byebyeholocene

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Haven’t shared this in a while! But since we’re on Chapter 12/20, it feels like a good time to do so as the story is about to take a turn.

If you’re into the idea of Academic Rivals!Gax give it a try :) 

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MY SHAYLAAA

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🫐🍊

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i know psychological warfare when i see it and i know toto is still pissed at george for ruining his secret games w max by involving the press

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George knew Max had been disqualified because when he went to show him the karting photo he said 'you got disqualified right?' and max said yes

Omg thank you anon! This reinforces my thesis that he DID know but he still saw Max as the winner, so much so that he decided to post a pic of them together to celebrate that memory. Very very interesting

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Saw your rb on my post on George bringing up the picture of him and Max from karting days and alluding to the fact that Max won the championship, and it's something I've been thinking about too, it makes me so insane it's so UGH!!! Either George genuinely does not know/remember that Max in the end got his win taken away *or* he willingly forgot it or, maybe even if he remembers decides to think of Max as the winner. Which in all cases means George sees Max as The Guy Who Is Supposed to Win, which makes me so insanely unwell sorry I'm having a breakdown about it in your inbox hahagds. I feel like the fact that this was George's second KF3 European win in a row adds to it a lot it's so... layers.....

No because you're so right. Either George never knew that Max was disqualified from his win (which imo is unlikely) or he just chose to ignore that because to him Max IS the winner, deserved it too. There's another IG post circulating on twitter where George is in Max's comments some 12 years ago joking about how Max's bumper is always smashed up (https://x.com/russtappens/status/1954890969033199620) which also makes me slightly insane. I genuinely think these two have much deeper lore than we realize from their time in karting, before they probably went separate ways until George made it to F1, and the way they perceived each other then and see each other now is probably heavily informed by a bunch of stuff we don't really know (yet).

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Thinking about this every few hours and feeling the inexplicable urge to swallow rat poison

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𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘙𝘶𝘴𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯 𝘍𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘴 𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘉𝘢𝘮𝘣𝘪

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Formula 1 RPF Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: George Russell/Max Verstappen Characters: George Russell (Formula 1 RPF), Max Verstappen, Andrea Kimi Antonelli Additional Tags: POV Outsider, Divorce, Getting Back Together, Fluff and Angst, george’s unspecified eating disorder, Jealousy Series: Part 2 of to divorce or not to divorce Summary:

He’s never felt unloved. It’s just… he can’t remember the last time his parents had actually kissed. They no longer cuddle on the couch with their legs tangled and their voices hushed because Kimi’s supposed to be sleeping but has instead sneaked out to sit by the stairs and watch whatever movie’s on with them.

And they fight.

alternatively, how kimi sees max and george finding their way back to each other

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Chapters: 9/? Fandom: Formula 1 RPF Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: George Russell/Max Verstappen Characters: George Russell (Formula 1 RPF), Max Verstappen, Alexander Albon, Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, Charles Leclerc, Torger “Toto” Wolff, Christian Horner, Daniel Ricciardo, Lewis Hamilton (Formula 1 RPF), Nico Rosberg, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Oliver Bearman Additional Tags: Academic rivals, Rivals to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Alternate Universe - College/University, Jos Verstappen’s A+ Parenting, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Unreliable Narrator, george is not having a good time, Developing Relationship, George Russell Needs a Hug (Formula 1 RPF), Protective Max Verstappen, mad max makes a few appearances, Slow Burn, Torger “Toto” Wolff Being an Asshole, unresolved sexual/romantic tension mistaken for hatred, the tortured engineering department, Daddy Issues, Max Verstappen is a Menace, he also rides a motorcycle in this, Falling In Love, Miscommunication, Bad Flirting, Jealous Max Verstappen Summary:

George Russell and Max Verstappen couldn’t be more different, and that applies to their research methods too - but what happens when their lives start becoming more and more intertwined, and one’s success is bound to become the other’s demise?

-

Alternatively, George in his “this is me trying” era.

Academic Rivals AU

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Chapters: 9/? Fandom: Formula 1 RPF Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: George Russell/Max Verstappen Characters: George Russell (Formula 1 RPF), Max Verstappen, Alexander Albon, Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, Charles Leclerc, Torger "Toto" Wolff, Christian Horner, Daniel Ricciardo, Lewis Hamilton (Formula 1 RPF), Nico Rosberg, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Oliver Bearman Additional Tags: Academic rivals, Rivals to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Alternate Universe - College/University, Jos Verstappen's A+ Parenting, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Unreliable Narrator, george is not having a good time, Developing Relationship, George Russell Needs a Hug (Formula 1 RPF), Protective Max Verstappen, mad max makes a few appearances, Slow Burn, Torger "Toto" Wolff Being an Asshole, unresolved sexual/romantic tension mistaken for hatred, the tortured engineering department, Daddy Issues, Max Verstappen is a Menace, he also rides a motorcycle in this, Falling In Love, Miscommunication, Bad Flirting, Jealous Max Verstappen Summary:

George Russell and Max Verstappen couldn't be more different, and that applies to their research methods too - but what happens when their lives start becoming more and more intertwined, and one's success is bound to become the other's demise?

-

Alternatively, George in his "this is me trying" era.

Academic Rivals AU

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having so much fun writing this geoscar socmed fic

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Oh… her tucked legs n shortest shorts n tiny espresso…

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study

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https://www.tumblr.com/keepthedelta/791025815077928960?source=share

WHERE'S THE REST OF THE THESIS?

okay so, prefacing this with the note that i am not a george scholar or a max scholar or a psychologist of any kind, but i think george and max's relationship is fascinating because, at least from george's perspective, it's very heavily influenced by george's relationship with his father.

from what i've seen george has a very complicated relationship with his father. he's the youngest of his siblings by quite a few years, and his older siblings were both successful athletes in their youth, with george's older brother also being very into karting (i believe he was a karting world champion at one point but never made the jump to single seaters). george has said that his mother was his mechanic at the beginning of his karting career because his father was busy with his older brother, and it was only when it became clear that george was the only chance of a child progressing in the racing that his father took notice of him and participated in his career.

it also seems like george's father wasn't particularly nice to george. there's that clip of george saying that his father used to deliberately mistime his laps to make him think that he was slower than he actually was in practice that's been going around, and beyond that george has said that he was extremely critical and put a lot of pressure on george. there's a very interesting quote from george's dad in a british newspaper where he says that he and the family are always there to put george straight and keep him grounded if needed. he also makes a point of criticising george's first driving test and reminding people (the readers? george himself?) that f1 drivers are okay on tracks but their dad's (i.e. him) are better on the road. i highly recommend reading this post for more information, because it's fascinating (and honestly makes george's dad seem like a total dickhead).

but the reason i think this is interesting wrt george and max is because max verstappen's childhood, and specifically his relationship with his father, has many of the same elements. like george's father, jos verstappen lived his own dreams vicariously through his more talented son. there are elements of cruelty and control, and a specific kind of pressure where the child is made to feel guilty for not performing as their father wants because it has wasted said father's time. jos clearly took this to a greater extreme than george's father by actively leaving max at petrol stations etc. (and generally speaking there is a violence [mostly towards women] in jos's behaviour that is not mentioned wrt george's father, although george does talk about how the pressure was so great because his failure affected the whole family, including his mother) but i think the behaviour of these two men is not totally dissimilar.

but just as important as the similarities in their childhoods is their differences. max was clearly jos's vicarious attempt at glory from the moment he was born, whereas george was his father's second choice, the second son that he only got invested in once his firstborn son failed to progress. so there is a level of choice and attention in max's relationship with his father that i think george probably craved, and maybe continues to crave. when you think about it, much of his career has mirrored that exact dynamic. he was secondary to lewis (even when beating him) and the moment that lewis left he was replaced by toto's new golden boy, making him the second choice yet again (and to add salt to the wound kimi is pretty clearly toto's max verstappen do-over, so not only did max's father seemingly want him more than george's dad wanted him, toto wanted max more than he wanted george, and then he wanted kimi more than he wanted george because he was like max). that's before we even consider the recent yacht negotiations over max getting george's seat, where max had all of the power and leverage, and george, because he is managed by mercedes, was left in an incredibly precarious position.

so there's the resentment of the attention max has received, and then there's the resentment of max's success. considering the similarities in the childhoods, max has had an easier time of it in f1 (and getting there). while max's success and entry to f1 has been thoroughly earnt, and george has had his own success (winning junior formula series and race wins), george not only spent much longer moving through the ranks than max, he also spent a lot of time in a backmarker team fighting for his life in a shitty williams while max was promoted to the senior red bull team in only his second season. even once george made it to mercedes, he got an average merc rather than the championship winning one that he had been envisioning. meanwhile, max was setting records and cementing himself as one of the best f1 drivers of all time. while i'm sure that a certain amount of resentment/envy would have existed regardless of their childhoods, i think there is a specific kind of "well i went through (basically) the same thing as you did also for the purpose of making me a champion why do you get to be one while i don't" element to it (i may be extrapolating too far here, but i think when you consider their childhoods maybe not).

i also think there's an element that is not so much about george's actual dad, but about his "father figures" and how max has interacted with that. i've already talked about max and toto (and toto's max do-over in kimi) but i also think max and lewis's relationship/rivalry is part of it. george clearly idolised lewis throughout his childhood, not only was he the big british name, he was with mercedes, george was literally sat with rita ora in lewis's garage at abu dhabi 2016, and i think a lot of george's identity as a racer is tied up in his love for lewis and mercedes, and has been since he was a child. on multiple occasions he has continued the narratives of lewis's rivalries, with both max verstappen and nico rosberg (pushing the "max is so aggressive" "you have to be more careful trying overtake max because he's a liability" narrative and being snide about nico's commentary [even though if anyone in f1 can relate to george's career experience it's nico rosberg]). i guess it's a question of what would you do if your childhood rival (whom you disliked in part because you were so similar) defeated your god. max's success is in many ways a direct contradiction and eradication of certain parts of george's identity.

their relationship is incredibly fascinating to me, and i do think it's fundamentally rooted in their childhoods and the way elements of their childhoods are replicated in their adult lives

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the gax dynamic makes a lot more sense when you hear george speak about his father

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Formula 1 RPF Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: George Russell/Max Verstappen Characters: George Russell (Formula 1 RPF), Max Verstappen, Lando Norris, Charles Leclerc Additional Tags: Complicated Relationships, Getting Together, Breaking Up & Making Up, Explicit Sexual Content, Happy Ending, Denial of Feelings, Didn’t Know They Were Dating, basically max and george vs situationship from hell Summary:

“George is not my boyfriend,” Max responds automatically. Then, “he’s mad at me again.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing. He’s always mad at me.”

No one bats an eye at them, not really. It’s an open secret around the paddock that they sometimes fuck when they’re not fighting and sometimes when they are fighting. It’s stress-relief, sex you don’t need to sign an NDA for. It works even if George causes him more stress than he relieves. At least he’s quiet with a dick in his mouth. Sometimes.