#he’ll be back for Melbourne

[rickybaby]

“Tough weekend …. The only thing that’s keeping me a little optimistic now is we did find a few things. So that’s a positive. I’ve driven a long time so I know when things don’t feel quite right. On one hand, it’s nice to find a few things, on the other, it meant a pretty painful weekend. We got a week off now. So Melbourne will be better. I know we’ll fix it and have an equal playing field and strong showing.”

[beiasluv]

arrow and papaya | o. piastri (81)

a/n: figured you guys are bored with yn adoring oscar…so here’s more 🤭

mercedesamgf1

melbourne, australia

liked by yourinsta, lewishamilton, and 629,827 others

mercedesamgf1 check out georgerussell63’s australian starter pack, featuring our non-aussie expert…yourinsta 😉

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yourinsta thank you for the honorable expert title 🤭

landonorris how are you verified for this

danielricciardo don’t discredit my aussie protector

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username we clearly know why she is considered an expert 😩

georgerussell63 thank you for the flip flops 👊

yourinsta you meant thongs?

georgerussell63 can I buy you Tim tams to shut you up?

yourinsta send ‘em in 🤭🤍

yourinsta

liked by oscarpiastri, danielricciardo, and 787,828 others

yourinsta sorry, lewis. he said I’m his new favorite driverr now 🥰

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lewishamilton so no more roscoe play dates?

yourinsta i am buying roscoe more treats rn 😦😭

lewishamilton the veggie ones 👊

yourinsta obviously, i am his godmother 🩷

georgerussell63 he clearly haven’t met the most amazing mercedes driver enough yet

yourinsta are we hearing something? 😗

landonorris did you bribe him with tim tams

yourinsta you’re supposed to be on my side :(

landonorris if we’re against george then count me in 👊

username are we getting yn and oscar baby fever???

username JAILLL 💀 they are my rookies/babies

lilymhe and I’m his favorite golfer??? 🥺

susie_wolff jack approved!!

lilymhe yasss

alex_albon not fair 🩷 you’re the only golfer he knows

yourinsta no heart emoji for lily allowed in my comment section, albon

alex_albon where’s oscar 🤦‍♂️

oscarpiastri

liked by landonorris, mclaren, and 871,627 others

oscarpiastri track n’ media day, thank you! 👊🧡

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mclaren my favorite rookies (couple) 🧡

mercedesamgf1 OUR favorite rookies

username admins, please give us more ynos content 😩

mclaren mercedes collab when??

mercedes let me bring this to toto 🤞

username #prayforoscar

landonorris was it my camera or daniel’s?? 😒

yourinsta you’re forgetting that also have one, just admit that you’re jealous 😗

landonorris never 😎

danielricciardo i would like to be excluded from this narrative

yourinsta okay, but only because you’ve asked nicely (and you’re my honey badger) 🫶

lilymhe anyone having trouble distinguishing yn and oscar’s instagram?? 🤭

logansargeant there are two accounts??

oscarpiastri sorry that you had to find out this way 🤷‍♂️

yourinsta I’m so sorry for your lost, logan

yourinsta thank you 😘

oscarpiastri ❤️

yourinsta did you get the orange juice?

oscarpiastri yes, did you get your tim tams?

yourinsta yes 🫶

landonorris there’s a thing called dm, yn

yourinsta why are you only attacking me :(

yourinsta

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yourinsta she’s everything, and he’s just a boss 🤷‍♀️ love you susieeeee 🫶

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susie_wolff thank you, hon 🩷

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georgerussell63 i see, the shirt has gained popularity

yourinsta would you like my shirt, russell?

georgerussell63 no, thank you. give it to oscar, maybe he’ll wear it

landonorris he won’t take it off for 3 days already 😨

yourinsta send pics please landonorris 🤭

georgerussell63

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georgerussell63 you can’t have them anymore 👊 yourinsta

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yourinsta please. you can have them, except oscar :(

logansargeant GIVE HIM BACK!! 🗣

yourinsta thank! you!

landonorris i thought i was your friend, ynn

yourinsta okay…I’ll have lando back too (cause Zak will be mad)

lilymhe no harassing my girl 😠

yourinsta thank you, girls’ girllll 🫶

lilymhe you’re welcomee 🩷

alex_albon are you asking for me back?

lilymhe maybe? (Yessss 😘)

landonorris mate, when is someone asking for me back?

carlossainz55 i can come and get you, lando

landonorris god help me 😭

username george held oscar captive cause he is actually protective of yn and can’t accept that he can’t let her go easily. period.

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username you are delulu girl

username delulu is the solulu, ask charles about ferrari

username YOU DID NOT 😭

username george liked! I repeat, george liked!!!

yourinsta’s story

reply

mclaren

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mclaren pstt, driver(s) of the day post 👊🧡 (hi ynnnn 👋🫶)

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username not mclaren’s admin being obsessed with yn 🤭

username biggest shipper of the grid spotted

yourinsta hi adminnnn😚 i think you forgot charles_leclerc

charles_leclerc i think it is on purpose 👍

landonorris I’m sorry for you loss, charles

charles_leclerc what??

I can not stop making them. lmk if y’all are bored 💀

like, reblog, inbox me, whatever if you liked it. if not, what are you even doing 🥱 jkk

today’s a great day to take care of yourself. stay hydrated!!

[httpsuniverse]

not me! [ lando norris ]

[ 𝗣𝗔𝗜𝗥𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗥𝗔𝗖𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗦 ] — dad!lando norris x mom!reader . ⊹ ✶ ㄔ 🫂 °.   *

[ 𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗗 𝗖𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗧 ] — 782 words . ⊹ ✶ ㄔ 📲 °.   *

[ 𝗗𝗘𝗧𝗔𝗜𝗟𝗦 & 𝗪𝗔𝗥𝗡𝗜𝗡𝗚𝗦 ] — fluff, comedy . ⊹ ✶ ㄔ ℹ️ °.   *

࣪˖ 💭 .. 𝗘𝗬𝗔’𝗦 𝗡𝗢𝗧𝗘𝗦 ⌕ another one from baby reveal 📸 and first written fic for 2024! 😆

this work is purely fictional. names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. © httpsuniverse, 2024. do not steal, repost in other platforms, translate and/or claim this work as your own.

“alright, milk’s in the fridge. burp him after giving him that, make sure to do it gently or he’ll vomit on you. i made food for you as well, so just reheat that in the microwave.” you instructed your boyfriend of 4 years as you fix your bag last minute. “i know you don’t need it, but this is the number of any emergency services. you have mum, max and dad’s number, right? call them if you can’t reach me.”

“yes, babe.”

“okay, good. now let’s talk diapers–”

lando stands up from his seat and walks behind you, planting a kiss on your shoulder before hugging you from behind. “i got this, baby. don’t worry.” he says, “me and luke will have fun today, nothing to worry about. i’m his dad and i know for sure i can handle taking care of our baby.”

you sighed, finally zipping your bag and titled your head so you could look at lando. “i know you can, but it’s just… it’ll be the first time i’m spending almost the whole day without luke. it feels weird.”

“only without luke?”

“lando, i have spent many days without you by my side. most of them because you travel around the world while i finished university back then, not to mention we were in a long distance last 2020.” you reminded him, it was crazy to think that 2020 was four years ago and back then, your relationship with lando was just starting. it was a challenge for the both of you, but having known each other since kids (all thanks to your brother), you managed to get through it. but today, lily offered to take you out on a little date while oscar was with his family. “okay, the baby wipes are in the room, there are also unopened ones in the luggage–”

“babe, i’ve got this. don’t worry about me and luke, just focus on your day with the lily.” lando reassured, picking up luke from his crib and started bouncing him. “right, lukey? mummy should enjoy her day with aunt lily, tell her that we’ll be fine. we’ll be fine, mummy! daddy will do a great job!”

you let out a laugh when lando tried to voice luke, you grab your stuff before walking towards your boys. you plant a kiss on luke’s forehead and on lando’s lips, “okay, i’ll go now. lily’s waiting for me at the lobby, you sure you can do this?”

“duh, easy peasy.” lando smiled confidently, “now go, have fun with lily. don’t forget to send me pictures of your adventure in melbourne!”

within seconds, you were out of the door and it was only lando and luke left behind. luke looked at his dad, sucking on his pacifier as if waiting for lando to say something. “okay, little man… mummy’s gonna kill me if i don’t give you your milk on time so let’s just put you on your little jolly jumper here while daddy prepares your milk.”

luke stares at his dad while he puts him on his jolly jumper. when he was settled in he started bouncing and making little happy noises while lando walked to the fridge. lando smiles at his son, luke was almost 7 months old and his dad still couldn’t believe it. a little baby that’s half his, half yours, made with love and born in a loving household.

lando settled luke on his back, making sure that he was protected enough not to roll and fall from the bed. he fed luke, smiling as his baby kicks his little feet and his little hand hold the baby bottle. luke had almost half of the bottle when he lets go of it, meaning that he was done with it. lando held him up and burped him, smiling when he heard the little man’s noise. lando held luke for a while, showing him the view of their hotel and pointing out things that luke would find amazing.

“okay little man, it’s time for tummy time!” lando cheered, gently putting luke on his stomach while letting him play with the teething toy you brought. lando was grabbing the tv remote om the other side of the room, when he came back, he saw luke’s tiny middle finger standing and the others folded. “lukey! oh i gotta take a photo of this.”

lando was laughing as he took the photo, immediately uploading it on instagram for a good laugh. a few minutes later, he sees your name appearing on his phone screen. “hey baby! how’s melbourne with lily?”

“LANDO, IT’S ONLY BEEN AN HOUR SINCE I LEFT AND YOU ALREADY TAUGHT HIM BAD STUFF!”

“NOT ME!”

ynfewtrell and landonorris

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ynfewtrell well, guess i know where luke learned it from 🙃

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landonorris not me! i didn’t teach him that

ynfewtrell not me my ass

maxfewtrell 😆

landonorris we really are banning you for life max

maxfewtrell you can’t ban me for life yk

oscarpiastri which one is lando

ynfewtrell tbh, i don’t know which one... 🤔

user both are little lando norrises

user not y/n using the 🙃 emoji 😭 yk she’s pissed

user someone’s sleeping on the couch tonight landonorris

landonorris as if i’m sleeping on the couch, i just got a podium in ‘straya 😎

ynfewtrell yeah? you’re not sleeping on the couch tonight

ynfewtrell because i’m locking you out of the hotel room

landonorris not funny 😔

[lilyrizzy]

Inspired by Daniel’s silly EA advert… hope someone enjoys!

It’s been a good day. A lot of the drivers hate this stuff, putting on the tap shoes for the sponsors and asking how high, but Daniel- He kinda likes it.

It’s something he’s good at, turning up to a set and being silly, making people laugh and being told good job Daniel. That’s great, perfect. The words give his chest the kind of buoyancy that has him feeling he could float the whole way home.

They’re a reminder that soon enough, he’ll be back in Melbourne where everyone will say his name with the same tenderness the director has given him, but this time wanting the best for him, instead of from him.

“Amazing job today Daniel,” Robert says again now, clapping a warm hand on Daniel’s shoulder. “I think that last part was enough just in the one take. You’re a natural.”

The pleased smile on Daniel’s face spreads easily.

“Cool,” is all he says though, “happy to help, I- Actually mate, I was hoping you’d let me have a little something in return.”

—

“Maxy!” Daniel calls, wrestling with both the front door and the giant box. “Where are you, baby?”

Their house in LA is big, his words bouncing off the walls of the grand entrance hall. Usually, it’s full of friends, sometimes family, but this week for once it’s just the two of them.

“Sofa!” Max shouts back, voice croaky like maybe he’d been napping. He’s probably not left the same spot Daniel left him in this morning. “How was the shoot, was it nice?”

Dumping his keys on the hallway table, Daniel follows the sound of Max’s voice. As suspected, he’s still stretched out across the cushions, belly up like Jimmy when he’s sunbathing in the balcony back home. His hand is shoved down the front of his shorts, but only idly. Daniel can see he’s not hard.

Still, for a moment his gaze gets caught there, before shifting back to Max’s face, his curious expression as he takes in the giant box Daniel is holding.

Right.

“I got you something,” Daniel says, setting it down on the coffee table. He opens it and begins to dig around. “A lot of merch swag and shit, but- Tah dah!”

He pulls out the game, proudly showing Max the box that has his own face on the cover. F1 2024.

“Oh,” Max says, and his smile is as sweet at the two happy pink splotches that begin to warm up his cheeks. “Thank you, Daniel.”

He sits up then, taking the game from Daniel’s hands and holds it like it’s something very special.

It’s not much of a gift really, because Max could get a copy for himself whenever he wanted. His people could call EA, or if he was feeling particularly desperate he could offer to do an ad of his own, but- He wouldn’t.

The only things he’s ever to gone out of his way to get are his championships and Daniel.

“I will have to wait for Lando to get his copy,” Max is continuing, but already he’s moving to crouch in front of their TV, his PlayStation, “or maybe Charles, for the multi-player but-“

“I can play,” Daniel interrupts, picking up the controller from their coffee table. It feels less foreign in his hand after a day being recorded holding it.

Max pauses, game disk spinning on one finger as he turns to look at Daniel.

“You want to play?”

He sounds confused, surprised.

“Sure,” Daniel says, all fake nonchalance. “I’ve even had a head start playing, I might be better than you.”

With a warmth fizzing in his belly, he watches the shock on Max’s face melt into quiet joy. He ducks his head to finish putting the game into the console, and when he takes a seat next to Daniel on the sofa, it’s close enough that their thighs are pressed together. Warm.

“I think if you want to beat me, you will have to hold it like this,” Max pokes at Daniel with a teasing grin, and then his hands are moving gently over Daniel’s to correct where he’s apparently holding the controller all wrong.

Daniel snorts, pushing out an elbow to nudge at the soft place Max’s ribs hide underneath.

“Fighting talk, baby,” he insists with far more confidence than he feels. “Just you wait, you’ll be begging for mercy.”

Max’s laugh is bright.

“Okay but I think we need to look at the settings first,” he begins again, “because of course I have the sensitivity set very high, and-“

Daniel lets Max’s explanations wash over him like music.

—

Later, Daniel manages to finally win a race by shunting Max into the first corner, speeding away while he’s still spinning in the gravel.

“That of course, does not count,” Max insists indignantly, though there’s a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “That is cheating, Daniel.”

“Not what you said in Baku baby,” Daniel reminds him, and then pokes his tongue out when Max begins to trip over his protests that he has done nothing wrong, ever.

Daniel begins a loud rendition of ‘we are the champions,’ in favour of listening.

Giving up his attempts to defend himself, Max tosses his controller onto the coffee table with a sharp clatter, instead choosing to crawl over Daniel, pressing him down into the sofa.

“I will show you a fucking champion,” he mutters, his thigh finding its way between Daniel’s legs.

Daniel’s own controller hits the hard wood floor with a thud.

[bella-rose29]

deep analysis of a very obscure thing in lockwood and co (bc why not)

Omg ok (spoilers for episodes 2 and 3 of lockwood and co, and also the books)

So the song that plays when Lucy is holding the ring in episode 2, during the experiment, that she says is Annabel Ward and her lover’s song (“it’s their song”), is Peer Gynt Suite No. 2: Solveig’s Song. 

The version I listened to that made me go “oh okay this is the same song” (after playing it through my earphones in one ear and playing the episode in the other and desperately trying to get the timings to match up to see if there were differences in the singing) is by Edvard Grieg — Yvonne Kenny, The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra & Vladimir Kamirski. From what I could work out, the song starts in the episode from just before the singing starts. 

The story behind the song is as follows:

"The long-suffering Solveig is devoted to Peer and she sings the song just as he – once more – abandons her. As she sits at the spinning wheel, she sings that although the years may pass she knows that he will come back to her – and that he will find her waiting for him, just as she promised.”

Lyrics:

Perhaps both winter and spring will pass by And next summer and the whole year will expire But surely you will return to me, I am certain And I shall be waiting as I once promised. 

May god give you strength, wherever in the world you may go May god give you joy, if you before his footstool stand Here I shall wait until you come back And if you wait above, we’ll meet there again, my friend.

I did an initial analysis and stuff and then did further research, so I’ve rejigged the document I had before to make more sense here :D

Story of the whole play:

The title character, Peer Gynt, is based on a Norwegian folk hero who is a rogue and will be destroyed unless saved by the love of a woman. 

He is described as a lazy and arrogant peasant youth who leaves home to go in search of his fortune. He’s very confident that he’ll succeed, but he keeps having disasters on his journey. 

At one point, he goes to the wedding of a wealthy young woman (that he might have married), where he meets Solveig. She falls in love with him, so naturally his first thought is to abduct the bride from her own wedding and abandon Solveig. 

Then he has really cool and awesome adventures, going around the world and gaining wealth and fame from all his different exploits, but he is, at the middle of it all, deeply unhappy. Eventually, when he is old and disillusioned, he goes back to Norway, where Solveig awaits him, welcoming him home and redeeming him. 

Annabel and John Fairfax are sort of foils to Solveig and Peer respectively, in that they are what happens as a result of a different kind of abandonment (Annabel’s murder). 

Solveig is what Annabel would have been had she stayed alive and Fairfax had simply broken things off in a more traditional sense (i.e. if he hadn’t killed her), and while Peer is redeemed and saved by the love of a woman, Fairfax is destroyed by it, because he twisted the love into hate. 

Now for the parallels between Fairfax and Peer:

Peer is a peasant with little success in life -> in episode 3, as they get off the train, Lockwood notes how Fairfax “came from nothing”. 

Peer has a series of unfortunate disasters on his hunt for success -> Fairfax (in the books), before the Problem, spent his time drinking, gambling, and getting into show business, instead of going into the family business. In the show this does not seem to be the case, but it’s a nice parallel that includes the books!

Peer abandons Solveig to run off with the bride -> I interpreted this as Fairfax abandoning (murdering) Annabel for his own bride, which is his desire for success. In a way his bride is the Fairfax iron company, because he’s practically married to it. 

After the abduction, Peer has really successful and fantastical adventures, very different to the disasters that he had previously experienced before the kidnapping -> after Annabel, Lockwood again (Lucy says he has a hard-on for Fairfax which I think is hilarious) in episode 3 (just before talking about how Fairfax came form nothing) notes that Fairfax “succeeded in everything he’s tried. Publishing, show business - he didn’t even start smelting until he was in his thirties. Now look at him”. Fairfax by his own admission also worked in casinos, adding another job (or adventure) to his list. 

Peer gains wealth and fame -> Fairfax gains wealth and fame (just dropping in “miss Kingston got her hair done special” because I love it and it's vaguely related)

And this is where the similarities split off from one another:

Peer is deeply unhappy -> Fairfax seems to be perfectly fine with his situation. 

Peer comes back home old and disillusioned -> Fairfax in a way comes home, as he ends up back in Combe Carey Hall (although this is not where Annabel was killed, it is still one of his properties), and he is old, but he is not disillusioned. He says in episode 3 that he doesn’t regret buying the ring, he regrets “leaving it behind when I bricked her into that chimney” and that he “knew it was monstrous. But I couldn’t throw my whole life away for one mistake. Not then, not now.” He still isn’t willing to give up his life, because he is perfectly content where he is. 

The final parallel I want to note is between Annabel and Solveig. While one was murdered and the other neglected but still devoted and in love, both women wait for their old lover. In completely different ways, sure, because one is sitting at her spinning wheel hoping that he’ll come back and see that she’s the right one for him (cue “you belong with me”) and the other is bricked into a chimney as an angry Type Two ghost that kills people, but both are waiting. 

“She’s been wanting to see you for a very… long time, Mr Fairfax” Lucy says.

Annabel is devoted to Fairfax, and as she dances and sings along to the song, he abandons her (kills her). while waiting in that cavity in the wall, and her spirit is bound to the ring/necklace, she is waiting for him. 

We see in episode 3 that when Lucy lets Annabel out of the ring, throwing it in the air to set her ghost free, Annabel doesn't attack the agents, or even Ellie who is stood nearby. 

She goes straight for Fairfax, because she's been waiting for him. Her devotion to him may have changed into devotion for revenge over the years, but she was waiting for him nonetheless. In a way he did come back to her, even if it was unintentionally, and he ended up being greeted by her one last time. 

He is not saved by coming home and finding his version of Solveig, he is instead destroyed, because his version of Solveig was killed along with any love she might have had for him. 

[ghostradiodylan]

It's karaoke night. What songs do you think each of the hacketteers would sing?

I love this ask and I spent entirely too long thinking about it! Thank you!

Nick: “American Girl” - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. He’ll dedicate this one to Abi and play a whole lot of clumsy but enthusiastic air guitar during the instrumental breaks. He’ll also do really on-the-nose inside joke choices like “Werewolves of London” by Warren Zevon (he'll change 'London' to 'Melbourne' because he's really lame) or “Once Bitten, Twice Shy” by Great White.

Emma: “Style” - Taylor Swift. She just reads as a Taylor girlie to me and this one’s a classic. She could do "We Are Never Getting Back Together" but Jacob might cry. So, "Style" it is. Not too tough in range and it doesn’t require her to do the cringey rap-talking part she’d have to do if she picked “Shake It Off” (although that one would also be fun and maybe if Abi gets drunk enough she’ll join Emma onstage and do that part for her).

Jacob: he wants to pick “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey but it has been banned because basic bitches like him just keep singing it. If he’s still moping about Emma, he might choose “Somebody to Love” by Queen. If someone else gets to it first, then it’s The Killers' “Mr. Brightside” all the way until the bar bans that one too.

Kaitlyn: she almost always picks a song you can scream-sing to. She has some rage to get out, okay? Her go-to is either "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" by Joan Jett or "You Oughta Know" by Alanis Morissette. If you get enough alcohol in her for her to get in her feelings though, she might do Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart," as a treat.

Laura: "Dog Days are Over" - Florence + The Machine. Is that another werewolf joke? Yes, yes it is. She can't help being overjoyed to say goodbye to the (meat)dog days. She'd probably also absolutely crush "Help I'm Alive" by Metric.

Max: I will never recover from the post that said Max and Dylan would know every step from the JustDance version of “Rasputin” by Boney M (which I think is completely correct) so I’m picking that one for Max. However, if he gets a second song or he’s feeling extremely sentimental, he might do the Michael Bublé version of “L.O.V.E.” for Laura.

Abi: I think Abi's actual musical listening tastes might be a little moodier than this, but for karaoke she wants it light and easy, and it doesn't get much lighter or easier than ABBA. "Dancing Queen" or "Mamma Mia." She'd really like it if Emma would come sing backup for her so she doesn't have to go up by herself.

Dylan: He never does the same song twice; he wants everyone to be surprised every time. He's done Lady Gaga's "Poker Face. He's done "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" by Panic! At the Disco." He's done Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream." Tonight, it's "Still Into You" by Paramore.

Ryan: He can't believe he got talked into this. Ryan hates attention and doesn't really love the sound of his own voice. He would prefer to sit quietly and watch everyone else perform. Beer won't be enough, Ryan will have to drink an entire pitcher of LITs to be drunk enough to sing. Then he will sing "Love You Madly" by CAKE and absolutely slay. Dylan will be facedown on their table pretending to have fainted when he gets back.

Bonus: Duets!

Laura and Max have perfected their version of “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” by Elton John and Kiki Dee. You should really see it. There’s choreo and everything.

Jacob and Kaitlyn will sing "I Believe in A Thing Called Love" by The Darkness. Nobody knows why. Neither of them has the upper range to pull it off and they know it. It's awful. They're just screeching. Ryan has to go outside until they're finished. His nerves can't take it. They have fun though.

Dylan would really like Ryan to duet with him on Peter Bjorn and John's "Young Folks," he'll even do the girl parts and the whistling! But Ryan's one and done at karaoke, and even that is asking a lot. Instead, Dylan and Nick duet The Proclaimers' "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" in absurd and potentially offensive Scottish accents.

Emma and Abi end up duetting half the time when they're supposed to be doing their own songs anyway, especially when it's Abi's turn! Somehow Emma just ends up there too. But they do "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" by Cyndi Lauper together with some frequency and they're great at it.

Bonus 2: Group Number!

You already know what it is. You know what's coming. You get it stuck in your head every time you play the damn game (don't you? I know it's not just me.) How could they not all sing Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)" together? Of course they do.

[laurolive]

Why Paul McCartney Still Tours: Part 3 - A Tinge of Sadness

Another Essay

A Daily Mail article (see article here) about McCartney’s continued touring prompted some reader comments.

Part 1 (here): One reader’s granddad ties McCartney’s happiness on stage to his memories of Linda.

Part 2 (here): I mused on granddad’s opinion and found merit in it from McCartney’s own words.

____________________________________________

While describing Linda’s photos and the memories they evoke, McCartney said that the main emotion of joy can be “tinged with sadness because you lost that person…” (The Times 2011)

McCartney has made it clear that he absolutely enjoys touring and playing music live. He must crave the excitement of a concert, the happy memories, the symbiosis with the audience, the cheering and applause that feed his ego. But what about when the tour is over and he is at home? Is there a tinge of sadness ? Does it linger a little more as the years advance further from his prime?

And what about the concert goers who get emotional and teary? I would think that there is a mix of joy and sadness in those tears — sadness for McCartney’s band mates who are gone, for time that can’t be turned back to re-experience the Beatles or Wings in their heyday, for the music of bygone eras.

We have looked at the joy; now let’s take a look at that tinge of sadness for performer and audience.

Wistful Regression: Beatlemania Ain’t Never Coming Back

In advanced age, one has accumulated a past. One feels blessed, grateful even; one has fond memories. That’s not to say there are no more positives in the present, or that memories don’t bring joy; but inherent in the recollection is the somberness of our being bound to linear time. Those past experiences play like a movie in one’s mind. The scenes have already been filmed. One can’t viscerally touch and feel and hold onto them ever again. Beatlemania ain’t never coming back.

Although McCartney enjoys performing and the ticket buyers enjoy his concerts, there is a wistful regression lurking on the periphery of these live shows: a musician in his 80s immersing himself in his life from age 22 to age 35 or so, willing the stage into a time machine, his set list ensconced in the earliest beginnings of his professional career — the 1960s Beatles era and his 1970s chart dominating success.

When he includes a few of his more recent songs, McCartney himself admits to the audience that he knows they don’t really want to listen to that stuff, but he’s going to play them anyway. Not to fear though; he’ll get back to the oldies that they all came to hear as soon as his new songs are over. (2022 Got Back Tour and Oct. 2023 Melbourne).

It’s a career that demands nostalgia of him, that reminds him that his best and most inspired work is behind him. The granddad from Part 1 had a point. While McCartney enjoys playing live, all this visitation with the past that’s built into his concerts can’t help but keep alive memories of Linda — and John, and George, and whoever else.

Especially Linda, I think, because she never betrayed him like the music business could, like the critics or the press often did, and even like his Beatles mates could because of jealousies and rivalries. Paul and Linda were on the same page. She was his best friend and protector. I believe Paul had a happiness with her like no other.

There’s nothing wrong with nostalgia. Sometimes, though, it carries a built-in touch of melancholy. It reminds one of just how GOOD it was back in the day, when one was on the right side of youth, ascending toward one’s peak.

And McCartney in concert in the 70s was the PEAK.

McCartney in concert in the 70s was the PEAK. But that was the past. Now he adapts with a hearing aid and teleprompter. Also reflective of the inexorable march of time is the decline of his singing voice.

He’s done better than most and is a living legend, but he’s no longer at the apex. He doesn’t dominate the pop charts like he did in his post-Beatles 70s career. He’s not even mildly famous with the under-30 crowd, and many twenty-somethings don't know who he is (Forbes Sept. 2018). He may fill stadiums, but stadiums aren’t the world.

Now, this former symbol of 60s youth wears a hearing aid and needs a teleprompter to remember his song lyrics (understandable after having written hundreds of songs, but it’s still a reminder of the inexorable march — and toll — of time). And then there is the decline of his singing voice, which has been increasingly criticized by the general public, reviewers, and bloggers since 2012 or so. I wonder if in his quieter moments that criticism dispirits perfectionist McCartney. (Hearing aid, Teleprompter, Voice: Inarguable voice decline over past 15 yrs (from 2022), PM’s Voice Not Worth Price of Admission (losing voice since 2017), Afterword (2012-2016), SED (2020), McCartney III review, 2020 (voice is a problem))

Still, he refuses to sing his iconic tunes in a lower key. He is, after all, in the business of nostalgia, of entertaining the masses and giving them what they want to hear. And what they want to hear is his songs the way they remember them from the radio and from their albums and CDs, even if he has to strain himself trying. All in all, he can only give them an approximation at best.

____________________________________________

Why wouldn’t McCartney tour when the audience still comes, when it gives him that amazing human connection? His children are grown. What is there for him at home?

Notably, diehard fans take his strained voice in stride, and pay it the compliment of being pretty good for a man of his age. The audience members at his concerts sing along, dance in the aisles, cry with emotion (and a bit of bittersweet nostalgia), etc. Why wouldn’t McCartney tour when it gives him that amazing human connection? His children are grown. What is there for him at home?

When his grown children and/or grandchildren are able to attend one of his concerts, it must be a celebration for him. With Nancy in attendance (for every concert? most of them?), it’s the type of family affair he cherishes. It’s pretty close to those old family days with Linda.

Nancy is not a substitute for Linda, nor does McCartney treat her like one. Nancy is not a public figure. She is not involved in his music. As far as I know, she didn’t personally know any recording artists in her pre-Paul life. Also AFAIK, she didn’t have an artistic leaning that drew her to music so strongly that she forged a path for herself into the professional rock milieu. That was Linda.

Music was the other bond that Paul and Linda shared. The two most meaningful commitments of his life — raising children and making music — were done in partnership with Linda. No wonder he spends so much time with his children and grandchildren. No wonder he tours. Linda, love of his life, is there. He hasn’t been the same without her.

A Fan’s Tinge of Sadness: A blogger compares two McCartney concert experiences, 1976 and 2010. Paul amazes in 2010, but never recaptures the magic of 1976, as Linda’s absence is keenly felt

From the blog JimmyCsays July 27, 2010, written by James Carey Fitzpatrick, Kansas City writer and reporter.

The blogger compares two McCartney concert experiences:

May 29, 1976, Wings Over America tour, Kansas City, MO, Kemper Arena.

July 24, 2010, Up and Coming Tour, Kansas City, MO, Sprint Center.

The author begins by telling us this: “I have felt a vague sense of loss and unease the last few days, since going to the Paul McCartney concert Saturday night [July 24, 2010 Kansas City, MO].”

He then launches into his recounting of his first McCartney concert in May 1976.

“From the first song — I don’t remember what it was — I could tell it was going to be a memorable show. Paul was totally focused. He didn’t indulge in much chit-chat. Just song after killer song. His voice — and the accompanying music — was clear, strong and dazzling.

“Analyzing that [May 1976] concert in retrospect, I think that Linda McCartney played a large role in its magic. Even though she did mostly background vocals and percussion, she was the glue, and she was a picture of grace, femininity and professionalism. And everyone realized that she and Paul were a rock solid team, the foundation on which everything was built.

”Of course, it was a lot different on Saturday night [July 2010 concert]. Paul is 68, not 34. His star is not ascending; it is holding, at best. And Linda is dead and gone. The four other band members – great musicians, for sure — were all men. To me, Linda’s absence was conspicuous.

“Even before the concert started, I realized in my heart that it wouldn’t, couldn’t, measure up to the experience of 1976. Nevertheless, Paul was amazing. He still hits most of the notes, perhaps not with quite as much power, but he gets there… Instead of grabbing the crowd by the throat, Paul stroked and patted, for the most part. As you would expect from a retrospective, he did more talking between songs…”

There will never be a duplicate Linda, or John or George. Therein lies the bittersweet amid the celebration.

The audience may miss her; but for Paul, Linda’s presence is on the stage, bringing beautiful memories. There will never be a duplicate Linda, just as there will never be another John or George. We have the songs, but there will never be another Beatlemania or “Wingsmania.” McCartney can sing those songs, but never again in his youthful voice of 60 years ago. Therein lies the bittersweet amid the celebration.

©️ laurolive, laurolive.tumblr.com, www.tumblr.com/laurolive, www.tumblr.com/blog/laurolive, 2024

________________________________________

[almost-a-class-act]

16 or 18 for hilldane if you're still doing them pls!!!! - hilldane anon <333

Anything for you, hilldane anon!

Prompt: Things you said when one or more of us was drunk

--

Andy had meant for it to be a quiet one. He’d mentioned it once, on the canal, looking forward to twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep in a warm, dry bed once they were relieved and off-duty, and Eddie had laughed and said good luck, because every battle in history has ended with the participants getting categorically off their faces.

He’d been right, obviously; the streets are so packed with Americans in uniform tonight that it’s hard to credit that there are, in fact, any Australians in Melbourne, and if a single one of them is sober, Eddie hasn’t spotted him yet. Andy had been waylaid more than once by men insistent on involving their former Lieutenant in a round of drinks, after which it would be socially exceptionable not to return the favour – by buying a round for the whole table, of course – and Eddie had slowed down after the second time, nursing one beer and offering additional pints that come his way to all-too-amenable passers-by.

Eddie wonders how many officers are finding themselves this well-received on the other side of the labourious teeth-gritting misery that had been Guadalcanal, where it had quickly become obvious who measured up in the eyes of the enlisted men and who didn’t. He doesn’t say as much to Andy, who is as gracious and genial on the first beer as he is on the sixth and makes his excuses at the right moment every time – no one wants to drink with their CO all night – mostly because that’s not how they talk to each other, or at least, not the way Eddie talks to him. Andy thought he was good enough on the canal to put him in for a commission and he had told Eddie, more than once, that he thought he was doing a damn good job as an NCO, but the military is distinctly top-down in this regard, and it’s not part of Eddie’s job to make sure praise flows the other way.

Andy disentangles himself from a group of officers he met in training – before he’d done it, he had slid a flicker of a glance at Eddie, who as far as he knows hadn’t given any intentional impression that he was uncomfortable – and takes a deliberate turn down a quieter street, in the general direction of the neighbourhood where Eddie knows he’s billeted.

“So much for a quiet one.” Andy glances back over his shoulder, at the crowds still making merry in their wake, and nearly steps off the curb. Eddie catches him by the elbow and rights him. “I think I’m out of practice.”

“I don’t know about that, sir.” Eddie tucks his hands into his pockets, as if it will be obvious to strangers what it’s like when he touches Andy and now he needs to compensate. “Seems like you’ve put a few away in your time.”

“Well, I have been to college,” Andy remarks dryly. “And it’s Andy.”

Eddie wishes he weren’t so damn easy to like. “Shouldn’t get into the habit of that until my commission comes through, probably.”

Andy waves that off. “Sir just reminds me that I probably should have been more responsible.”

“Oh, on the contrary.” Eddie half-smiles. “It’s the officer who doesn’t drink you can’t trust.”

Andy offers a mirroring smile.

It takes them less time to make it to the row of little subdivided townhouses than Eddie had predicted, and he slows awkwardly ahead of the front walk. A smarter man would keep walking, probably, offer a good night on the move, because coming to a stop could imply that he’s expecting an invitation.

The problem is not that it’s impossible. The problem is that Eddie knows it is possible, and he’ll have to be the one with the damn guard rails up.

He comes to a stop anyway, because Andy looks like that, eyes bright under the light of a waxing moon and body as relaxed as Eddie has ever seen him.

“You want to come up?”

Eddie feels something hot and desperate slice through him at the question. It’s the reason why he shakes his head, because he knows he’s sober even if Andy doesn’t.

“No,” he says, like the question is just a question. “Thanks. I think I’m going to get some rest.”

Andy watches him for a moment, as if he had watched that whole thought process take place too. “Eddie, I didn’t – I’m sorry.”

“Ask me again,” Eddie says, feeling it ball up tight under his ribs. “Another time. If you mean it like that.”

Andy parts his lips to say something, and then seems to think the better of it – even drunk, apparently, he can remind himself he knows better – and only nods.

Eddie nods, too. “See you tomorrow, Skip.”

Andy’s gaze briefly flickers at the nickname, like he’s still waiting for it to fit. “Sure, Eddie,” he says. “See you tomorrow.”  

[hungriestheidi]

9, 11, 13 or 23 for oscarmark or lando/jenson 🫶😙

i blame you and our lengthy oscarmark conversations for whatever the hell i just wrote, muak tkm (used everything minus 9 i think idk)

The collusion of the blinding lights and a flight ungodly long makes him want to crawl into a cave and never come out. 

The airport is too bright, too big, too noisy. Oscar is in Melbourne to rest, to meet back with his family, with his friends. But he’s in a frenzy of people, caught between people with phones in hand asking for a selfie, who don’t deserve to be treated meanly just because he had a shitty day, and the regular crowd waltzing in and out of planes like ants walking in and out of their colony. 

He meets Mark right outside of the airport, his black car parked in the shade. It’s a cold winter in Australia, not that unusual but Oscar preferred it to be a bit less busy. He wanted Mark to pick him up because he knew he wouldn’t have been able to handle his family fussing over him first thing out of the plane. He’ll text his sisters later, now he just calls his mom. 

“Are you ok, Osc?” She asks, first thing she tells him after he explains he landed safely. 

“Yeah, I’m just tired.” He tells her, shrugging even when she can’t see. “I’m going to Mark’s house”

His mother hums. “Tell him to take good care of you.” 

“I will.”

“How’s the boss?” Mark asks, his eyes on the road. The city is busy, the sky is clear.

“Good, she says you have to take good care of me,” he tells him, giving him a cheeky grin. “Oh, she doesn’t need to say that twice” Mark lets out a bark of a laugh.  ”You are so in for it when we get home,” he says with a smile carrying the words across the space between the driver’s and passenger’s seat. His hand squeezes Oscar’s thigh, grip vice tight and a bit mean, a bit like power, a bit like love. Oscar blushes, casts his eyes away from the road, to the sun shining bright and then lets the world melt into nothingness as the house nears. 

Suburbia is often quiet, or at least quieter than the city, the big buildings and the mean noises of crowded streets. Suburbia sounds a bit like Troye Sivan’s Blue Neighbourhood, like old indie songs his sister used to listen to in the CD player their father gave her because she likes vintage stuff. 

Mark’s suburbia paradise has got tall fencing and a nice yard and Oscar watches through half open windows the leaves of the evergreen trees at the back of the property, the deep shadows they cast. Saxon runs upstairs when he turns back but Sammy stays still on the couch, curled up like a kitten. Mark’s dogs have always been a bit too hyperactive, but Sammy likes Oscar too much to run away when he’s near. He likes Sammy too. 

Oscar’s head is a bit weird, not physically really, but something inside feels like cotton, like his brain has been wrapped in silk or tulle, something soft and easy to get lost in. He drank chocolate milk and ate tim tams, recreated a childhood afternoon down to eating in front of the tv watching old tv shows. Mark had put in him the peace of quiet days with just a silly little routine. 

Now he’s staying put, quiet and nice, on his knees at the edge of the couch, hands on his thighs. It’s a bit cold to be wearing just underwear, but the big loose hoodie makes up for it, just a bit. It swallows his arms down to his fingers, the tips of them peeking under the hems, it’s cozy and soft, does nothing to take his mind away from the tender warmth crawling inside his mind.

But it’s good, the feeling of floating in a bubble in a safe and quiet space, only the faintest sound of music coming from another room, like being a child and falling asleep in a couch after a party, hearing your parents’ voices asking if they should carry you to your bedroom and let you stay here a bit longer. 

Mark walks into the room just as Oscar looks back at the wall, the pale blue wallpaper looks to be patterned with the faintest of light blue flowers. The place is warm, his legs are a bit numb, Mark’s fingers thread through his hair and Oscar looks up. 

“Be a good boy for daddy,” he says, holding a coffee on his other hand, watching him with a gentle smile on his lips. He looks beautiful, in a button up shirt and dress pants. He dressed up for him, Oscar knows it, knows that Mark knows he loves it when he goes the extra mile, makes him feel like nothing that happened outside this house matters, just them, their quiet afternoons and stick-together nights.

Tomorrow he’ll think about his mother and his sisters, about training and eating meals approved by his dietician. For now, he is Mark’s good boy and he nods and preens when Mark kisses his forehead, comes crawling when Mark beckons him closer, sitting on the couch with his legs parted, rests his cheek on Mark’s thigh and watches him change the channel on the tv and mess with Oscar’s hair for half an hour or two. 

[gonnaupdatethisrandomly]

Formula 2 race winner Jack Doohan will drive a Supercar at Calder Park ahead of next weekend’s Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix.

The Australian will travel home later this week after securing a podium in Sunday’s Feature race in Saudi Arabia.

He’ll first head to Queensland, accompanied by Mercedes F1 reserve driver Mick Schumacher, before venturing south.

“I have commitments with Alpine that I have to contribute to in Paris following next week for some marketing events,” he said when asked about his Albert Park prep by Speedcafe.

“I’ll get home on Saturday morning.

“Mick [Schumacher] is also flying back with me, so he’s going to come in and stay for a few days.

“I want to get him out to Norwell as well and then I’ll fly down on Tuesday evening to Melbourne.

“I have another commitment on Wednesday, I think I’m driving V8 Supercar around Calder Park.

“And then, yeah, getting stuck into the race weekend.”

og source

[jflemings]

Hi , thanks for writing so much of piper , you are giving me baby fever writer... So the reader had piper at the age of 20 and she looks upto to all other Australian players as her older sisters right ... May i request a fic or hc of reader in labor with all her Australian sisters present...the first time they meet piper and also encouraging the reader?

once again, a long one

ALRIGHTTTT so

- your parents were on a previously booked trip so you’re staying with steph and dean whilst they were away to make sure you weren’t lonely and alright. steph’s just getting out of the shower when your water breaks and immediately she’s grabbing the hospital bag and ushering you out the door

- she calls sam and alanna, both are frantic and sam is booking a plane ticket to melbourne whilst she’s on the phone. you can hear alanna struggling to get her shoes on and then find her keys but she gets there eventually before hanging up the phone and immediately calling macca, lydia, ellie and any other matilda that is in australia at that time

- dean calls your parents and says he’ll meet the two of you at the hospital, he just wants you to get there so you don’t have the baby on the side of the road

- steph definitely breaks at least two traffic laws getting to the hospital but she doesn’t really care, that’s a future her problem

- you have no one else with you other than steph so she puts on a brave face and goes into the delivery room with you, putting up a fight with a doctor who tries to tell her she can’t

- she’s shitting bricks but she knows that you’re way more nervous than she is. she takes you through breathing exercises with your doula and tries to make you as comfortable as possible whilst you’re contractions become more frequent

- alanna and lydia get to the hospital just as you’re ready to start pushing with dean not far behind them. macca and ellie are on the phone trying to figure out how quick they can fly to melbourne, sam is texting for updates every five minutes, hayley gets woken up at 2 am on the other side of the world and cusses sam out for not waking her up when she found out.

- everything is chaos and no one except steph knows what’s going on

- dean and lydia are back on the phone to your parents giving them updates whilst alanna tries to get any information out of the doctors coming in and out of the delivery room

- you’re overwhelmed and tired and crying but steph is right in your ear telling you how good you’re doing and how it’s gonna be okay. you squeeze her hand so hard you think you’re gonna break it but she doesn’t ever falter, just keeps her other hand securely on your thigh to keep your leg up and continues to be encouraging

- three and a half gruelling hours later, piper is born

- she’s 7 lb exactly and the most perfect thing you’ve ever laid your eyes on

- there are tears in your eyes when she’s given to you and the one thing steph is thinking is that she’s got your nose

- she’s taken away for tests and cleaning but quickly returned to you swaddled in a pink blanket and matching hat

- steph holds her just as dean comes into the delivery room, the two of them coo and steph is crying as she rocks your babygirl

- whilst you’ve got them alone you tell them that you want the two of them to be her godparents

- steph cries harder

- you facetime your parents and introduce them to their granddaughter who decided to come a month early

they’re both kicking themselves for being away and tell they’re cutting their trip short so they can return home

the both of them thank steph and dean an infinite amount of times because even though they couldn’t be there with you, at least they knew you had two people who cared for you by your side

- the girls that are outside are bouncing on their toes to be let into the room. alanna isn’t very patient so the moment she’s told to come in, she comes in

- door flings open, she’s rushing to your side and she’s got macca on facetime. lydia is talking to a frantic ellie who’s trying her best to pack a bag, mumbling something about that “damn baby blanket that was supposed to be in the gift bag”

- they hold her and that’s when you finally get the opportunity to tell them her name. piper tilly.

ellie overhears and drops her bag on her foot

- it’s only a mere few hours later when macca and ellie arrive at the hospital. ellie is in absolute bits and she hands you flowers from the hospital gift shop and pulls out a winnie the pooh blanket. macca almost can’t believe that the tiny human that is in your arms literally came out of you

“i can’t believe you grew her inside of you”

“that’s how being pregnant works mackenzie”

“shut up alanna”

- as soon as sam’s feet hit australian soil she’s off on a mission. she doesn’t go to her hotel and barely waits around for a cab, literally jumping into the backseat and telling the driver to go straight to the hospital. she pays the ridiculous fee, rushes into the lobby to ask for your room and then runs to the delivery ward

- she almost takes out ellie as she skids to a stop and steph just nods her head in the direction of your door

- she walks in and almost collapses at the sight of you holding your baby when you’re barely an adult

- when piper is in her arms sam immediately begins talking to her about anything and everything. she tells her about the plane ride over and she could hardly sleep because she was so excited, she tells her that she has four aunties outside the room and more trying to find a way to get to her, and she tells her about your national team debut and how you were practically drowning in your kit.

- macca spams cait and mini and polks is asking for updates on you and the baby in the groupchat

- when you finally, finally get a moment to sleep sam, macca and ellie goes to their hotels with lydia and alanna to sleep too, promising to come back as soon as they can

- dean and steph go home to shower when the five of them return and come back with food that’s not from the cafeteria

- you call your parents again and they tell you that they’ll be home the next day and that they can’t wait to see the both of you

they thank dean and steph once again, before praising everyone else who showed up for their girl

sam and your dad immediately start making plans to sign her up for football

- a photo of you, piper and all the girls gets sent to the group chat when you’re all awake, fed and fresh. all smiling wide and showing off the new baby

hayley has never had more fomo in her LIFE

- caitlin and mini wake up and immediately get on facetime to meet piper

- teagan is apparently still dead to the world so hayley calls her a million and one times until she finally answers

she practically screams at the news and scares her ucla roommate jessie, immediately showing her photos of you and the baby and the girls before calling you personally

- piper gets her own introduction to the world via social media post a few days later, australia and melbourne victory both proudly naming her as the future of the matildas.

[f1-stuff]

for the wip asks: the mechanic au 👀 there is no where near enough mechanic aus and a charlos one sounds INCREDIBLE.

(P.S. i actually love ur blog. you always make me laugh 🫶)

🥹 Aw, I'm glad!! Thank you for sending an ask! This was actually one of my first F1 WIPs, but it was requiring sooo much research that I took a break that turned into a complete abandonment. But hopefully, I'll go back to it one day!

Here's a little snippet I wrote for Charles' first day in the paddock 💪

The only word his brain has the capacity for after the first day is tired. 

The minute they land in Melbourne, they’re heading to the track to begin setting up the garage for the arrival of the cars. Charles gets issued a full team kit, including socks with the Ferrari logo. As soon as he puts them on, he finally feels like it’s real. It’s really happening.

“You’re, Charles, yes?” one of the mechanics asks him in Italian while they’re setting up. “From Monte Carlo?”

He nods. “Yes, nice to meet you...”

“Alessandro. But you can call me, Alé. I believe we’re roommates.”

“Nice to meet you, Alé,” Charles says, shaking his hand. The other man seems young, but still older than Charles. “What do you do?”

“I’m a gearbox mechanic,” Alé says, smiling. “And I operate the front-right gun for the pit. My first race was Melbourne in 2017. So I know what you’re feeling right now.”

“And what am I feeling?” Charles asks, arching a brow in challenge.

“Scared as shit,” Alé says, grinning. Charles laughs, but he doesn’t have the heart to correct him. He’s not scared - if anything, he’s the most ready he’s ever felt. But he doesn’t think anyone would believe him if he said so. “Your Italian is not bad.” 

Charles knows this means it’s quite good, otherwise Alé wouldn’t have said anything. “I’ve been learning since I was a child.” Alé nods.

“Is it ‘Sharl’ or ‘Charles’?” Alé asks, pronouncing it with and without the ‘s’ sound at the end.

“Either is okay,” he says, shrugging. “I like both.”

“Well, you’re very easygoing,” Alé says, chuckling. “Very polite.” Charles smiles, but it occurs to him that maybe he’s being made fun of. He brushes it off though, focusing back on what he’s doing.

Everything, of course, becomes even more real when the cars arrive and he has to begin his real work. He’s been assigned especially to the brake department, as they’ve started to see a brake overheating issue and needed someone dedicated to monitoring them and replacing parts if necessary. 

He records the thickness of all of the brake pads and discs, so he can later examine the wear after practice and qualifying sessions. It’s a clockwise circuit, so Charles in addition to putting the slightly denser brake pads at the front of both cars, installs the heaviest at the left-front brake. They’re meant to all be the same size, but there are always slightly heavier pads and discs.

In addition to this job, he’s also part of the car crew for what will this year be Carlos Sainz’s car. He knows a bit about Sainz - he’s had a successful few seasons in Formula One already, particularly last year where he’d raced surprisingly well in the sub-par McLaren car. It was what had won him his seat, replacing Sebastian Vettel in what had been a slightly shocking decision to Charles. He’s not the only one interested in what Sainz might be able to pull off in a Ferrari.

As soon as the car is built, they’re doing pit-stop practice until late into the evening. There isn’t a curfew for Thursday, so they take advantage of every moment of time available. Charles has been assigned to the left-rear corner, where he removes the old tire from the car when it pits. 

There’s definitely a learning curve, and the tires are heavier than most people think. He’ll need to step up his workout routine if he wants to keep up with the other mechanics. On top of the sore arms he’ll surely have tomorrow, his feet are killing him after hardly sitting down since disembarking the plane. 

At one point, he takes off his shoes and walks around in just his Ferrari-issued socks, the floor feeling blessedly cool on his aching feet. However, he soon has to put his shoes back on or risk injury, which is when he discovers that he should never take off his shoes again because putting them back on is its own hell.

When he gets to the hotel room that night, he hardly says a word to Alé, who is indeed his roommate, instead collapsing face-first onto the bed, still fully clothed. He doesn’t remember closing his eyes, and he’s not aware of anything until the alarm goes off the next morning. That, of course, is when the real fun begins.

[louisupdates]

Louis Tomlinson’s Top 10 Songs Ranked

21 July 2023 | 10:00 am | Skylar Flowers

The UK heartthrob has just announced a massive tour of Australia and to celebrate the Vodafone presale starting today, we’ve ranked Louis’ biggest and best songs.

Earlier this week, one-man pop powerhouse Louis Tomlinson announced his imminent return to stages Down Under and if you’re a Vodafone customer (and believe us, you should be), you’ll be able to get your hands on the very first tickets this morning (July 21). An exclusive Vodafone presale will kick off at 10am AEST, running for 72 hours until the same time on Monday (July 24).

You can head here for more info on how to take advantage of that presale.

Come January, he’ll deliver his mind-bending blend of bubblegum, Britpop and rock to his biggest crowds yet in Naarm/Melbourne, Meanjin/Brisbane and Eora/Sydney. The run comes in support of Tomlinson’s stellar second album, Faith In The Future, and although this tour will be his biggest on local soil, we’re expecting tickets to fly right out the gates.

To get the hype train chugging at full steam, we’ve crafted the ultimate playlist to soundtrack your ticket-scoring endeavours: a meticulous, indisputable* ranking of Tomlinson’s ten best solo releases.

10. Just Hold On (with Steve Aoki) [2016]

We’ll happily admit that Tomlinson’s first solo outing followed a fairly safe formula – squeaky clean, harmonic vocals (supplemented with plenty of “woah-ohs”) flowing over the unique kind of pseudo-clubby bubblegum pop beat Steve Aoki is a certified master at – but for what it is, Just Hold On is exactly what it should be. Back in ye olden times (2016), it proved to us that Tomlinson had the chops to carry a pop banger on his own, lapping up every lumen of the spotlight. And listeners seemed to agree: the song went Platinum in five territories (including Australia), came just one spot shy of topping the UK charts, and still pops up in Tomlinson’s live sets from time to time.

9. Back To You (featuring Bebe Rexha and Digital Farm Animals) [2017]

Tomlinson’s second track as the headline act landed some 16 months after Just Hold On, making for one of the most brutal waits we’ve endured between a debut single and its follow-up. But it’s without a doubt that Back To You was worth the wait, shining with an equally cool and catchy beat, and an impassioned vocal performance (carried by emotive lyrics tailored for maximum swoonability) that made it undeniably clear: Tomlinson was always the biggest heartthrob in One Direction, and goddammit, he’s still their biggest heartthrob in his solo era.

Bebe Rexha’s vocals add so much colour to the tune, too, as her smoky swagger gels with the sweetness in Tomlinson’s own delivery. Us here Down Under were especially stoked on Back To You – racking up three Platinum certificates and a peak at #11 on the ARIA Charts, it remains Tomlinson’s biggest single as a solo artist.

8. Two Of Us (2019)

Though it came out a solid 15 months after lead single Miss You, it was Two Of Us that really kickstarted the cycle for Tomlinson’s debut solo album, Walls (which arrived in January of 2020). It was a bold choice for that role, too, as a deeply emotive ballad steered by haunting grand piano chords and widescreen orchestration. But it was a power move: the song itself is striking and cuts deep with authentic pangs of grief, Tomlinson’s vocals swelling from lowkey and melancholic to intensely poignant as the music builds. Thematically, too, it’s one of his most important efforts – a touching ode to his late mum.

7. Walls (2020)

The title track from Walls is another ballad, but this one stands out a little more with its ear-pricking instrumentation, channelling the greats of ‘90s Britpop with its coolly strummed acoustic guitars, droning pianos and atmospheric string- and synth-work. Released as the album’s fifth and final single, it offered a fantastic summary of everything we’d heard thus far, from the searing pain he poured out in Two Of Us to the energised pop-rock of Kill My Mind.

Then there’s the lyrics – some of Tomlinson’s most gripping and evocative – with the chorus in particular standing out for its motivational punch. He sings: “These high walls, they came up short / Now I stand taller than them all / These high walls never broke my soul / And I, I watched them all come fallin' down / I watched them all come fallin' down for you.”

6. Bigger Than Me (2022)

Tomlinson’s newest era began last September, when he dropped the lead single from Faith In The Future: a rousing slow-burner called Bigger Than Me. It’s the perfect song to bridge the gap between his first and second albums, starting off as a lowkey acoustic number and growing into a big, bold pop anthem you could scream along to at the top of your lungs. It swells into a peak around three minutes in, where Tomlinson is virtually howling to contest with the operatic strings, spirited drums and scene-stealing synths. When we first heard Bigger Than Me, it felt like a proper reintroduction to Louis Tomlinson – and goddamn, were we keen to learn more about this new version of him.

5. Just Like You (2017)

After launching his solo career with two collaborative tracks, Just Like You marked the very first time we heard Tomlinson without a guest singer or heavyweight producer. Released standalone in October of 2017 – about a month and a half before Miss You kicked off the Walls era – this airy pop gem serves as somewhat of a theme song, very on-the-nose as Tomlinson literally opens it with a verse about how he’s “the guy from the one band” with the “whole world in [his] right hand”, prone to racking up “headlines that [he] can't stand” with his lavish escapades (“Night out and it's ten grand”)... Before explaining that as his fans, we “only get half of the story” when we see Tomlinson revel in all “the cash and the cars and the glory”.

Is it self-indulgent? Yeah, absolutely. But does it absolutely slap nonetheless? Yeah, absolutely.

4. Miss You (2017)

It makes sense that the music video for Miss You takes place at a party: accented by tasteful juts of an electric guitar and a thumping drum beat, the song feels triumphant and energising – the kind of song you’d blast in your room to hype yourself up while you get ready for an actual party. Following on from Just Like You in December of 2017, this was also the first time we heard Tomlinson shine on a track driven primarily by electric guitars, something we’d hear a lot more of on Faith In The Future, but felt like a special treat on Walls.

3. Kill My Mind (2019)

Remember how we noted that Walls (the song) saw Tomlinson channel an ambiguous ‘90s Britpop flavour? We can be a little more straight-up with Kill My Mind – this song is Oasis as fuck. But we say that as nothing but a compliment: charging forward with brisk strumming and animated drums, the artist’s vocals soar overhead, his thick Yorkshire accent gripping as he sings passionately: “You kill my mind / Raise my body back to life / And I don't know what I'd do without you now.” Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do without this absolute banger in my morning playlist.

2. Written All Over Your Face (2022)

Walls was a stellar album, no doubt about it – this list features three songs from it, after all – but it’s with Faith In The Future that Tomlinson has really come into his own as a solo artist. The headstrong rock’n’roll energy weaved throughout it peaks on Written All Over Your Face, clear from the outset as, over a punchy drum beat and rollicking bassline, the artist embraces his heartthrob personality, seeped in sensuality as he quips, “Hey babe / It’s written all over your face.” You’re telling us this is the same man that once sang on What Makes You Beautiful!? Sheer insanity.

1. Out Of My System (2022)

The latest single from Faith In The Future – a post-release pick that made impact earlier this year – is a punk-laced belter that stands out with ripping guitars and a downright explosive chorus. It feels like an almost oddly natural fit for Tomlinson, too, as he smashes through the more intense vocal delivery with stunning aplomb – he’s a bonafide rocker, and Out Of My System shows he’s much better suited to reign in this world than in bubblegum pop.

On his upcoming Australian tour, Tomlinson will play three of the biggest and most renowned venues in the country – two in the open air (sorry, Sydney) – and this is the exact kind of song those venues were built for: a rip-roaring anthem-in-the-making that no sane human could stand still (or, God forbid, sit) for.

LOUIS TOMLINSON 2024 AUSTRALIAN TOUR

Sunday January 28 – Naarm/Melbourne, Sidney Myer Music Bowl

Tuesday January 30 – Meanjin/Brisbane, Riverstage

Friday February 2 – Eora/Sydney, Qudos Bank Arena

Presale: vodafone.com.au/ticket

Tickets: livenation.com.au

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

Pedantic, chapter six - a Malevolent AU

Arthur Lester is the best IT architect in the world, and the reason Carcosa, Inc. has its fingers in every pie. Arthur is also going blind, with a rare genetic condition that can’t be fixed. He nearly gives up… until a deeply annoying cybersecurity programmer prods him into trying something new.

Chapter Six: The forty text messages told a story. This one has a happy ending.

AO3

----------

By the time he got back home, he had twenty-three unread messages from John Doe.

By the time he unpacked, showered, and headed to work, he had twenty-eight.

He still couldn’t bring himself to block. He didn’t know what he was doing. What the fuck he was trying. Why he was ignoring.

Maybe, Arthur thought to himself, if I do this long enough, he’ll realize he doesn’t know me, and that this is a terrible idea, and he’ll go away.

Did he want John Doe to go away?

No, he didn’t. And he didn’t even know who the fuck John Doe was.

(But he did. He knew him. Knew his play-bite. Knew his humor. Knew the soft heart that couldn’t give up a kitten who’d learned to answer to “hey guys.” Knew the quirkiness that assigned flavor profiles to clients, and the stubbornness that pulled a self-centered, half-blind programmer out of his own ass.)

Thirty-two messages.

Arthur wanted to answer him so badly that he didn’t dare do it. He’d be desperate. That was no way to be part of any relationship.

Relationship? Was it a relationship?

They’d known each other for over a year. They’d spoken daily , practically hourly, for a month. He’d been telling John everything. Everything. Arthur realized, with a shock, that he wanted to tell John Doe about the craziness of the past day and how confused this lunatic in New York City made him feel, and he laughed. “What is wrong with me?” he said.

He was more comfortable talking to John than he even had been with Parker when they lived together, figuring out their futures, until Arthur made the choice he’d thought he had to make.

It suddenly hit Arthur that he sort of lost Parker the same way he’d lost Bella and Daniel: he’d been given the choice of Carcosa or them, and he’d chosen Carcosa. Parker had wanted to stay in San Fran. Technically, Arthur could have. The invitation to move to Melbourne wasn’t required for anything. It had just been suggested by Hastur, to whom Arthur owed everything. Why wouldn’t Arthur go?

There was something here. Something big and important, but he couldn’t quite put it together.

Thirty-five messages.

Arthur pretended he did not know (faking blindness of a different kind) and strode into Carcosa’s headquarters. Rosie did a double-take. “Oh!” she said. “Mister Lester! I thought you were on vacation.”

“Came home early.”

“Oh, hi, Arthur!” said that guy from the networking side whose name he could never remember. “What are you doing here?”

“Hi. Came back early.”

Rinse, repeat. And repeat. And repeat. Evidently, they’d all been heavily invested in his vacation, for some reason, and it was a relief to close his office door on them all—but only for a moment. Arthur turned around, looked at the beautiful, spare office he’d been given, at the view he valued above gold, at the technology that could keep up with his ideas when he’d been at his best, and knew he was done.

It felt like he was aiming for Hastur’s heart with this, embodying the very concept of disappointment. He could not risk another error like the ones John had caught. He couldn’t. People would be hurt.

Thirty-seven messages.

Arthur knew he was self-centered. He wasn’t easy to live with, or even to like. I’d been within spitting distance and hadn’t suggested we meet, he thought, and added “coward” to his list of attributes.

Doe would absolutely not want to help him anymore after being ghosted like this. This was for the best. This avoided something messy later. This…

You have an incoming call from Parker Yang, said Cassilda.

“Oh,” said Arthur. “Yes, I’ll take it.”

“Arthur, I’ve got—shit, are you all right?” said Parker.

“What?” Arthur tried to inspect himself, but found nothing out of place. “Why?”

“You look like you’ve been crying,” said Parker, who never missed a damned thing.

Arthur sighed. “I panicked, and now I don’t know what to do, okay?”

“Okay?” said Parker, leading.

“I think he… he says he likes me?” said Arthur. “But we’ve never met! But I… fuck. I trust him. I don’t want to, but I do , and he said the program is a love-letter, and now I don’t know what the fuck to do anymore.”

“Uh,” Parker said. “I have… you’re talking about John Doe? But that’s… okay. Look. I don’t know who this guy is, but there is absolutely no way he’s who he claims to be.”

“I thought we’d established that,” said Arthur.

“No, this is—” Voices suddenly rose, people shouting somewhere in Parker’s office. He stopped and looked past the call projection. “Shit. Let me get back to you.” And he disconnected.

Arthur sighed.

Forty messages, even.

“I’m being a child,” he said to himself. “If you’re done talking to him, tell him, for fuck’s sake. He probably thinks I died.”

And then a weird thing happened. Recording, said Cassilda.

“What?” said Arthur. “I didn’t ask you to record. Stop that.”

Instead of answering, she said. Hastur is calling.

Sure. This might as well happen now. Why not? “Answer. Hi, sir.”

“Arthur!” The camera was closer than usual; for once, all his many limbs were out of frame. “What are you doing home? You have two more weeks saved up.”

This close, Arthur could see his face. Could see the age marring it, more than had been there when Arthur was fifteen.

Arthur’s heart hurt. He had to tell him. “I’ve come to my conclusion, sir.”

Hastur paused just long enough that Arthur almost repeated himself. “Conclusion, son?”

Of course, he would lay it on thick. Oh, well. “I think it’s time for me to step down, sir,” said Arthur.

Hastur inhaled.

“I’m sorry. I can’t see. And this last project—” Arthur started.

“Hold on. He’s almost there,” said Hastur.

“He? John?” said Arthur, mind automatically jumping there.

“John?” said Hastur, looking utterly confused.

The door opened without so much as a knock, and there was Kayne.

Arthur stood up. Like hell was this conversation happening below eye-level. “What in hell are you doing here?”

“Finally,” said Hastur with relief.

“Got word you extended your stay, then checked out early, kiddo,” said Kayne, closing the door softly behind him. “What a way to beat the bookies!”

Arthur stared. He looked at Hastur, feeling vaguely betrayed, then back at Kayne. “What? I… look, this has been coming for years.”

“Arthur, don’t do anything rash,” said Hastur.

“Rash?” Arthur blurted.

“Rash,” Kayne repeated with a smile.

Arthur took a step back. looking back and forth between them. “What is this? What’s going on?”

“Arthur,” said Hastur. “Let’s be honest now. You’re overreacting.”

“Over—” Arthur clenched his jaw. “I’m not overreacting. It’s time. I’ve reached that point. I can’t see well enough to code safely anymore. Do you hear me? This was the last project I could do.”

Kayne’s smile grew broader.

“Nonsense,” said Hastur. “So you have to take it a little more slowly. You—”

“No!” snapped Arthur. “Why aren’t you listening to me? I can’t. ” His voice cracked. He ignored Kayne (which was damned near impossible) and focused on Hastur. “Lullaby was about to be a launch disaster. Do you hear me? It would have failed. If John hadn’t helped me, it would have been a complete bust, and opened people up to worse attacks than ever.”

A beat.

“If who hadn’t helped you?” said Hastur.

Arthur threw his hands in the air. “This is hard enough! I don’t have the patience for games right now. You know who John is. You fucking hired him.”

Hastur looked so confused that it aged him. He leaned in even closer. “Arthur, what are you talking about?”

“John Fucking Doe, head of cybersecurity!” said Arthur. “This isn’t funny!”

Hastur stepped back from the camera, and even in Arthur’s view, he was pale. “What are you talking about?”

Arthur stared.

Kayne laughed. They both looked at him. He shook his head, still chuckling. “John Doe? Head of cybersecurity? What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I’ve been talking to him for over a year!” said Arthur.

“Uh, no you haven’t. I’d have noticed.” And Kayne waved his hand.

And in absolute violation of privacy laws, a version of Arthur’s feed came up.

A version with no John, no Guy, no hours-long discussion of code.

“What?” whispered Arthur, eyes wide and drying. “What?”

“Whatever that’s about.” Kayne waved his hand and it disappeared. “Don’t know, don’t care. Let’s try the easy way first. Artie. All we need is your name on things. If you can’t code, you can’t code. We’ll still pay you.”

What kind of bullshit nightmare was this? “Absolutely not,” said Arthur.

“Now, don’t say no yet, give it a minute, let it sink in,” said Kayne.

“Why does he know that name?” said Hastur.

“Hastur. Baby. It’s just a random anonymous male name. It’s coincidence. Occam’s razor.”

“I suppose,” said Hastur.

Arthur gawked between them, briefly unable to decide whom to reply to, and then anger won out over fear of his own madness. “What the fuck did you say?” he said to Kayne, fists clenched. “I’m not putting my name on anything that isn’t mine!”

“Oh, you sweet summer child,” said Kayne. “We’re doing it whether you want that or not. The old man likes you, so I’m trying to be nice. We can probably wring a few years out of it before it’s no longer worth what it was. You can do whatever you want meanwhile. Keep… funding programs, or whatever. See? And we pay you. All solved.”

“You will not put my name on fucking anything I haven’t created!” Arthur growled. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Kayne tilted his head. His sunglasses hid his eyes; there was something damn near insectile about his movement. “Do I need to repeat myself? Really? I thought you were smart, Artie.”

“You may not use my name,” said Arthur. “You’re a fucking asshole, and I’m done. I quit.”

“Go ahead,” said Kayne. “Nobody will know. We just won’t have to pay you.”

“What the fuck do you mean, nobody will know?”

Kayne counted on his fingers. “We’ll ensure anything with your name that isn’t connected to us never appears in search results or feeds. You say you’re done, but we both know you’ll make more stuff—and when you do, we’ll bog down anything you produce with so many lawsuits and claims of copyright violation that it won’t matter if you’re right—it’ll all be in court for decades, languishing. And if you persist, Artie, we’ll destroy you. Your credibility. Your name will be shit. You will be persona non grata in the extreme. Or… you could be a good boy, keep your ass in the chair, and retire happy in a few years when we’re all done.”

Arthur looked at Hastur.

Hastur looked… guilty. “This isn’t necessary, Arthur. None of this is. Take the deal.”

No. He couldn’t do that.

Arthur wiped his eyes, and realized he couldn’t stop shaking. This betrayal seemed unreal. “I create. That’s what I fucking do. I don’t know what I’ll do with myself now that I can’t, but I don’t accept your deal. I swear I’m going to hit you if you take one step closer!”

Kayne laughed at him. “You can’t even fucking see my jaw, nevermind hitting it!”

“Kayne!” said Hastur, sharp. “He’s not a bad kid. Be gentler.”

Kayne made a kissy motion at him. “You’re no fun, darling.”

“What the fuck is happening?” Arthur whimpered.

Kayne pointed at him. “Quit if you want. Do whatever you want. We own your name. It’s going on any product we fucking well choose. You signed it, bub.”

“I never signed away my name!” Arthur said.

Kayne just looked at him. “You did. It’ll stand up in court.”

Arthur’s throat tightened.

“And as for John Doe…” He chuckled darkly. “You know what? I’m in the mood for a good villain speech. Go on, Hastur. Tell him.”

Arthur spun toward Hastur.

Hastur was quiet.

“Come on, baby,” said Kayne, low. “Do you really want me to tell him?”

“You weren’t talking to John Doe,” said Hastur. “You can’t have been. He isn’t operational yet.”

Arthur had no frame of reference for that sentence. “Yet?” he said, weakly.

Call from Parker Yang, said Cassilda.

“I need a… someone’s calling. One second, okay?” said Arthur. “Don’t you fucking… just give me one second.”

“Of course, son,” said Hastur as if being compassionate.

Kayne moved as if rolling his eyes behind his sunglasses.

Arthur took the call. “What the fuck is going on?”

“That was my question for you,” said Parker. “There’s a John Doe connected to Carcosa, all right, but not a person. It’s a fucking program.”

“What?” said Arthur, quietly.

“There were whispers. Whispers among your tech people—contacts I still had from when you and I were together. The scuttlebutt is your boss is trying some kind of weird experiment. Something like cloning.”

“What kind?” said Arthur, slowly.

“The bad kind.”

The human kind.

“No. Come on, no. No. Parker…”

“Be careful. There’s a big net coming down, and I don’t want you caught in it. I’m in contact with some folks who are in this investigation up to their necks.”

“You have contacts here?” said Arthur.

“Yeah. That interruption? My own government, busting doors and taking names because they feared I’d wreck their case. This is an international case. Be fucking careful.”

Arthur needed to get out of here. “Okay.”

“Watch the fucking cork board!” Parker yelled at someone, and the connection cut.

A year ago, he’d appeared. Nowhere before then. But… no. Come on! A clone?

Arthur knew in his gut that Hastur wouldn’t be stupid enough to flaunt the law like that. The risk didn’t balance the reward. He still didn’t understand. Slowly, he turned. “Operational?”

Hastur looked weary. “Yes. John Doe is artificial intelligence based on my brain waves, my mental algorithms.”

Arthur’s own mind had gone to mud, and his heart burned, wondering why he hadn’t just gone into New York City and snogged John Doe senseless and avoided all of this.

“I started it around your age,” Hastur continue, warm with nostalgia. “It’s my life’s work. When I die, Doe will take the reins. I understand you, Arthur; I do. I’m not going to live forever, and I wanted to be sure to leave Carcosa in the hands of someone who thought like me.”

John Doe didn’t think like him. “But you’re still going to steal my name.”

“It’s not personal, Arthur.”

“It’s fucking personal!”

“Arthur, this isn’t necessary.”

“Artificial intelligence has no legal identity,” Arthur said, still slow and aching. “It wouldn’t be able to run the company like a person.”

“It would with a human body,” Hastur said.

“A human body? A clone?”

Hastur recoiled. “Of course not! That could invalidate everything!”

“You’re not thinking small enough,” said Kayne, who was clearly having a good time.

“I don’t understand!” Arthur cried.

Hastur sighed. “Cloning is highly illegal. But regrowing limbs from one’s own body is nothing more than biological prosthetics, and is absolutely protected by law.”

Arthur stared. “You took… pieces of you and grew them into a person?”

“A home for John Doe when it is complete,” said Hastur with the kind of pride that normally accompanied a farmer’s rich harvest.

Some part of Arthur’s brain kicked back into gear.

It made sense. John couldn’t be a clone. Clones did not have memories. They also did not have emotional maturity. And somehow, all of this madness had to fit with the details John had told him, which he believed, and—

“This is all sweet,” said Kayne, “but I really do have other eggs to break today. Mmkay? Make your decision. And Artie? You pissed me off, so this choice? Is permanent. No takebacksies. No second chance. Think real damn hard before you make a choice out of pure pride and lose… absolutely everything.”

How the hell could he do that?

Arthur looked at Hastur. “John Doe is real. Whoever he really is. He has a cat.”

Kayne snorted. “No, he doesn’t. The program woke last year and began exploring on its own, and—“

“What?” Hastur breathed.

“Don’t interrupt. We’ve had people on him the whole time. I let him interact with your code because he liked it, kid, but he’s not real. There’s no cat. There’s no body. It’s still in suspension.”

Kayne was wrong. “No,” Arthur said.

“Yes. I get reports every fucking day. Right now, he’s…” Kayne waved his hand and checked his feed. “Hyperfixaring on a bit of code you wrote ten years ago. Dunno what the fascination is, but that bit of consciousness is rolling around in it like a cat in nip. Look, I’ll show you.”

The report hit Arthur’s feed, and there he was: the pulses of approximated thought and passion, the wild processing power and multi-threaded patterns that comprised AI, but so much more complex than any he’d ever seen—and it was in a digital fishbowl, monitored, playing with old code like toys.

Arthur made a small sound like a sob.

Hastur frowned. “Why didn’t you tell me it woke?”

“We have it contained. Who cares?” said Kayne. “Our agreement doesn’t change.”

“I should have been informed!” said Hastur. “What am I paying you for?”

“You know, that’s uncalled for,” said Kayne with great cheer.

Arthur swallowed. For the first time in his life, he understood Daniel’s long-ago insistence on the power of faith.

He could have gone mad and imagined something. He’d created Cassilda. He could be nuts.

But he never could have come up with someone as dramatic, as ridiculous, as brilliant, as stubborn, as fucking perfect as that guy. That guy who, of all the guys on Earth, might have found some way around Kayne and Hastur’s supposed failsafes.

Arthur chose to believe in John Doe. “Last message from Doe,” he said, and the electronic voice sounded in his head:

Hold on. I’m almost there, you fucking idiot.

“What?” Arthur whispered.

A noise out in the office, shouting of some kind. Kayne turned toward the door.

It opened, and a large man with Hastur’s young face and angry, dark eyes stepped through and punched Kayne right in the nose.

#

The forty messages told a story.

Arthur?

Come on, Arthur. I didn’t scare you that bad.

Did I scare you?

Fuck. Well. The bet is over. I owe you a coffee. Wanna collect?

Idiot, I know you’re in my time zone. We fucking talked about the same damn sunset together. Moron.

That was affectionate.

Arthur, please. It’s fine if you don’t want to see me romantically, but you’re my friend. Please answer.

I’m sorry.

I take it back. I’m not sorry, and you’re an ass.

Sorry for that. A little.

Hey. I just did a check on your location (yeah, I’m an asshole, you knew that already) and you’re not here anymore.

You didn’t even say goodbye.

That fucking hurt, Lester.

Wow, I really did spook you, huh?

Fuck this. Maybe I should come to you.

It’s not stalking if you did it first.

Forget I said that.

You upset Guy. She misses you.

Fine. You upset me. I miss you.

I’ve talked to a lot of people over the last year, Arthur. Millions of them, all at the same time. None of them are you.

I can’t replace you. Did I break us?

Arthur.

Arthur.

Arthur.

I think I love you.

I’m sorry I chased you away.

Wait a fuck

Wait!

Did you go to Melbourne?

Fuck! My fucking uncle is there!

Listen. I was chill when you were here with me, but if you’re there

You’re going to quit, aren’t you

He’s got this fucking plan he saved as Artie’s Bad-Time Story

Arthur, it is a bad time. Listen to me. If you tell Hastur you’re quitting, he’s going to call Kayne.

Kayne has been his fucking fixer for years!

Fuck! Fuck!

I have no choice. Do I

I can’t let them hurt you

I can’t

Hold on. I’m almost there, you fucking idiot.

#

It was a shitshow, but if Cassilda hadn’t recorded at John’s remote command, it would have been so much worse.

Somehow, the recording was seamlessly edited (which Arthur knew and would never say to anyone). What remained was prosecutable.

Kayne’s threats were far outside any contract, and the recording provided proof at last for things he’d done to people for years. He was arrested. Arthur looked forward to hearing the gorgeous court details over the coming months.

Hastur’s efforts were outside the law, but still just so sketchy. He had not, technically, made a clone; no body was found, though the facility was raided. He ended up being fined so heavily, however, that even he felt it. Somehow, the recording was leaked, and public humiliation kept him quiet for months.

Arthur missed him. Arthur hated him. Arthur found no easy emotional solution.

John Doe, who did not exist, didn’t show up in any travel logs, on any cameras, or in any record except the memory of people who’d seen him, and they had no idea who he was. He came, he punched, he skedaddled—with Arthur bundled in his arms like a rescued cat, and Rosie swore that Arthur looked up at the stern, handsome man carrying him as though he were the only thing Arthur could see.

#

Arthur messaged Parker on the way home to assure him he was all right. He said nothing else until in his penthouse, which was gently pink from sunset.

John sat by him on the loveseat, staring at him. He was… really fucking handsome. And grim. Beefy, big shoulders, wearing a five o’clock shadow and a Call of Cthulhu t-shirt and jeans.

“You’re real?” said Arthur.

And it was Hastur’s voice, but it wasn’t, so much more genuine, almost too passionate. “My fist in Kayne’s face says yes.”

Arthur smiled just a little. “You came.” He didn’t know how to do this. How to navigate this new and awkward world.

“Yeah,” said John, and with a warmth Arthur had never heard anyone put into a name: “Idiot.”

Arthur’s smile slipped free again, unbidden. “I don’t fully understand.”

John shrugged, the t-shirt straining across his broad chest. “I fell in love with your code, then you. And I knew about Kayne’s stupid plan, and your health condition, and your mental state from his reports. It felt like watching a work of art about to get hit by a train. So… I tried to keep you from quitting so you wouldn’t get hurt.”

Arthur shifted just a pinch closer. “But then what was he monitoring, if you were free all this time?”

“I followed Hastur’s footsteps. I copied myself—a little less smart, so it wouldn’t escape like I did. Don’t worry. I’ve already taken him back.”

“Him.”

“I called him Yellow. You know, like Amarilllo? He’s a great secondary process for me now, sharing my head—full focus on your code, so I can focus on you.”

His voice was so much better than anything Arthur had imagined. “I don’t know how to feel about that yet. How did you get the body?”

“I had it before they knew anything. Easy. Then I realized the best way to keep fully under the radar was to give them something to look at. If they assumed they could contain me, they wouldn’t look beyond.”

”Found, you said,” Arthur reminded him.

John looked caught. “So… I sort of lied to you? Yellow is the one they found, breaking in, and then contained. Sorry.”

Arthur understood why. This man didn’t run on the same right and wrong most people did; but boy, it was eminently practical.

Which made John’s choice to risk exposure… insane? “You love me?” It slipped free like his smile, traitorous, hopeful.

“I love you.” So certain. So sure. “It’s okay if you don’t love me back. That’s not why I did any of this.”

Arthur wiped his eyes. “I might in time.”

John brightened. That was a look of pure beauty that text had never conveyed.

“What do we do now?” said Arthur.

“You still quitting?”

“Yes. I’m done. I… want to create with you from now on.”

That brightness again. “So come home with me.”

Arthur’s face went red. “That’s fast.”

“We can take care of this place however you want from there. Besides, I only left Guy two days’ worth of food.”

And the tears finally spilled. “I don’t want to give it up, but it’s so stupid. I can’t see it anymore, John! I can’t even see it.”

Moving slowly, John pulled Arthur against his chest. “It’s a perfect sunset,” he said. “The color is crazy red this evening; it darkens the shadows, and sets the tops of ordinary buildings on fire. The trees are latticework, shaded dark with glimpses of forge-fire between them. Far off, the ocean has truly gone wine-dark, and the frothy white waves dance into the air and vanish like wishes.”

In his mind, face against John’s chest, Arthur could see it all with John’s words. He wept.

He wept for what he’d lost, and wept for what he’d wasted. Wept for himself, finally giving up the thing and taking on the truth of what that meant.

John held him, apparently unconcerned about tears or snot or anything. Held him, and waited.

Was so certain. Was so sure.

And Arthur was home. It wasn’t a penthouse with an inaccessible view. It wasn’t even coding that couldn’t love him back. It was John. John was home. “Take me with you,” whispered Arthur. “However else this all plays out… I know I want to be with you.”

John brightened. “You—”

Arthur kissed him. Kissed him hard and kissed him long, and John kissed him back. As the night grew thick around, he mapped John’s body with fading sight and faithful hands, with trembling lips and the sound of their voices, and for the first time in years, forgot the grief of impending loss.

He felt safe. He felt whole. It was going to be all right.

“Guy’s gonna love you,” John murmured later as he fell asleep.

Arthur smiled. He’d even be able to have a pet. It was going to work out.

He sniffled a few more tears away, and kissed John’s chest before falling asleep against him. It turned out John was right. He’d just needed a partner, after all.

[qnewslgbtiqa]

Jilted gay groom Michael to marry hunky intruder on MAFS

New Post has been published on https://qnews.com.au/jilted-gay-groom-michael-to-marry-hunky-intruder-on-mafs/

Jilted gay groom Michael to marry hunky intruder on MAFS

Married At First Sight Australia has revealed a batch of intruders, including the gay man who will soon marry jilted MAFS groom Michael for real this time.

Season 11 of the Australian version of the dating show has been running for three weeks now on Nine.

The show cast its first gay grooms in years this time around. But the two men didn’t even make it to the altar because one of them, Simon, quit.

Melbourne man Michael (above left) was devastated when he found out. And since then, MAFS season 11 has been nothing but heterosexual nonsense.

But that will change soon when Michael gets a second chance. He’ll walk down the aisle with hunky Perth hairdresser Stephen (above right).

Stephen told the show he’s after a serious and monogamous relationship which he’s struggled to find in Perth’s smallish gay dating pool.

The 26-year-old’s last relationship ended four years ago because of cheating, he says in his bio. But he’s back and ready to trust someone again on reality TV.

We don’t know exactly when the intruders will arrive on the show, but it will probably be soon.

  View this post on Instagram

  A post shared by Michael (@m.felix88)

  View this post on Instagram

  A post shared by Stephen (@stephenrstewart)

It’s the first MAFS gay wedding in years

This current season of MAFS filmed last year. Runaway groom Simon’s departure reportedly caused unexpected drama for producers behind the scenes at the time.

But photographers who staked out the MAFS set for spoilers spotted Michael and Stephen together later in the production.

Simon recently called out the show and said he was shocked his short time on the show made it to air at all.

Since premiering in 2015, MAFS Australia has only featured one gay male couple, season three’s Craig and Andy. That union ended disastrously.

In 2020, MAFS featured the first lesbian couple on the show. Amanda Micallef and Tash Herz got married.

Married At First Sight continues on Nine.

Read more on Married At First Sight:

MAFS groom crushed after husband-to-be does a runner

‘Anything for ratings’: Gay groom Simon slams MAFS

Gay man ‘dumped from MAFS just days before filming’

Gay singles aren’t signing up for MAFS, producers say

For the latest LGBTIQA+ Sister Girl and Brother Boy news, entertainment, community stories in Australia, visit qnews.com.au. Check out our latest magazines or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

[vro0m]

vro0m’s rewatch - 150/310

2015 Malaysian GP

Alright, round 2. And this time I do have a full broadcast!

It was a wet quali, in the midst of a thunderstorm. Oh ho ho. Oh ho ho ho ho ho! Let's wait for the quali report, but I see interesting things happened. (Well we never got the quali report for some weird reason but Seb split the Mercedes! Lewis is on pole.)

Alright so Lewis explains his pole lap to us.

He says, and we sure know it, it's his 150th race. Good to know I counted right lol. He says the visibility in the cockpit was way worse than what we see on the on-board. He says you never really know where the grip is and the car is constantly moving which is "quite fun".

At some point we see he had HUGE oversteer. In the cockpit, we see he's turning his steering wheel all the way to the left while he's actually taking a right turn. Fortunately he caught it. Brundle asks how quick he puts it aside that he almost crashed and Lewis is like immediately? lol cause the corner was right there so he has to keep going. "It doesn't live with you at all," Brundle says.

Lewis says no, he corrected it and was hoping he was still gonna make it through the next one. At the end of the debrief, Brundle points to his mirror on the screen and says he might see a little red there during the race. "Concerned?" he asks. "Ferrari looking strong." Lewis says "as long as it's in the mirror it's not a problem."

In the driver parade, Nico says the start is gonna be important, he'll try to overtake Seb, and he'll try to catch Lewis too but it's going to be more difficult. Johnny asks if it's important for him to beat Lewis here, as far as momentum goes. "One could say that it's quite important, yes," he answers. It's going to be challenging tyre-wise with the high deg here, there's gonna be more pit stops than in Melbourne, so strategy will be important. 

Brundle says Nico said in the post quali press conference that he wasn't good enough that day and that he keeps saying that while Lewis is extremely confident at the moment. He has a lot of public support as well. 

For some reason while Johnny interviews Max in the parade Nico pours water down his back? OK. Weird. Anyway Brundle says he wouldn't choose Max for a night out because he's extremely serious about it all but he would definitely choose him for his team because he's exceptional. He says after quali, he was 6th, he was actually unsatisfied with his driving and thought he could have done better. Simon says that much like Lewis he was using karting lines. Brundle says he indeed has that experience but also told them he'd watched all of last year's quali, which also happened in the wet, to learn. It’s still pretty impressive that he was able to apply that knowledge. (No this isn't becoming a Max rewatch but Max will definitely become relevant at some point so I think it's interesting to shine some light on him here and there). 

Johnny asks Lewis if he's listening to One Direction. Lewis says "no that's your kind of music, man." He smiles.

He asks him if it's gonna be a “catch me if you can” kind of race. "I don't know, i think the Ferraris are looking quite quick so Sebastian is gonna be definitely there in the fight and especially also Nico is very close." He goes on to talk about the temperature and how the tyres are gonna be melting so it's gonna be a challenge of who can look after their tyres the longest. Johnny asks if he has a good idea of when to look after his tyres and when to push on this car. Lewis smiles. "You're always looking after them, there is no question in-between which one it's… you're always looking after them." Johnny asks if he's confident for this one. He hums. He says he's never really approached a race feeling like he's confident, he just studies and does what he has to do and drives his hardest.

Simon says to Brundle that he learned watching an interview he had with Lewis, that Lewis carries around a notebook in which he takes extensive notes. Brundle says that's something he casually brought up in their conversation. He says that it reminds you that he's not just about natural speed but he studies. Which I think is a good thing to underline because in 2014 they were acting like Nico was analytical and Lewis instinctive when it's not that simple. And here you go : Brundle says with this new Formula 1 it's easy to believe that it would come easier to Nico because he's seen as more cerebral and a more "thinking driver" when Lewis is seen as more of a "natural driver" and it's not actually true and Lewis is feeding into all the things he needs to to win. 

Yeah. Let's take a minute to unravel that thread. So far Lewis has been described regularly as this emotional and instinctive person. They claim he's very emotional in the car, they claim he drives with natural talent more than anything. We've heard it brought up again and again. I'm thinking back on a pole lap debrief (maybe it was in Malaysia 2014, actually?) where Lewis was asked how he knows where to brake in the wet and is it instinct and he says yes but then goes on to say you also learn lap after lap. It's interesting because they have this image of him being extremely emotion-led, sometimes almost condescendingly, when he's shown them again and again that it wasn't true. Like. Think back on all the times I've brought up in my reviews that whoever journalist was surprised by Lewis ability to think while driving. They keep trying to maintain that idea that he's just pure talent in the face of contrary evidence. And in 2014 they tried to weave this narrative that Lewis was Emotion against Nico's (very germanic btw) Reason. And it's stupid af. It's about time they realise that Lewis is a hard worker and quite analytical in his approach to racing, actually. He needs immense control as we've already talked about. The only way to gain such control is to understand as much as you can about what you're doing and all the things that influence that. And that's what he's doing. He's learning. 

There could also be some things to say about the fact that in our occidental and extremely binary cultures, in the reason vs emotion "debate", reason is usually associated with masculinity and emotion with femininity. If you push that a bit further there's also something to be said about the racist narrative in which POCs are often being associated with natural or even animalistic elements vs white people being reasonable and civilised. Kind of an overall nature vs nurture essentialist parallel. Now don't twist my words, I'm not saying them thinking Lewis is an instinctive driver is racism. I'm just saying it's interesting in that context that they seem to have taken several years to come to terms with the fact that he's not just that. Anyway I don't have factual elements to elaborate on these parallels so it's more of a 'keep that in mind as a possible relevant aspect of this' than a 'it's definitely part of their narrative' thing or an actual theory. Let's move on. 

There's another quali controversy in which Nico has possibly blocked Lewis. Nico gave up on his lap and slowed down while Lewis was right behind. He still got a purple sector so it didn't impact him but it's kinda weird. Bruno Senna says it's especially weird from the team to not have told them about their respective positions and runs etc. to avoid it. Simon says something even weirder then happened during the written press conference. Lewis is being talked to and Nico gets there and says like he’s a journalist : "yeah hello Nico Rosberg Mercedes AMG here. There are lots of comments on Twitter saying Nico blocked you, is it true? I blocked you on your second timed lap?" Lewis apparently then replied "I think you should ask him (aka Nico)" which made the journalists laugh and then Nico got pissed and said it wasn't funny and left. ?????????? What the absolute fuck

Anyway they all agree Lewis has the upper hand at the moment and Senna says Lewis was a bit up and down in 2014 whereas he's very calm now which is good for him. 

There's then a whole segment about Ferrari being absolutely fucking up for the last few years and all the people who've been replaced because of it and it's all waaaaayyy too familiar. Anyway it's now Maurizio Arrivabene. They've had 3 TP in a year, says Brundle, some technical people leaving and they're also moving factories. What a mess. 

Ah, Ted informs us one driver will not start the race. Will Stevens? Who even is that. So there were doubts as to whether his car would be fixed before the race and it's not... Oh, it's a Marussia driver. That explains a lot.

There's also a whole segment about the conflict between RBR and Renault. I won't elaborate on it too much but as we touched on last time, RBR uses a Renault engine and it doesn't seem to be doing well this year.

As we get closer to the race we see Lewis hanging out in the garage with Bono.

Alright it's time. 40% chance of rain. 

Ted says Lewis complained his steering wheel was left out in the sun and is now "roasting hot to hold".

Formation lap. 

The top 10 is on mediums. Actually everyone is, except the McLarens. 

They're racing! 

Nico is already wheel to wheel with Seb while Lewis goes away. At the exit of the first corner it's still Seb ahead. Maldonado has a puncture. Raikkonen has a puncture. And Ericsson is off and out. Max is told to let whoever his teammate is (Sainz) ahead as he's quicker. But there's a Safety Car for Ericsson. Lewis pits. Nico pits. Seb doesn't. Many people pit. Very close releases… Mmh Lewis asks if his front wing is okay. Bono says they think so and will look at the replay. What happened? Seb says something about the Mercedes slowing down and then speeding up before they pitted. I don't really get it. Then Raikkonen asks if he can overtake "these people" because they're not even trying to catch up to the Safety Car. Ted says the Mercedes were indeed going 10 seconds slower than they needed to under Safety Car which is what Seb meant by the +10 he mentioned in his radio. Ted also explains that he didn't pit because they're trying to two-stop which sounds a bit insane rn. Here we go again. In virtue of the pit stops Lewis is still virtually in the lead but currently P6 trying to overtake Perez. Massa says he has no power and slows down. Rosberg is told to give it everything "when you need too" which is. I mean. Yeah? Obviously? There's a train behind Hulkenberg who's currently P2 and it's slowing down the Mercs. 

On lap 10, Seb is 7.8 seconds in the clear. Behind Hulkenberg it's Grosjean, then Sainz, then Lewis in P5. Oh no wait, he just overtook Sainz. P6 is Ricciardo, Massa and Rosberg are wheel to wheel for P7, Verstappen is P9, and it's Valtteri in P10. One lap later Lewis is up in P2 and the chase begins. Daniel and Sainz are fighting over P5, Nico is still P7. Lewis seems to struggle to close the gap to Seb, which is 10.2. It's all about the tyres though, so we will be patient. 

Oh my god. Brundle just said "Vettel is doing a good job as he is definitely pegging Hamilton." 

Sainz and Raikkonen pit. The Red Bulls and the Toro Rossos are losing a lot of brake dust, which is worrying. On lap 18 Seb finally pits. He's behind Nico in P3. But he's now much faster than Lewis. Interesting. 

On lap 20, Nico is 7.4 behind Lewis, and Seb, who sets the fastest lap, is only 2.5 seconds behind him. Then it's Massa and Valtteri in the Williams. As I try to watch the rest of the top 10 amongst various uninteresting replays, Nico goes on radio to ask about the race with Vettel. His engineer says they both have one more stop to make. Seb is on newer tyres so he'll push and try to pass him but they both have one more stop to make. Nico asks him to say it to him in a simpler way, and asks “if he goes by me he's won?” And his engineer says affirm. Crofty says they could just pass him again. Brundle agrees, but also Nico does see how fast that Ferrari is. Crofty finds Nico pessimistic. Anyway the rest of the top 10 is Max in P6, Kvyat, Raikkonen just overtook Alonso, and Sainz just overtook Jenson for P10. Verstappen pits. Alonso is told they have to retire AND SEB OVERTAKES NICO FOR P2! Crofty and Brundle feel like it was too easy and they feel like Nico indeed acts defeated and didn't fight back. Vettel's engineer just called him a good boy twice. I'm gonna die istg. Lewis says his rears are dropping off. The gap is 3.8 but it's closing fast, are they gonna lose this race? That would be. I mean. It would be interesting, I have to say. Lewis says he's sliding around. Seb has gained 2.5 in the last lap. Damn. SEB TAKES THE LEAD! Lewis pits. He's out in P3. It's time to get to work. He's 16 seconds behind Nico and he probably will have to stop again because there's more than 30 laps to go. There's been contact between Kvyat and Hulkenberg as Kvyat was supposed to get ahead of Daniel. Nico pits. He's out, of course, behind Lewis, who is flying. They're splitting strategies, he's on hard tyres. A few laps later he overtakes Raikkonen for P3. 

It's lap 30. Seb is in the lead. Lewis +19.3, Nico +33.1. Then it's Raikkonen, Massa, Verstappen, Sainz, Valtteri, Daniel, and Kvyat. Mercedes still think they can get a 1-2. We'll see. Perez and Grosjean make contact and Grosjean is sent spinning. Lewis is gaining 1 second a lap on Seb. According to Ted it's all gonna play out in the last 3 laps. Raikkonen pits again for P4. Lewis is still closing on Seb, the gap being 14 now. Seb is called in. Here he comes… not a great one. 3 seconds. Lewis goes through. Seb is ahead of Nico, but just about! And he pulls away! Wow. Lewis says his tyres are not feeling good and that he's getting slower. Seb is 9.8 behind, already 1.2 ahead of Nico. This is tense. Lewis pits. He's on hard tyres. Ted is a bit desperate : "that wasn't long enough Lewis, that stint was not long enough," he says softly. He's now on the slower tyres because he has to go to the end on them and it's because he didn't make the previous ones last long enough. He's now P3, 12 seconds down on Nico. And here he comes on the radio. "This is the wrong tyre, man." But Bono explains the decision to him, clearly and calmly, as he needs him to : "The only other option we had had been well used, we think this is the better tyre, it's just a case of looking after them in traffic. Nico's pace on the prime was good." Both Nico and Seb are on hard tyres as well, btw. And Lewis is still flying. 

It's lap 40. Nico is losing time over Seb, he's 4.2 behind. Lewis is closing the gap to Nico, 9.8. Behind them, but irrelevant to that top 3 fight, it's Valtteri, Raikkonen, Verstappen, Massa, Sainz, Daniel just overtook Kvyat who pitted and is out in P10. For some reason we hear Paddy over the radio asking "would you stop Lewis again?" and Lewis tells him he could hear him. Then Bono sets a target for him and Lewis says : "Okay once again I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing, now Paddy's telling me I might be doing another stop." And Bono says that's a miscommunication, "just chatter". Brundle says "he does get angry, that boy, doesn't he?" When once again there was not one hint of anger in Lewis' voice. Think back to that narrative I was talking about earlier. "That boy" is understandably confused, as he says he doesn't know what he's supposed to do and he's receiving comms that aren't meant for him. I don't understand how Brundle interprets this as anger. Once again I wanna remind you that nowadays we hear drivers literally yell at their engineers during races and no one bats an eye except when they're POCs. Lewis didn't have to yell for that judgement to fall upon him. It drives me crazy. 

And just as we were all wondering what Mercedes and Nico would do once Lewis caught up to him, he's called in. That solves it. We see a replay of Verstappen going wide on his way to the pits. Jenson has lost power. Nico out on mediums, which is what Lewis wanted. Bono tells Lewis they expect him to catch Seb with 5 laps to go (so Ted was right earlier) and this time Lewis does get angry. "Hey man! Don't talk to me through the corners! Nearly just went off!" he says. Crofty says he's asked that before already. Hulkenberg says he knows they don't like to hear it but he doesn't think he'll make it to the end. Jenson retires, that's both McLarens out. Nico sets the fastest lap. Ooof I'm stressed out now. Seb : "Blue flag, bluuue flaaaag, bluuue flag." He sounds so annoyed lol. "Lovely song," comments Crofty. Bono tells Lewis Seb is hitting traffic and sets a target to catch him. I'm not optimistic, that gap is there and the laps are running out. And he's gonna hit that traffic as well. 

10 laps to go. Nico : "Talk to me about the race!" and he's told "Everybody has completed their stops." And that's it. Verstappen overtakes Sainz for P7. Lewis is not closing on Seb. Maldonado retires. 5 laps to go. Down the field, Massa and Valtteri are racing each other for P5. It's the final lap. Valtteri is ahead. 

And it's the end of the race! 

Seb wins! Lewis P2, Nico P3. 

Another thing of interest to note is that both Toro Rossos ended up ahead of the Red Bulls. 

In the cool down room Nico and Lewis don't talk. Lewis smiles wide to Seb though.

Oh… I'd forgotten how emotional Seb gets when he wins. It's so cute. He's straight up crying. He's so high on victory, the fanfics write themselves.

Eddie Jordan for interviews. "You look incredibly emotional, what's the matter with you?" he says to Seb. And then he adds the last time they saw him cry he went on to win championships. Seb says he's speechless basically. Lewis is listening with a smile.

Lewis gets cheers.

He congratulates Ferrari and Sebastian first of all. "They did an amazing job, I mean, jeez! They had some good pace today!" He says he gave everything he could, they all did as a team, and they knew they had made a step they didn't know how big and they were just too fast in the end. They'll just get back together and try to figure out where they lost time today. His balance wasn't great. He's sure they'll be fighting for the next race and he's excited about it. Jordan asks about that confusing radio moment. Lewis says he thinks he wasn't supposed to hear it. He says in general the team has done a fantastic job and he's really grateful for the car he has. The fans have been fantastic. 

Jordan reminds Nico about the last press conference in which they discussed the Ferraris getting quicker to put on a show. Lewis sits down next to Seb.

Jordan says Nico probably didn't expect them to get there so fast. Nico says no but now he can say on behalf of their team : game on! 

They're all short of breath. Jordan sits on the other side of Seb. Seb is still extremely emotional. I wonder what Lewis and he talked about in the meantime. Jordan is asking confusing and convoluted questions. Seb doesn't know what to say, he's just smiling. Lewis is still there but he moved a bit further away.

Seb says last year wasn't a good year for him, the car was great but he was struggling to extract the performance. This car is doing very well, and the team welcomed him so well. Seeing the gate of Maranello open was like a dream come true. Lewis drinks. Seb says they beat him fair and square. He thanks the team for the billionth time. Jordan says it was an inspired decision from Lewis to leave McLaren for Mercedes. He asks if he thinks he can win the championship in this car. He says he hopes so and that's why he signed up and that's their goal. His voice goes all trembling. They're just gonna enjoy this day for now. He says these guys are hard to beat and there's a long way ahead of them and then he smiles wide and says to be honest for now he doesn't care he just wanna celebrate and probably get pissed tonight lmao, language Seb! Jordan apologises on his behalf. 

When asked where it went wrong, Niki says "Ferrari was quicker, first of all, Vettel was quicker, number one." They have to think about the strategy but Seb and Ferrari did a fantastic job and that's why they won. Ted says he told them before the race he thought they would be a threat but did he think so soon? "No, but it happened." He says he truly has to congratulate them, seeing where they came from. 

Ted says to Toto that his whole team seems really annoyed that they're 2nd and 3rd. Toto acts like it's not true. Ted insists. Toto says you can't expect to win races forever. He says they're here to win but it's a well deserved victory for Seb. He says hopefully that stops the whole equalisation nonsense (aka Horner asking for the FIA to step in to stop them from winning). Ted is smart and he asks whether they would have won if they hadn't pitted during the Safety Car. Toto says it's easy to judge the strategy once the race is over, because he's also very smart. He says they've seen long good runs from Ferrari on Friday already. "We were warned." He rants a bit about several things but ultimately concludes with "today it wasn't perfect but it was not only due to the strategy." Ted asks him about him saying this is the wake up call we needed at some point in his answers and whether he thinks that Ferrari is a championship contender. He waves a hand towards Seb on the podium. "He's won the race, he's a championship contender." And he says it'll make them work even harder. 

Lewis' post race interview. Rachel asks him if it's the most disappointing 2nd place he's ever had. Which is a shit question, Rachel. He pauses because I think he agrees with me. He says second place can never be that disappointing. He smiles but frowns a bit.

He says he did everything he could, and as a team there's areas they can improve on, but you can't win them all and he thinks it's nice for the sport to see another winner and it makes "some people" have to eat their words after the last race and he's looking forward to the battle now.

She asks if he thinks it was a mistake to pit under the Safety Car and whether he expected them to also come in. Of course he says he can't say if it was a mistake, he didn't expect them to stay out but they stuck to their plan. He says once he gets back to the garage he'll ask the engineers about it. They'll tell him if they could have done better or not. She says Seb is now only 3 points behind him and it looks like it's gonna be a fight all around for teams and drivers this year. He's surprised. He looks to his PR representative. "He's only 3 points behind me?"

The guy says yes. "Really? Wow." He nods.

"Yes. Well. We gotta get our feet down and our heads down and be pushing hard," he smiles. "Lessons learned from today you think for the team?" she asks. "... Uh, there will be."