the year 319, and 21-year-old mechanosports pilot Connor Zilisch is the only survivor of the Shuttle 635 Disaster, which claimed the lives of dozens of other passengers, Jesse Love included.
Up in orbit, it's the year 320, and 22-year-old mechanosports pilot Connor Zilisch has disappeared.
Down on planet Earth, a supply truck drives slowly along what's left of a dirt road. The young man driving wears a standard-issue motorcycle patrol jacket. A privacy helmet, like the kind worn by mechanosports pilots, sits in the passenger seat. The truck continues eastward across what was formerly North America, before everyone with money went up into space. In the year 322, when the explosion throws this truck off the road, this driver will know exactly why. But you'll have to start back in December, C.Y. 318, and take the long way here to meet back up with him.
Getting in there:
you can jump into Depth Recorder cold here
a book-style blurb for the first half is here
a very short video trailer for the prologue is here
my depth recorder posts tag is here
a slightly spoilery Q&A about the fic's title is here
a general connor/shane info post is here and last year's is here
and finally, this is a joke summary i wrote on bsky but it remains true:
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(if you're not already reading: see the Depth Recorder masterpost here)
it's that time. Depth Recorder has passed 400,000 words as we hit Act 6, Part I. Scotty & Bubba come clean, but maybe too late. Max begins crumbling under the weight of his guilt, while Daniel remains Daniel. Toto, Mark, Parker, Ferdi, and Will all get a piece of the intel investigation. We see some mail from Jesse and from Josef. Dale and Lewis get some help in the office from a newly-arrived defector, so they can finally relax a little. All the while, Connor and Shane, pulled apart by anything and everything for the past five years, begin unraveling their way back to the very beginning. They need practice, but they'll be all right.
i know you're fr because you had a big guy be a sexy bottom and then 2chapters later he was throwing up alien motor oil like it was the xfiles. that's tuff old man keep it up
you guys HAVE to stop anoning me hall of fame asks from the sunglasses orb void or i'm turning off the button
"even motorsports rpf?" absolutely. "even THAT motorsports rpf?" look. the presence v absence of the "NASCAR RPF" tag does not change the prose inside, it just changes something in you when you see it. take my hand we're going to be gay and go fast together.
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soooo embarrassing to get obsessed w a specific character when no one else gives a damn. like yeah heres post #574934. heres au idea #26482. heres art piece #9383. yes its all about the same person, yes i am rambling in the corner blair witch style. feel free to shoot me dead for this btw
update: at 2 a.m. a supervisor asked to do the same thing this guy was doing when he died at his place of at work so at 6 a.m. i quit my job. if you get told to stand on a wood pallet on forks unsecured and raised up to where your head is above 10 feet because "the plant has to run" quit your job. quit your job. quit your job. quit your job. quit your job. quit your job. quit y
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ok i'm a funny little homo who writes rpf about racecar drivers and stuff and my current longfic has a jokey tag about OSHA certifications and some extended mentions of workplace safety but like let me be very clear
if you're going to work with industrial equipment at your job, your employer must train you on lock out tag out procedures, at MINIMUM to recognize them and especially if you're expected to clean or maintain them. if you work above a certain height, your job is required to provide you with PPE and fall protection and train you in its proper use and inspection. if your job tells you to stand on forklift forks go update your resume. if your job tells you to touch an electrical panel and you're not an electrician it's time to get back on Indeed. in the meantime call your local OSHA office i swear to god. they love this shit. call them and then if they're like "sounds legit" go fill out the form and they will come to your job and tell them to do the minimum federal safety requirements to protect you and everybody else
"oh i mean. it's like illegal to fire me for calling osha but they'll be mad at me :(" hell yeah. good. piss those people off. walk in with a tshirt that says I CALLED OSHA and if somebody is an asshole to you just leave. whatever. it's your fucking life and safety dude it's literally your life. get out of there. miss a credit card payment. disappoint somebody. it's your fucking human life dude
what's up gamers you know what time it is. it's july 20th and the final act of Depth Recorder is going to be something like i don't know 80k words long at this rate. HOWEVER. there is a point at about 43k words where Act 6 could be split broadly in half, which would let you get some plot hooks and see where we're going, and take some imaginary (from me) pressure (from me) off me (doing it to myself) while i (stupid) work on the rest. i was considering it for act 5 but that was only 63k. obviously we are now in somewhat more of a Situation. i'll make a decision mid-week about that and we'll see!!
oh my god when did the total wordcount for the Stator, Rotor, Armature series hit fucking 76,000 words. this is just where i've been going to hit the pressure release valve while i work on Depth Recorder. when. how
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Dude fucking archive lock your RPF, there are people who are coming from TikTok and Twitter who can see it.
ya the social function of art is to communicate meaning to other people who perceive it. i invested a lot of time & effort into some work (communicates meaning) and i put it on the internet (place where people are) so it can be read (perceived) and also? my stuff totally whips. i put a highly-fictionalized simulacrum of a NASCAR driver in a giant robot and gave him a gun. i mean he's also having gay sex but yk. AO3. like obvi. i want everybody to read what is essentially a free homoerotic scifi political thriller novel series for free online. what else do i get except satisfaction of it being read? shared human experience abstracted mediated through prose and interpreted by another human Self be upon ye
