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i’m rocking back and forth in the corner dewis nation stand UP

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everyone ignoring the aston martin drivers to go see lewis. I love this sport, where else would you get images that essentially look like they were cut out of The Office.

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Something that interests me to no end is who people see when they think of certain characters

If I think Batman, I see Christian Bale’s Batman or Batman from Justice League Unlimited. Catwoman is Halle Berry. Robin is from the Teen Titans show, but Nightwing is from Young Justice

Spider-Man is Andrew Garfield, but MJ is Zendaya and Harry Osborn is James Franco

#I find it so interesting to see the different iterations that we latch onto for well known characters #batman #spiderman

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If winning races was as easy as people try to make it out to be, then at least three current drivers should have equaled or won more races than Daniel

If 8 race wins isn’t a lot, then why have other drivers on the grid not beaten that number?

#f1 #daniel ricciardo #I may have been rewatching Monaco 2018

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adrian newey opening his messages from james vowels tonight

#the Williams excel spreadsheet is the joke that just keeps giving

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I tend to just ramble or write random lines in my drafts/notes app. So here are some of my favorites from the past month that were never posted or made into complete thoughts:

I had many qualms with F1 journalists during the first half of April:

Sometime around mid-April, I wrote this and I think it was a potential brocedes fic idea, but I honestly cannot remember what it was now:

Some random brocedes thoughts:

Potential maxiel angst fic idea:

Tbh going through the drafts and notes app was so fun. Like there were some great lines in there but I could not remember the thought process behind them at all

#thursday thoughts #f1 #maxiel #brocedes #f1 journalists

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I spent most of my life not once hearing or seeing anything related to Milton Keynes and now the place won’t leave me alone

I just wanted some new bowls I didn’t want to think about Red Bull Racing

#will rbr let me know some semblance of peace?? #probably not at this point

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people telling you they reread your fic is the biggest compliment you could ever receive. there are thousands of stories out there begging to be found, to be explored, but your story meant so much to someone that they came back to it eagerly, they went over every word again. to love is to return and loving a fic is rereading it. thank you to all readers and rereaders <3333

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I have a flower shop/tattoo parlor maxiel + loscar AU building from a tropical storm into a hurricane in my head so here are some thoughts

+ When Max hires him, this is what he says to Logan’s arrangement: “It is not the worst thing I’ve ever seen. I can make it better.” What he really meant was that Max could make Logan better, but he wouldn’t come to understand that until later.

+ There’s a phone that sits on the back wall of Max’s shop. The first time it rang while Logan was working, he’d mistakenly answered it. He’d watched Max’s face go bleach white from across the shop as Logan answered “Hello, this is Verstappen’s Floral, how can I help you?” The barrage of angry Dutch he’d gotten back in return had shocked Logan into silence, making it easier for Max to steal the receiver from his hand. Now, Logan knows to just let it ring.

+ Oscar is pretty sure Daniel only gave him an interview because their moms are in a book club together. The owner of Honey Badger Tattoos was always friendly and outgoing but he was notoriously possessive about his art. In the ten years the shop has been open, it’s had four employees. Daniel Ricciardo, the founder, Daniel Kvyat, Daniel’s partner who he bought out after the first year, Lando Norris who worked part-time at the front desk, and now Oscar.

“I’ve never had an apprentice before, I probably wouldn’t be very good at it,” Daniel says during his interview. He’d said he liked Oscar’s work and already showed an interest in teaching Oscar more of his signature American style. But the guy was still hesitant, fidgeting with excess nerves. “Just ask Lando.

Lando nods from his seat at the front desk which Oscar can see from the open door of Daniel’s office. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing half the time, I wouldn’t trust him to teach other people.”

Daniel does not look like that’s the support he was going for, wincing at the dry criticism but not arguing.

“That’s fine,” Oscar confirms with a shrug. He’s already done the majority of his apprenticeship under Mark Webber. But when the man decided he’d had enough of the South of France and was selling the shop and moving back to Australia, Oscar had to look for somewhere else to work. “I only have six months left before I can get my certification.”

Daniel doesn’t look very reassured. Oscar can take a hint so he decides to get out before he’s kicked out.

“Hey, it’s cool, mate, thanks for meeting with me anyway-”

“Can you start next week?” Daniel asks, leg bouncing up and down and rocking the desk he’s sitting behind. He sees Oscar’s confused expression and sighs. “I really need more help here.”

“Yeah,” Oscar decides, not looking a gift horse in the mouth. “I’ll text you my schedule.”

And that’s how he starts working for the Honey Badger.

+ “This is a tulip,” Max is saying in French, word draw out and pointing at the multi-colored bulbs. Logan has tried telling him that he’s lived in Europe for the majority of his life at this point and can do his job in English, French, and Spanish but Max doesn’t believe him. At least Logan’s starting to pick up more Dutch.

Logan is rescued from his impromptu language lesson by the bell on the door ringing. He turns towards the sound, customer service smile already in place.

“Hi, welcome to Verstappen Floral, how can I-”

“Oh, it is you again.”

Logan stops and looks at Max who is frowning at the guy who just came in. The man is curly-haired and tanned, with tattoos scrawled over the majority of visible skin. His grin is big and toothy when he shoots it at Max.

“Hey, Maxy, aren’t you happy to see me?”

Logan blinks in shock at the nickname. Even their regular customers don’t get to act that familiar with Max. Logan doesn’t get to act that familiar with Max.

Max crosses his arms, lips pursing. “For the last time, I do not know what these flowers mean. I speak four languages and plant is not one of them.”

“Always a ray of sunshine, aren’t you, Max?” The man asks, unphased by Max’s grouchy demeanor. He leans forward onto the glass counter, certainly leaving smudges behind, but Max surprisingly doesn’t yell at him about it. “Lando sent me to pick up his order.”

Lando is someone Logan knows. He comes in about every other week and talks to Max about streaming and video games that partly goes over Logan’s head. He always leaves with a red and white bouquet, though the flowers change each time.

“Why could he not come get them himself?” Max grumbles, heading in the direction of the cooler where they kept to-go orders. Daniel shrugs and wraps his knuckles against the glass.

"He was late for a meeting or something, you know I don’t ask about his other job,” Daniel supplies. He changes his focus to Logan and the blond is met with the full force of the man’s mega-watt smile. Logan blames his mom’s genes for how easily he blushes. “Hey, you’re the new guy, right?”

Logan opens his mouth to answer but Max is suddenly im between them, Lando’s bouquet in his hands.

“Yes, this is Logan, no, he does not want any of your garish tattoos.”

Daniel pouts at Logan’s boss. He wonders how it doesn’t look strange for a guy who’s at least 30 to be pouting.

“Don’t be mean, Maxy. I wasn’t even going to mention the tattoos.”

Logan racks his brain for tattoo shops nearby. They obviously have a close relationship outside of just Lando. And Lando did say he worked for an artist…

“Oh hey, are you the Honey Badger?” Logan asks, moving his head to be seen around Max’s wider frame. Daniel jerks his eyes away from Max’s, as if he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t. “I pass by there all the time. Not a lot of shops do American style out here.”

Daniel’s face lights up, looking between Logan and Max. “Max, you hired an American?”

Max sighs, more long-suffering than Logan thinks is necessary. “This is why I did not want you to speak with him. I knew you were going to be weird about it.”

“I’m not being weird!” Daniel argues. “I’m just surprised!”

Max and Daniel have another weird silent staring contest. Logan clears his throat reluctantly and they both snap to him.

“Um, where’d you learn to do that style?”

Daniel looks ready to excitedly burst into the story of his tattooing style and his interest in America, but Max cuts him off by pushing the bouquet into his chest.

“We do not have time for that, these are going to wilt. Take these to Lando.”

“Bossy, bossy,” Daniel murmurs, picking up the bouquet gently. He doesn’t sound annoyed by Max’s demands. Rather amused, actually. He shoots Logan another grin over Max’s shoulder. “I don’t envy you, mate. But hey if you want to talk tattoos, come by the shop sometime.”

“Definitely!” Logan agrees before Max can say anything else on his behalf. Daniel shoots him a one-handed finger gun before turning back to Max. His smile becomes a lot less joking and more sincere.

“See you later, Maximus”

Max loses some of his prickliness, voice soft when he says, “Goodbye, Daniel.”

+ There’s a man talking to Lando at the front desk when Oscar comes in that day. It’s neither of the two Oscar is used to seeing who come talk to Lando pretty regularly. Oscar’s pretty sure one of them’s his boyfriend and the other is his business partner but he can never tell which is which.

“Did you leave Logan alone at the shop?” Lando is asking while Oscar sets his station up.

“Well, I had to do it at some point,” the guy says, his accent reminiscent of German or Dutch. “What is the point of hiring another employee if I cannot leave for a few minutes?"

“Daniel never leaves me alone here,” Lando points out, a tad resentful. Oscar snorts.

“That’s because he has control issues,” Oscar claims. Both of the men look at him, one in amusement and one in confusion.

“Who are you?” The mystery guy asks. Weird, Oscar was going to ask him the same thing. He looks to Lando who makes the introductions.

"Max, this is Oscar, Daniel's new apprentice. Oscar, this is Max, one of our neighbors."

Oscar frowns. "I thought Max was your..." he trails off, leaving space for Lando to fill in the blank. He waves his hand.

"Different Max. This is Max Verstappen, he run's Verstappen Floral."

The new Max is still looking at him strangely. "Daniel does not take apprentices. He says he is a bad teacher."

Oscar shrugs, not sure what to tell him. He doesn't know how he got the job either. Luckily, he's saved from having to respond by Daniel coming out of the back office.

"Oscar, good, you're here, I wanted to talk about-" Daniel stops abruptly when he sees Max standing in the lobby. His entire demeanor shifts when he says, "Max, hey! What are you doing here?"

Daniel is normally a friendly guy, sometimes too much in Oscar's opinion, but he's practically glowing as he bounds over to Max. While Max's expression doesn't shift, his body language opens up to Daniel like one of his blooming flowers.

"I am talking to Lando about our stream tonight," Max answers. "He has not been very forthcoming with the details."

Lando tries to protest but even Oscar can see that it's a lost cause. This new guy showed up and suddenly it's like nothing else exists to Daniel. His boss giggles at nothing and that's when Oscar decides to get back to work.

#fic rec #maxiel

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Just a quick update on the active ships that people are writing for in 2024! Landoscar is right up there 👀

Also I have updated the fandom pull to the Motorsports RPF group (of which F1 is part of) to allow us to track other drivers better!

This is part of my F1 RPF Analysis based on a dataset of the almost 36k AO3 Motorsport Fics pulled on 24 Apr 2024. Fics were analysed based on date of last update.

Feel free to follow the tag #f1 rpf analysis for more, and let me know what else you’d like to see! 

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there’s a website where you put in two musicians/artists and it makes a playlist that slowly transitions from one musician’s style of music to the other’s

it’s really fun

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In 2023, I wrote We've Never Hooked Up during the Lewis/Merc contract negotiations and a reporter asked if Lewis and Toto had hooked up about the contract. Now, what was originally a one-shot is a story told in three parts. This is part 2 and part 3 will be out in about a week

Word Count: 1555

The plans to spend the summer break together fall through before early July. 

It isn’t because Lewis is annoyed by how bad the car was and how no matter what he did the team barely seemed interested in listening to his feedback. And it wasn’t due to the continued fights they’d been having about his contract – or how Toto refused to advocate for him with the team in Germany. They’d agreed ages ago to not let work interfere with their relationship. 

Not to mention that  Toto has meetings that he should focus on. The German headquarters business didn’t stop just because Formula One was on a summer break. As CEO, Toto needed to work and Lewis didn’t want to spend the few weeks he had off fighting for some time with Toto. 

So Lewis decides to make his own plans. 

Maybe he’ll do some traveling with Miles, Spinz, and all the others. They had talked about a trip to Brazil. Or he could go island hopping with Daniel, chasing the warm sun and sandy shores. He had been meaning to spend more one-on-one time with Daniel after everything that had happened last year – it was bad when both Seb and Fernando were concerned. Maybe he could take up Seb on his offer to visit him in Switzerland and see his animals named after drivers. As great as his current friendship was with Fernando, he did miss seeing Seb every weekend and bitching about all things FIA-related. 

“Will you be attending Google Camp this year?” John asks. The older man had offered him a ride to England on his private jet after the Austrian Grand Prix and with most of the Mercedes team leaving Sunday night, Lewis had taken him up on the offer without hesitation. He hadn’t had time to catch up with John in a long time, so it was as good an opportunity as any. Just the two of them and their respective security on the private jet — Seb would probably chastise him about it. 

“I hadn’t intended on attending,” Lewis replies – he had declined the invitation weeks ago when the plan had been to be on some remote island with just Toto and a skeleton staff as company. “I already declined the invite before my original plans fell through,” he adds. 

‘Hhm,” John nods, “come with me. I have a plus one and those events tend to be dreadful without good company.” 

Lewis can’t help the laugh that escapes him. John had been downright miserable at Google Camp the year they had met. Stuck in some pissing contest conversation between Zuckerberg and Musk, John had jumped at the opportunity to pull him into a separate conversation when their eyes met across the ruins. 

Google Camp hadn’t happened in 2020 for obvious reasons. Lewis didn’t know about 2021, but he’d been busy with other stuff. And in 2022, he’d gotten a few calls from John about the event. Most of them complaining about the lack of good company with a mind for racing beyond just “fast cars go vroom.” 

He doesn’t commit to going but does tell John that he’ll think about it. 

It wouldn’t be the worst way to spend the summer break. Lewis quite liked John’s company and he liked Sicily. They’d had a grand old time during the few days they’d spent at Google Camp together in 2019.

____

He goes to Sicily. 

Of course, he goes to Sicily. 

He goes and he lets John plan their entire trip. He lets the control slip out of his own hands and into John’s — trusting that he wouldn’t be a disaster at planning. 

They have a private villa at the Verdura Resort that is probably much too big for just two people, but it has a pool and is one of the more beautiful places he’s stayed at during his life so far. There’s of course a lineup of Ferraris there just for their use and private chefs well versed in cooking vegan food. 

Google Camp is well not so different from how Lewis remembers it and it quickly turns into an Italian vacation with John taking him to places Lewis had never thought of visiting before. Whisking him away from Sicily in one of the many Ferraris until they reach the harbor where a boat awaits to take them to mainland Italy. 

He doesn’t think of the missed calls between himself and Toto or the short messages exchanged. Neither of them seemed to catch the other at an opportune time. Instead, he focuses on John and attempts to tell the man that there are better ways to have a sweater hanging from one’s shoulders than how John tends to have them. However, he does admit that it is an endearing idiosyncrasy. 

And in the coming months, he does his best to not think about the promises that John had whispered in his ear as they lay under the blazing Italian sun. Or the taste of fermented grapes and ripe strawberries as a million stars shined down on them. Or how he’d laughed more in those few days with John than he had with Toto in the past few years. No, he doesn’t think of that at all…

Lewis ignores it the best that he can, for as long as he can — he’d always been very good at compartmentalizing and pushing forward. 

Just as plans for the summer break spent on some remote island fall through, so do the plans for winter break. They don’t go to Toto’s home in the Austrian countryside or visit the Christmas markets. Well, Lewis doesn’t go, Toto does. 

Lewis instead flies out to Brazil with Miles, Spinz, and all his other friends. None of them mention that the private jet they use isn’t the one that Lewis would usually rent or the one he’d occasionally borrow from Toto, but borrowed from one John Elkann. 

Brazil is everything he’d needed after the season, after fighting with his car time and time again. It’s a necessary break that he had needed to decompress and just think. 

It’s an eye-opening vacation, to say the least. 

Things need to change because as Lewis had told Toto months ago, he didn’t have years and years to keep fighting. 

Just as he’s about to call Toto so they can talk through everything like they normally do, a different billionaire is calling him. 

“Hi,” Lewis answers, unable to help the smile that breaks out when he answers John’s call. 

“Hello, Lewis,” John replies, “how is Brazil?” 

Lewis goes into the details about the vacation. Everything that they have done so far and everything that they plan to do in the coming days. John, ever so attentive, makes his own recommendations and tells Lewis about the places that he loved growing up. “You lived in Brazil?” Lewis questions, he had not been aware of that. How it hadn’t come up in their many conversations, he doesn’t know. Just as he’d thought that he’d learned everything about John, the man reveals something new – some new avenue to take their already hours-long conversations. 

“Briefly when I was young. I attended primary school in England and then Brazil before we moved to Paris when I was in my teenage years,” John answers. “But it has always been somewhat of a home as many of my earliest memories are from there and I have gone back to explore the country many times since,” he explains. 

“Tell me more,” Lewis says, getting comfortable on his bed as all thoughts of Toto and his future fly out the window. 

If Lewis spends the rest of the day on the phone with John, just talking and definitely not flirting, then that’s no one’s business except his own. And he certainly doesn’t invite John to join him in Brazil. He just so happens to have business in Brazil obviously, nothing to do with Lewis. 

As John Elkann makes declarations of unconditional devotion and presses kisses onto the most intimate parts of Lewis Hamilton, Toto Wolff is in the company of his other driver.  

It is a far cry from how Toto had expected to spend his winter months ago when Lewis had joked about the two of them never hooking up during a press conference. Then he’d imagined a shorter man with tattoos on dark skin and a gap-toothed smile in his bed. He’d imagined Lewis curled up around him as they sought relief from the cold Austrian winter. He’d imagined a quiet vacation spent in one another’s company and visiting the Christmas markets that Lewis had fallen in love with. 

Instead, his winter is spent in the company of George who is nothing like Lewis. Instead of a private vacation with visits to Christmas markets, he’s at karting tracks, ski charity events, and public places where people easily recognize them both. Instead, his winter is spent with someone who is still not fully sure of his position with Toto. 

George is still staying at his place in Oxford when Lewis finally calls him about their usual pre-season coffee. Toto doesn’t kick him out, can’t find it in himself to do so. Not when George had looked so lovely and had taken so long to get comfortable. 

No, George has an event to go to that morning anyway. It would be fine. 

#lewis/john elkann #lewis/toto #elkilton

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100 Poles And Counting

Red Bull includes Daniel’s Monaco 2018 pole position among the five of their most memorable poles

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who gets custody of scotty though? and is it definitely lance because max will make it his life's mission for it to happen?

Max's cool down room reaction was because he knows that the vibes between Daniel and Lance are finally going to be off enough that Scotty gets pulled into the middle

He even says "my fault" but that man is not feeling guilty at all if it means he doesn't have to share Daniel with Scotty

#answered

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I was tagged by the lovely @onboardsorasora. it was so hard to decide which lines to post

The Rules: If you're tagged, make a new post and share one or two sentences (or lines for artists) from your most recent unposted WIP with zero context.

And in the coming months, he does his best to not think about the promises that John had whispered in his ear as they lay under the blazing Italian sun. Or the taste of fermented grapes and ripe strawberries as a million stars shined down on them. Or how he’d laughed more in those few days with John than he had with Toto in the past few years. No, he doesn’t think of that at all…

tagging @hamilgodd @witchywitchy19 and anyone else who would like to join!

#tag game #elkilton #lewis/john elkann

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What are your political tv show recs??

ahh there’s so many!! It’s also very nuanced because what is a political tv show and how much of the show needs to be focused on the political aspect for it to be considered a political show. Because nothing is without nuance.

Shows like Game of Thrones are generally considered high fantasy dramas, but politics and the game of ruling play an important role in how so many characters interact. Or Medici: Masters of Florence, The Borgias, The Tudors, The Crown, Reign, etc are considered period dramas. But the politics are inherent and necessary to the storylines. So they’re technically political tv shows even if that’s not the first genre we tend to think about.

However in the most general sense of political tv shows I would recommend:

Designated Survivor

Scandal

The Regime

The Girls on the Bus

Jack Ryan

The West Wing and Madam Secretary are good but I’ve only seen a few episodes of those

#answered