steviethenarwhal

[steviethenarwhal]

pre-race april 21st 2024: gossip girl edition

#wtf wtf wtf #what was he whispering that charles couldn't hear #(but charles desperately wanted to hear lol) #charles trying to play it cool but he knows the tea is spicy #i know george and lando have perhaps the best bitch sessions #like galex and cheorge are more consistent #but when these 2 are on the same wavelength... unmatched #ln&gr #f1

[steviethenarwhal]

The Prophecy // The Tortured Poets Department (the Anthology)

But even statues crumble if they're made to wait,

I'm so afraid I sealed my fate.

#cs #i listen to this song and think about him what can i say #i had a vision for me and my 3 carlos followers #f1 #might reblog this a few times over the week #just ignore it lol #the golden boy narrative of the max-lando-charles of it all compels me

[steviethenarwhal]

hellooo this is tate-hale! after your post i’m definitely interested in reading about your thoughts wrt to charles and carlos’ previous teammates and how this affects their dynamic! also this could totally be another ask/post but i would also love your thoughts on how fans’ perception impact their relationship (in a tinhat/rpf way🤞). i love the concept of fanservice in rpf lol!!

Sure, I'd love to talk about how the Carlando and Sebchal of it all is affecting Charlos! As a general FYI, since I’m talking about this specifically in a Charlos context, this does not reflect the full depths of my thoughts on Carlando (who I actually have more grace/affectionate/nuance for then what is depicted here haha. I am actually writing another meta just about them atm too so hang on for that). And as another FYI I am gonna blur the lines between real life dynamics and shipping dynamics here even more so than the last one. So like all the things I say aren’t necessarily true for rl Charlos (but some of them are!) but they are all extremely true for the Charlos that lives in my head which is very real. If that makes sense, you get me. Otherwise, sorry.

Okay like I said last post Carlos had a great relationship with his past teammate Lando. Since I know you’re not an F1 girlie, Lando and Carlos both joined their team McLaren at the same time.  Lando was a 19 year old rookie and Carlos was 24 years old and looking to sort of be the “head” driver (or at least more of a team leader and not the young gun on the team) for the first time in his career. As such, they externally had a very big brother/little brother relationship (they were actually fucking but the F1 bros didn’t realize that. And to be fair, it took them some time to realize that themselves). It was very much a "Carlos takes care of his new little friend Lando" dynamic. Not a mentorship really, but the age dynamic was strongly felt. And the thing that made them so great to the masses was that their mutual affection remained stable!

They sort of had a perfectly timed relationship. Lando was brand new to F1 so no one judged him that Carlos was beating him most of the time. Calos was supposed to be! And Lando was keeping it close enough for people to see his promise, so that felt good too. They didn’t really have any incidents on track and the car was making good progress over the two years Carlos was there. It was a very happy environment. McLaren absolutely loved Carlos when he left (unlike Ferrari, Carlos left McLaren on his own terms), they acted like they were shipping off their beloved son to war.

And Carlos left at the perfect time! Right as Lando was ready to take the step into being the “lead” driver himself and was getting to a comfortability level where he def might start beating Carlos more than he lost to him. All these things that would have changed the dynamics of their relationship and caused possible tension never manifested because Carlos went and signed with Ferrari. And this is a perfect place to do a great comparison with Charlos bc like I said last post Charlos also started out great! Now it was never as easy as Carlando because there was always a much more equal dynamic between the two men but they were still very happy. And like all relationships… it took time for the cracks to show. And in Charlos's case, these cracks were caused (imo) by a shift in the car becoming more competitive and race wins being a possibility. Because it’s easy to be friendly when you’re not fighting for wins and most of the team strife is coming from how much you mutually don't like your boss… it’s less easy to be friendly when there’s only a few wins available and you are in direct competition scrapping over them. And this is again something that aided Carlando… during their time at McLaren they weren’t really fighting each other for wins (neither Carlos or Lando won during their time together, while Charlos have a combined six wins in their time). So things stayed peachy.

Now to discuss the post-McLaren Carlando era and how that juxtaposes with Charlos... Well, Carlando are still extremely friendly with each other. I’m not gonna go as far as to say they are besties but they certainly have their own shenanigans happening that are half PR and half real BUT the thing is people do believe them. The crowd claps and cheers when they get on podiums together and laugh and shove each other and then post about it on their instagram. (Again I know you’re not an F1 girl but do know that Carlando is perhaps the closest F1 ship we have that kind of breaks the fourth wall. Like these men regularly call themselves ‘Carlando.’ They are Aware.) They are doing everything I talked about with Charlos last post but better.

And so I do think there’s this fascinating dynamic where Carlos almost uses Lando as a weapon against Charles whenever things are ‘rocky’ with Charlos. And not necessarily in a trying-to-bait-a-jealous romantic reaction either. But as a “look here this is a teammate I get along with great. Look how much we like each other. You’re the problem here, not me.” He really does this all the fucking time to Charles, it’s crazy. We’ll take a very recent race where the three of them shared a podium for example… remember Charles and Carlos are the teammates here BUT Carlos went out of his way to have Lando be the one to help up to the podium. When they went to take a photo, Carlos purposefully had a fourth guy present stand between him and Charles, so he and Lando could still be touching. He and Lando made sure to take a photo of them afterwards with their trophies. Just the two of them.

And yes… this is because Carlos likes Lando more than Charles. BUT it’s also a game. I do think Charles takes a lot of pride in being a good person and being a good teammate. And I think in Charles’s mind Carlos is at fault for a lot of the tensions/incidents that have occurred between them. So I think Carlos uses Carlando as a bit of a weapon to be “oh, not so fast, my friend. look at me here with an ex-teammate who adores me. How can I be the problem? Are you sure it’s not you?” 

And Carlos has chosen a great partner because Lando is eager and ready to play into this. Not because he also wants to make Charles insecure (lol) but I do think Lando gets a little pride in that someone likes him more than they like Charles. Because Charles is a very popular dude! It strokes Lando's ego very nicely. And Lando of course also likes to have a reputation that he is good teammate. And (imo) he hasn't liked any of his subsequent teammates as much as he liked Carlos, so he also clings onto it. People might disagree, but after the podium I just talked about the three of them had to do a press conference together and I think Lando was playing subliminal mind games with Charles in that interview in order to defend Carlos. Basically… both Carlos and Lando are messy bitches!!! They deserve each other and Charles is being tormented by it!!!

So anyway again as I said Lando and Carlos play PR games but theirs work. People believe them. People love them!!!! So there’s this frustrating element for Charles that when things are not good in Charlos world and people are starting the “Is Carlos toxic? Is he a bad teammate? Is his camp the devil?” Carlos does always have this other thing, he can fall back onto to get a bit of a PR lift. Also, I have not spoken about this bc I do think it’s a tricky thing to talk about in fandom but Carlos’s family (specifically his dad) is very involved in his career and they are Charles fans’ #1 nemesis. Leclerc girls hate the Sainz Family. And tbf, Carlos’s mom and Charles did get into a passive aggressive twitter liking competition last year so like… there’s something there. BUT I bring it up here because Carlos’s family love LOVE LOVES Lando. Like he’s invited to a Sainz family wedding in actual real life. Carlos’s dad adores Lando. So it’s another thing that can be used by the Sainzs. Yeah… they don’t like Charles but that’s a Charles-problem! After all, they love Lando!!! And from a rpf perspective, this is excellent because like imagine if you’re Charles and you’re already insecure that Carlos’s family hates you and then you can’t even be like “oh well they’re just like that” BECAUSE they are over there fawning over Carlos’s ex. I would kill myself haha.

Anyway back to the PR games, Charles doesn’t really have anything to fight back with. Because Charles is well-liked and friendly/friends with a lot of the gird… but tbh his most PR popular dynamic among the girlies is a ship with a guy he’s pretty apathetic to (don’t ask—tin-hatters latch onto weird things and Charles has been Larry-fied with a dude he has no dynamic with). So he certainly can’t fall back on that in the way Carlos does. And his actual bff on the grid is a dude whose too far back to be helpful. He's not involved with the narratives! The interest is not there from the general public!! And Charles was never teammates with him so it doesn’t help with the “who is a better teammate? who is the real problem here?” question. 

Now I will talk a little about Charles’ past teammate here—but for any actual F1 people reading this, I’m sure I’m not as knowledgable on the SebChal lore as the Carlando one. So that’s why I’m keeping it brief to not expose my gaps in knowledge. But basically when Charles first joined Ferrari, he was paired with Sebastian Vettel who was an F1 great who was on the back-half of his career but certainly not close to the end. It was kind of in a weird way supposed to be like what Carlos and Lando were but with more talented drivers. The older driver (much older in Seb’s case) was supposed to win but Charles was supposed to keep it close and show enough promise that everyone left feeling good about each other. It was supposed to be a mentor-protegee relationship!

Instead… Charles kept beating Sebastian. There is no mentorship when the young guy is making you look completely washed-up. There is only resentment and insecurity and friction. And boy oh boy there was a lot of friction. People romanticize this pairing in hindsight but I do believe their on-track tiffs were 100x worse than anything between Charlos. Because Carlos is trying to take what is expected to be Charles's and occasionally he is able to. Charles was taking what was supposed to be Sebastian’s and he was doing it ALL the time. And he was still expected to be deferential and hero-eyed about Seb in the media bc Seb is an F1 great. So Charles was trying to walk a very tight line where he was embarrassing a fan-favorite on track (and pretty much forced him out of the Ferrari seat) but also not wanting to be the bad guy for doing so. 

Charles was desperate for A Carlos by the time Seb was leaving. Someone who he could be friendly with and he didn’t have to walk on eggshells to not be “disrespectful.”  And Charles got him in the beginning! And now he’s soooo desperate to try to cling onto what they had in the beginning. To keep it from being another SebChal.

And so here’s where I think a insecurity for Charles pops up and why he is always so desperate to quash anything possible conflict between him and Carlos (even when it is Carlos’s fault). Because he doesn’t WANT to be the guy on a team where the two garages are divided and things are stifling and awkward. And Charles’s talent is the reason why. So Carlos’s use of Lando is even more compelling in this light because it really is like a “fuck you, you’ve made it weird with two teammates in a row and I haven’t.” Now I don’t think Charles is even close to being viewed by the masses as a teammate killer BUT I do think this is a complex that exists in his head. He views himself as a nice positive guy! He wanted a good relationship with Seb! He wants a good one with Carlos! Why is this so fucking hard???? Questions that haunt Charles at night as he schemes up ways to get Carlos to look at him first instead of Lando.

(Sidenote: recently Carlos called Charles and Lando his two favorite teammates and then squeezed both their knees while Charles and Lando giggled. And it’s a great clip especially because we all know how Carlos would rank them. And it’s not that Charles needs to be first, he’s not a child! But also why the fuck isn’t he… He’s a more likable guy than Lando— objectively! Is it because Carlos is petty and can only fully like someone who he was beating? Or is it something intrinsic to Charles? Is he someone whose his teammates can only like for so long before it becomes tainted and messy? Ughhhhh)

Anyway that’s most of my thoughts about how Carlando affects Charlie but a few more things… I have written here about how I actually think Charles and Lando are similar in that Carlos inadvertently rubs them the wrong way a lot of the time. But TLDR of that post is when Carlos outperforms his teammates he thinks the nice thing to do is bring them into the celebration, try to share the success with them, celebrate as a team. Lando and Charles go along with these celebrations because they don’t want to seem sore but I think in their perfect world, Carlos would actually leave them along to lick their wounds. BUT despite their similarities on this point, I think Lando has a better understanding than Charles that Carlos is not doing this purposefully to be a dick/condescending. He is just not reading their vibes correctly. It still irritates Lando, but I think Charles is like… mentally stabbing Carlos and then fucking him with bloody hands whenever Carlos does this. Lando is like “oh Carlos being Carlos, I’m gonna be a petulant brat until I feel better.” And Lando assumes better things about Carlos because he knows Carlos better!!! But is that because Carlos has let him? Or because Carlos DOES have better intentions when it comes to Lando than Carlos? Hmmmm… much to think about. 

The similarities with Charles and Lando are actually a lot… how their career tracks are much more the “golden child destined for greatness beloved by their team” while Carlos is scrapping between teams and never really finding a place to call home. And I think neither Charles or Lando really understand what that is like for Carlos. They have sympathy for it, they consider him talented, but they don’t understand it. And yet Carlos keeps seeking out those relationships anyway. Wants so bad to also be one of the naturally talented/gifted drivers on the grid he keeps putting himself in their circles, facing them down head-on and then fighting like hell to prove he belongs. Lando and Charles already know they belong. Carlos wants to believe he does. So I think this goes to a whole other thing which is Carlos is a MASSIVE masochist and he doesn’t even know it.

Anyway not to self promote but here’s a threesome fic I wrote about that shared podium between Carlos/Lando/Charles I spoke of earlier… if anyone is interested! More Carlando than Charlos but still plenty of Charlos to sink one’s teeth into.

I shall write a post soon on how if Charlos was an actual thing what impact I think the current rl fan wars would have on them (that’s my interpretation of the second part of your ask haha but let me know if I’m reading it wrong) hope you enjoyed this part!

#a little morning reblog of my thoughts #f1 #cl&cs

[steviethenarwhal]

hellooo this is tate-hale! after your post i’m definitely interested in reading about your thoughts wrt to charles and carlos’ previous teammates and how this affects their dynamic! also this could totally be another ask/post but i would also love your thoughts on how fans’ perception impact their relationship (in a tinhat/rpf way🤞). i love the concept of fanservice in rpf lol!!

Sure, I'd love to talk about how the Carlando and Sebchal of it all is affecting Charlos! As a general FYI, since I’m talking about this specifically in a Charlos context, this does not reflect the full depths of my thoughts on Carlando (who I actually have more grace/affectionate/nuance for then what is depicted here haha. I am actually writing another meta just about them atm too so hang on for that). And as another FYI I am gonna blur the lines between real life dynamics and shipping dynamics here even more so than the last one. So like all the things I say aren’t necessarily true for rl Charlos (but some of them are!) but they are all extremely true for the Charlos that lives in my head which is very real. If that makes sense, you get me. Otherwise, sorry.

Okay like I said last post Carlos had a great relationship with his past teammate Lando. Since I know you’re not an F1 girlie, Lando and Carlos both joined their team McLaren at the same time.  Lando was a 19 year old rookie and Carlos was 24 years old and looking to sort of be the “head” driver (or at least more of a team leader and not the young gun on the team) for the first time in his career. As such, they externally had a very big brother/little brother relationship (they were actually fucking but the F1 bros didn’t realize that. And to be fair, it took them some time to realize that themselves). It was very much a "Carlos takes care of his new little friend Lando" dynamic. Not a mentorship really, but the age dynamic was strongly felt. And the thing that made them so great to the masses was that their mutual affection remained stable!

They sort of had a perfectly timed relationship. Lando was brand new to F1 so no one judged him that Carlos was beating him most of the time. Calos was supposed to be! And Lando was keeping it close enough for people to see his promise, so that felt good too. They didn’t really have any incidents on track and the car was making good progress over the two years Carlos was there. It was a very happy environment. McLaren absolutely loved Carlos when he left (unlike Ferrari, Carlos left McLaren on his own terms), they acted like they were shipping off their beloved son to war.

And Carlos left at the perfect time! Right as Lando was ready to take the step into being the “lead” driver himself and was getting to a comfortability level where he def might start beating Carlos more than he lost to him. All these things that would have changed the dynamics of their relationship and caused possible tension never manifested because Carlos went and signed with Ferrari. And this is a perfect place to do a great comparison with Charlos bc like I said last post Charlos also started out great! Now it was never as easy as Carlando because there was always a much more equal dynamic between the two men but they were still very happy. And like all relationships… it took time for the cracks to show. And in Charlos's case, these cracks were caused (imo) by a shift in the car becoming more competitive and race wins being a possibility. Because it’s easy to be friendly when you’re not fighting for wins and most of the team strife is coming from how much you mutually don't like your boss… it’s less easy to be friendly when there’s only a few wins available and you are in direct competition scrapping over them. And this is again something that aided Carlando… during their time at McLaren they weren’t really fighting each other for wins (neither Carlos or Lando won during their time together, while Charlos have a combined six wins in their time). So things stayed peachy.

Now to discuss the post-McLaren Carlando era and how that juxtaposes with Charlos... Well, Carlando are still extremely friendly with each other. I’m not gonna go as far as to say they are besties but they certainly have their own shenanigans happening that are half PR and half real BUT the thing is people do believe them. The crowd claps and cheers when they get on podiums together and laugh and shove each other and then post about it on their instagram. (Again I know you’re not an F1 girl but do know that Carlando is perhaps the closest F1 ship we have that kind of breaks the fourth wall. Like these men regularly call themselves ‘Carlando.’ They are Aware.) They are doing everything I talked about with Charlos last post but better.

And so I do think there’s this fascinating dynamic where Carlos almost uses Lando as a weapon against Charles whenever things are ‘rocky’ with Charlos. And not necessarily in a trying-to-bait-a-jealous romantic reaction either. But as a “look here this is a teammate I get along with great. Look how much we like each other. You’re the problem here, not me.” He really does this all the fucking time to Charles, it’s crazy. We’ll take a very recent race where the three of them shared a podium for example… remember Charles and Carlos are the teammates here BUT Carlos went out of his way to have Lando be the one to help up to the podium. When they went to take a photo, Carlos purposefully had a fourth guy present stand between him and Charles, so he and Lando could still be touching. He and Lando made sure to take a photo of them afterwards with their trophies. Just the two of them.

And yes… this is because Carlos likes Lando more than Charles. BUT it’s also a game. I do think Charles takes a lot of pride in being a good person and being a good teammate. And I think in Charles’s mind Carlos is at fault for a lot of the tensions/incidents that have occurred between them. So I think Carlos uses Carlando as a bit of a weapon to be “oh, not so fast, my friend. look at me here with an ex-teammate who adores me. How can I be the problem? Are you sure it’s not you?” 

And Carlos has chosen a great partner because Lando is eager and ready to play into this. Not because he also wants to make Charles insecure (lol) but I do think Lando gets a little pride in that someone likes him more than they like Charles. Because Charles is a very popular dude! It strokes Lando's ego very nicely. And Lando of course also likes to have a reputation that he is good teammate. And (imo) he hasn't liked any of his subsequent teammates as much as he liked Carlos, so he also clings onto it. People might disagree, but after the podium I just talked about the three of them had to do a press conference together and I think Lando was playing subliminal mind games with Charles in that interview in order to defend Carlos. Basically… both Carlos and Lando are messy bitches!!! They deserve each other and Charles is being tormented by it!!!

So anyway again as I said Lando and Carlos play PR games but theirs work. People believe them. People love them!!!! So there’s this frustrating element for Charles that when things are not good in Charlos world and people are starting the “Is Carlos toxic? Is he a bad teammate? Is his camp the devil?” Carlos does always have this other thing, he can fall back onto to get a bit of a PR lift. Also, I have not spoken about this bc I do think it’s a tricky thing to talk about in fandom but Carlos’s family (specifically his dad) is very involved in his career and they are Charles fans’ #1 nemesis. Leclerc girls hate the Sainz Family. And tbf, Carlos’s mom and Charles did get into a passive aggressive twitter liking competition last year so like… there’s something there. BUT I bring it up here because Carlos’s family love LOVE LOVES Lando. Like he’s invited to a Sainz family wedding in actual real life. Carlos’s dad adores Lando. So it’s another thing that can be used by the Sainzs. Yeah… they don’t like Charles but that’s a Charles-problem! After all, they love Lando!!! And from a rpf perspective, this is excellent because like imagine if you’re Charles and you’re already insecure that Carlos’s family hates you and then you can’t even be like “oh well they’re just like that” BECAUSE they are over there fawning over Carlos’s ex. I would kill myself haha.

Anyway back to the PR games, Charles doesn’t really have anything to fight back with. Because Charles is well-liked and friendly/friends with a lot of the gird… but tbh his most PR popular dynamic among the girlies is a ship with a guy he’s pretty apathetic to (don’t ask—tin-hatters latch onto weird things and Charles has been Larry-fied with a dude he has no dynamic with). So he certainly can’t fall back on that in the way Carlos does. And his actual bff on the grid is a dude whose too far back to be helpful. He's not involved with the narratives! The interest is not there from the general public!! And Charles was never teammates with him so it doesn’t help with the “who is a better teammate? who is the real problem here?” question. 

Now I will talk a little about Charles’ past teammate here—but for any actual F1 people reading this, I’m sure I’m not as knowledgable on the SebChal lore as the Carlando one. So that’s why I’m keeping it brief to not expose my gaps in knowledge. But basically when Charles first joined Ferrari, he was paired with Sebastian Vettel who was an F1 great who was on the back-half of his career but certainly not close to the end. It was kind of in a weird way supposed to be like what Carlos and Lando were but with more talented drivers. The older driver (much older in Seb’s case) was supposed to win but Charles was supposed to keep it close and show enough promise that everyone left feeling good about each other. It was supposed to be a mentor-protegee relationship!

Instead… Charles kept beating Sebastian. There is no mentorship when the young guy is making you look completely washed-up. There is only resentment and insecurity and friction. And boy oh boy there was a lot of friction. People romanticize this pairing in hindsight but I do believe their on-track tiffs were 100x worse than anything between Charlos. Because Carlos is trying to take what is expected to be Charles's and occasionally he is able to. Charles was taking what was supposed to be Sebastian’s and he was doing it ALL the time. And he was still expected to be deferential and hero-eyed about Seb in the media bc Seb is an F1 great. So Charles was trying to walk a very tight line where he was embarrassing a fan-favorite on track (and pretty much forced him out of the Ferrari seat) but also not wanting to be the bad guy for doing so. 

Charles was desperate for A Carlos by the time Seb was leaving. Someone who he could be friendly with and he didn’t have to walk on eggshells to not be “disrespectful.”  And Charles got him in the beginning! And now he’s soooo desperate to try to cling onto what they had in the beginning. To keep it from being another SebChal.

And so here’s where I think a insecurity for Charles pops up and why he is always so desperate to quash anything possible conflict between him and Carlos (even when it is Carlos’s fault). Because he doesn’t WANT to be the guy on a team where the two garages are divided and things are stifling and awkward. And Charles’s talent is the reason why. So Carlos’s use of Lando is even more compelling in this light because it really is like a “fuck you, you’ve made it weird with two teammates in a row and I haven’t.” Now I don’t think Charles is even close to being viewed by the masses as a teammate killer BUT I do think this is a complex that exists in his head. He views himself as a nice positive guy! He wanted a good relationship with Seb! He wants a good one with Carlos! Why is this so fucking hard???? Questions that haunt Charles at night as he schemes up ways to get Carlos to look at him first instead of Lando.

(Sidenote: recently Carlos called Charles and Lando his two favorite teammates and then squeezed both their knees while Charles and Lando giggled. And it’s a great clip especially because we all know how Carlos would rank them. And it’s not that Charles needs to be first, he’s not a child! But also why the fuck isn’t he… He’s a more likable guy than Lando— objectively! Is it because Carlos is petty and can only fully like someone who he was beating? Or is it something intrinsic to Charles? Is he someone whose his teammates can only like for so long before it becomes tainted and messy? Ughhhhh)

Anyway that’s most of my thoughts about how Carlando affects Charlie but a few more things… I have written here about how I actually think Charles and Lando are similar in that Carlos inadvertently rubs them the wrong way a lot of the time. But TLDR of that post is when Carlos outperforms his teammates he thinks the nice thing to do is bring them into the celebration, try to share the success with them, celebrate as a team. Lando and Charles go along with these celebrations because they don’t want to seem sore but I think in their perfect world, Carlos would actually leave them along to lick their wounds. BUT despite their similarities on this point, I think Lando has a better understanding than Charles that Carlos is not doing this purposefully to be a dick/condescending. He is just not reading their vibes correctly. It still irritates Lando, but I think Charles is like… mentally stabbing Carlos and then fucking him with bloody hands whenever Carlos does this. Lando is like “oh Carlos being Carlos, I’m gonna be a petulant brat until I feel better.” And Lando assumes better things about Carlos because he knows Carlos better!!! But is that because Carlos has let him? Or because Carlos DOES have better intentions when it comes to Lando than Carlos? Hmmmm… much to think about. 

The similarities with Charles and Lando are actually a lot… how their career tracks are much more the “golden child destined for greatness beloved by their team” while Carlos is scrapping between teams and never really finding a place to call home. And I think neither Charles or Lando really understand what that is like for Carlos. They have sympathy for it, they consider him talented, but they don’t understand it. And yet Carlos keeps seeking out those relationships anyway. Wants so bad to also be one of the naturally talented/gifted drivers on the grid he keeps putting himself in their circles, facing them down head-on and then fighting like hell to prove he belongs. Lando and Charles already know they belong. Carlos wants to believe he does. So I think this goes to a whole other thing which is Carlos is a MASSIVE masochist and he doesn’t even know it.

Anyway not to self promote but here’s a threesome fic I wrote about that shared podium between Carlos/Lando/Charles I spoke of earlier… if anyone is interested! More Carlando than Charlos but still plenty of Charlos to sink one’s teeth into.

I shall write a post soon on how if Charlos was an actual thing what impact I think the current rl fan wars would have on them (that’s my interpretation of the second part of your ask haha but let me know if I’m reading it wrong) hope you enjoyed this part!

#tate-hale #f1 #cl&cs #ln&cs #i'll probably give this a reblog in the morning bc i wrote a LOT #cl&sv #i guess

[steviethenarwhal]

one of the most inexplicable things about lando is his seemingly one-sided beef with logan, where he pretends not to know him now even though they karted together, were in each other’s twitter replies in like 2017, and despite the fact that max f still supports and is friendly with him 😭

#hmmm i did Not know this #i will add this to my 'understanding lando norris' list #i would Not be surprised if he was literally like 'yo this dude sucks get him away from me' #poor logan #ln #ls #f1

[steviethenarwhal]

2024 CHINESE GP : pre-race | via

#they have become mildly obsessed w each other i feel like #why are they always touching? #what goes on here? #cl&gr #f1

[steviethenarwhal]

(and that logic imo has birthed a whole other Charles ship that I won’t get into rn) // speak your truth!!!!!

also that post was brilliant, your fics are brilliant, and i adore your dedication to norrussell in the face of a lot of more popular george ships... my feelings on those ships are Complicated and might Get Me Cancelled, soooo

haha thank you!!! i'm glad you liked my meta and my fics. i love norrussell with my whole heart bc i truly do believe they are soooo complex... like they both enjoy each other so much but lando allows himself to enjoy george more than the reverse because george can't decide if he can trust lando or not... and i can't decide if he should trust lando or not either! there's so much lore and history there, it compels me!!

and the truth about me is i really do enjoy most george ships bc he's kind of my dude and the thing about me is when i have a dude i find his dynamics with everybody soooo interesting. so alex, lando, charles, lance, max, toto, daniel... i see all the visions and i enjoy them. BUT i must confess that lando/george is probs number one on my list bc they are both so weird about each other i need to dig into it forever.

(idk what popular george ship you are saying but i suppose at the risk of sharing my own unpopular opinion the one george ship i have not been able to get into is britcedes. namely bc i have lewis reserved off for one ship forever in my mind but also because i just see their dynamic so much differently than i feel like the popular lore is. now those people might be right bc i am not as well-versed at britcedes lore as other people but i just see something much more dark-sided happening than anything cute. which is good! i fucking love dark-sided things! i just feel pretty distant from their fanon lore as a result. but again... i have not explored that much of them tbh)

#userkritaaay #ln&gr #gr #lh&gr #i have like no f1 connections so it is impossible for me to be cancelled atm #and i dont even post to main tags so lolzzz #f1

[steviethenarwhal]

 was tagged by @lafaerie to post a few lines from my most recent wip. (thank you appreciate the tag!)

my tag is literally anyone who wants to lol.

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.

~~~

Charles taps his fingers on the counter as George keeps spooning more sugar into the mix. He can hear the quiet din from the den as Max talks Carlos’s ear off, explaining the speaker set-up. George still feels vaguely unsettled, the firm frown on Carlos’s face when they opened the door pressing on his mind, making the kitchen air stifling.

Charles opens his mouth, the baby pressed to his hip blinking at George disconcertedly. George doesn’t know which one this is. Maybe Amelie—she’s the one with Carlos’s big brown eyes. It was disconcerting to see them replicated on a small baby’s face. “Carlos is upset it was not us perhaps.” Charles is speaking softly, trying to keep his voice from carrying. “Who they chose.”

George wondered about that too. He knows he was closer to Alex than either Charles or Carlos could dare claim, but still Lando must’ve pushed for Carlos even if Alex wanted George. And George can’t understand how Lando didn’t win that battle, what with Carlos happily married to his cute little husband raising his cute little family in domestic bliss. Nothing like George and his long work hours. Like Max locked away in his room, punching buttons til the screen burned through his retinas. 

Charles and Carlos are in love. George and Max are strangers living in the same house.

“Well, you two were in Italy until three months ago.” George’s stomach is shifting weirdly, but he forces his voice to remain upbeat. He wonders what Carlos has been saying to Charles in private behind their backs. Whether he voiced out loud all the worst fears George thought about when he stared at the ceiling at night. “Maybe they just didn’t change the paperwork in time.”

Charles hums. “Maybe.”

George forces himself to laugh, the sound scraping against his throat. “You two might be doing better to be fair. He’s probably right.”

#gr&mv #life as we know it fic #f1 #also as an fyi i appreciate all the meta asks in my inbox #it'll take me a few days to go through them all #bc i am a yapper #but i am not ignoring them!

[steviethenarwhal]

Wait what did Lance do that almost cost George his career?

So its more about Lawrence than Lance himself, If you look in this article it’s covered with quotes from George to back it up as a source, and here, and George has been outspoken about lance’s money causing unfair orders for his teammates, but in short, in 2014 before a run at the BRDC F4 championship and FRECA, George was signed to compete in FRECA with PREMA, but 10 days before the season began he was unceremoniously dumped due to a veto by Lawrence stroll, who held stakes in the team.

Lance and George weren’t even racing in the same series at the time, as Lance was competing in the Florida winter series and Italian F4.

The reason this is notable in the case of George’s career is that during podcast interviews George has divulged that in 2013/14 he was given the ultimatum by his parents that next year either he needed to be securing additional sponsors, or he wouldn’t be able to race anymore, because they just didn’t have the funding for single seater series. George’s dad had sold their family business, his brother had stopped karting, they were travelling and sleeping in a tiny camping van to and from his races. His dad even reportedly slept in a horse box once, money was that tight. The poor kid was fifteen/sixteen at the time, he’d just left school the year before. It was a lot to put on him.

George credits this season as his make or break season in the second article, if he hadn’t won the f4 championship, he thinks that he might not have received funding to enter into the f3 seasons he did because his record would have only shown his okay but not great season at Koiranen, the team that he was forced to go to with only a weeks notice after losing his PREMA seat. While arguably he could have won there, it was nyck in a koiranen that won the season, that short notice change could have ended even worse. He doesn’t say it explicitly above, but this was the same year around the end of this season he reached out to Toto for financial help and thus would explain the comment about CV’s and needing to impress. The next season he went to Carlin after Toto told him not to, but still did well enough he’d been ‘unofficially’ signed as a merc junior by the end of 2016, made official the following year. Having that 2014 season go well was vital for George.

This is a lot of ramble ramble driver history, and its not Lances fault that his dad did that and put George in a risky place- but it DOES show how one easy swipe of Lawrences hand to move George from a seat he earned, could have ended his racing career. George is far from the only driver its happened to, both Ben Barnicoat and LANDO were blocked from PREMA seats. It’s one thing to buy your kid a seat. It’s another to pick their teammates.

#this is good sourcing #love it #i can expand on how this kind of makes it tricky for me to ship glance in non-au settings #bc like enemies to lovers is one thing #i don't respect you as a person to lovers is another #but i am so open to being convinced otherwise! #gr&ls #f1 #but like... it is super fucked up what the strolls do to other drivers #even now in f1 its fucked up #it's not the same as other rich kid drivers and people who try and act like it is the same are delulu

[steviethenarwhal]

i wonder what they were laughing about 😂

#my interests in one clip #george has nevvver been that funny charles #get up #you too lando #cl&gr #ln&gr #f1

[steviethenarwhal]

george russell and lewis hamilton during the drivers parade, china - april 21, 2024

#lando and george were very cute in this moment #george had absolutetly something pressing he needed to tell lando #and lando was ready to laugh about it before george even started talking #i will take these crumbs #ln&gr #f1

[steviethenarwhal]

only know f1 through osmosis, please tell me more about charles/carlos and their coworkers/pr friendship/fake dating for the paps dynamic 👀

Oh man how do I describe charlos …(especially on today of all days, an ugly day in charlos history) forgive me bc this is gonna be too long and maybe not make as much sense as I hope to you if you are a complete outsider. So please feel free to ask me for links to specific things I reference or any follow-up questions!

So before I begin, I do want to state my thesis which is… The perfect paradox of Charlos is that they both are and are not PR. And only big-brain people truly understand it. There are the delulu Charlos girls who think they are actually friends and all the PR allegations are fan-driven, they have no actual beef with each other. Those people are wrong. And then there are the Charlos antis who think they are the most PR thing to ever happen and actually they hate each other and are annoyed when the other person utters a single word. And not in a sexy hate way, but in a gross, icky way. They are also wrong! And even the more rational people who think they are PR friendly on camera and then perfectly indifferent off-camera are also not right! (Well maybe they are but for my purposes they aren’t). So I shall explain what is true and how Charlos should be perceived if you truly want to understand the sexy depths of mindfuckery happening.

But first I will give as short of a background as possible so you can understand the very basics of their dynamic… Charles is a Monegasque driver who has been driving for Ferrari for what is currently his sixth year. Carlos is a Spanish driver who has been driving for Ferrari for what is currently his fourth year (and his last). So they will have been teammates for four years when this is all said and done. The longest teammate pairing of both’s careers. Charles is the more talented driver who was primed to be Ferrari’s top priority driver when Carlos signed and has since consistently out-performed Carlos over the three years. However, Carlos has kept it much closer than people expected when he signed and as such whenever Carlos performs better than Charles, people have to adjust their views on both men. Is Carlos better than people thought? Is Charles worse? Idk but how you rate them is all heavily based on how you rate the other! They’re unbearably linked. Anyway like I said before this is Carlos’s last year at Ferrari because as the second driver he was chosen not to be re-signed so they could sign Hamilton. So Carlos is racing this year as a pre-unemployed man which they both know and have weird vibes about. Also important to note Carlos is three years older than Charles and has switched around F1 teams a lot (meaning he’s had a lot of teammates) while Charles got into the Ferrari seat as quick as feasibly possible. So we kind of also have a more “blue collar, working man” driver (hilarious thing to type about Carlos Sainz) who is perceived as not a natural talent but someone who grinds his way to good results through his brain, luck, and maybe some trickery vs a predestinated prodigy who winning with Ferrari is viewed as his birthright at this point.

Anyway that’s the boring stuff. Now for the actual important interesting background that will help establish the beginning of their relationship. Carlos when he became Charles’s teammate was coming off one of the most popular teammate pairings in modern F1 where he was paired with little Lando Norris. I won’t get too much into the Carlando of it all (bc I would need a whole other meta post to discuss their PR allegations) but what you need to know is that this was viewed as real friendship and Carlos was viewed very favorably by the general populace because of it. It boosted his approval ratings through the roof. Meanwhile, Charles was coming off a… slightly rancid teammate pairing imo (sorry Sebchal girls) where he was paired with a guy a decade older than him who he had very little camaraderie with. So when Carlos first came to Ferrari people were pleasantly surprised to see the vibes were great between them! Charles seemed much more comfortable with someone his own age who he could playfully go back and forth with vs someone who he felt awkward and hyper-conscious around. Meanwhile, Carlos was getting hyper-praised as a guy who gelled with all his teammates and created good vibes wherever he went. He was viewed as the integral part of both Carlando and Charlos for a year or so. The teammate pairing was viewed positively by themselves AND the outside public.

Now they weren’t actually a super popular ship in this stage. But people enjoyed them and Ferrari was delighted to feed tons of C2 content to the masses. It’s not often you get two extremely good-looking guys who are the same age and both very comfortable on camera to be teammates after all. And it’s even more rare that they actually like each other! So of course any content where they interacted was in high demand and Ferrari AS WELL as Carlos and Charles were happy to play along. It was all mutually-beneficial! They all liked each other and it made everyone like them more. Now in hindsight we can point to this phase as the beginning of the PR allegations. Because really at the end of the day, everyone involved knew what they were doing. They knew that posting instagram stories with the other featured in it would get them more conversation and engagement than anything else. Just like reality TV couples know their engagement is driven by couples’ content. Doesn’t make those couples are fake and it doesn’t mean that Charlos didn’t actually enjoy each other, but we were also being friendship-baited for the views. It’s a fact. That’s the way life is, sometimes you flirt with your teammate on camera so straight men in Youtube comments will say “wow the bromance is strong.” We all know how the game works haha.

Even in this phase, it was kind of clear that they weren’t actually friends though. They both said they liked the other one a lot, they had similar values and interests, and they had never really talked before but now that they were spending time together, they enjoyed each other. But it was also perceived as a coworker friendship (not like Carlando for example, which was again viewed as “real”). So despite all the content and the baiting, they didn’t have a stable foundation in fandom circles still. The content was gobbled up none the less.

But then they as time progressed they started having some tiffs on track. And that’s when the image perception slowly changed. I’m not gonna rehash those tiffs because like… I don’t care but suddenly their fans weren’t allies, they were enemies. And as such they became detectives. What once was fun PR little games was instead something Machiavellian. It was something they were (namely Charles lol) were being forced to do at gunpoint because Ferrari demanded it. Really they wanted to punch and scratch each other and instead they had to play “Never Have I Ever” for us on camera. If you were a diehard fan of one, it was basically watching your fave be exploited for views by their employer and not being able to save them (F1 fans are very dramatic lol).

Because it cannot be understated at this point how much their fans HATE each other (I personally think one side of fans partake in this hate more than the other but again don’t need to get into that). It happened sort of slowly and then all at once, but now there is an irreparable rift between the Charles and Carlos girls. So again then because you have people who are motivated to find fault in the other person (because they want to be justified to hate this dude so they want their fave to also hate him) then the intricacies of their personal relationship get scrutinized even more. No matter how much Carlos and Charles insisted that they still like each other, that they had talked about the incidents, that they were all good… they were not to be believed! The narrative had been decided, the dye had been set. They had to play nice on camera but people were not going to be fooled the way they had in the early days. The cat was out of the bag and it could not be put back. (I don’t believe this lol but people actually truly do) Thus, it became a fans responsibility to ignore all the PR-ing and say what their fave was forbidden from saying. Which is that the other dude sucks and deserves death and prison time.

But here’s where things get interesting… Charlos kept flirting despite this! That’s right, the PR facade continued even though the community they were trying to appeal to rejected them. So that’s where things get complicated… because at the end of the day despite what anti-Charlos truthers say F1 teams actually don’t care if their drivers are “shipped” or viewed as “friends.” Yes, they will exploit it if it happens naturally. Yes, they  don’t want their drivers to be enemies (especially not publicly). But outside of that… they’re really not gonna force grown men to do anything. This is not a boy-band. So then we have to ask why do Charlos keep being like That? Why do they drive to the factory together when no one asked them to? Why is Carlos always touching Charles? Why is Charles letting him? Why is Carlos calling Charles one of his two favorite teammates and Charles giggling in his ear? If it’s not forced by Ferrari… are they just like that? Can we accept that? That for the most part they just like each other there is no evil game at play here?

But to play devil’s advocate to that idea a bit… another important thing to know about both Charles and Carlos is that they are both very image… obsessed. Or maybe conscious is a better word. They both want to come off very friendly and likable. Specifically with their teammate!! (which since you are not in F1 is very much not always a given! Being a good teammate is perhaps the hardest thing to do in this sport imo). Another aspect is also… they are just two friendly likable guys!!! I know it’s easy to overlook that when you want to know why they are the way they are BUT it’s not something that should be taken for granted. I think both of them are more comfortable in a state of good vibes than rancid ones. So they are actively trying to keep the vibes good since they are stuck together. And that means being nice with each other and squashing any beef before it starts.

However, there are still cracks. Carlos slips up more than Charles does with the always a nice guy always happy teammate facade. Partially because I do think it comes less naturally to Carlos (though to be clear I still think it comes much more naturally to him than other drivers. Like Carlos and Charles get hyper scrutinized so Carlos looks worse in that comparison but he’s still leagues above let’s say… the 2 Mercedes drivers) than Charles. Charles is naturally a more conflict-adverse guy than Carlos imo. But also… we can’t ignore that well, it’s easier for Charles to be those things when he’s the more talented driver. There’s this unspoken dynamic in Charlos that anything Carlos does is taking from Carlos and thus, Charles is being the bigger man by allowing it. Carlos can’t be the bigger man because he has nothing for Charles to take! What could Carlos offer that Charles doesn’t already have? As such, I think Carlos always feels like a sitting duck in their partnership. A vulnerable prey who is waiting to be slaughtered and only has himself to rely on. He always has his hackles up in a way that Charles doesn’t. He is to put it simply: Stressed Out. 

I always think of this one quote from a GQ feature written about them: 

You ache for Sainz, though. Ferrari is the top of the tree for F1 drivers. Likely, Leclerc will move on from here only if he fails and is shown the door. In order for Sainz to nurture title-winning hopes with Ferrari, he must by default nurse quieter hopes that his pal screws up. Sainz says that if he catches himself indulging in self-pity for any reason—“If on a given day I feel tired, or sad, or maybe something’s not quite right with me, if I’m in a bad mood and I don’t know why”—it is his habit to find a peaceful spot on the Maranello compound and repeat a mantra. “Shit,” it goes. “I’m a Ferrari driver. I’m in Maranello. I’m going to drive a simulator today. I’m going to test the car. And soon I’m gonna race.” […] You sense these drivers will bear losses, disappointments, and indignities Monday through Thursday, as long as they get to pare away the blues at 200 mph on the weekend. For Sainz, the minor insults are everywhere if he cares to look. Handed a stack of pristine baseball caps in the garage, he scribbles his signature on the far side of each peak, automatically leaving room for Leclerc’s name to appear before his own. Although they are practically the same height, a cut-out tableau of the two drivers in central Maranello romantically imagines Leclerc a whole head taller.

That’s such a draining existence to live under, being the second driver. It actually requires a whole other post so I’m not gonna get into it, but this dynamic that Charles has while Carlos wants is integral to understanding them!

Anyway in summary of their current state… Look, I’m not gonna source any videos here, but like people aren’t wrong when they say these men are constantly playing gay chicken with each other on camera. And it’s this delicious thing to witness because on one hand you’re like “is this real? Is any of this true? Are they just flirting because we want the content and they provide?” But then it’s also like “who cares if it’s ‘real’ when the chemistry is clearly real?” It begs the question about if motives matter or actions matter. Does it matter that Carlos and Charles flirt because it’s an easy way to perform on camera instead of something they would naturally do as friends when the end result of wanting to fuck each other is the same?????????? 

So then you might still be asking why do you ship them, this sounds awful? And well, like I said the chemistry is great! They can’t resist one-upping each other at all times. They also can’t help both wanting to be the good guy. Everything is a competition, everything is about sex, everything is about power. But they’re also two dudes who are very good at making each other laugh. It’s a ship that is bigger than their mere mortal existence, it’s something great to be romanticized written in the stars, but it’s also two himbos who are telling each other to strip on camera like they’re running an OnlyFans. And they’re running it like the Navy! It’s a power-couple that was set up by two PR factories who paired them using an algorithm in a lab without considering the humanity of people. But because love is a choice, they make the choice to keep enjoying each other even when everything in them is saying "stop, this isn’t your soulmate, this is some guy you were paired with incorrectly!" But also maybe it’s not a choice because maybe it’s actually about the insatiable hunger that exists in both of them. Maybe the algorithm was right and understood something about themselves they didn’t! Or maybe they’d be happier with someone else but they’ll never know bc that’s not the way the cards were dealt. They’re stuck with each other so where do we go from here? Like I said… it’s a paradox!!

Additionally, to expand outside the PR… my fave thing about Charlos is that they are also psycho-sexually obsessed with each other. Charles fans will deny this because they think he’s too talented to have someone like Carlos Sainz living rent free in his head (and that logic imo has birthed a whole other Charles ship that I won’t get into rn) but I hate to tell you girlies… your man is also obsessed. That video of Charles’s friends in his vlog saying Carlos Sainz is the best F1 driver cause they know it will irritate Charles… that is a man who spends too much time thinking about Carlos and everyone knows it. They can’t get the other one and their driving out of each other’s head!  

And here’s the other thing… Charles enjoys the psycho-sexual obsession! Carlos doesn’t! Even though Carlos likes Charles more than Charles likes him. I truly believe Charles would have the time of his life being Carlos’s teammate forever (even after today where Carlos fucked up Charles’s day I still believe this!) Carlos meanwhile is soooo mentally drained he wants to be free but he also knows there’s nothing better. He knows this is the best he could ask for, so he is resigned to being drained. Like how Carlos feels about Charles is “I love you, it’s ruining my life” or “I love you, ain’t that the worst thing you ever heard?” While Charles is listening to True Love by P!nk on repeat and thinking about how irritating Carlos is as a person and a human but also how much he wants to fuck him and keep him in his life forever. Carlos views it as a punisher-captive dynamic while Charles views it as Kathony from Bridgerton. It’s hilarious!!!

Then there’s also this added dynamic that for a lot of their four years I do believe they had kind of a “there’s nobody I’d rather be stuck in hell with” mentality. Because I haven’t touched on it at all, but there was a lot of external turmoil in the team during their years together and I do believe they were very grateful with each other during that time. Like I think they know that other potential teammates would have left them as more a marooned island during these moments of turbulence while they were able to cling to each other. Hell, I think Charles is even grateful for Carlos for the small stuff! Like that he does GQ and Sky Sports and whatever media content with Charles. And while from the outside you might view that as Charles doing Carlos a favor bc he’s the bigger star… I think Charles enjoys not having to always do it alone. And if he was paired with someone who was either bigger (like Lewis next year) or less-media prone (like so many drivers) Charles would have been alone. And I think he would enjoy that significantly less. He likes that Carlos respects the PR component as much as he did. It’s an arranged marriage where 2 people are fully invested in making sure the alliance saves both their countries. A PR relationship where they argue behind closed doors, but they’re soooo grateful they have someone who they can intertwine their hand with when the paparazzi flashes are too bright! They’re committed to the bit and the bit is each other!!!!!!

Now again do I think they would ever think of each other when they’re deciding who to hang out with in their free time? Nope! Carlos isn’t gonna invite Charles to golf or play padel with or whatever X thing other drivers do with each other. BUT do I think there is still this obsession? Yes. Like I said in my original post I reblogged, they never would have sought each other but now that they’re bound to each other by contract… they know the other person. (This is also another fascinating part of Charlos I forget to mention. They are constantly mentioning in interviews all the time, how they know each other. And I do believe they believe that. They think they have full understand of the respective other man and all his warts and flaws and quirks.) And they know the competitive fire is in both each other and the sexual tension is undeniable. And as such, who cares that they don’t want to play padel with each other? They just fucked each other in a closet and then went out with matching hickies and they’re the only ones who know that those hickies are actually real, and not planted to get a headline. Even their friends think they’re fake… it’s great!

So in summary that’s why perfect Charlos AUs have to start with forced proximity or lust that turns into love by forced proxy. Because it doesn’t work otherwise. They would never slowburn friends to lovers each other. They aren’t friends!!

IMO perfect AUs for Charlos are

Arranged Marriage (Game of thrones style or more Bridgerton idc, just give it to me)

Accidental Pregnancy (not wishbaby that won’t work)

Life as We Know It

Mr and Mrs Smith (TV)

Mr and Mrs Smith (Movie)

Matched (this ebooks were stupid but the premise works)

What everyone thought Travis and Taylor were

Yeah anyway I said way too much and I’m sure didn’t actually answer your question but those are my thoughts. Sorry for the ramble!! It’s been way too long since I wrote meta lol, but I tried my best. I wrote 2 fics where they were heavily featured but as they weren't the main couple people did not care much about them, but if you want to get more of my thoughts I'd recommend those as well. Because like I def tried to get these vibes across.

#i shall reblog this again #bc i'm actually proud of this meta #and some of these points were re-emhasized in the race today #f1

[steviethenarwhal]

What is anyone supposed to say here? Look at how he is LITERALLY holding Lando's hand and Charles being jealous and Oscar fading into the background.

Did not have this on my agenda this morning.

#can't believe carlos has slept with all of these men #3 very different types of sex too #married #enemies #and homoerotic teammates #good for him #ln&cs #f1

[steviethenarwhal]

george just "discreetly" trying to listen to the drama is so 😭😭😭

#cl&gr #that's bc it is canon fact that george and charles are gossip buddies #charles wouldn't resent this bc he respects the gossip grind #f1

[steviethenarwhal]

"rpf seems like a lot of research and work" well exactly. you can't just watch/read the whole content. you have to be insane. you have to put yourself in the shoes of a conspiracy theorist and a historian at the same time. you have to look up the most asinine bullshit. it's a hard job but SOMEONE has to do it for the sake of old man yaoi and old woman yuri!

#the amount of deep-diving you have to do... it does make you insnae when you step back for a moment lol #my norrussell masterpost has just made me feel insane every time i look at it #but you need the whole picture to understand anything! #and then you need to be a little crazy about it too

[steviethenarwhal]

only know f1 through osmosis, please tell me more about charles/carlos and their coworkers/pr friendship/fake dating for the paps dynamic 👀

Oh man how do I describe charlos …(especially on today of all days, an ugly day in charlos history) forgive me bc this is gonna be too long and maybe not make as much sense as I hope to you if you are a complete outsider. So please feel free to ask me for links to specific things I reference or any follow-up questions!

So before I begin, I do want to state my thesis which is… The perfect paradox of Charlos is that they both are and are not PR. And only big-brain people truly understand it. There are the delulu Charlos girls who think they are actually friends and all the PR allegations are fan-driven, they have no actual beef with each other. Those people are wrong. And then there are the Charlos antis who think they are the most PR thing to ever happen and actually they hate each other and are annoyed when the other person utters a single word. And not in a sexy hate way, but in a gross, icky way. They are also wrong! And even the more rational people who think they are PR friendly on camera and then perfectly indifferent off-camera are also not right! (Well maybe they are but for my purposes they aren’t). So I shall explain what is true and how Charlos should be perceived if you truly want to understand the sexy depths of mindfuckery happening.

But first I will give as short of a background as possible so you can understand the very basics of their dynamic… Charles is a Monegasque driver who has been driving for Ferrari for what is currently his sixth year. Carlos is a Spanish driver who has been driving for Ferrari for what is currently his fourth year (and his last). So they will have been teammates for four years when this is all said and done. The longest teammate pairing of both’s careers. Charles is the more talented driver who was primed to be Ferrari’s top priority driver when Carlos signed and has since consistently out-performed Carlos over the three years. However, Carlos has kept it much closer than people expected when he signed and as such whenever Carlos performs better than Charles, people have to adjust their views on both men. Is Carlos better than people thought? Is Charles worse? Idk but how you rate them is all heavily based on how you rate the other! They’re unbearably linked. Anyway like I said before this is Carlos’s last year at Ferrari because as the second driver he was chosen not to be re-signed so they could sign Hamilton. So Carlos is racing this year as a pre-unemployed man which they both know and have weird vibes about. Also important to note Carlos is three years older than Charles and has switched around F1 teams a lot (meaning he’s had a lot of teammates) while Charles got into the Ferrari seat as quick as feasibly possible. So we kind of also have a more “blue collar, working man” driver (hilarious thing to type about Carlos Sainz) who is perceived as not a natural talent but someone who grinds his way to good results through his brain, luck, and maybe some trickery vs a predestinated prodigy who winning with Ferrari is viewed as his birthright at this point.

Anyway that’s the boring stuff. Now for the actual important interesting background that will help establish the beginning of their relationship. Carlos when he became Charles’s teammate was coming off one of the most popular teammate pairings in modern F1 where he was paired with little Lando Norris. I won’t get too much into the Carlando of it all (bc I would need a whole other meta post to discuss their PR allegations) but what you need to know is that this was viewed as real friendship and Carlos was viewed very favorably by the general populace because of it. It boosted his approval ratings through the roof. Meanwhile, Charles was coming off a… slightly rancid teammate pairing imo (sorry Sebchal girls) where he was paired with a guy a decade older than him who he had very little camaraderie with. So when Carlos first came to Ferrari people were pleasantly surprised to see the vibes were great between them! Charles seemed much more comfortable with someone his own age who he could playfully go back and forth with vs someone who he felt awkward and hyper-conscious around. Meanwhile, Carlos was getting hyper-praised as a guy who gelled with all his teammates and created good vibes wherever he went. He was viewed as the integral part of both Carlando and Charlos for a year or so. The teammate pairing was viewed positively by themselves AND the outside public.

Now they weren’t actually a super popular ship in this stage. But people enjoyed them and Ferrari was delighted to feed tons of C2 content to the masses. It’s not often you get two extremely good-looking guys who are the same age and both very comfortable on camera to be teammates after all. And it’s even more rare that they actually like each other! So of course any content where they interacted was in high demand and Ferrari AS WELL as Carlos and Charles were happy to play along. It was all mutually-beneficial! They all liked each other and it made everyone like them more. Now in hindsight we can point to this phase as the beginning of the PR allegations. Because really at the end of the day, everyone involved knew what they were doing. They knew that posting instagram stories with the other featured in it would get them more conversation and engagement than anything else. Just like reality TV couples know their engagement is driven by couples’ content. Doesn’t make those couples are fake and it doesn’t mean that Charlos didn’t actually enjoy each other, but we were also being friendship-baited for the views. It’s a fact. That’s the way life is, sometimes you flirt with your teammate on camera so straight men in Youtube comments will say “wow the bromance is strong.” We all know how the game works haha.

Even in this phase, it was kind of clear that they weren’t actually friends though. They both said they liked the other one a lot, they had similar values and interests, and they had never really talked before but now that they were spending time together, they enjoyed each other. But it was also perceived as a coworker friendship (not like Carlando for example, which was again viewed as “real”). So despite all the content and the baiting, they didn’t have a stable foundation in fandom circles still. The content was gobbled up none the less.

But then they as time progressed they started having some tiffs on track. And that’s when the image perception slowly changed. I’m not gonna rehash those tiffs because like… I don’t care but suddenly their fans weren’t allies, they were enemies. And as such they became detectives. What once was fun PR little games was instead something Machiavellian. It was something they were (namely Charles lol) were being forced to do at gunpoint because Ferrari demanded it. Really they wanted to punch and scratch each other and instead they had to play “Never Have I Ever” for us on camera. If you were a diehard fan of one, it was basically watching your fave be exploited for views by their employer and not being able to save them (F1 fans are very dramatic lol).

Because it cannot be understated at this point how much their fans HATE each other (I personally think one side of fans partake in this hate more than the other but again don’t need to get into that). It happened sort of slowly and then all at once, but now there is an irreparable rift between the Charles and Carlos girls. So again then because you have people who are motivated to find fault in the other person (because they want to be justified to hate this dude so they want their fave to also hate him) then the intricacies of their personal relationship get scrutinized even more. No matter how much Carlos and Charles insisted that they still like each other, that they had talked about the incidents, that they were all good… they were not to be believed! The narrative had been decided, the dye had been set. They had to play nice on camera but people were not going to be fooled the way they had in the early days. The cat was out of the bag and it could not be put back. (I don’t believe this lol but people actually truly do) Thus, it became a fans responsibility to ignore all the PR-ing and say what their fave was forbidden from saying. Which is that the other dude sucks and deserves death and prison time.

But here’s where things get interesting… Charlos kept flirting despite this! That’s right, the PR facade continued even though the community they were trying to appeal to rejected them. So that’s where things get complicated… because at the end of the day despite what anti-Charlos truthers say F1 teams actually don’t care if their drivers are “shipped” or viewed as “friends.” Yes, they will exploit it if it happens naturally. Yes, they  don’t want their drivers to be enemies (especially not publicly). But outside of that… they’re really not gonna force grown men to do anything. This is not a boy-band. So then we have to ask why do Charlos keep being like That? Why do they drive to the factory together when no one asked them to? Why is Carlos always touching Charles? Why is Charles letting him? Why is Carlos calling Charles one of his two favorite teammates and Charles giggling in his ear? If it’s not forced by Ferrari… are they just like that? Can we accept that? That for the most part they just like each other there is no evil game at play here?

But to play devil’s advocate to that idea a bit… another important thing to know about both Charles and Carlos is that they are both very image… obsessed. Or maybe conscious is a better word. They both want to come off very friendly and likable. Specifically with their teammate!! (which since you are not in F1 is very much not always a given! Being a good teammate is perhaps the hardest thing to do in this sport imo). Another aspect is also… they are just two friendly likable guys!!! I know it’s easy to overlook that when you want to know why they are the way they are BUT it’s not something that should be taken for granted. I think both of them are more comfortable in a state of good vibes than rancid ones. So they are actively trying to keep the vibes good since they are stuck together. And that means being nice with each other and squashing any beef before it starts.

However, there are still cracks. Carlos slips up more than Charles does with the always a nice guy always happy teammate facade. Partially because I do think it comes less naturally to Carlos (though to be clear I still think it comes much more naturally to him than other drivers. Like Carlos and Charles get hyper scrutinized so Carlos looks worse in that comparison but he’s still leagues above let’s say… the 2 Mercedes drivers) than Charles. Charles is naturally a more conflict-adverse guy than Carlos imo. But also… we can’t ignore that well, it’s easier for Charles to be those things when he’s the more talented driver. There’s this unspoken dynamic in Charlos that anything Carlos does is taking from Carlos and thus, Charles is being the bigger man by allowing it. Carlos can’t be the bigger man because he has nothing for Charles to take! What could Carlos offer that Charles doesn’t already have? As such, I think Carlos always feels like a sitting duck in their partnership. A vulnerable prey who is waiting to be slaughtered and only has himself to rely on. He always has his hackles up in a way that Charles doesn’t. He is to put it simply: Stressed Out. 

I always think of this one quote from a GQ feature written about them: 

You ache for Sainz, though. Ferrari is the top of the tree for F1 drivers. Likely, Leclerc will move on from here only if he fails and is shown the door. In order for Sainz to nurture title-winning hopes with Ferrari, he must by default nurse quieter hopes that his pal screws up. Sainz says that if he catches himself indulging in self-pity for any reason—“If on a given day I feel tired, or sad, or maybe something’s not quite right with me, if I’m in a bad mood and I don’t know why”—it is his habit to find a peaceful spot on the Maranello compound and repeat a mantra. “Shit,” it goes. “I’m a Ferrari driver. I’m in Maranello. I’m going to drive a simulator today. I’m going to test the car. And soon I’m gonna race.” […] You sense these drivers will bear losses, disappointments, and indignities Monday through Thursday, as long as they get to pare away the blues at 200 mph on the weekend. For Sainz, the minor insults are everywhere if he cares to look. Handed a stack of pristine baseball caps in the garage, he scribbles his signature on the far side of each peak, automatically leaving room for Leclerc’s name to appear before his own. Although they are practically the same height, a cut-out tableau of the two drivers in central Maranello romantically imagines Leclerc a whole head taller.

That’s such a draining existence to live under, being the second driver. It actually requires a whole other post so I’m not gonna get into it, but this dynamic that Charles has while Carlos wants is integral to understanding them!

Anyway in summary of their current state… Look, I’m not gonna source any videos here, but like people aren’t wrong when they say these men are constantly playing gay chicken with each other on camera. And it’s this delicious thing to witness because on one hand you’re like “is this real? Is any of this true? Are they just flirting because we want the content and they provide?” But then it’s also like “who cares if it’s ‘real’ when the chemistry is clearly real?” It begs the question about if motives matter or actions matter. Does it matter that Carlos and Charles flirt because it’s an easy way to perform on camera instead of something they would naturally do as friends when the end result of wanting to fuck each other is the same?????????? 

So then you might still be asking why do you ship them, this sounds awful? And well, like I said the chemistry is great! They can’t resist one-upping each other at all times. They also can’t help both wanting to be the good guy. Everything is a competition, everything is about sex, everything is about power. But they’re also two dudes who are very good at making each other laugh. It’s a ship that is bigger than their mere mortal existence, it’s something great to be romanticized written in the stars, but it’s also two himbos who are telling each other to strip on camera like they’re running an OnlyFans. And they’re running it like the Navy! It’s a power-couple that was set up by two PR factories who paired them using an algorithm in a lab without considering the humanity of people. But because love is a choice, they make the choice to keep enjoying each other even when everything in them is saying "stop, this isn’t your soulmate, this is some guy you were paired with incorrectly!" But also maybe it’s not a choice because maybe it’s actually about the insatiable hunger that exists in both of them. Maybe the algorithm was right and understood something about themselves they didn’t! Or maybe they’d be happier with someone else but they’ll never know bc that’s not the way the cards were dealt. They’re stuck with each other so where do we go from here? Like I said… it’s a paradox!!

Additionally, to expand outside the PR… my fave thing about Charlos is that they are also psycho-sexually obsessed with each other. Charles fans will deny this because they think he’s too talented to have someone like Carlos Sainz living rent free in his head (and that logic imo has birthed a whole other Charles ship that I won’t get into rn) but I hate to tell you girlies… your man is also obsessed. That video of Charles’s friends in his vlog saying Carlos Sainz is the best F1 driver cause they know it will irritate Charles… that is a man who spends too much time thinking about Carlos and everyone knows it. They can’t get the other one and their driving out of each other’s head!  

And here’s the other thing… Charles enjoys the psycho-sexual obsession! Carlos doesn’t! Even though Carlos likes Charles more than Charles likes him. I truly believe Charles would have the time of his life being Carlos’s teammate forever (even after today where Carlos fucked up Charles’s day I still believe this!) Carlos meanwhile is soooo mentally drained he wants to be free but he also knows there’s nothing better. He knows this is the best he could ask for, so he is resigned to being drained. Like how Carlos feels about Charles is “I love you, it’s ruining my life” or “I love you, ain’t that the worst thing you ever heard?” While Charles is listening to True Love by P!nk on repeat and thinking about how irritating Carlos is as a person and a human but also how much he wants to fuck him and keep him in his life forever. Carlos views it as a punisher-captive dynamic while Charles views it as Kathony from Bridgerton. It’s hilarious!!!

Then there’s also this added dynamic that for a lot of their four years I do believe they had kind of a “there’s nobody I’d rather be stuck in hell with” mentality. Because I haven’t touched on it at all, but there was a lot of external turmoil in the team during their years together and I do believe they were very grateful with each other during that time. Like I think they know that other potential teammates would have left them as more a marooned island during these moments of turbulence while they were able to cling to each other. Hell, I think Charles is even grateful for Carlos for the small stuff! Like that he does GQ and Sky Sports and whatever media content with Charles. And while from the outside you might view that as Charles doing Carlos a favor bc he’s the bigger star… I think Charles enjoys not having to always do it alone. And if he was paired with someone who was either bigger (like Lewis next year) or less-media prone (like so many drivers) Charles would have been alone. And I think he would enjoy that significantly less. He likes that Carlos respects the PR component as much as he did. It’s an arranged marriage where 2 people are fully invested in making sure the alliance saves both their countries. A PR relationship where they argue behind closed doors, but they’re soooo grateful they have someone who they can intertwine their hand with when the paparazzi flashes are too bright! They’re committed to the bit and the bit is each other!!!!!!

Now again do I think they would ever think of each other when they’re deciding who to hang out with in their free time? Nope! Carlos isn’t gonna invite Charles to golf or play padel with or whatever X thing other drivers do with each other. BUT do I think there is still this obsession? Yes. Like I said in my original post I reblogged, they never would have sought each other but now that they’re bound to each other by contract… they know the other person. (This is also another fascinating part of Charlos I forget to mention. They are constantly mentioning in interviews all the time, how they know each other. And I do believe they believe that. They think they have full understand of the respective other man and all his warts and flaws and quirks.) And they know the competitive fire is in both each other and the sexual tension is undeniable. And as such, who cares that they don’t want to play padel with each other? They just fucked each other in a closet and then went out with matching hickies and they’re the only ones who know that those hickies are actually real, and not planted to get a headline. Even their friends think they’re fake… it’s great!

So in summary that’s why perfect Charlos AUs have to start with forced proximity or lust that turns into love by forced proxy. Because it doesn’t work otherwise. They would never slowburn friends to lovers each other. They aren’t friends!!

IMO perfect AUs for Charlos are

Arranged Marriage (Game of thrones style or more Bridgerton idc, just give it to me)

Accidental Pregnancy (not wishbaby that won’t work)

Life as We Know It

Mr and Mrs Smith (TV)

Mr and Mrs Smith (Movie)

Matched (this ebooks were stupid but the premise works)

What everyone thought Travis and Taylor were

Yeah anyway I said way too much and I’m sure didn’t actually answer your question but those are my thoughts. Sorry for the ramble!! It’s been way too long since I wrote meta lol, but I tried my best. I wrote 2 fics where they were heavily featured but as they weren't the main couple people did not care much about them, but if you want to get more of my thoughts I'd recommend those as well. Because like I def tried to get these vibes across.

#cl&cs #i honestly still have so much more to say #but i tried #probs a bad day to post this #but i have been avoiding all the Discourse lol #f1

[steviethenarwhal]

fuck me up florida!!!!!

#maybe the best edit ever made #perhaps #i love it #ld&mt #need to read them again