#sorry i didn't expect this to turn into a yap fest | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

xuer · 4 months ago

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kind eyes extended notes

for kind eyes on ao3

be prepared for the yap fest. please read this after the fic because there are spoilers.

first of all, I wrote this fic very out of order because of several reasons. one, because my caffeine-addled brain couldn't string together a cohesive story or outline before it was begging me to put something down, and two, because I took a little bit of creative liberty with my characterization of oscar, which leads me into…

oscar is usually a really analytical and cool/collected guy, very logical and realistic, but sometimes he just can't think around lando. he's in romantic/platonic love (reader's choice!), your honor. he never lets his emotions get the best of him, so when they do he has no idea how to handle it and can't even recognize it until hourssss later. his thoughts are a mess and he needs a bit of time to even begin to process what happened. when lando's in the vicinity, he's even more scattered. he's struggling to catch up, really, and he's trying desperately to read the social cues that lando is usually so open with but is kind of on and off with this time around.

he's also obsessed with lando's eyes. I mean OBSESSED. which, me too, I kind of projected hard on this part, but it shows through the fic because oscar is like, "lando look at me!" "lando please show me your eyes" "lando pay attention to me, don't avoid me" yada yada yada. it stems from lando being the kind of person where you can usually tell exactly how he's feeling. he doesn't shy away from showing his emotions on camera or in front of other people, even if they're very very ugly to look at. we kind of saw the peak of this in austria, where lando didn't mince his words AT ALL after the race despite knowing the backlash he would get (this kid will give me a stress induced heart attack one day I swear). we've seen his ups and downs, his high after scoring pole in barcelona and his crushing low after losing it, his fury after the on-track incident at the red bull ring, to his… honestly I want to say slow and steady loss of hope after silverstone. he still gives his everything in every race, he's still determined to go out there and do the best he can, but like you can tell the difference in his reaction after he got pole in spain vs in hungary - there was a very big difference and a lack of unfiltered excitement this time around. he knows what it's like to win and to be so so close to a win he can feel himself lose it. lando feels everything so strongly, and after so many disappointments and close calls he's kind of learned to protect himself in this way. going into budapest, he still expected and wanted to win, but his confidence has definitely taken a hit. oh my god this turned into a lando character analysis I'm so sorry let me cut it short and just say his eyes are so expressive and after hungary he was very subdued and oscar's internal lando alarm sounded and was like "show me your eyes!" "why won't you show me your eyes!" "even when you look at me I can't tell what you're thinking anymore something is wrong!!!" until lando does something very obvious with his face like smile at him. oscar you silly boy.

all this just to say in this fic oscar's just a bit of a dunce, and I mean that in the most affectionate, loving way possible. he doesn't know the full story getting out of the car (neither of them do) and all he cares about is if lando is mad at him, but he can't even admit that to himself so he just feels like a crazy person whenever it looks like lando might be upset and he doesn't even understand why. every bit about the dread he feels, the lightheadedness, nausea, feeling cold, etc. that's all his physical and visceral reactions to lando not looking happy, to him being scared his relationship with lando won't survive this. along the same lines, the pressure in his stomach easing up, the warmth he feels, being able to breathe and think (relatively) normally again, those are all reactions to him seeing lando react or interact with him positively. I'm sorry, but he's whipped and he has absolutely no clue. but yes, that's what the unreliable narrator tag is for.

some other details I mentioned in the fic but didn't really expand on:

there's a lot of other parallels and barely touched upon details in this fic to be honest. besides the obvious and reoccurring mention of lando's eyes and oscar's desperation for eye contact throughout the whole thing, there's oscar seeing his reflection in lando's visor at the very beginning and in his own phone screen at the very end (he just wants to see lando's eyes but instead he's seeing his own, he wants to figure lando out and find out how upset he actually is with him but what he actually needs to do is look at himself and figure everything out from his own side first).

oscar doing everything on autopilot and muscle memory at the beginning because he's still sorting things out in his brain, cringing at himself a lot which isn't normal behavior but he genuinely does not know what to do or how to act in this situation, only rebooting just in time to give some non-answer to nico in his interview and barely coming fully back online when lando first actually talks to him, how it really doesn't hit him that he won (HE ACTUALLY WON. THIS TROPHY IS HIS.) until he's basically (almost) alone in a familiar setting after he has time to process everything.

lando procrastinating taking off his helmet because he, too, needs time to school his expression into something. decent.

lando being uncharacteristically quiet in the beginning, silently congratulating oscar in the car, silently acknowledging him. silently motioning for him to get to his interview, his first actual words being trivial and ultimately meaningless small talk ("no big fumbles. good interview.") he's still teasing oscar, he wants oscar to know they're okay, but he still needs time to process what he lost, lick his wounds a little, needs to cool off for a bit before he can start to actually be genuinely happy for oscar's achievement. it's why it takes him until after the interviews, the cooldown room, the podium, when they're both alone (3 hours later) for him to finally muster up the strength to text oscar an actual heartfelt congratulations.

and his simple "you will" at the end of the first section is his unwavering belief that oscar won't stop here, he'll keep rising, this is nowhere near his peak as a driver, despite what lando wants or wishes for in regards to his own career, wrapped up as a nice little generic reassurance. oscar catches the weight of the words, but he doesn't know what it means exactly. yet.

oscar in the cooldown room expecting to eventually get a verbal knockdown from lando (max his best friend on the grid someone he's known for a decade wasn't even safe a few weeks ago, oscar's nobody special in comparison, lando's definitely mad he got prickly at LEWIS OF ALL PEOPLE oscar is not safe) so he's trying to find the right thing to say but then lando notices him floundering and trying to fix things for him so he just deflates and apologizes to lewis and smiles at oscar.

mclaren social media admin (who is faceless and genderless and honestly only in this fic because of reasons discussed in section 5) mentioning that oscar seems happier alone just staring at his trophy, which, again, yeah it only just registered for him, but also, he's in the comfort of his driver room with no actually hostile cameras around so he isn't on high alert for every move he makes and lando isn't here so he can actually think! hurray!

another kind of obvious one is the texts. oscar's knee-jerk reaction to seeing a message from mark, someone who's supposed to be on his side all the time, is negative? he's very surprised at himself and he doesn't know it's because he knows mark dislikes lando and can already envision how his opinion will only worsen after today. he's like noooo don't hate him I don't even know why I'm defending him I'm upset at what he did too but I hate that you hate him. absolutely zero below-surface level thoughts. soooo real.

also oscar's contact names for them (bless his heart), how mark uses correct spelling and punctuation while lando's dyslexic ass just wings it (and how some of the only messages without misspells are his congratulation messages because he painstakingly typed those out ok?), lando calling oscar by name and not any of the stupid nicknames he came up with that oscar secretly hoards close to his heart, and the timestamps, ugh. and yes, mark's last message is a reference to red bull and multi 21. sorry, even the commentators mentioned it and you want me to not bring it up in the fic? [loud buzzer noise] never. lando is also very much running away from everything that's why he's hiding out on max's private jet they can both wallow and drink their sorrows and beef with their engineers away together 30,000 feet in the air.

throughout the fic as well, you can kind of note the changes in tone. the beginning focuses a lot on minuscule details, how oscar feels millisecond by millisecond, because that's all he's able to process at the time. as the fic progresses, oscar's internal monologue gets less self-judgy and gets its snark back. it goes from "god, he doesn't know how lando does it" and "what is wrong with him today?" and speeds up as he goes back to normal and starts being... well, funny again. "after lewis has enough of waterboarding them both" "his phone starts up its never-ending seizure of notifications again" like ok king we're so back.

and then it proceeds to all come crashing down again.

oscar's (loud QUOTE UNQUOTE) "sickness" (read: unintelligible mixed feelings) makes a reappearance when he's listening back on lando's radio messages because he had no idea to the extent of what will was saying to him and it is extremely shocking I'll give him that. even I was like. jaw on the floor when I found out. because your engineer, the little guy in your ear, is the one person you're supposed to be able to trust unconditionally. they are the ones keeping you out of harm's way, the ones keeping you from crashing, your direct and only link to the rest of the team connecting you to the mechanics and the pit wall, the person telling you the strategy, like. it's not the norm, but it is also not entirely uncommon for when a driver switches teams to literally take their engineer with them. that's how instrumental they are to a driver's race, and it takes a lot of time to build up that trust and rapport. mclaren has a separate underlying issue where lando for some odd reason has three different race engineers that just switch out between weekends and it's SO ODD but that's a whole different story. point is this - a driver's race engineer messing up and giving out of date/incorrect information to them by accident is one thing, but a driver's race engineer guilt tripping and straight up lying to their face is another, and it is a hugeeeee no no. will joseph did that to lando, and now that trust might be completely broken. as one driver to another, oscar knows exactly how big of a deal this was. it's something he never expected from them.

at the very end after oscar realizes what exactly happened during the race and watches the compilation video and realizes despite everything lando is still so so genuinely proud of him for winning, he feels so many mixed and indistinguishable emotions that he's just kind of in shock for lack of a better word, which is why it kind of just... ends like that. sorry guys, it's going to take him another few hours to work through that one as well.

and again, the eyes. the entire point of this fic is centered around lando's eyes and how he expresses his emotions through them, and how oscar is so used to looking at them to tell how lando is feeling, so that's why he's always so desperate to actually be able to see his eyes. lando is genuinely happy for oscar winning, but it's incredibly bittersweet (and I explain more why in section 4). the pit in oscar's stomach starts out as dread, that lando's pissed and won't continue to be on good terms with him, it fluctuates up and down whenever he thinks lando is happy for him or mad at him, and gnaws away at him for the rest of the fic before eventually settling on a combination of fear that their relationship will never be the same again and guilt that although what happened was something he couldn't control and wasn't even aware about until much later, it still happened, and despite it all lando still looks at him with the kindest eyes. it's sickening to think about.

some things I didn't get to add into the fic because one, I couldn't figure out where to fit them, and/or two, my wrists are close to giving up and I need to clock out for the day. I have just used up all my writing inspiration for the next year.

anyways, part of the original reason why I wrote this in the first place was because I was reading some other new landoscar fics about what happened and (absolutely no shade to them!!!!! I want to stress) I didn't agree with some of the ways they portrayed lando or oscar. ultimately, they're both f1 drivers. they're both selfish, they wouldn't be on the grid if they weren't. lando didn't want to give up the position because he's selfish and is desperate for that second win. oscar wanted him to because this is the strategy they agreed on earlier that day and he also wants that first win, even though TECHNICALLY prioritizing the driver ahead in wdc rankings wouldn't necessarily be a wrong call. they're each other's closest competitors, all they have as an equal comparison is each other, and they know it. lando has his pride as someone older, more experienced, who has been with the team a much longer time than oscar has. he had to wait more than five years for his first win. oscar gets one almost dropped in his lap just a year and a half into his career when he didn't have to stick with a singular team through all their trials and tribulations, when he wasn't lugging a glorified shoebox into the points for all of 4 years amidst criticism of renewing with the same team again? it's not fair. oscar plays the team game because he's biding his time, he is intimately aware of his position in the team as the second driver, but he lucked out to be at a mclaren because it's currently the only front running team that acts like it's still in the midfield and prioritizes "being fair" over a championship. he knows if he follows the rules normally he can capitalize on them being "fair" again and he'll have a chance to prioritize himself. both of them know this and if there's an opportunity to win, no matter the situation, they'll capitalize it. it's not actually really fair to either of them, but that's the nature of f1, and no one should be blaming either of them for their line of thinking.

got a little away from me there again, but you get the point. neither of them really blame each other for acting the way they did in hungary, but at the same time both of them blame each other for not acting better, if that makes sense. oscar is not going to apologize for asking for team orders to be honored. lando is not going to apologize for waiting until the last possible minute to let him through. oscar was going to do anything for the race win. lando needed to prove his point. in f1, this is how it works. both of them are warring with emotions of happiness, guilt, pride, etc. and it just turns into a mess.

oscar is thrilled by his first win, but it's tainted by shame of the way he had to win it, how he wasn't really good or fast enough for it, and guilt of making lando give up the lead. lando is pissed that he lost out on yet another race win, genuine happiness at seeing oscar succeed, and crushed pride of being treated like a second driver and berated on live tv because of this so called fairness. still, deep inside, lando wishes he could have ignored that strategy call until the very end and just took the win. still, oscar does not regret winning this race, no matter how it ended up happening or what anyone else had to do.

there's also the whole thing about lando starting his interviews off with "the team messed up" and somehow progressing into "I didn't deserve to win", missing scenes from media pen interviews, the press conference, etc, how he blamed himself for his bad start while nico rosberg the man himself was like lol no that was not your fault??? and chewed andrea Stella out on live tv, backstory on mark's one sided beef with lando, events after oscar's immediate reaction when he realizes the truth and how he would war with himself but still end up being selfish and glad he won and feeling even more guilty about it, the tense team debrief, lando being miserable, the subdued meal with the rest of the team after lando hightailed it out of there at the earliest possible opportunity, oscar's lonely plane ride home, the possible dinner with mark, eventual confrontation or closure ("you never did answer nico properly back there, did you doubt I'd give the position back?"), and so many others... but I never planned on including a lando pov in the first place which a lot of these scenes wouldn't work without, and also oh my god my wrists.

I wish I could have included all of this in the fic somewhere, but disjointing rambling on tumblr will have to do instead.

lastly, and I promise this is the very last section, I tried my best to stay as close to actual events possible for a lot of televised scenes, but f1 broadcasts are notoriously stingy with letting people rewatch things that didn't happen in the race itself, especially since I. do not pay to watch this stuff lol. so I had to scour social media and youtube for clips of lando's radio messages, the post-race interviews with nico, what happened in the cooldown room and on the podium (rip lando he's being torn to shreds right now but it's ok I support his rights and wrongs), etc etc etc

there are still some things I'm not too sure about (i.e. the order of events, some quotes, non-televised events) so I took a bit of creative liberty regarding those. I'm pretty??? sure??? it went both park in parc ferme > lando congratulates oscar while he's still in the car > lando doesn't go to the team while oscar goes to them > both get weighed > both do the outdoor interview for podium finishers with nico (in finish order so oscar, lando (paraphrased), and lewis (not pictured but just imagine him flirting with nico and that's basically what happened)) > cooldown room > podium > media pen interviews (not pictured because at this point I just wanted it all to be over and I didn't watch them anyways) > press conference (also not pictured for the same reason) > go back to drivers rooms and clean up > team debrief (also not pictured partially for the same reason and partially because what I had was already a decent stopping point)

so again for all of this I tried to base it on real footage as much as possible. it basically matches every single move for move from the beginning until the interviews with nico (the question nico asked and oscar's response are both real quotes, lando and oscar's little interaction at the tables afterwards is partially real but the dialogue was written by me because I couldn't hear what they were saying). the cooldown room scene was my own little fix-it for lando because god he stresses me out sometimes (lovingly) but the overall events written did happen.

the podium is more accurate to what actually happened. randy was actually up there, god forbid, but the broadcast angle gets really awkward and crops lando out of a lot of the celebrations because he goes into the corner, so I'd say it's almostttt move for move again.

for the driver room scene, the social media admin is literally only there because I needed to fit in the part where oscar just lovingly gazes at his trophy and soaks it in a little (this also did happen check mclaren social media) and for that I needed for one, the trophy to get to him somehow, and two, someone filming him while he's making his trademark heart eyes at a lump of ceramic. everything after that is obviously events I came up with. there's no one video I referenced for lando's radio messages but they're all real quotes and you can find them... multiple places online. the second video that oscar watches is completely made up, but it also probably exists somewhere. those two can't exactly take their eyes off each other.

aaaand I think that's it! honestly, this is just all rambling that couldn't fit within the character limit in the fic end notes, and like I stated above, won't make sense unless you read it. if you got this far thank you so much and also I'm so sorry for subjecting you to this. let me know what you think about the fic itself by commenting there or about these notes by replying here or sending an ask... at your earliest convenience! (hah.)

#kind eyes #f1 #landoscar #xuer writes

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