#written by OP

[evichuart]

a hard day of work at the baratie 💪🏻✨

[robo-writing]

I’m so naughty for this 😻😻 literally nobody can match my freak rn

What if… fluff fanfic of Logan and Reader where he is sleeping at normal times to fall asleep, and he wakes up to cocoa to warm him and Reader up in the cold near winter fall. Huddled up in a blanket together, giggling like teenagers over dumb puns.

literally the freakiest I can be rn 🐺⁉️⁉️

Anon this is OBSCENE, LEWD EVEN…..I like your style 👀

The smell of hot cocoa is what arouses him from his sleep—the familiar smell of chocolate and marshmallows wafting from the kitchen. Warm vanilla and rich cocoa moving through the air.

What makes him get out of bed however, is the distinct lack of you. He knows from the lack of your perfume that you're not at his side, but he still reaches a hand out to feel your empty spot—still warm. It doesn't take long for him to put two and two together, bare feet padding against the floor to find you in the kitchen. Hair messy, clothes tossled with the dredges of sleep still faintly visible in your eyes when you look up at him from the stove. "Mmm, mornin' baby," you whisper, voice deep with sleep. "I didn't wake you, did I?" "You expect me to stay in bed when my girl ain't there with me?" He says, coming behind to rest his face against your neck. A pleased hum escapes you, exposing more of your neck as he inhales your scent, lets his head fall further into you while he embraces you. The scruff of his beard tickles, and you make a mental note to ask him to trim it in the morning, but for now this is good enough. His voice is low when he speaks. "Smells good, what're you makin'?" "Hot chocolate," you answer, eyes darting towards the counter. "Saved you a mug." The bright red cup draws his attention, but not enough to pull him away from you right now. He leaves a small kiss against your exposed skin as gratitude, nuzzling up and down your face like a dog does to it's favorite human. "God, I love you. Have I told you that before?" You love it when he's like this, at peace. Too long he's forced to be someone he's not, and it makes your heart swell to know that you're the only one that can turn this beast of a man into a puppy. "You might have mentioned it once or twice." you laugh. "Would you love me more if I told you there's a blanket in the living room with our names on it?" His groan makes your spine tingle, large palms squeezing at your sides. "Marry me." "We're already married Logan," you smile, only to be interrupted with another groan. "Marry me again honey—I'll buy you two rings this time."

[itsscaredycat]

i’m not asking for anyone’s forgiveness, only their understanding that people can— and do— grow and change and learn

no matter how old you are, in 10 years time you will not be the same person you were, and both you and the world around you will change (hopefully for the better!)

some things never really leave us or even get rekindled later on, like my love for gravity falls and how it inspires me to create (just like any media i enjoy), but the fandom and even the source content for gravity falls is VERY different now compared to 10 years ago! so are my opinions on certain ships.

i’m not going to “leave the fandom” because a stranger on the internet told me to. please just block me if you don’t like seeing my stuff. problem solved! you don’t have to see me and i don’t have to see you.

[joy-girl]

One Piece 1130 // Loki and Monkey D. Luffy

[moongothic]

Crocodad AU where immidiately after having left Dragon and his baby boy Crocodile finds an 11 year old Robin. And while he's 100% only recruiting her so they can make a beeline for the Poneglyph and Pluton in Alabasta by the two of them... Crocodile accidentally sorta kinda adopts Robin.

At this point Robin's been running for her life from the Government for three years so her deep trust issues and fear of betrayal are starting to take root in her little heart. Like perhaps they haven't taken fully over yet, and being still a child I'm sure Robin might've still had that genuine hope that she could find a safe place to stay in. But I'm sure the though of "what'll he'll do with me once he gets what he wants?" would be nagging at her at the back of her mind. Meanwhile Crocodile's struggling between the pain and hurt he's already gone through and given him his trademark trust issues, as well as the aftermath of The Dragodile Divorce. But he also has his Fresh Paternal Instincts and probably misses his baby. So when given a small, scared child who is running for her life, being chased by the very same Government that'll want his son dead if they ever find out about him... Yeah that might fuck with your brain a little

You know this post was supposed to be just that first paragraph and just a few footnotes from the following two paragraphs. And then I kept on Having Thoughts. And I kept on writing them down. And oh no what happened when did this post get so long (Look I was going to either kept on writing my Additional Thoughts in the tags or I just put them in the actual fucking post)

Like considder this: based on this one SBS, we can kinda tell that if Crocodile was given a chance to raise a child, that child would be a spoiled little shit, right

So in this scenario, where Crocodile's looking after lil Robin, would he be kind of torn? Unsure how to feel about her?

Because on one hand, this strange child would have the potential to not only ruin his plans, strip him of his Shichibukai Privileges by outing him and his plans to the World Government, but also put his son in grave danger by extension (if she found out about him having been involved with the Revolutionaries and/or having a child). But on the other hand, his paternal instincts could make him want to spoil this poor little girl rotten. But only because he needs to (perhaps literally) buy her trust so she'll behave. No other reason, he doesn't feel sorry for her one bit, no sirree. (But maybe he did feel sorry for her, since his son could very well end up exactly like her. Poor little thing) (Which is why he needs to nuke Marijoa out of orbit as soon as possible, no matter the cost, and this child can't get in the way of Crocodile protecting his son) (But also this is a child. Like how bad could she be. Besides all he really needs to do to win her trust is be nice and make her feel safe, right?)

Of course, while I'm suggesting Crocodile could have some parental instincts, realistically, he hasn't actually spent any time being, you know, a father to a child (looking after his newborn for an unknown though short amount of time aside), so it's possible he wouldn't even know how to parent Robin even if he wanted to, would he? (Like taking care of a newborn and an 11 year old kid aren't the same either) So if he was kind of just emotionally flipflopping between No Trusting Ever and It's Just A Kid for God's Sake, Crocodile trying to be nice to Robin to make her feel safe and then telling himself to stop being so soft and vunerable... Yeah that would make for an absolute mess of a relationship. (Not to mention, let's be real, dude's a scary motherfucker too, and a bloody giant compared to itty bitty baby Robin. He could keep on accidentally scaring the shit out of Robin (who would be On Fucking Edge To Begin With) by just Being Himself. Like for example, can you fucking imagine if he caught Robin trying to cheer herself up with a little "dereshishishi" only to tell her to stop because "it was stupid"? 'Cause I can imagine him doing that, and boy howdy would that make Robin feel bad)

Or who knows, maybe Crocodile was just Born To Be A Dad, maybe he just Fucking Gets It. Like Crocodile is canonically pretty good at manipulating people to do what he wants them to do (see: how he played Vivi like a fiddle), so knowing Robin's position and understanding how she feels, maybe he COULD completely nail how she needed to be treated. Not being too familiar but still making her feel safe and happy, knowing exactly when to be stern and when to spoil her, etc. Dude just goes off and wins the Dad of the Year Award while being a deadbeat dad himself. The only thing Crocodile would have to worry about then would be making sure HE doesn't get too fond of her. And certainly that could never happen, he's so in-touch with his own feelings and so grounded, he's not a softie, get outta here. Or maybe he does but never realizes until it's too late and good luck backpedalling on those emotions now dumbass

Alright so, the reason I went on that whole rmble is just that like. I'm so interested in the relationship Robin and Crocodile already have in canon. I'm so facinated and curious about how the two feel about each other, considdering they did spend 4 whole years of their lives together as criminal business partners, though neither ever trusted the other. A partnership that was only ended because Robin betrayed Crocodile, out of her own trauma. (God, I want to see these two "reunite" so bad, I want to know how they feel about each other now after the timeskip and Robin joining the idiot in flipflops who foiled Croc's plans)

My question here is just that... if they had met 13 years earlier, would things have been different? Especially if Crocodad Real? Because as I mentioned in the begining, Robin would've been on the run for only 3 years by this point, as opposed to 16 years before running into Crocodile. Simultaneously, this would be before Crocodile went onto spend an entire decade all alone, slowly losing his marbles in his emotional solitude. They'd both be emotionally traumatized, yes, but would it have been as bad in this scenario? Like I did start this post kind of joking about Crocodile adopting Robin, and for clarity's sake I don't think they'd have like a father-daughter relationship nececarily. But it would be a strange relationship still, because we'd have two broken people, both struggling to trust anyone. One who had lost her mother and her only friends, leaving her all alone and afraid while running for her life. The other a father who had just given up his son whom he probably missed dearly. Both having these holes in their hearts from loss of family, holes that could not be filled with replacements. But could they find comfort in each other anyway, because they still as people occupy similar roles to their respective loved ones? If they both could just get over those trust issues?

Okay I've been going off on the Emotional Side Of Things for this AU Concept, THERE'S PLOT TOO

So if Crocodile did pick Robin up like 19 years ago, that should be before he set up base in Alabasta, long before he had built is homebase and financial empire etc.

Now the thing is, while we don't know when, where and how Crocodile learned about the Ancient Weapons, Pluton specifically and how the lead on it would be in Alabasta... Considdering Crocodile did once upon a time aim to become Pirate King, it would make perfect sense if he had learned about Poneglyphs during his past adventures, as he would have needed to get the Road Poneglyphs to find One Piece. And while the World Government did bury the truth about why Ohara had been burned down and why Robin had been given her bounty (remember, the WG claimed it was because she had sunken a fleet of battleships, which she had not, it was because she could read the Poneglyphs), considdering this is a Crocodad AU specifically, you could totally make an argument Crocodile could've learned about what actually happened to Ohara from Dragon and co. So, just to make this AU work, you could just assume Crocodile learned about the concept of the Ancient Weapons from Dragon. And who knows, maybe he overheard the truth about why Robin had been given her bounty from Dragon too (maybe Dragon was able to get intel from Garp in secret) or while going to Marijoa himself to attend a Shichibukai meeting or something IDK.

Maybe he learned about Pluton being in Alabasta before finding Robin by accident, and maybe they made a beeline for Alabasta the second Croc recruited Robin. Travelling takes time and the guy would've most likely had to find an Eternal Pose to Alabasta just to get there (also canonically Robin didn't enter the Grand Line until her 20s so they should've met in West Blue probably, since that's where Ohara was) Or maybe Crocodile had to haul Robin around for a few months while looking for That Missing Piece of Information that would lead him to Alabasta. (Imagine the two travelling from like island to island, library to library, Crocodile trying to find that leads while Robin's just so excited about ALL THESE BOOKS (she's helping too with the research) (but to her, research is playtime, so she's just having the time of her life) (Also, notice how Crocodile's Theoretical Child is a fucking loser ass nerd? Yeah Crocodile would encourage Robin reading and studying, surely. And that would be fucking cute))

But like, once they set sail to Alabasta...

Sure, Crocodile could try to do it The Slow Way that we know he tried in canon, building trust and creating his little empire etc. But also, in canon, Crocodile couldn't have jumped into action head first because without Robin, even if he had found the Poneglyph he couldn't have read it and found the location of Pluton. Crocodile choosing to do it the slow way may have been partially because he didn't have much of a choise and it could've felt like the smarter move long-term.

But in this scenario, he already has Robin. Yes, he could do it the slow, secure way.

But what'd be there stopping him from infiltrating Cobra's palace and kidnapping him (in the night, when nobody suspects a thing), demanding Cobra to spill the beans lest Crocodile kills him and/or his pregnant wife* (*Vivi was born 10 months after Luffy so depending on how long it's been between Crocodad leaving Luffy behind and this scenario... Yeah either the wife is there, still pregnant, or there's a newborn Baby Vivi)

Like it'd be a risky move but depending on how ballsy Croc's feeling and how confident he feels in being able to kidnap the king without being noticed... Yeah he could probably do it. And I'm sure he'd have no problem killing Cobra either, if anything it'd be required if he didn't want the Government to find out he was out to find Pluton, and god knows Cobra would tell on Crocodile if left alive. I could see Crocodad being maybe a little iffy about killing Baby Vivi though (it's not like the newborn baby could report him to the WG anyways), but if nothing else, he just needs to be able to pull off the bluff of his life to convince Cobra to do as he's told. And we all know Crocodile's good at convincing people.

The only question is, how would Robin take that?

Watching Crocodile go into Full Murder Mode, hearing him say he'd kill a pregnant woman/a newborn baby if he didn't get what he wanted? Like yeah, I'm sure 11 year old Robin would be fine with that, that wouldn't make any alarm bells go off in her head at all, it'd be fiiiine. IT WOULD NOT BE FINE, SHE'D BE SCARED SHITLESS. That fear of "what will he do with me when he gets what he wants"? Well, Robin may not have found the answer to that question in particular, but she certainly found the answer to the opposite question, and it's not good

So say Cobra, kidnapped (perhaps with Baby Vivi) by Crocodile in the night, guides the two to the Poneglyph under the tombs. Crocodile puts Cobra out of his misery because he's not needed anymore. And he asks Robin to read the Poneglyph for him.

Robin, who has spent the last little while, be it weeks or months with Crocodile, him having become her "guardian", the thing keeping her safe. Crocodile, who has now shown how cold blooded and cruel he can be. Robin, who might be scared out of her mind. Of him.

And the Poneglyph says Pluton, the thing Crocodile wants, isn't there. It's in Wano.

What's she going to do?

EDIT: I wrote a sequel post, enjoy

[sualne]

bugs, blood & more blood

[possessed-pack]

Okay but will there actually come a day where anti-endos stop being ableist while also accusing others of being ableist? You can't preach that you're "protecting victims" while also sitting there being all "endos/those who support them are delusional!!". Psychosis is not your tool for hate, and psychotic people are no lesser than anyone else and do not deserve to be used to discredit other peoples experiences that you simply don't understand. Traumagenic DID systems who support endos exist, but you hate those too--what happened to protecting "actual trauma survivors"? You are not protecting disabled people, you are using them as a tool to explain your hatred for things you don't care to understand.

[namisweatheria]

One Piece means a lot to me as a disabled person, which I think would be pretty surprising to anyone who only has a surface understanding of it. The supposed central theme of "follow your dreams" would be pretty alienating to someone like me, right? It really, really would be, if that's what it was actually about.

However, that ignores that Luffy's dream is to be the most free person in the world. And to attain that goal, the first thing he does is find friends to live life with. Over and over again, from the very beginning, he takes on their burdens, all in the name of being the most free.

Do you see what that would mean to me, as someone who needs more help to get by than is considered culturally normal, to the point that it puts me in a whole socially manufactured category of "other"? Not to mention, because of the infantilization of me due to that category, because of being forced so squarely into the "cared for" role, taking care of other people is deeply meaningful and empowering for me. However, the myths of independence and universal natural ability often make it emotionally difficult for my loved ones to accept that care.

The fear of asking for help, the guilt of being cared for, the weight of someone you loved who could not be as free as you, the insecurity of not contributing enough, the fear that you were born wrong, the self-hatred that says you are not worth the effort, Nami Sanji Zoro Usopp Robin Chopper Ace they all explore the painful obstacles to free connection. Through deeply impactful stories that weave beautifully into the larger one.

All centered around this one person who views loving them and living with them and carrying them as essential to his freedom. Who cannot, for countless reasons, live a normalized life of Structured Relations. Who views exploring and bickering and suffering and laughing with them as the ideal way to live. Who repeatedly puts his life and limbs on the line to do so.

To me, it is an ultimate privilege and freedom to carry other people's burdens. To care for them and live with them. This is central to my whole perspective, and is completely informed by my life experience as a disabled person. I rarely see it reflected back to me. Let alone as powerfully and beautifully as Luffy does.

Nor the other half of it, of wanting to create this life with people in ways that aren't socially normal or approved. Of creating many varied lifelong intimate relations among equals, rather than conforming to the expectation of choosing One Person to live life with and then Creating More.

The utter lack of roles and norms is just as integral and powerful to the exploration of freedom and connection! It is meaningful to me as a queer person, yes, but even this is deeply influenced by my disability. I could never be that One Person, despite everything I have to offer, there is logistically far too much that I cannot do to be someone's equal partner in this society that demands so much from all of us. However, even if I could, I wouldn't want to! It doesn't make any sense to me to only have two people navigate life together on such intimate terms. Can't the demands of society be more comfortably met in a group? Isn't life more fun that way?

We are taught that we can and must do everything ourselves, I just happen to be one of the people that never had a chance to buy into that lie. To learn very early not just the necessity of interdependence, but the joy in it. To learn that it is most comfortably lived with more people involved. To me, close relationships are, love is, a natural extension of that understanding. One Piece celebrates interdependence constantly from the start, while never pretending that it is always easy.

The obstacles to free connection that I mentioned before, they are interspersed throughout the story, and they are always met with "I do the things you can't do, and you do the things I can't do." With, "Of course I can't use swords you dumbass! And I can't cook either! I don't know a damn thing about navigation! And I can't lie!"

These are intentionally impactful moments, and they define the series. I found it very fitting that the Fan Letter focused on a character who was empowered by Nami to feel free and live adventurously despite not being the most physically capable. The character is able by our definition, but the story is very affirming in a disability way, and it was extremely One Piece. I loved how it acknowledged this deep connection between One Piece and the lived reality of disability and celebrated it as integral as it is.

I also believe that absolutely none of this is intentional. It is simply an earnest exploration of human relationships, emotions, and behavior, and it naturally arrives at a radical and disability-affirming viewpoint. Because we are the monkey wrench in the deeply unhealthy (lol) and dominant line of thinking that independence is all. So naturally anything that also disputes that thinking has a disabled-perspective feel to it. The best part is how much it doesn't give a fuck! One Piece is aggressively against conformity in human relationships, in a way that is hard to find in our new world of self-conscious authors.

It's also, you know, the worst part, in terms of all the outrageous bigotry and offensive character design, but god damn it if it doesn't elevate the good parts to unbearable heights. Even the bad character designs can sometimes be more impactful for their intentional "ugliness", when those characters are inevitably taken seriously despite their appearance and the stereotypes they play on, it hits hard every time. I do have a simple hatred for many choices, there is no pay-off for much of the awful problems in numerous character designs and dialogue. But no matter how upset I can be by those things, in the end they can't succeed in pulling me away from One Piece. It's just so crazy and unique and great and terrible and beautiful and I LOVE IT.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Get Souped!

[ariadne-mouse]

If Fearne gets to meet Caleb and/or Beau and successfully picks their pockets (please!), I desperately want Matt to let Liam and Marisha decide what little character tidbits they might be carrying

[mumblesplash]

heartbreaking: this viral post is saying things you completely agree with in the most irritating way possible

[altcvnningham]

adler can’t stop holding bell’s face when he kisses them.

and not gently, either, not the caress of a flower petal, delicate and sweet- bell’s barely a rose if not for all their thorns, and he wrings a hand round their jaw like one might wrench out a weed. rid and tossed to the dirt with all the rest. with all the red. with all that makes them wrong. with everything that came before.

if he can’t muzzle his dog, who can?

he bends their head upward in the interrogation chair, thumb dug into their cheek, squeezing the blood from their mouth into a sanguine rivulet between the web of his fingers; he jerks bell’s face toward the evidence board when their empty eyes fix on him a moment too long, enough to unsettle him; he stamps their chin under a hard thumb when he turns them to the light, soft pupils blown wide as he watches the sweet drug take hold; he digs his fingers into their jaw when they bark too loud at their duly master, shaking sense into his dumb mutt’s whistling hole of a head.

when he deigns to let them go, he makes a point to tear his hand away, sharp and spiteful, so even with the sting they still manage to find suffering in the loss. to yearn for the hand they bit back.

so the rest comes violent, too. the rest comes hungry. the rest comes when he wants it, and he wants bell, with such a blind fervour it drives him mad. where better men might leave, kick their losses to the curb and go elsewhere to get their fill, adler digs his heels deeper in the mud, the dirt where he buries all that red he carved out of them. if it’s tenderness he wants, he can take it for himself, and leave them with the hurt. it isn’t stooping to their level if he’s the one with the leash.

he kisses bell like he’s eating them from the inside. one hand squeezed tight around their flushed face, mouth forced open into an o-shaped pucker. he nicks their lip as smirking proof of his callousness, snags it on his sharpest canine. a peck that mocks affection. licks his way inside their mouth like it’s a threat, a proclamation. you let me do this to you. you let me in, bell. let me in, let me in. such a good dog when they do, loll their tongue out pathetic and starving. he drives his thumb inside, hot, wet, forces their mouth open by the hinge of their stiffened jaw- the last laughable vestiges of their reluctance, crumbling into dust fine enough to sift like sand between his fingers. guess science still has its limits, but so do you.

when he’s worked bell’s mouth nice and wide, he flattens their tongue with a thick finger, face clamped between the rest, and while they’re just about learning to make peace with it all- the humiliation, the degradation, submission made sanctification through the eager expectation of praise- he spits inside, and makes them swallow.

[mecachrome]

pre-mclaren oscar piastri primer (ft. maxf, landoscar)

0. introduction

for a few months now i've been wanting to make both an oscar primer and a timeline of pre-mclaren landoscar moments, but i couldn't figure out which one to prioritize… then after some deliberation i finally realized i could just combine the two things together! so. here is an oscar-centric timeline that is mainly about his racing background, moving to the uk, and how he became acquainted with other members of the rfm pack—aka lando, maxf, and logan. i don't know whether any of this information is useful or even vaguely interesting, but i mostly just wrote it for myself and thought i'd share what i had in case anyone else wanted to check it out. please feel free to comment or shoot me an ask if anything here is egregiously incorrect; i've checked and linked as many sources as i could but it's of course possible that some errors remain :)

1. background, rc racing, early karting days (2007-2015)

oscar piastri was born on april 6, 2001 in brighton east, a suburb of melbourne not far from albert park circuit, as the son of chris and nicole and to-be oldest brother to 3 younger sisters. a love for all things automotive ran deep in the piastri family: both of his grandfathers were mechanics and his father had also co-founded his own vehicle diagnostics software company, hp tuners, aka oscar's sponsor throughout his racing career. thanks to his father's business, oscar's family was objectively well-off and managed to contribute a fairly substantial amount of support toward his junior career, but they also weren't swimming in cash by multi-millionaire motorsport standards either.

(L-R) edie, mae, hattie, and oscar, from nicole's twitter — each sibling is ~2 years apart (source)

while most drivers on the current grid were introduced to motorsport through go-karting, usually at or before the age of 7, oscar's path to single-seaters differed slightly. he first developed an interest in racing via remote-controlled cars at the age of 6, when his father brought him a monster truck as a souvenir back from a business trip in america. oscar began racing them that same year, eventually moving to safer electric track vehicles and even winning the second class of the national titles in 2010, at the age of 9. he was so small then that he often needed to stand on a milk crate to see the cars on track, and the next-youngest competitor at the time was twice his age. (source)

oscar on the podium at age 8 (nov 16, 2009)

oscar with his father chris, who often competed alongside him in a separate class (dec 21, 2010)

by 2011, oscar and his father were seriously considering his potential of pursuing rc racing as a viable career path, but things changed when he was introduced to karting via a friend's daughter in the rc community and his aspirations slowly shifted toward racing from inside a car. oscar was an unsurprisingly sporty and competitive child growing up; he'd played some cricket and aussie rules football and knew that all he wanted to do was race professionally, full-stop, at the time thinking along the lines of australian racing categories like v8 supercars. he was still competing in remote car racing as late as 2013, but he began karting seriously within australia in 2014, placing respectably in the junior categories of several regional karting series against relatively senior and more-experienced racers, and even going to france for a one-off event where he finished on the podium of the iame international junior x30 final. this outing affirmed his potential to his father and motivated the two of them to split time between australia and europe in 2015 as they juggled his karting future; plans for two more european events that year fell through, including the cik-fia world championship at the kfj level (which logan sargeant would go on to win), but at this point they were officially looking to take his career to the next level and commit fully to european karting in 2016.

this is when ricky flynn (and the hypothetical idea of lando norris!!!) comes in. before we get into rfm and karting professionally in europe, it's important to note that the defining aspect of landoscar's junior careers is that their pathways never once intersected. in fact, they don't even seem to have met properly before oscar entered the f1 grid as alpine reserve, although they'd spoken over social media and oscar was familiar with several people around lando's life—for example, maxf, logan, guanyu, and even lando's older brother oliver, who had also raced for rfm.

in short, you could say that landoscar's biggest hindrance was their parallel excellence. oscar was good enough to catch up and even surpass everyone else at lando's level, but lando remained untouchable throughout the years. oscar is only 1.5 years younger than him, but their f1 careers are offset by 4 years (2019 vs. 2023 debut) because of exactly two things: oscar's 2022 gap year in alpine and his two attempts at formula renault eurocup. on the other hand, lando sped through all of his junior categories in blistering fashion, falling short of the championship only once: the year he placed 2nd in f2 behind george russell. this is significant because many talk about the clinical nature of oscar's rapid single-seater ascension and three b2b2b victories (still very impressive, especially given his limited karting career!), but all of that speaks equally to the illustrious nature of lando's junior success and the sheer magnitude of faith placed in him as mclaren's "golden boy" coming up the ranks. to put things into further perspective, lando was teammates with maxf and jehan daruvala at rfm until 2014, jehan competing in the same class and max one below, yet by the time oscar was racing max and jehan—in f3 in 2020 and f2 in 2021, respectively—lando was already into his 2nd and 3rd years of f1. here's a chart that hopefully makes a bit more sense:

majorly simplified timeline showing lando, guanyu, maxf, logan, and oscar's junior careers + the karting classes they primarily competed in each calendar year. maxf did not complete his 2nd f3 season and many of them contested multiple/different formula renault series, but this is just a rough overview of their feeder series experience. 

2. moving to europe, rfm, regional formulae (2016-2019)

back in australia, oscar was a member of the oakleigh go-kart racing club and being actively mentored by james sera, a multi-time australian karting champion and fa kart dealer who worked with young karting talents alongside his cousin david. in late-2015, he presumably helped oscar and his father reach out to ricky flynn, who ran ricky flynn motorsport (rfm) and whose team was at the time enjoying exorbitant success in the karting scene; lando had won the world championship at the kf level the year prior, and logan would soon clinch the kfj title in 2015, results which further drew oscar's interest toward the team. ricky flynn agreed to take oscar on and have him and his dad move out to europe, and by november 2015 oscar announced on social media that he would be joining rfm the next year. in january of 2016, he and his father moved to hertford, uk, so that oscar could begin a 100-day karting program and travel extensively around europe to attend races. this is where he met logan sargeant, who was in his final year on the team but competing a class above, now at the ok (previously kf) level. oscar himself was only competing in the okj class.

not oscar-related, but as you can see guanyu, logan, and maxf were already acquainted before oscar and logan met, since the three of them and lando had been in rfm together as of 2014 — (may 11, 2014) & (feb 6, 2015)

oscar and logan in 2016

in an interview published on june 7, 2023, oscar reflected on leaving australia and committing to his racing dream, saying:

"i think if there was a turning point, it was probably when i started finishing towards the front in australia, and i started winning a couple of races here and there and finishing in the top three of championships and stuff, and then went to europe and fully committed to going down that route. [...] there's obviously a very big commitment at that point when you move halfway across the world without family and stuff. so i knew at that point that i really wanted to become a professional because, firstly, that's what i want to do anyway, but, secondly, now i'm sacrificing seeing my family, and stuff like that to be able to do this — which was a sacrifice i was more than willing to make."

like the majority of oscar's karting career, his time with ricky flynn can primarily be summarized as decent. none of his performances were particularly stellar, and in november 2016 he placed 6th in the fia world championship final behind the likes of victor martins and théo pourchaire (he mainly competed against guys like them, dennis hauger, caio collet, etc… once again logan was a class above and lando/maxf had already graduated to single-seaters), but he showed promising racing foundations and a great capacity for improvement, especially given that he'd moved to europe the same year and was still adjusting to life and racing on the opposite hemisphere. about 6 months into his new karting venture, oscar had settled in reasonably well and his father decided he would return to australia to continue on with his life, so they made the joint decision that oscar was to begin boarding at haileybury's uk campus and continue racing in europe entirely on his own. uk and australian school years are misaligned, so my personal understanding is he moved to europe after finishing year 9 in australia, attempted online school/took a few months off (he says he did online coursework here, but mentioned here that he was out of school, so it sounds like it must have been a very half-hearted effort…), came back to australia over the uk summer to do some more karting, then began boarding in september 2016 as a year 10 student. he spent ~4 years there and eventually received his a-levels in 2020, except his final year was disrupted by covid and he never sat his exams. (blog post mentioning his a-levels + btg transcript excerpt about his exams; his website says he attended haileybury from 2016-19, but i think this mainly encapsulates his boarding period, as he was still doing remote work in april 2020.)

oscar in f4 with his gcse revision guide, 📸 sebastiaan rozendaal (may 20, 2018)

2016 is also when oscar began his well-documented super-liking of several of lando's social media profiles. i think understanding oscar's time in rfm and his extremely british single-seater origins helps better paint his history with lando and maxf; my personal understanding of pre-mclaren landoscar is that while oscar never formally met lando or maxf during his karting days, he knew of them quite well through rfm and thus followed them on instagram/twitter after moving to the uk. of course, oscar has a fairly active social media presence in general, so young oscar quietly liked instagram posts and tweets from many different people, but i do feel compelled to note that in the early days he liked lando, maxf, and logan's posts with seriously impressive frequency compared to anyone else on the grid (or anyone in general, really); after creating his twitter account in may 2016, some of the very first tweets oscar liked were from maxf, and he also liked a multitude of mundane lando tweets from 2016 until… today, while on the other hand he didn't start liking george's tweets—another similarly-aged young british talent—until late 2017. (he does have some fun george-admiring moments though, but that can wait for another time!) outside of rfm, other people oscar was familiar with during his early racing years were british f4 teammate ayrton simmons, to-be series champion jamie caroline, and old australian karting friend christian pancione, who appears to still be one of his best mates (if not his best) as of today. fun fact is that christian raced for the carrera cup as a support event to the australian gp in 2023; here's oscar allegedly checking the quali live timing at lunch during his own media day. 

so, to conclude, oscar's early lando focus basically traces back to the motorsport path he took at the behest and guidance of his early rfm connections in the uk. the thing is that despite growing up in australia and vaguely admiring several aussie drivers in f1 as a child (read: mark webber and eventually daniel ricciardo), oscar has never had a specific driver he consistently mentions when pressed for his racing "idol," likely since his personality inherently resists idolatry and he instead views successful people more as actionable benchmarks or reference points for self-improvement rather than as unattainable paragons of accomplishment. as a kid forced to grow up almost entirely on his own, the majority of his racing aspirations were molded independently in the uk—he completed his karting career in the uk, boarded at haileybury for 4 years (fun fact: other drivers to attend include jehan, callum ilott, and clément novalak; callum was a few years above oscar and finished school in 2017, but the two would later become quite talkative over social media anyway), raced in british f4, became a brdc member, contested eurocup under a british license and therefore had the british flag raised and british national anthem played during his wins, stayed in the uk even at alpine since the factory is based in enstone, etc. oscar basically moved to the uk from australia without having really met anyone significant in the racing scene (other than jack doohan, or more importantly jack's father mick, but jack is younger and did an extra year of karting) and pretty much didn't have anyone specific to "look up to" at the time. oscar's first acknowledgement of lando's online existence was in december 2015, when he liked one of lando's instagram posts prior to moving to england, so it can be assumed that lando basically functioned as his most accessible reference point in the junior ladder as a 14 year old dipping his toes into the european racing scene for the first time. that is my highly subjective analysis of the situation!

select quotes re: oscar's inconsistent responses to his motorsport "hero" (or his favorite driver / a driver he looks up to in general):

(f1fs; mar 9, 2022) "i started watching f1 in… 2009 was the first season i properly watched. so when brawn came in, obviously mark was the only aussie on the grid at that point, so i was kind of naturally going for him. then joined by daniel, so obviously going to support the aussies, but i think watching lewis has been nothing short of spectacular, and a very good role model. [...] i think when i was first watching, i supported mark, but, you know, and i hope he takes no offense to this—vettel was winning everything at that point. so i was supporting mark, but vettel was doing most of the winning. i think now that i understand more about racing though, i would say [the driver i look up to the most is] lewis, mainly. the way he goes about things on and off the track is quite exceptional."

(mcl youtube; mar 29, 2023) sporting idols mentioned: ayrton senna, alain prost, michael jordan (see also ultimate athletes list)

(p1; aug 10, 2023) "i would say i never had like one specific idol. when i was growing up watching mark webber was at red bull, and obviously being australian, red bull being very quick at the time, i kind of naturally followed him. i mean—even like some of the guys in the junior ranks above me. like lando was always kind of two, three years above me, winning… most things on his way up. so i guess kind of him in some ways?"

(eff won; dec 4, 2023) "i don’t really have like one specific [idol]. i think what lewis has been able to do in terms of getting to seven world championships was incredibly impressive. i think what max is doing now is also very impressive…" 

the first lando post oscar liked on instagram (dec 21, 2015)

the first maxf posts oscar liked; instagram (feb 26, 2016) & twitter (may 9, 2016)

anyway, back to british f4! despite his initially unconventional foray into motorsport, oscar's journey progressed in a much more orderly fashion once he stepped up to single-seaters. his actual debut was in f4 uae, which he ran 3 rounds of between 2016 and 2017 (another fun fact: this is where he briefly acquainted himself with mclaren indycar driver david malukas, who would later recall him being very intelligent and whom zak brown allegedly spoke to oscar about before appointing to their indy team). after cutting his teeth on actual car-racing for the first time, oscar decided against moving up to the ok class as he felt confident in his ability to be competitive in single-seaters. his first full season was therefore the 2017 british f4 championship, during which oscar signed with arden while logan went to reigning champions carlin (lando had won with them in 2015, then maxf in 2016). oscar made his way to the top step 6 times in the season and placed just barely above logan for 2nd in the championship, finishing behind the considerably more experienced jamie caroline. arden was also founded and is currently owned by red bull team principal christian horner, so it was during oscar's time there that christian took note of and interest in his talent; oscar reportedly did a few runs in the red bull simulator but was passed over for joining the academy, which christian later voiced regret on. (source)

maxf, logan (center), and oscar (to max's right) on a day maxf was visiting the 2017 british f4 grid (april 11, 2017)

linus lundqvist, oscar, and logan on the podium at snetterton (jul 30, 2017)

jamie and oscar, who were… er, mathematically in the main championship fight. for some reason they made them take these photos (sep 30, 2017)

after a successful f4 outing with arden, oscar returned to the team for his first season of formula renault eurocup in 2018, a renault series that ran in its specific configuration until 2020 before merging with the parallel regional series frec to become what is today known as freca. this season proved to be less competitive for oscar, as arden was relatively inexperienced in this series and oscar's three teammates were afflicted with what can colloquially be referred to as a "skill issue," making it difficult to collectively develop the car throughout the season. (blog interview) the series was thus returning driver maxf's to lose, who at the time was racing for reigning champs r-ace with teammates that included oscar's fellow rookies logan and victor martins.

despite the unideal environment, oscar managed to prove his worth by placing a respectable 8th in the series, scoring 110 points as a rookie driver and capping the season off with 3 podiums and a top-finish of 2nd place—a jarring contrast to his teammates' joint total of 12 points. this result attracted the attention of r-ace and granted him a seat with them for the 2019 season, at which point maxf and logan both graduated to f3. thankfully that wasn't too much of a concern for oscar since he'd always intended to do two seasons of eurocup, and now he finally had a chance to win the first serious championship of his racing career with an established racing outfit.

oscar, max, and yifei ye on the hockenheim r2 podium (sep 23, 2018) [full gifset]

oscar's second season of eurocup is when he truly started proving himself as a driver, or at least to the people whose names, money, and opinions mattered around the paddock. his main competition in 2019 was again victor, who was now racing for mp and had been made a member of the renault sport academy back in 2018 after a strong performance in french f4. despite a close title fight, oscar managed to hold him off for the championship in the final race of the season, kicking off what would soon become an impressive string of consecutive single-seater series titles. even sweeter was the fact that all eurocup champions were awarded a renault sport academy spot that could be left or taken as they pleased, and of course—while the finances weren't nearly as impressive as alpine would later proclaim in their baseless smear campaign—oscar's connections in the racing world were limited as an australian driver almost exclusively managed by his father, so he gladly accepted the offer for the many venues of support renault presented to him.

see also: bby oscar briefly mentioning lando after winning eurocup in 2019 (@ 1:10)

oscar being lifted by his team (r-ace) after placing 4th in the abu dhabi finale and winning the title by 7.5 points

3. renault sport academy, lockdown, f3 (2020)

many things happened in 2020. one: oscar became an official member of the renault sport academy, joining the likes of max (who'd been picked up on merit after winning british f4 in 2017), guanyu, christian lundgaard, caio collett, and fellow new recruit hadrien david (victor had been strategically demoted after oscar's win because renault is a notoriously unserious organization, but again this is not the post). two: by the time oscar was ready for f3, moving up the ladder proved to be exorbitantly expensive, and he realized he needed better funds and managerial support to sort his career out. he'd been offered a spot in prema's f3 team by team-owner rené rosin at the end of his eurocup season, who'd named him for the post-season test before the championship was over and stressed that the spot was his no matter where he finished. (source) prema is unquestionably one of the top—if not frequently the top—teams one can drive for in most junior series (though there is also somewhat of a self-selection bias; if you ask oscar he is not a significant beneficiary of prematax!), having absolutely demolished the f3 competition that same year and achieved a clean sweep of the drivers' standings with rob shwartzman, marcus armstrong, and jehan at 1-2-3 consecutively. oscar completed post-season testing with them in spain alongside to-be teammates logan and fred vesti in october (source), before confirming on jan 26, 2020 that he would be joining them for the f3 season as a renault junior.

so, where does mark webber come in here? apparently mark's trainer from red bull and wec had also been oscar's trainer since 2016 (i'm pretty sure this is australian physiologist simon sostaric), and it was through their joint connection that oscar was introduced to mark. according to mclaren's 2023 season preview, "the pair hit it off, and webber took his countryman under his wing," signing oscar to jam sports management, aka the management agency he runs with his wife ann. mark's support would become a major factor in helping oscar progress through the feeder ranks and establish himself in f1, mainly because he had actual connections and could help oscar network with sponsors and negotiate his way during future signings. of course, more on this later.

as an aside, here are a few things mark has said about oscar:

"he’s got that white line fever when he puts his helmet on and turns into a different character, which is sensational." (mar 1, 2020)

"one of oscar’s biggest strengths by a mile, compared to everyone he is competing against — and this will be a huge string to his bow when he makes it to f1 — is his composure. he has immense levels of composure. [...] if you are weak mentally you won’t make it. he was on his own from an early age. he did brilliantly with his studies. but the racing disease would not go away, he wants it very much." (sydney morning herald; dec 11, 2021)

"he’s a prost, mate. he’s such a thinker and so calm. at first i thought i needed to inject a bit of urgency in him, but actually no, he’s got his own frequency. that’s just where he is." (the race; oct 7, 2023)

estimates provided by chris piastri on the cost of oscar's junior career, stressing the million-dollar commitments of running a single season of f3 or f2 (source)

anyway, back to the chaotic events of 2020. i think something that's good to keep in mind when discussing oscar's time in the renault sport academy is that he was actually a relatively new recruit, as in he only participated in a single training camp with the other juniors in 2020 and most of them (max, christian, guanyu, the temporary ghost of victor) already knew each other before. oscar essentially met with renault's factory team in early 2020, filmed promotional material with other juniors in january before attending the season opener together in february and then heading to winter training camp later that month, after which he and max left early for f3 pre-season testing in bahrain on march 1—a blessing in disguise, seeing as caio, hadrien, and christian remained behind and would soon be stuck quaranting in a hotel in tenerife—then briefly spent a week at school before returning home for what was meant to be a quick pit stop at the australian gp, which at the time had yet to be canceled.

then, of course, lockdown happened.

simplified breakdown of renault junior stints, notably showcasing the academy's struggles to meaningfully promote any of its juniors

oscar at the 2020 renault season opener alongside then-academy director mia sharizman, then-tp cyril abiteboul, alain prost, f1 drivers esteban ocon and daniel ricciardo, and the other academy juniors: fewtrell, lundgaard, zhou, david (feb 12, 2020)

oscar and maxf behind the scenes of the same event (feb 12, 2020)

stuck in australia for three months, oscar would end up participating in two fia virtual races, one for f2 and another for f1 (jun 7, 2020). a fun landoscar tidbit is that he finished 5th in the virtual gp right behind lando, so they technically had raced each other before 2023, depending on... well, whether you count a 2020 sim race wherein george russell and alex albon lead the pack as a real race. nevertheless, this was a time when drivers were becoming much more active online, seeing as streaming was the best way to keep their images relevant and connect with fans, and despite oscar expressing little interest in streaming on twitch he would still experience a considerable uptick in his online activity and twitter reach that year.

racing resumed on july 4 at the red bull ring in austria; oscar had been granted an exemption to travel to the uk and complete a 2-week quarantine back on may 27, a reassuring indicator to the motorsport world that the f3 season would run after all. now that he no longer had to attend school, having received 2 b's and 1 c for his maths, physics, and computer science a-levels, oscar relocated from hertford to oxford in june to be near the renault facilities, which he visited nearly every day to train at, and began living independently (as in in a flat) for the first time since 2016, rooming with fellow renault junior caio collet.

as i said before, this season is when oscar's online presence and "memeability" began to really conceptualize, enabled primarily by the fact that he was a) finally living outside of a school dormitory, and b) now, of course, signed at prema, a team notorious for its social media visibility, literal family atmosphere, and frequent youtube pandering. according to this f3 article, his twitter followers jumped from 795 at the start of the season to 11.6k by the time he won the championship, an audience built significantly off the self-deprecating string of jokes he used to tweet regarding drs and general reliability issues faced throughout the season.

what i guess i want to touch on here is how oscar's online presence has always been concentrated around the bare fundamentals of his personality: dry humor, candid words, sparing emojis, a few humorous photos detailing the mundane reality of his everyday routines, and at most the occasional inopportune meme or reaction gif (#thepiastri 🤷‍♂️, f2 in baku, jetpack guy, so on). he's bantered frequently with callum on twitter and near-obsessively liked memes, videos, and other updates lando shares with his audience, but he also has seemingly little interest in building up his own "brand" the way lando so smartly has with ln4 and quadrant, and quite frankly seems viscerally incapable of wanting to engage one-to-one with fans or otherwise leveraging the popularity of his material image. basically what i like to say is that oscar enjoys being adjacent to "lad humor" and will happily enable it, but he really has no interest in being the one to initiate it himself!

"there's some things you want to share, some things you don’t. in today's age and sort of having the profile that us drivers do, we kind of just have everything shared,” piastri said. “but (social media) can be used for good, certainly within the profiles that we have. but in some ways, it can be negative, and there's always going to be people out there that don't like you for being you.” piastri tries to write as many of his posts as possible, and he checks those written by his team to be sure they sound authentically him. (the athletic; jun 29, 2023)

along these lines, oscar does enjoy the spotlight, only he seems to prefer it concentrated in a specific lens toward a specific productive end. he's endlessly capable of seeing the objective upside of a situation, joking after he was made a meme in baku following his f2 sr1 collision that he was all for it if it got him popularity. after his eurocup championship he also said: "i think everyone loves a bit of spotlight on them. i think that's just human nature, so a bit of attention's always nice." which is interesting to me!

but back to racing. this season would unexpectedly become two things: maxf's last competitive season in motorsport—especially disappointing considering that he'd gone into the championship expecting to put on a second-season title charge, instead failing to gel with the hitech team to the point that each increasingly poor weekend made him spiral mentally—as well as oscar and logan's last season racing against each other before f1, since logan would later encounter financial difficulties that left him stranded in f3 as oscar catapulted himself to f2 victory. 2020 was obviously a weird season in general because of covid and the gap from pre-season testing, so it also meant that oscar had gone into the season fairly rusty; he managed to win the first race of the season, but on top of his drs rollercoaster he did struggle with middling results in qualifying and was met step-by-step throughout the championship by logan.

maxf's last race in f3 was the barcelona sprint race on august 16, with three rounds left to the end of the season. he dnfed in an unfortunate first-lap incident mere moments after oscar charged his way up from 5th on the grid to the front of the pack, where he would eventually breeze his way to victory and pull himself near-level with logan for the championship lead. i recognize that this is an oscar post and not a maxf post, but i think their time in f3 during an extremely isolated and covid-affected period speaks to both an interesting dynamic between them (the little kid who always lagged a series behind you suddenly beating you on merit) and their respective temperaments toward racing. while at renault, max reportedly lived with jack aitken during the week but would return to his family home on weekends, so it makes sense that he struggled to adapt when covid hit and drivers were collectively forced into very regimented sporting bubbles. mark webber, who worked for channel 4 as a commentator and had access to the f1 paddock, basically couldn't see oscar in person and instead spoke to him over the phone every day on race weekends. maxf said of his decision to quit:

"normally [...] i’m able to stay calm under pressure and i don’t let many things get to me but when you have a bad qualifying result and you see guys up there that you know you’re capable of beating, it definitely takes a dig at you inside and it’s been a lot to process throughout the year." (source)

while then-academy director mia sharizman, who worked closely with the renault juniors, spoke of oscar's inherent propensity for independence and how he adapted well to the pressures of living on his own:

"if you look at oscar piastri, he has been living on his own, [away] from his family who are in melbourne for the past five to six years. because he has been living on his own in boarding school, he learns how to live on his own, and he thrives in that. we have to force him... 'have you spoken to your father?!' it's just things like that, but he thrives in that. that's why he thrived in those weekends racing. he loves being on his own without anybody. on the other hand, we had max fewtrell, for example, who can't – he couldn't survive the 11 weekends racing, because he always needed his family to be around him. so those are the things that suddenly you see and, i think that that we see now, after a few years a driver who is quick, a driver who has the talent, and then the driver who is stable." (source)

2020 is also when lando and oscar spoke to each other on twitter for the first time. yay! after lando went semi-viral for having a meltdown over a hornet on three separate social media platforms, oscar first joked with him about it on august 24 (this was incidentally also the day maxf announced his functional retirement, which oscar liked as well 😭), before referencing the incident again a few weeks later in september.

(aug 24, 2020) / (sep 10, 2020)

outside of drs tweets and trying desperately to banter with lando norris, oscar's popular tweets at the time included several food-related mishaps and home appliance tragedies. while this isn't actually a lando moment, he was also slandered by the LN4 twitter account a month later on october 17 for reasons that remain a mystery, resulting in this set of interactions:

(oct 17, 2020) / (oct 19, 2020)

bonus: maxf's tweets @ oscar (when you aren't close enough to just text him.......)

but back to f3. similarly to his second season of eurocup, oscar would go on to clinch the title in only the final race of the year, this time even more stressfully—he never got pole that season and won arguably off of consistency, benefiting from errors and unfortunate collisions involving his primary competitors. after a hectic qualifying and string of contentious grid penalties set for the before-last round in monza, he began the feature race 15th on the grid but put on an impressive performance to finish on the podium, buffing his points lead after logan was tapped by clément and put out of the points. he, logan, and fred all dnfed in race 2 (read: the novalak pendulum swung away from oscar's favor to maintain stringent cosmic equilibrium, while logan and fred threw away a points opportunity with a teammate4teammate love tap), and oscar went into mugello with only an 8-point lead over logan and a 24-point lead over pourchaire. this weekend proved equally hectic, as is frequently the case with f3 racing standards, but in short oscar and logan entered the final sprint race level on points, with théo approaching terrifyingly near in their rearview mirrors. logan was unceremoniously taken out of contention on the first lap after contact with zendeli, and oscar managed to squeak his way to 164 points in the championship by placing 7th in the race; théo finished 3rd, with 161 points, two positions away from claiming both the race and the championship title.

a succinct summary of an eventful season! (posted jun 30, 2021)

despite winning the f3 championship in far-from-dominant fashion, oscar's career was now steadily on an upward trend. on october 30 he was rewarded with a private test in the r.s.18 at bahrain alongside christian and guanyu, and a month later confirmed that he would be racing for prema again in f2 (december 1, 2020). as a rookie f3 champion there was a moderate amount of interest in him, but no one really expected him to carry home the f2 title on his first try and so one of the main favorites going into the next season was his second-year teammate and 2019 f3 champion rob shwartzman.

4. f2, alpine reserve duties, #piastrigate (2021-2022)

at the start of 2021, fernando officially took daniel's place at renault and the team rebranded itself as alpine, parting ways with team principal cyril abiteboul and functionally replacing him with new ceo laurent rossi—part of a no-tp management structure, frankly a self-evident infrastructural faux-pas from a million miles away. the renault sport academy was then also renamed to alpine academy; again i know that this is an oscar post so i won't get too into the details of Alpine Being Alpine, but understanding how the academy functioned does help better contextualize the inevitable unfurling of piastrigate.

the main issue, really, would always be laurent rossi, or at least the values laurent rossi had been hired to represent and which he willingly peddled during his controversial tenure at alpine. after rossi's appointment it was reported that "the renamed alpine academy was now being tugged in two directions between director mia sharizman's ideal as a creator of future f1 drivers and alpine's chief executive officer laurent rossi's commercially-led preferences." (source) mia directed the academy from january 2016 until may 2022, and had been the one to restructure its recruitment process by demanding better funding and robust testing programs to cyril:

"when we first restarted the team in 2016, it was, we didn't even have a two-year-old car program at that time. we had to use a 2012 program using the [lotus] e20. [...] then in 2018, i went through it, and i said to cyril abiteboul, "look, let's try and do this." we needed financial resources. i needed a head start with financial resources to kick start the program whereby you entice drivers, and you offer [a place] to the academy drivers. it was more to see how they are... it was more of an evaluation process... that was what the first idea was. then we developed the program to develop the drivers to suit their formual 2 program." (source)

(note: mia also believed that 2020 was a disappointing year for all of his juniors save for oscar's performance in f3, which is a whole other thing. but rossi's greatest shortcoming was that he had singular, insulated vision, and he resisted any external input to the detriment of reactionary business decisions, a fact that alienated alain prost and soon led to his exit from the outfit in 2022. not a good look!!! prost would later call rossi "the best example of the dunning-kruger effect, that of an incapable leader who thinks himself able to overcome his incompetence with his arrogance and lack of humanity toward his troops." 🤌)

so basically, the cracks of mind-boggling incompetence within the team's leadership structure were long evident. on a brighter note, oscar's 2021 f2 season would quickly become his strongest single-seater contest ever (f1 youtube has a good summarizing video of his season, if interested); because of covid, f2 was experimenting with a three-race format this year in which quali set the reverse grid for sr1 and sr1 results then set the reverse grid for sr2, which essentially meant high qualifiers were rewarded for simply maintaining composure in the first sprint and running cleanly in the top 10 in order to secure a favorable grid spot in sr2. oscar adapted well to this format, building off his reputation of smooth, consistent driving on top of slowly improving his qualifying results over the course of the season, finally breaking through with his first feature-race win in monza. 

oscar with mia sharizman

this is also around the time when lando mentioned oscar in official f1 media for the first time, reading off a question about him to daniel in an interview posted in october:

"this one's not even about formula one. it's about oscar piastri. oscar pias-tree! [...] he's been on it this year." — (full video) (oct 1, 2021)

of his own f2 campaign, oscar said:

"i thought that i could challenge for race wins, but i probably wasn't expecting to be so consistently at the front. consistency is something that i’ve had as a trait throughout my career, and i was expecting to be consistent in my results this year — but maybe a bit lower down!" (source)

not only did he end up being consistently at the front, he became virtually unstoppable in the second half of the season. on december 11, oscar clinched the title in abu dhabi with two races to spare, ending the season with 5 consecutive poles and 4 consecutive feature wins, 60.5 points above his previously-favored teammate in the standings. #notbadforashitqualifier!

by now oscar was a hot commodity in the paddock; the only problem was that alpine didn't really care, mainly because rossi had enthusiastically re-signed ocon to a three-year deal in 2021 and held zero intention of actually promoting any of its juniors to one of the race seats, plus the one open spot at alfa romeo had instead gone to guanyu and his considerable financial package (though oscar has always been vocally defensive of guanyu's appointment to his detractors). instead of moving to another series, such as indycar or super formula, oscar recognized that he'd proven everything he needed to prove within the feeder system and opted to remain on the grid as alpine's reserve driver, mainly so that he could embed himself in an f1 team environment and—most crucially—avoid being left "out of sight, out of mind," because once you go to america you usually don't come back.

i'll keep the rest of this post brief since i feel like everyone already knows What Went Down, but a quick highlight for fellow landoscar enjoyers was the 2022 australian gp on april 10, during which oscar accompanied rosanna tennant for the post-race show and awkwardly participated in a chaotic lando & alex interview. as far as i know, this was landoscar's first time interacting on-camera!

o: "i haven't raced either of them, no." l: "not yet!" o: "not yet. hopefully soon." — (full video) (apr 10, 2022)

then silly season started, and everything was thrown into disarray when sebastian vettel announced his imminent retirement and fernando subsequently took his place at aston martin; alpine scrambled to recover from this blindsided move and prematurely promoted oscar to an f1 seat, to which oscar eventually posted The Tweet—claiming he'd never signed a contract with alpine and would not be racing for them in 2023, thus kicking off #piastrigate. or the piasco, or whatever you prefer to call it.

here's a good article that properly summarizes the crb ruling, but tl;dr: mclaren and alpine had come to an agreement back in march to loan oscar to mclaren's stable of reserve drivers after daniel contracted covid; mark webber, who was close to andreas seidl from their time at porsche in wec, quietly negotiated a contract with mclaren for 2023 that oscar would then sign on july 4, which was reportedly initially a reserve deal with an upgrade clause to a full-time drive given a dr buyout; alpine's legal team turned out to be essentially one overworked legal director who mishandled the situation thanks to a lack of organizational support, while a concrete williams deal never actually existed no matter what people continuously allege, and any proprietary right to oscar's services that alpine purported to have for the 2023 season would soon be voided by crb rule on september 2. in other words, they dun goofed.

because tumblr dies when i try to include it in this post, here's a link to a condensed chronological timeline version of this post.

that's it for now. i'm sure you know how the rest goes!!!

[emil1863]

More for the au!

The basics, Gods, Demigods, Devil Fruits, all exist.

World Gov + Marines try and keep the whole concept of gods and demigods under wraps. Because I'm working with "D's" carry divinity. And having a good chunk of them outright despise the government isn't a great look.

Luffy is a god while Garp and Dragon are demigods. Luffy can shift between physical and 'divine' form whereas demigods don't have that ability.

Luffy is the successor/inheritor of his predecessor's will and own divinity. But not through reincarnation necessarily. One in the same but they are very much so different. His devil fruit and promise to Shanks cemented his place as the successor to the sun and freedom. When gods and demigods start out, there isn't a wholly set future for what will they will have, or the ideals they will embody. Luffy has always had his cloudy/intangible form.

Imagine Garp's surprise when his grandson, who was supposed to join him in the marines, is set to embody freedom and the sun. He was pissed for a solid week about that. Garp also had to deal with questioning where Dragon had even gotten Luffy from, he still doesn't know.

Ace and Sabo were very adamant that Luffy not show off his divine form to everyone, especially if he wanted to become a pirate. He can't be a pirate if the government tracks him down and hides him away at the ripe age of like, 8. Also because having a full god is pretty uncommon, Sabo has heard horror story after horror story of what nobles and those in higher society would do to a god. Sabo is the most vocal about Luffy being careful about that.

Luffy meets Koby, and does an absolutely terrible job at keeping his form hidden. It's harder to control which form he's in when he's excited. Koby was a human with no divinity and big dreams that Luffy adored. So, already excited with a new friend, and the two on their way to Shells town, Luffy sneezed and immediately sold himself out. Koby is a terrible liar and so just elects to never speak on this topic ever. If anyone asks why he has so much knowledge on gods, specifically sun gods, he just doesn't answer. Helmeppo thinks it's funny and immediately pieced together why, because Koby cannot keep anything from him. And Garp has to respect how hard that kid is trying to not completely sell out his grandson, even if the brat kind of deserves it for being a pirate.

Luffy is going to be the Pirate King, divine or not. His crew quickly find out about his side quirk/form in varying ways. Zoro woke up one day with a cloudy demon from hell cutting off his airways. Nami was trying to explain clouds to Luffy and that 'no, they cannot just spawn on your person, that's stupid,' and so Luffy shows her that he is in fact, correct.

Usopp got jumpscared early in the morning, before the sun had risen, when Luffy just appeared behind him and asked if he wanted to watch the sunrise. Sanji was cooking dinner and Luffy got so excited he phased out of his physical body.

Chopper found out while asking Luffy if he had any medical conditions he should know about, he thought it was kinda cool that Luffy can change forms. And is only a little jealous that Luffy has a fully human form. Luffy always makes sure to tell Chopper he's exactly who he needs to be.

Robin found out after talking about 'Nika,' who is thought to be long dead, but is not. And is the captain of the crew she is now apart of. Luffy knows the name is important and it has a certain weight when it's said. He physically feels when someone says his name around him. Robin thinks this is very fascinating. (Also can add some context into poneglyphs, that there is a lot to it, even if Robin doesn't yet know and Luffy wasn't alive/doesn't have that knowledge)

Franky was showing off cool shit he could do with his robotic body, and Luffy was like 'me too!!!'

Brook found out when Luffy fell asleep listening to him play a song, and Luffy slipped back into his resting form of cloudiness.

While both forms have their uses and limitations, Luffy is most comfortable in his intangible form, even if his physical one is the default. He cannot access his divine form after a certain point of exhaustion hits.

Im going to end that there before I have an entire novel in this. But that's the general thought throw up I'm smacking down right now.

Sorry if this is incoherent and not easy to understand lol. I will flesh it out more later and when I have actually thought more about it. Might change things later too. Then I'll probably make a good post about it with actual wellish made context and lore.

[alicenpai]

i love...wanpee...........🍊🍶🧡💚

[zoldsick]

A Dare

First kiss HC! - Zoro is confused about his feelings toward you and a silly dare shakes him out of his uncertainty. *edit* Full Story Here

..................................................................................

-You had recently joined the Strawhats and Zoro had been nothing but cold to you

-You couldn't tell if it was distrust or hate, but he was always glaring at you

-Zoro was up in the bird nest sulking Ussop had tried to get him to come down and play with the rest of the crew, but he was too busy nursing his bottle and keeping an eye on the horizon. 

-But he is distracted by the sound of your silly dares and games, even his drinking couldn't tune you out

-In other words, he was utterly confused and in denial about his feelings that were brewing for you

-He cursed at himself when he heard you laughing

-He really wanted to make your voice in particular stop

-Suddenly there is an uproar in the middle of the deck, so discretely, he listens in

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-It was just a silly drinking game

-You had been the one to introduce the game to the Strawhats

-It was always fun, there's drinking, challenges, and punishments. What more can you ask for? 

-You had lost the most recent drinking game and it was Nami who was dealing out your punishment 

-Nami had quite the dare: As the newest member of the crew, you had to show your gratitude by giving one of the Strawhats a kiss

-"I'll even be nice and let you choose who. Though I think the answer is easy enough" - Nami batted her eyelashes at you

-You immediately become uncomfortable and blush, you don't like the idea

- “I don't know if I’m comfortable with a… kiss”

-You tried to object but the crew pushed on, It's just a little kiss! It's a game! It's Fun! 

-Reluctantly you are forced to admit to the crew that you are not exactly experienced in that department

-Robin outright asked, with little tact, "Have you ever kissed anyone?" 

-Your blush was all they needed to see

-The Strawhats dissolve into disarray 

-each member trying to prove why they deserve to receive your kiss, besides Luffy and Chopper who sat back and laughed at their antics. 

-Sanji was in hysterics, nose bleeding, begging to be the one to bestow a first kiss

-Nami claimed since she was the one who instated the dare, it should be her. 

-Robin and Franky argued their life experience makes them most suitable for the job

-Ussop claimed to be the best kisser in all of Syrup Village. 

-The crew, screaming on top of each other while you stand back in utter embarrassment

-"What the hell is goin' on here?"

-You jumped slightly, you didn't notice Zoro arriving, he swayed slightly, you eye the drink in his hand

-You can barely bring yourself to admit what was happening before you two. 

-Your face burned hot as he stared at you

-"I-uh. It's my turn for a punishment. And uh.." 

-Zoro stared, he had never seen you this flustered, cheeks red, eyes looking anywhere but him, 

-He had some thoughts about it. Certain feelings. 

"Well, long story short, now everyone's fighting over who will get my... first kiss... I guess." 

-you barely get the words out, you are so humiliated, 

-His demeanor slightly shifted 

-"They're what?" 

-You huffed and tried explaining yourself, you knew if you didn't pull through with this dare Nami would be bleeding your pockets dry. "Plus, it's just a kiss, it's not a big deal" 

-You were trying to convince yourself. 

-Zoro took in the scene around him

-the crew members fighting hysterically, Sanji was on the floor trying to control his nosebleed. 

-He clenched his jaw. 

-"First kiss, how stupid."

-There was a crash as Zoro's bottle hit the ground

-and suddenly Zoro's hands were gripping your face, and before you could process it, his lips were crashing into yours. 

-It was nothing like you imagined your first kiss would be.

-He tasted like booze

-It was clumsy

-It was desperate 

- One of his callused hands gripped your jaw and the other tangled in your hair. 

-You could barely keep up with his pace, your hands gripped his shirt to help ground yourself. 

-One by one the Strawhats realized what was happening and were in a stunned shock. 

-Finally, Zoro pulls away and leaves you panting

-Through his hooded lids he sees your beet-red face

-If steam could pour out of a person's head, it would be happening to you. 

-Realizing what he has done, he struggles to maintain his composure, stepping back and avoiding your eyes, "Well... it's done."

-The crew jumps Zoro, whacking, slapping, and kicking him, specifically Ussop, Nami, Chopper, Franky, and Brooke.

-Luffy sits back and laughs 

-Sanji is catatonic, sobbing on the floor

-Zoro dodged hits, "What's the big deal! It was going to be one of us anyway. It doesn't matter, what's the big deal about a first kiss anyway? I've never kissed anyone!

-The crew halts and looks between you and Zoro, there is silence

-Robin, unaware she was about to rub salt in wounds, spoke up, "So, then you are each other's first kiss?" 

-You and Zoro make eye contact for the first time since you broke apart. 

-And this time both of you blushed up to your ears

-You ran off to the bunks, you couldn't handle what was happening 

-The crew continue their beating on Zoro, though it's half-hearted

-Zoro covered his face with his elbow

-How could he let that happen? 

- And why did he want more?