#we can also blame ow/enwils/ons wikipedia page for the locations for the one time i read it in 2019

[bisexualmcqueen]

Ok listen, I know you literally just posted about McQueen's parents, but I am already so obsessed with them and would love to know more about them!! 💙

ok so this has been sitting in my askbox since JULY (CRAZY??) and ive been thinking about it ever since. thank you for bearing with me<3 quite frankly i needed to reacquaint myself a bit longer with cars/my cars ocs after a 4 year long break!! lightning is about 43 now in 2024, which means i have 4 decades of his story to mentally keep track of (simply the flavor of autism i have). i bounce all over like a laserbeam in a hall of mirrors.

alright. oliver and donna time. blanket warning for varied implied child abuse/neglect. [background info this ask is referencing!!] ***

the very basic core of these characters is looking at lightning mcqueen and wondering how the hell he wound up all fucked up the way he did. hes got all the issues (he thinks hes sooo normal but there are so many things going on that arent right). so i invented a couple of fucked up guys to fuck him up (mildly to moderate) in his formative years.

oliver is the main culprit here. oliver mcqueen. yes- one of the core aspects of this character is "Two Of Them". what if there was Another mcqueen. imagine a second mcqueen man (dear god). he had a dad somewhere along the line. and what a guy, oh i'm sadly a bit obsessed with oliver. hes like if lightning mcqueen was Worse. hes a boomer from the boston metro area and he thinks he's cool as shit like bernie madoff doing investing fraud, trying to get rich. he thinks hes the wolf of wall street of texas. his head is completely up his own ass and hes a mean little idiot worm. hes supposed to be raising monty but all hes taught him is 'every man for himself' and how to close the door quietly. that and other things.

they live in the dallas metro area together from about 1988-1999. oli does not want to raise this kid, so he sort of just throws food and tires at him occasionally. monty spends a lot of time outside, raising hell (where'd you learn to fly like that, city boy?). typical racecar behaviors. (his teachers find him impossible to deal with often as well).

not to say that oliver is some irredeemable evil freak- hes funny, hes charming, hes a bit of a badass, hes sort of a hot pathetic mess in a funny way. he does pass on some decent traits to his son, gives him good advice occasionally. he's crazy, but he works in an office, so most of his schemes are social and criminal. i recently made an AU where he's a racer, so hoping to post more about that as i develop. (a successful oliver is much more frightening than one distracted by failure!)

this has oliver and monty vibes, oddly enough:

don't be fooled- oliver could never hold a candle to the heart of logan wolverine. oliver is a republican and he hates women (he loves women /derogatory). oliver sucks enough that lightning straightup considers doc to be his actual dad. next! ***

ah, donna. origin of abandonment issues, ring ring!

she's less developed than oliver because she exits stage left pretty early on in the story, but we still love her (or hate her, up to interpretation!) i actually recently gave her a full name even: Donna Ann SteelDust. yep, steeldust as in the mythical foundational sire of the American Quarter Horse breed. partly because texas, partly because i love horses, and partly because in the 1950's there lived a pair of quarter horses who were father and son named Doc and Lightning. and they were racing quarter horses to boot! oh, and partly because the mother of lightning mcqueen deservedly needs a badass name.

donna has monty at about age 20, with a godless charmer from faraway boston, out of wedlock, in a small community somewhere towards western texas in the early 80's. oliver is fresh out of uni and a couple years older. donna is a waitress at the local eatery. girl, your taste in men is abysmal. you can NOT fix him. traveler meet-cute gone wrong...

hes miserable enough of a partner that he is ultimately what drives donna to leave. gone in the wind one day when monty is about six. she met someone new. someone who she thinks is kinder.

she puts the tv to RSN every sunday. she likes watching races- radio when theres no tv. when monty becomes obsessed, she gets him a little strip weathers figurine when shes out of town one day that he manages to hold onto til his teen years. they sit in front of the tv and watch together, and have popcorn made on the stovetop. when lightning recalls his mother, this is the first place his mind goes.

she didnt want a kid (as in unplanned). she didnt consciously try to be a good parent (neither did oliver). but she was sweet. well, sometimes, when she wasnt being a hot mess and stirring up drama.

originally, i was going to have her die before lightning became famous. oliver was going to also be dead by now (2024). but ive got some new ideas- oliver is in prison, donna is in denial about her famous son and festering with guilt. she does not reach out to him. (latter idea from Non).

to boil them down further: donna believes in love, oliver believes in money. they go about it the wrong way. they make mistakes. (part of lightning's obsession with money is in unconscious spite of his father- he wants to prove a point, that he was doing it all wrong, he can do better, he can Win ['i'll show him!']. consciously, lightning's money worries are about his own longevity. there is no lightning mcqueen parts factory: hes some sort of rare 1 of 1 anomaly. unconsciously again: death [mortality, time lost, being forgotten] frightens him. out loud, he says wrecking does. he does not connect any of these dots fully.)

a looottt of this is in flux, these characters still need significant development. but its a story about loneliness, about escaping the cycle, about finding your wings. this is not lightning's family, this isnt where he lands. he doesnt have christmas at ma's. you cant go home again- there's no one there for you and there never was. cps doesnt save you. you find yourself.

mostly this all comes from my fascination with lightning's mysterious origin. and frustration with it. what do you mean the only in-film lore we get is "i've been dreaming about it my whole life!" and "glen elen- my first win!". all his convoluted emotional shielding (for a minute there). he jumps at loud sounds and thinks someone is shooting at him. his natural jackass behavior even after he is 'reformed.' his clearly ignored mental health concerns. he drives me insane forreal. lightning mcqueen i will dissect you and put your parts spread out on a clean workbench you bitch. i will label and graph you in 4D space. im putting you in the bee centrifuge.

gonna cap this off with a recent sketch of donna. turns out corvettes are IMPOSSIBLE to draw, send help. more info about this timeperiod/my ocs are filed under the "origin fic era" and "my ocs" tags on this blog (mostly barren at this time though. will add more.). excited to refine these characters even more as time goes on!

thank you again for the ask!