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elisedonut · 10 months

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i like the concept of hogwarts being like semi-sentient? and having like it's own magic in a way i've seen it around a few times and i really like it

but i really really like the idea of it trapping people in a time loop like just repeating the day over and over again why would it do that? idk soulmates? it likes some students and don't want them to leave yet? something needs to be done before they leave? the school is tempermental and just feels like it?

anyway yeah im thinking about an au where percy just gets trapped for like 6 months if its with someone else and for what reason depends on the day some ideas that have circled in my head include

Percy being fully by himself because the school just likes him and doesn't want to let him go yet

Percy being trapped with Draco because the school decided it would be good for Draco because he did something really fucked or something

Percy being trapped with Remus because i don't know having a teacher involved is fun and could open up possibilities that otherwise would be cut off like easily leaving the school, people believing them a little easier also the idea of a time freeze causing Remus not to turn and as a resulting having a few months where Remus just doesn't have to deal with it interesting also i like Lupin

Percy and all the quidditch captains and head girl and it actually being something that happens every year for 7th years just with how long maybe being random

Percy being trapped with Marcus preferably in a situation where Flint is like obsessed with him(has a crush because i love it) and it maybe even being his fault they're trapped was it an accident or intentional? i don't know

Percy being trapped with Oliver in a situation where they are either already together or like really close to it because one of (or both of) them are scared of things changing after graduating even though they are excited about their futures' i feel like it would 100% be an accident for this one like the school went oh? don't want to leave aright! i can do that for you!

Percy being trapped with the twins or any of the siblings i just think it would be interesting and force them to interact a bit which would be good for them preferably in a situation where it's not a very well known thing so all of them are confused as hell

Percy not being sure if Luna is actually trapped with him or just being Luna for like a month because he does keep seeing her in different places and when talking to her she sometimes says stuff that could be referencing that she knows that day is repeating but she's Luna and a second year so he's just so confused (bonus points if she really isn't and it's just like her being just more in tune with it or something) (also can easily be tacked onto any of the others because it's funny)

Percy being trapped with Harry because i like anything that forces them to get to know one another and because i think while Harry would not be like ecstatic being trapped with Percy specifically but would be happy about not having to leave Hogwarts so soon especially if this happened first or second year

if you made it this far through my ramblings here's a little Percy picrew i made

#percy weasley #perciver #flintley #oliver wood #marcus flint #draco malfoy #luna lovegood #harry potter #remus lupin #having so many characters tagged feels weird but i felt like posting these separately would be weirder #look at me though most of these are not even shipping im proud of myself #also i love time shenanigans im sorry #and if you think you saw this twice no you didn't #i had tech difficulties

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ultrasofts · 1 year

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any advice on how to get into indycar? i see more posting about it these days and it seems fun but i don't know anyone personally who watches it

Okay, I took like three weeks to reply to this because I am using it as an excuse to make the “Indycar 101 from the perspective of a new fan” post that I have been meaning to make for a while, because I would love for more people on here to watch it!! It’s extremely fun, close racing, with some great talent and interesting narratives. It’s a less polished product than F1, and sometimes upsettingly American, but it’s great and it genuinely brings me a lot of joy.

This primer is light on the history of the series, designed to answer the basic sorts of questions that will come up if you just put on a race and try to follow what’s going on. It’s also 100% targeted at people who watch F1, since, you know, that’s the corner of the internet we’re in.

There’s three basic sections, so feel free to jump around as is useful, because this turned into a probably unnecessarily long post.

Part 1: Basic series info

Part 2: How to follow a race weekend

Part 3: Who to root for

Big thank you to Fir @josefnewgaydengayden for their contributions <3

Part 1: Basic series info

Teams

I think the first thing to know is that there’s no teams championship which imo is a big part of why the teammate dynamic is quite different to F1. Team orders aren’t really a thing, and there’s not really any such thing as a “number one driver” in a comparatively meaningful way

Teams have varying numbers of cars. Anything from 1-4 is common (last year’s grid had that full spectrum). You can also have part time or shared entries - for example Marcus Armstrong and Takuma Sato are essentially sharing one of the Chip Ganassi cars this season, with Sato running the ovals and Armstrong running everything else

Currently, the two top teams are Penske (Power, Newgarden, McLaughlin) and Chip Ganassi (Dixon, Palou, Ericsson, and Armstrong/Sato). Last season the championship contenders at the back end of the season were Power (who ultimately won), Newgarden, Dixon, McLaughlin and Ericsson (yes there were five title contenders down to the finish)

The close competitors - teams what will almost certainly win at least one race this season (very possibly more) and could have their best drivers in title contention are Arrow McLaren (O’Ward, Rosenqvist, Rossi) and Andretti (Herta, Grosjean, Kirkwood, DeFrancesco)

There’s other teams that I will leave you to look up based on which drivers you’re interested in

Cars

The cars are mostly spec—they have the same chassis and aero package. There are two engine suppliers: Honda and Chevrolet, and the tyres are Firestone

Teams are allowed to build and develop some of their own parts, like the brake ducts and certain suspension parts

Overtake assist is Push to Pass rather than DRS — drivers get a set number of seconds per race where they can push a button to get a power boost. They can use it anywhere on track, offensively or defensively, but once it’s used up, it’s used up

Unlike F1, the cars have no power steering. That’s why Josef Newgarden looks like that (jk but also not)

The cars also don’t have anti-stall, so if a car stops on track, you’ll often see it have to be fired up to get going again

Tracks

Indycar races on street courses (street tracks in F1), road courses (equivalent to what just get called tracks in F1, like Barcelona or Bahrain), and ovals

I wasn’t 100% sure about the whole oval thing, but oval racing can be crazy exciting (and absolutely fucking terrifying). I would highly recommend this twitter thread as an intro to Indycar oval racing—and in general Cassie is a great follow for new fans!

The Indy 500 is its own beast and won’t get into it here. Really though, the main difference aside from the Stature and Importance is the qualifying format and the extra entries—in terms of the actual race, it’s conceptually similar to other oval races

Where do I watch it?

If you’re willing or able to pay, Indycar Live is a great deal—it’s only $3/month or $20 for a season pass. They also have individual race passes! You’ll have to use a VPN though, if your location is not on the access list (due to broadcast restrictions)

Otherwise, check whatever the way to access it in your jurisdiction is - in the US/Canada I believe you can get it with a Peacock streaming subscription, and in Australia it’s on Stan Sport (although it is so much cheaper to get a VPN + Indycar Live)

Alternatively, all your usual illegal streaming sites should have what you need!

Part 2: How to follow a race weekend

In broad strokes, it’s very similar to an F1 race weekend. Practice, qualifying and race sessions, although obviously some of the details differ…

These car liveries girl help 😭

This was probably the thing that I found hardest in terms of watching a race and understanding what the fuck was going on - teams don’t have the same liveries on all their cars (although sometimes, e.g. McLaren, they go for similar looks across them), and cars don’t necessarily have the same livery race-to-race

My advice is to just pick a few to learn and pay attention to throughout a race. The livery of your favourite 2-3 drivers, or ones that are really easy to pick out (because they’re bright colours, or just catch your eye, or whatever). Once you know a couple of livery + driver combos, that’s a useful anchor to the timing screen, so you can find who is in front/behind them. You’ll pick it up much faster than you think—and you really do not need to know every single one, I certainly still don’t!

I’ve put the spotters guide for the liveries for the St Pete race just gone below and circled a few I would generally recommend learning. The circled ones are all what those drivers are running this weekend in Texas, with the exception of Josef who has my fave livery of the weekend with the fruity PPG look

Liveries I’d recommend as good starting points: Scott Dixon’s PNC Bank because he doesn’t change much and tbh it always pays to know where he is in a race. Kyle Kirkwood is often in the hot pink Andretti. Josef’s Hitachi livery, and Will Power’s black and red Verizon are pretty easy to spot. McLaren are generally easy to spot if you’re used to looking for the papaya cars - I’ve circled Pato’s papaya and black livery below. Colton Herta’s yellow and black Gainbridge and RoGro’s DHL liveries are also pretty distinctive!

Practice

It’s free practice who gives a shit

Qualifying — Street/Road courses

In generally, it’s really similar to F1—there are 3 timed stages, with a cutoff position in Q1 and Q2. The main difference is that Q1 goes out in two groups, and the fastest 6 in each go through to Q2, and the 12 get whittled down to 6 for Q3

Qualifying — Ovals

For oval races, drivers go out one at a time, in reverse championship order. They get two warmup laps, and then two consecutive qualifying laps

Average speed across the two laps is the driver’s qualifying speed, and the fastest speed gets pole

As I said above, Indy 500 qualifying is its own beast, although it broadly follows the strokes outlined above

A word on the goddamn qualifying timing screen because this is the hill I will die on

Look, if you watch F1 quali, you’ll know enough to follow the basics of a street/road course quali session out of the box

However, the timing screen is not good and you just gotta live with it. The number on thing I wish we could bring over from F1 is the broadcast timing screen and some of the broadcast graphics

When drivers are on a lap, there’ll be a delta time next to their name, and the box with the time will either be green or red. Sometimes the delta time is to the cutoff (i.e. the delta to the person currently in P6) or to P1. Sometimes it’s clear from context which of the two it is, sometimes it’s not. Also because everyone is on the lap, just because someone is green, doesn’t mean they’re safe as everyone else below the cut could also be green, and unless you can do really fast math… no hope. The size of the delta will give you a sense of how safe or not someone is, and if you’re focusing on one driver it’s mostly manageable but it’s not ideal

In general, I would say qualifying matters less than in F1, as the cars are closer in performance and there is in general a lot more overtaking, so I can live with it

Race start

Indycar always has a rolling start — they do a formation lap, then the green flag goes and the race starts as they cross the line. Sometimes I miss the drama of a standing start — lights out in F1 is pretty fucking cool. That said, the Saudi GP of 2021 cured me of the need to ever see a standing start again in my life so it’s good, actually. The start is still exciting and stressful, just a notch or two less so

Pitstops

These really can be chaos personified. There is no such thing as a safe release. Pray to any god you believe in that your guy makes it out alive, especially if a ton of people are in at once on an oval

Stops are significantly longer than F1—the limiting factor is typically the refuelling time, so there’s less of a hustle on tyre changes (although they are obviously still very fast). 7-8 seconds is typical

Races will often have more stops than an F1 race, too—3-4 stops is not uncommon

Strategy

This often comes down to tyre strategy and fuel management

Similar to F1, everyone has to use both a hard tyre (called the blacks, or the primary tyre) and a soft tyre (called the reds, or alternate tyre. This season there’s actually a different alternate compound, with a green stripe, for street courses. So you might see commentators/drivers referring to “sticker reds” when a driver is quite clearly on a green-stripe tyre

Similar to F1, drivers have to use more than one compound; the rule is actually that drivers have to complete at least two laps on each tyre type. Drivers can start on whatever they want and use them in whatever order, but they have to use both

There’s a single type of wet tyre for rain, and also a specific tyre compound for ovals. (Note that oval races don’t run in the rain on account of how it would be extremely fucking dangerous)

Tyre deg management is conceptually similar to F1, and broadly the same strategy considerations apply

Fuel management is absolutely critical and fuel saving strats and ability can make all the difference. I feel like it’s especially critical on ovals although this might just be that it has been for the oval races that I’ve watched. If you start watching Indycar you will, inevitably, hear a commentator talk about how Scott Dixon is a master of fuel saving

Part 3: So who do I root for?

So I am a firm believer that you don’t pick your fave—your fave picks you. But that said, here are some of the narratives for some of my faves, fave-adjacents and popular picks that may or may not be of interest to you. Listen to your heart…

Scott McLaughlin, aka Scotty Mac. Kiwi driver, came across to Indycar from Australia’s V8 Supercars series in 2021 (as a three time champ in that series) and took to single seaters like he was born for it, scoring a P2 in his third ever race (and first oval) and winning rookie of the year. He had a breakout season last year, with three wins and admittedly a bit of a midseason slump. Super fast, super racey. Genuinely a title contender, but there’s a lot of that going round in Indycar. For me the narrative this season is whether he can build on last year and be a proper front runner, and build some of the consistency that was lacking last season

Josef Newgarden, America’s Boyfriend. Handsome in a corn-fed, broad-shouldered, pure American beef kind of way. Two-time title winner, with a hattrick of runners-up trophies. Number one Scott McLaughlin fan. I think the narrative for him this season is if he can find his happy place every single week. He had a frustrating year last year—true win or bin. He won more races than anyone else, but had quite a lot of DNFs too, often not of his own making. Changes to his crew and team meant that things weren’t exactly seamless, and I think it was really clear that it was a frustrating year for him. I really hope he can find some goddamn luck this year, to go with the mountains of talent and hard work

Scott Dixon, the GOAT. He’s won six championships, and has been a contender in almost every season he’s run. He won his first title in 2003, and his most recent one in 2020. Fuel saving king. Nothing in life is as certain as death, taxes, and Scott Dixon being in the title fight. Literally does not matter where he starts a race, you’d be silly to ever assume he’s not going to find his way to the front. Root for this guy if you love a capital w Winner. (And if you’re a FE fan, his WAG is the man who finished 33rd in the 2008 Daytona 500, Dario Franchitti.) Narrative-wise, there’s a few records he’s chasing, and a seventh title would obviously be a huge deal, but his Big Thing is that for a driver with as much success as he’s had, he’s only had one Indy 500 win. It was all lined up to be his last year, but I’m too traumatised to talk about it but a 1 mph pit lane speeding violation scuppered his chances

Will Power, yes that's his real name. Imo Will wrapped up his Compelling Narrative last season, when he won his second title with one of the biggest mindset and energy shift a professional athlete has ever pulled off? Historically a big hothead, he won the title in 2014, but was never able to get it across the line a second time. Last year he came in with a totally different attitude—he was zen as hell, so much so that it clearly freaked out and bemused the commentators because it was a talking point literally ever race. He was Mr Consistency, always always maximising his points and staying out of trouble, and it won him the title. This season it’ll be interesting to see if he can deliver the same kind of energy and performance - signs from race one point to yes

Colton Herta, he’s just a funky little guy! Front man of garage punk band The Zibs moonlighting as a racing driver. You've probably heard of him in some way or another if you're following the McLaren-Ganassi Saga last season, and the subsequent superlicense eligibility back and forth that followed. He's highly rated for a reason: he's IndyCar's youngest race winner, and since his debut in 2019, only three other drivers have won more races than him (Colton won 7, 2 of them in his debut season in a non-clear front runner car). He's still rough around the edges especially when it comes to patience, but you can't deny his blistering pace, car control skills, and racecraft. With Alexander Rossi moving to McLaren, as the most "senior" member of the Andretti Autosport organization this might be the year he's expected to step up. Fights alt right trolls on Twitter from time to time

Romain Grosjean, the ex-F1 driver (there’s a bit of that going round in Indycar). If you’re coming from F1, you obviously know the backstory here. He had a great first year, but a frustrating second one when he moved to Andretti. He’s had two poles, and been close to race wins, but hasn’t closed the deal yet. (Personally I think the man should not try it around the outside of turn 4 at St Pete but maybe that’s just me.) I do think him getting a win is very likely, either this season or next—I don’t know if he’s title contender material yet, but the thing about Indycar is you kind of never fucking know

Pato O’Ward, no. 2 entry on Zak Brown’s list of twinks under contract. I understand why people tend to sort of compare him to Lando, but I personally don’t really see it? He’s a bit of a shit stirrer and trouble maker, but he’s extremely funny about it—he’s annoying (affectionate). Multiple race winner, and general consensus is that he has what it takes to be a champion, but can McLaren Get It Together. He lost out on what should have been a win at St Pete due to an electrical (?) issue and he was incredibly pissed off about it in a way that made me like him enormously. The other potential interesting narrative is the light potential for a McLaren Civil War between him and Alex Rossi which isn’t something that’s expected to happen so much as something I am desperately hoping for

I’ll leave it there otherwise it’ll end up covering half the field because, well… There’s hard-done-by F2 drivers who didn’t have the money or connections or whatever to make it to F1 (Callum Ilott beloved, and Marcus Armstrong), there’s the good-but-never-quite-delivered-on-his-promise Alexander Rossi driving for a new team (McLaren) for the first time in his Indycar career, a 33-year old rookie in Augustín Canapino who’s only ever raced tin tops but has no fear of god or the english language and is doing a full program, including ovals, this year, Florida Man Kyle Kirkwood, a man whose actual name on his actual birth certificate is Sting Ray Robb… the list goes on and on.

So...now what?

Indycar is back this weekend in Texas for an oval race (which had a crazy exciting finish last year) and then in two weeks at the Long Beach street course. I can’t recommend giving it a go enough, and my inbox is always open for questions, and my DMs for in-race screaming (and also questions.) I’m still pretty new to the series myself and almost certainly won’t know the answer but I will do my best and point you to someone who can answer you if I can’t.

If you’ve made it to the end, thanks for reading and pls watch Indycar <3

#this is too long sorry i got carried away #also if i did your fave dirty (sorry marcus ericsson fans he deserves more than this) pls feel free to add your one paragraph #on why someone should root for them #indycar #asks #anonymous

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