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39oa · 1 year

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f1 rpf graphing & archive insights

intro & prior work

hello! if you're reading this, you may already be familiar with my previous post about graphing hockey rpf ships and visualizing some overarching archive insights (feel free to check it out if you aren't, or alternatively just stick around for this intro). i've been meaning to make an f1 version of that post for a while, especially since i've already done a decent amount of f1 rpf analysis in the past (i have a very rough post i wrote a year ago that can be read here, though fair warning that it really does not make any sense; while i've redone a few viz from it for this post i just figured i'd link it solely because there are other things i didn't bother to recalculate!)

f1 is quite different from many team sports because a large part of my process for hockey was discovering which ships exist in the first place—when there are thousands and thousands of players who have encountered one another at different phases of their careers, it's interesting to see how people are connected and it's what was personally interesting to me about making my hockey graphs. however, with f1's relative pursuit of "exclusivity," barriers to feeder success and a slower-to-change, restrictive grid of 20 drivers, it becomes generally expected that everyone has already interacted with one another in some fashion, or at least exists at most 2 degrees of separation from another driver. because of this, i was less interested in "what relationships between a large set of characters exist?" (as per my hockey post) and more so in "what do the relationships between a small set of characters look like?"

process

my methodology for collecting "ship fic" tries to answer the question: what does shippability really look like on ao3? (the following explanation is adapted from my hockey post:) a perceived limitation i have with character tagging numbers on ao3 is that they don’t exactly reflect holistic ship fic; that is, if lando is tagged as a character in a max/daniel fic, it gets attributed to his character tag but doesn’t actually say anything about how many Relationship Fics exist for him on a whole. my best solution for this was essentially uncovering most of a driver's relationships and summing their individual fic counts to create an approximate # of “relationship fics” for each player. so any kind of shippability graph going forward will use that metric.

i used ao3’s relationship tag search and filtered by canonical in the formula 1 rpf fandom and only pulled relationship* fics (“/” instead of “&”) with a min. of 5 works. ao3’s counts are… Not the most accurate, so my filtering may have fudged some things around or missed a few pairings on the cusp, which again is why all the visuals here are not meant to show everything in the most exact manner but function more so as a “general overview” of ficdom. although i did doublecheck the ship counts so the numbers themselves are accurate as of time of collection.

(*i excluded wag ships, reader ships, threesomes to make my life easier—although i know this affects numbers for certain drivers, team principal/trainer/engineer ships, and any otherwise non-driver ship. i left in a few ships with f2, fe, etc. drivers given that that one character was/is an f1 driver, but non-f1 drivers were obviously excluded from any viz about f1 driver details specifically. this filtering affected some big ships like felipe massa/rob smedley, ot3 combinations of twitch quartet and so on, which i recognize may lower the… accuracy? reliability??? of certain graphs, but i guess the real way to think of the "shippability metric" is as pertaining solely to ship fic with other drivers. although doing more analysis with engineers and principals later down the line could be cool)

also note that since i grouped and summed all fics for every single ship a driver has, and since one fic can be tagged as multiple ships, there will be inevitable overlap/inflation that also lessens the accuracy of the overall number. however, because there's no easy way to discern the presence and overlap of multiship fic for every single driver and every single ship they have, and attempting to do so for a stupid tumblr post would make this an even larger waste of time… just take everything here with a grain of salt!

data for archive overview viz was collected haphazardly over the past few days because i may have procrastinated finishing this post haha. but all ship data for section 2 was specifically collected april 22, 2023.

PART I. f1 rpf archive overview

before i get to ship graphing, here are a few overviews of f1 ficdom growth and where it measures relative to other sports fandoms, since i find the recent american marketability of f1 and its online fandom quite interesting.

first off, here's a graph that shows the cumulative growth of the top 8 sports rpf fandoms from 2011 until now (2023 is obviously incomplete since we're only in may). i've annotated it with some other details, but we can see that f1 experienced major growth after 2019, which is when the first episode of dts was released.

something that fascinated me when making this graph was the recent resurgence of men's football rpf in 2023; while the fandom has remained fairly consistent over the years, i had noticed that its yearly output was on the decline in my old post, and i was especially surprised to see it eclipse even f1 for 2023. turns out that a large driver behind these numbers is its c-fandom, and it reminded me that out of all the sports rpf fandoms, hockey rpf is fairly unpopular amongst chinese sports fans! i wanted to delve into this a little more and look at yearly output trends for the top sports fandoms since 2018, only this time filtered to exclusively english works (a poor approximation for "western" fandom, i know, but a majority of sports fandom on tumblr does create content in english).

another thing i've long been curious about with f1 specifically is—because of how accessible dts and f1 driver marketing are to fans online, does f1 rpf and shipping culture skew a bit more "public" than other fandoms? i'd initially graphed the ratio of public fic on ao3 for hockey because i also wanted to see whether it was on the rise (again, apologies for how many callbacks and references there are in this post to hockey rpf... it's just easy for me to contextualize two familiar sports ficdoms together *__*), but i was surprised to see that it's actually been steadily trending downward for many years now. f1 fic, on the other hand, has steadily been becoming more public since 2016.

another note is that c-ficdom follows different fic-posting etiquette on ao3, and thus chinese-heavy sports rpf fandoms (think table tennis and speed skating) will feature a majority public fic—here's another old graph. since f1 fandom has a relatively larger representation of chinese writers than hockey does, its public ratio falls a little bit if you filter to english-only works, but as of 2023 it remains significantly higher than hockey's!

anyway, onto the actual ship graphing.

my ship collection process yielded 164 ships with 57 drivers, 46 of which have been in f1. all 20 current active f1 drivers have at least one ship with min. 5 fics, though not all of them had a ship that connected them to the 2023 grid. specifically, nyck de vries' only ship at time of collection was with stoffel vandoorne at 56 works.

once again because f1 is so strongly connected, i initially struggled a lot with how i wanted to graph all the ships i'd aggregated—visualizing all of them was just a mess of a million different overlapping edges, not the sprawling tree that branched out more smoothly from players like in hockey. this made me wonder whether it even made sense to graph anything at all... and tbh the jury is still out on whether these are interesting, but regardless here's a visualization of how the current grid is connected (color-coded by team)! i graphed a circular layout and then a "grid-like" layout just for variety lol.

of course, i still wanted to explore how ships with ex-f1 drivers have branched out and show where they connect to drivers on the current grid, especially because not too long ago seb was very much the center of the ficdom ecosystem, and the (based purely on the numbers) segue to today's max/charles split didn't really come to fruition until the dts days. so here's a network of f1 ships with a minimum of 75 works on ao3:

before i go into ship breakdowns, i also have a quick overview of the most "shippable" drivers, aka the drivers with the highest sum of fic from all their respective ships. the second bar chart is color-coded by the count of their unique ships to encapsulate who is more prone to being multi-shipped.

PART II. ship insights

first let's take a look at the most popular f1 ships on ao3, again filtered to driver-only ships.

here's another graph filtered to the current grid only, and then one that shows the 15 ships where one driver isn't and has never been an f1 driver:

for this section, i ended up combining my ship data with a big f1 driver dataset that gave me information on each driver's birth year, points, wins, seasons in f1, nationality... etc., so that's what i'll be using in the rest of the post. disclaimer that i did have to tweak a few things and the data doesn't reflect the most recent races, so please note there might be some slight discrepancies in my visualizations.

anyway—in my hockey post i did a lot of set analysis because i was interested in figuring out what made the players who were part of the ship network different from the general population. with f1, since almost Every Driver has at least one ship and it's a much more representative group, doing a lot of set distributions wasn't that interesting and so i stuck more to pure ship analysis. still, the set isn't completely representative, which i noted by checking the ratios of driver nationalities in my dataset and then in the large database of f1 drivers i merged with (though filtered to debut year >= 2000 to maintain i guess the same "dimensions").

while british and german drivers have been the most common nationalities in f1 since 2000, both in general and in my ship data, it seems that ficdom slightly overrepresents/overships them and then underrepresents brazilian drivers. i was also curious to see the distribution of ships by nationality combination (which is actually quite diverse), and though it once again wasn't surprising that uk/germany was the most common combination given that we've just established the commonality of their driver groups, i found it somewhat interesting to realize just how many ships fall under this umbrella.

i then once again wanted to see what the distribution of age differences looked across ships. the ships i graphed yielded a range of 25 years, with the oldest age difference being 25 years between piastri and webber. tbh, something that's interesting to me about f1 ships is not just how connected current drivers are but also how there is a very strong aspect of cyclicality, wherein long careers in combination with well-established celebrity culture and post-retirement pivots to punditry & mentorship position drivers perfectly to still be easily shipped with any variety of upcoming drivers, hence why we encounter a relatively significant variety of age differences.

of the ships with two f1 drivers, 38% were within 2 years of each other, while 44% had an age difference of 5 years or more.

more experimentally (basically i wanted to use these performance metrics for something!), i tried graphing driver metrics against "shippability" to see whether i could uncover any trends, normalizing to percentile to make it more visually comprehensible.

one thing that was interesting to me is that there is a strong correlation between a driver's points per entry and their number of ship fic; really, this isn't surprising at all because it's basically a reflection of whether they've driven for a big 3 team, and we know that the most popular drivers are from big 3 teams, but then i guess it does become a bit of a chicken and egg question... which is something i'm continuously fascinated by when discussing success and talent in sports fandom, especially in a sport like f1 where there is so little parity and thus "points" do not always quantifiably translate to "talent," making it difficult to gauge why and when a driver's skill becomes consciously appealing to an audience. i don't know but here's that scatterplot.

similarly, i also wanted to look at years active vs. fic to gauge which drivers have a High Number Of Ship Fic relative to how long they've actually been in f1, basically a rough rework of the "shippability above expected" metric i'd tried exploring in my old f1 post haha. because the set i merged with attributed 1 "year active" to a driver just like, filling in as reserve for a single race, and it also included drivers who maybe raced one season and then never raced again, but then i still wanted to include current rookies in their first season to show where their Potential lies... i settled on filtering to drivers who were or have been active for at least 5 seasons OR who debuted recently and thus have a bit of rookie leeway. there's a decent amount of correlation here, which is again... in f1, the underlying argument for remaining active for many years is that you have to be good enough to keep your seat, so it's expected that if drivers stay on the grid for a long time they will eventually accrue more fandom interest and thus ship fic. still, we can see some drivers who underperform a little relative to their establishedness—bot and per, interestingly also below the trend line in the points/entry graph–and then those who overperform a decent amount, like nor and lec.

this is somewhat interesting to me because i'd tried to make a similar scatterplot with my hockey set and found that there was... basically nooo correlation at all, but i also had to make do with draft year and not gp which i think might move the needle a little bit. regardless, it's just interesting to think about these things in the context of league/grid exclusivity and then other further nuances like the possibilities of making your niche in, for example, the nhl as a 4th line grinder or f1 as a de facto but reliable #2 driver for years down the stretch, and then how all of that impacts or shapes your fandom stock and shippability.

moving on, here's a look at the current top 20 f1 ships and how much of their fic is tagged as fluff or angst! out of all their fic, kimi/seb have the highest fluff ratio at 38.44%, while lewis/nico hold the throne for angst at 34.74%.

lewis/nico are also the most "holistically" tragic ship when you subtract their fluff and angst percentages (by a large margin as well), while jenson/seb are the fluffiest with a difference of 17.38%. really makes you think.

and finally this is a dumb iteration from my old f1 post but i thought this was kind of funny haha so: basically what if teammate point share h2h but the points are their shippability on ao3.

closing thoughts

that's really all i have! again, i don't know whether any of these graphs make sense or are interesting to anyone, but i had fun trying to adapt some of my hockey methodology to f1 and also revisiting the old f1 graphs i'd made last year and getting to recalculate/design them. i know there's a lot more i could have done in examining drivers' old teams since many ships are based on drivers being ex-teammates and not the current grid matchups, but it would have been too much of a headache to figure out so... this is the best i've got. thanks for reading :)

#*m #stats #f1 #kept forgetting i wanted to finish this but i was clearing out my windows going why on earth do i still have tableau open...#i know this is not even remotely interesting but i did my best!

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coarsely · 1 month

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OC Interview

Hello! I was tagged by @ink-flavored, thank you so much! Last time, we interviewed Saccade, so now it's time to go across the border and interview the Potentate Louis!

Are you named after anyone?

"Yes. There were two Louis' of the Potentate dynasty before me; one had married in to the Potentate Ludovica some eons ago, and despite the 10 children the couple sired during their marriage only two made it to adulthood. The other was a military man, Seraph of the Empyrean's Army only for a week before his horse went wild and dove down the side of a cliff. Neither are... particularly proud namesakes, but I am grateful to be given a chance to carve a greater legacy for future generations."

When was the last time you cried?

"What a ridiculous question. Do you mistake me for a hysterical woman, or an overemotional, nostalgic fool like Salvatore? I have not cried since I was a small child."

Do you have kids?

"Another ridiculous question. I am not married, so how would I have children? I am not a degenerate, unlike some of my cousins. Moreover, palace this may be, there are quite enough people in it as is. I do not seek to add to the tally of Potentate heads within these walls. And furthermore–I have no desire for children. I have quite enough brothers and sisters, cousins plenty to ensure the family blood does not dry. No, Empyrean willing, I shall never marry either".

Do you use sarcasm a lot?

"No; I will not undermine my words and authority by using them for irony, humour or mockery. It is unbecoming of a Potentate."

What’s the first thing you notice about people?

"Masks, of course. What they wear upon their faces. The weapons of Nod have placed Eden into a permanent masquerade, and some are taking advantage of that. I see people with masks of owls, of wolves, of ravens and lions and bears. They wish to show what they feel represents their personhood, their status. For example, my father, the Potentate Felipe, has taken to wearing one of a ram, with great curved horns. In truth, I think they are slightly too heavy for his head to comfortably wear–but you understand why a Seraph of the Empyrean's Army would want a thing symbolising protection, like the ram. Now that we must have our faces covered always in case of a gas attack, it is necessary to still have ways to communicate our personhood and societal status."

What’s your eye color?

"Blue. Like my father, like the God-King himself, Magnus. I am proud to say I have my grandfather's eyes. Naturally I... never met him, but the shade is similar in the many portraits of the Potentate Boris. I would have liked to have met my uncle."

Scary movies or happy endings?

"Fiction is for children, and for fools unable to face their own reality, too cowardly to grasp and change it. Neither."

Any special talents?

"I... am adept with the sword and I have a natural inclination to the sciences. If my aunt, Clymene, was not so close in age to me, I would naturally be considered to inherit the science sector when she passed. As it is, it is unlikely to happen."

Where were you born?

"Do you seek to waste my time with unnecessary questions? The Palace of Eden, as every one of the Potentate dynasty was born ever since the Prophet lifted it from the ground. Only the Potentate Zephyr was born outside of these walls, when Gloriana, pregnant with her son, attempted her coup and ran away from these holy walls."

Do you have any pets?

"Not specifically. There are... hounds kept for hunting and guarding, but none are mine, and I find the novelty of such beasts wears quickly. A cat would suit my temperament much better, but there is little to do for a small animal in this palace."

What sort of sports do you play?

"I fence regularly, to keep my physique in check, and I often play chess with my cousins. Oh, I raced against my siblings often on horseback when we were children, but I suppose that doesn't count as a sport. I also played cricket as a youth, but Orsete is a terrible cheat, so I never pursued it."

How tall are you?

"I stand at 182cm. Not as tall as my younger brother, Azelio, who stands at a quite ridiculous 194cm, but I am taller than my father, and that is all one can ask for, no?"

What was your favorite subject in school?

"I have appreciation for most academics, but if forced to choose... physics, I am endlessly fascinated by."

What is your dream job?

"What trivial, provincial things jobs are. I have no need for them. The only duty I have, the one I dream about, is that to my family, to do the great Potentate name proud, and to join my ancestors in the Empyre when my time comes."

Thank you again! I'm tagging @chauceryfairytales , @bebewrites, @ashfordlabs, @borisyvain, @megarywrites, @mjjune, @albatris, @scholarlycoffee and as always, anyone else who wants to be involved! The questions are under the cut, as before.

Are you named after anyone?

When was the last time you cried?

Do you have kids?

Do you use sarcasm a lot?

What’s the first thing you notice about people?

What’s your eye color?

Scary movies or happy endings?

Any special talents?

Where were you born?

Do you have any pets?

What sort of sports do you play?

How tall are you?

What was your favorite subject in school?

What is your dream job?

#anti-chronicles #potentate louis #character interviews #tag games

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burningtacozombie · 1 year

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here’s a few random thoughts about the Mayans premiere:

- first of all, how long since the season 4 finale has it been now at the beginning? I was under the impression it’s been 8 months to a year or something like it, but a few things don’t add up. like, why is Hank still limping? he was shot in the knee in the season 4 premiere, how long has it been? and why is Nestor still a prospect when they already have a new one? did I miss where they mentioned any sort of time frame?

- I would have loved to see the moment Emily comes back home to Miguel and how that “reunion” went. I want to see more of their house, it’s not the same one they lived in before they fled, is it?

- I also want to know how the rest of Miguel and Felipe’s conversation in the (former) butcher shop went, what exactly did Felipe tell, how much of the truth is actually out there now?

- the guy Miguel and Soledad had lunch(?) with talked about how Miguel’s father was a puppet for the government and for a second there I forgot the guy meant José and Soledad looked at Miguel like she knew. also, the way the guy ate visibly disgusted Miguel. and honestly, I wouldn’t have needed that close-up of it either, lol.

- when Felipe and Adelita were talking about telling Angel the truth, did they mean that Adelita is secretly working for the cartel as, idk, a hit woman? or did they mean that Felipe worked with Adelita’s father and knew him well? how would either of those secrets affect their relationship?

- the new Santo Padre guy, Guero, Ibarra’s son, is pretty damn cute, I hope he lives through the season. the cute ones usually never do... rest in peace, Manny.

- and Guero was right about that all female club, the Broken Saints. they’re hot. I’d watch that spin off.

- does Sofia not work at the animal shelter anymore, why’s she at EZ’s place every free minute of the day? she does have a nice singing voice btw.

- what big and dangerous thing is Louie planning to help Letty and Hope get those 13k dollars?

- I’m torn about Alvarez and Izzy having a baby on the way, but TPTB probably didn’t have much of a choice since Patricia was pregnant in real life. I like her so much btw. also Marcus, yell at Santi like that again and I’m personally coming for your ass. let him try on your kutte, it’s only sitting there collecting dust anyway.

- what did that DOJ accountant guy discover in those numbers he calculated? my guess is it has something to do with EZ’s record disappearing from the system, since Potter deleted it in exchange for KJ’s hit. let’s also remember real quick that during that hit not only KJ got killed but Bowen as well, and Potter can still use that as leverage against EZ and Angel. maybe that is what Potter has over Adelita? and even if he’s not a rat anymore, with that it would make EZ still look really good for it now and give the club a reason to finally riot.

- with Cole now being Soledad’s main supplier, my guess for who burnt down the warehouse shifted from Angel to him, and everything carefully masterminded by Potter. wouldn’t it be insane if he’s not with the government anymore at all but has become a king pin and in one strike took over the entire pipeline, while the Mayans and the Sons take each other out of the game on their own?

- generally I liked that there were a lot of funny moments again. we didn’t have jokes and humor in 2 seasons, this season feels like 1 and 2 again, the plot is still heavy and brutal but a lot less depressing. if that makes sense.

some of that sounds dumb, I’m aware, but I’m putting it out there anyway. let’s hear your thoughts.

#danny pino #miguel galindo #sarah bolger #emily galindo #jd pardo #ez reyes #clayton cardenas #angel reyes #andrew jacobs #guero #mayans mc #mayans fx

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maranello · 1 year

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Why is Santander the root of all evil 😗 very curious to know

Sigh. Okay. Just know that I am not un-biased and I am just. tired and fed up fed up with Ferrari F1 shenanigans. Buckle up, kids, this is going to be a long one:

1. In the two periods of Santander's relationship with Ferrari (2010-2017; 2021-current), we have seen a Spanish driver in a Ferrari seat, questionable-at-best management decisions and from the pit wall, the phrase "internal politics" underlie every conversation surrounding why Ferrari has not won another title since 2007/2008, while Red Bull somehow are snagging consecutive titles. Did I mention our cars are not performing well either?

So if I had a nickel. For every time this has happened. I would have two nickels. And two times is not much in the grand scheme of things, but it is in the span of 15 years. Like. 10 out of the 15 years. You know, the very same 15 years since Ferrari last won an F1 title.

I personally think if you have not won a title in 15 years maybe you should stop doing the same things that have not won you a title in those 15 years. 2. Putting the viscerally unsavory flashbacks of longsuffering tifosi and outright conspiracy theories aside, to put it bluntly: Santander Group, a Spanish bank, had been the title sponsor (first period) and is one of the the biggest sponsors (current period) of Scuderia Ferrari F1. When you are such a big sponsor, you have a say in things, and Santander have a vested interest in seeing the Spanish driver they are backing to succeed at Ferrari. Now, whether that is in Scuderia Ferrari's best interests or gives it the best shot at winning anything is a different matter— The board and the management of Ferrari are obligated to contend with what Santander wants. It would be wrong to assume that Santander can single-handedly call the shots in Ferrari as a big sponsor, but it would also be wrong to deny that they can, possibly do, and likely have played a part in the famed internal politics of Scuderia Ferrari in the time(s) that they have been sponsors. 3. It is one thing to say that Silverstone 2022 was "gifted" to Carlos Sainz Jr. But another to highlight what Santander's official account posted under Ferrari's post praising Charles' efforts in the race (after the pit wall royally screwed his race up with a win on the line and more importantly, a championship, mind you, at that point, still to play for):

While we always have to keep in mind that official social media accounts are often just corporate personas and are very deliberate about what they do to get your sympathy and your engagement— What can you possibly gather from a comment like that?

I want to see Scuderia Ferrari consistently challenging for and winning championships again. I want to see decisions being made that support this goal. At that point in 2022, Charles was still our best and realistically only shot. To see a comment being made like that so blatantly on an official account that could (and from a PR standpoint, should've!!!) easily be using corporate teamwork language?

It was hard to give Santander the benefit of the doubt that this partnership, this time, does enough to serve Ferrari in its goals rather than obstruct it. And a large part of that is also on management for not being firm with how much input to take balancing what a sponsor wants and what is good for the team.

4. The bulk of the issues that Ferrari fans have with this whole Santander situation has a lot more to do with Ferrari's internal politics getting in the way of doing what needs to be done on a management level to win - and the way that affects the relationship of Ferrari with other talented drivers, such as Kimi Räikkönen (which this article someone dug up on Twitter from 2012 goes into) and Felipe Massa, whom I need you to remember was not just some almost-world champion of 2008, but was considered one of the very best talents of his generation and groomed to be the heir of Michael at Ferrari in 2006.

This is not a knock at "Santander-backed" drivers or to say they unfairly got their positions and brought nothing to the table. I, for one, have a soft spot for the Fernando Alonso years because he was the first Ferrari driver I actually got to see race in person. He came so close to the title in 2010. And to this day I still have no idea how he was a title contender to the end with that car in 2012. And clearly in the year of our lord 2023, you see he still has that killer drive to get to whatever team it takes that can give him the best shot at winning and still has all the talent in the world + experience as a 2X F1 world champion/Le Mans winner today to back it up. (I would have loved to be watching him race if I could bear to look at Formula 1 this year with how Ferrari is doing.)

Charles Leclerc is, to the tifosi, and I believe to good part of Ferrari itself and many who had been a part of Ferrari, special, though. He is a generational talent. He has grown up through the ranks of Ferrari's own driver academy and is the very first to make it to the works team, in a very short time too. To many of us longsuffering Ferrari fans, it seems that surely, provided he has the right car and a good team in the pits and on the wall, he will bring the championship back to us. If Ferrari cannot win with him, who has been steadfast and loyal even through a rough year like 2020 and has performed nothing short of miracles with a shitbox of a car, then Ferrari's the problem. And the biggest problem being things—whether it is internal politics (largely) or ego (also huge) or plain bad decision making (I don't know how to fix this) or technological development (least of our problems really, Ferrari is capable of producing good cars)—keep getting in the way of Ferrari fixing its problems and winning a goddamn championship.

So, we are at Santander Ferrari 2: Electric Boogaloo. Charles' current 5-year contract is ending in 2024. If, let's just say, poor decision-making from the pit wall at crucial moments costing not just wins but potential championship contention, internal politicking that seem to leave a legendary racing marque completely unable to get out of a 15-years-and-counting deep hole it keeps digging further, technological developments that despite sacrificing seasons for keep missing the regulations and even when it gets marginally right will ultimately be sniped by poor pit wall calls or the FIA & co. anyways, etc., Charles, who has taken the brunt of a lot of blame off the shoulders of the team and repeatedly reiterated his dedication to winning the title with Ferrari, decides to look elsewhere—

Do you see why alarm bells are ringing for Ferrari fans?

I feel that it's just such a misrepresentation to say that all the reaction we have been seeing against Santander are just Charles Leclerc fangirls looking to discredit Carlos Sainz Jr., making up conspiracy theories about "Sainztander," and bullying his fans etc. Santander meddling in Ferrari is not a newly invented narrative nor is it a completely unfounded suspicion by salty fans.

To me, Ferrari will always come first. Ferrari always should come first. So it is great when the interests of big sponsors, drivers, the management, and the team itself all align. It is also incredibly rare. This entanglement with Santander, from 2021 onwards, just increasingly feels like a mistake because it seems that—and I hope to God I am wrong—Ferrari has not learned anything from our first stint with Santander, and it will cost us.

5. So we arrive here: the morning of April 15, 2023.

Lapo Elkann, with his wild eyes and tattoos, colorful personality (and personal history) to match the blazers and pants he wears, has been in a lot of contact with his brother John Elkann, the chosen heir of the Agnelli family of Fiat fortune, recently. After a period of rather unusual quietness on his usually busy Twitter— perhaps coinciding with the various woes that have been falling upon family-owned sports franchises named Juventus FC and Scuderia Ferrari, of which he is an avid and active fan of— Lapo has returned to the public light, tweeting his thoughts on anything that he sees fit, punctuated with pithy uses of CAPITALIZATION and a variegated arsenal of emojis 🔥♥🙏👀.

AND SO, on this fine morning of April 15, 2023— nearly two weeks after a disastrous Australian Grand Prix to forget for Scuderia Ferrari— Lapo Elkann tweeted thus:

Ferrari 🏎️ needs ❤️ Seriousness and [a] Winning Team in the Pits and Outside it's time to WAKE UP enough with politics and games like this WE WILL NEVER WIN ‼️ ‼ ‼ ‼ ‼

Is—

Is that—

Mamma mia.

Here we go agai—

#I am exhausted after writing this.#this is by far not a deep dive receipts account of everything santander might have committed against those of us on ferrari's side #I feel like there probably is a twitter thread somewhere or other blog posts/articles written around the time of Santanderrari Round 1 #but I am too done with all of this same bullshit to go looking #for the things I KNOW will upset me #maranello.ask #I am SICK of the continued argument that only Ferrari has internal politics so convoluted they have become perennial LOSERS #i am SICK of SATANDER #and I am SICK of Ferrari not proving that argument WRONG #just. BE DONE WITH IT.

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garbinge · 9 months

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Wanderlust

Angel Reyes Post Canon Fic (Mentions of OC Isabeth ‘Izzy’ Flores) From these August Prompts: Wanderlust Word Count: 3.1k Warnings: Mayans S5 Full Season/Finale Spoilers!!!!!!!!, mentions of death, blood, loss, angst, bad thoughts, stress, PTSD, just really sad but it does have some hope!

A/N: I… this is a lot and was honestly just flowed out onto the paper and just I have thoughts for more in this post-canon world but for now, this will be a little ode to Angel post series. Mayans Taglist: @drabbles-mc @justreblogginfics @narcolini @danzer8705 @keyweegirlie

It was hard to accept his dreams coming true when it took everything falling apart to get there. It was truthfully even hard to call this a dream when it was just a necessity for a normal and safe life. The peace the beach town of La Paz, Mexico had to offer wasn’t as rewarding as the fight to get here made it seem it would be. For Angel, most of that had to do with the fact that time passed differently now. There was nothing to look forward to anymore now that he was here. There were no visits from grandparents, no visits from uncles, no waking up next to the woman he loved. The goals he once had before were now achieved and alongside of them looking different, he hadn’t had the time or honest want to create new ones. The one thing that kept him going was his son, Maverick. The thought of showing him a world of endless opportunities and making life better solely for him was what let him get out of bed in the morning everyday. On their journey down, he opted to show him where the little boy’s grandparents once lived, where Maverick's mother had grown up, but Angel knew staying in those places would only ultimately leave him in the same cycle. The cycle Angel was on the path to break, because, well, it was his only option now.

Waking up might have been the hardest part of his day. It was ironic because falling asleep was the best. A moment of uninterrupted time where his thoughts weren’t consumed in his brain. He was shocked he didn’t have nightmares about everything, but his mind saved those for the daytime. When he was awake, he could vividly remember everything, every moment, every sound, every look, every feeling. It was why waking up was the hardest, because everything hit him like a pile of bricks the moment his eyes opened. He saw Felipe everyday. He heard EZ everyday. He searched for Luisa everyday.

Not literally, ofcourse. The image of his father being rolled out on a coroner’s gurney was embedded into his brain. The sound of EZ’s last breaths, his last wishes of telling Maverick about him and their mother. And finally, his hand reached for Luisa in his bed every morning as some search for comfort but he was left with emptiness. Once Maverick was up that’s when he was able to push everything aside and do simple everyday things for him. He was currently living off the money Luisa had left in the crib before settling into a job. Settling into employment meant finding someone or somewhere to leave Maverick and he just wasn’t ready for that step. Luckily in Mexico, he could make that money stretch. Their place was cheap, Maverick was still sleeping in a crib so the one bedroom house they stayed in was more than doable. Food was no more than $25 a week between the two of them and that was pending if Angel even had the drive to eat a full meal. Maverick was always taken care of, though. He had tons of his favorite food stored in the fridge and freezer and lots of toys. Angel had taken his Pops truck down, loading it up with the broken down crib, stroller, and height chair, a few bags of their clothes, and that was just about it.

It was early morning, Angel had been awake for a few minutes staring at the ceiling thinking about his brother. The ultimate choice he had to make in stabbing him. Logically he knew there was no out of that situation, but that didn’t stop the ‘what ifs’ from running through his head everyday. The biggest what if that weighed on Angel’s mind was what if he never joined the club. That was what brought them there. Sure, Felipe’s past life had brought violence to them, specifically their mother, but Angel continued it. Maybe if he never joined the club EZ would have gotten out of prison and done something with his life. Again, this was Angel told himself, but he struggled with that just like everything else. If he never joined the club, he never would have met Luisa or had Maverick, EZ probably would have stayed in jail for the full stint with no chance of getting out early. It made Angel think about who EZ was prior to losing their mother, what would have happened if everything was different. If he was a different person, his father was a different person, it ultimately brought him to one thought. Why him? Why was he the only one who got out. That’s usually when the cries of Maverick snapped him out of it as if the universe was giving him the answer.

As Maverick’s voice cooed right on schedule, Angel was quick to get out of bed and grab him from the crib. Angel chatted with the boy, asking him how he slept, what he was hungry for, what he was in the mood to wear. All of those things took up a good couple hours of the morning between bath time and feeding, for the both of them.

Now was the time to take on the beach town of La Paz, he and Maverick had been exploring the last few weeks, taking some time on the few different beaches, enjoying the street art and boardwalks, taking in the marinas, finding some local food spots to indulge in, and today was time to hit downtown.

La Paz was beautiful, the streets were filled with statues, artworks, and markets as you walked along the coast to get downtown where there was just more of everything. Angel had Maverick in his arms as they walked past a bookstore which made him stop and stare into the window.

“You know your Tío EZ loved to read.” Angel looked over at the boy in his arms. “Your grandpa, my dad, had bookshelves in his shop and would constantly be giving new ones to your Tío, I always told ‘em they smelt like meat and maybe there was somewhere better to keep 'em but they enjoyed it.” Angel nodded his head at the memory.

“Maybe we can find you some different books, huh?” Angel looked into the bookstore and noticed it was more of a newsstand with biographies, novels, and stories versus children’s books so he began his search for a library.

Biblioteca Pública para los Niños de La Paz, the words on the secluded building could be seen from a hundred feet away. The building was painted and bright and seemed to be exactly what he was looking for. Maverick was enamored by it, his eyes were glued to the building and his arms extended out to point to it.

Angel let out a laugh, “Alright, little man. Let's go check it out.”

As they entered the building it was a lot fancier than he imagined a library to be, there were different sections despite it being majorly a children's library. They had movies, DVDs, novels but when Angel looked to the left he was met with a huge children’s section. There was a big circular room that he assumed was for events, walls and walls of books, almost never ending and somewhere in the middle of that were couches and play sets. In the midst of all of this there was a big circulation desk that was covered in posters and kids toys and flyers where there was an empty desk chair. Angel assumed someone must’ve been on their break or roaming around the library so he walked past it and let Maverick roam around the play sets.

“Mav, come, look at these.” He called the little boy over to the half shelf of books. Angel sat squatted on the ground at Maverick’s eye level as he pulled books out, there were two that he held onto which Angel assumed they’d be checking out while the others were left on the floor in his path along the shelf. Angel was quick to grab the discarded books and put them back in their proper place as he moved behind his son, making sure that nothing was left out of place.

“Maybe we can find a book that daddy used to read all the time.” Angel started to look at the next shelf over for the book he remembered Marisol reading to him while Maverick plopped down right next to him as if he was waiting for the book.

“Buenas tardes, como los puedo ayudar? ” A woman’s voice caused Angel to startle and turn around immediately. He was such a tall individual that looking up to someone wasn’t usual for him.

“Lo siento,” he let out a chuckle and shook his head as he tried to think straight, “uh, estoy buscando un libro.” He explained in spanish what he was doing.

“Perdoname,” the woman laughed back, “no quise asustarte.” Her eyes were soft as she apologized. “Sabes el nombre del libro?”

Angel thought for a minute. “Uh, si, se–se llama,” Angel closed his eyes as he tried to remember the name, “olvidé el nombre, pero se trata del sol y…” He lost it, it’s like any bit of spanish left his brain when he tried to think of the word he was looking for. “Ah, que es,” he thought to himself now feeling fully embarrassed by his lack of fluency. “Come se dice, un reptilio?” He replaced the word he wanted with a similar synonym.

“A lizard?” The woman spoke her English as clear as day even with her accent.

Angel let out a sigh of relief. “Yea, the book is about a sun and lizard.”

“La Lagartija y el Sol.” She nodded, knowing exactly what book he was referring to.

“Yes!” His eyes lit up. “Sor– Perdoname, si, La Lagartija y el Sol.” He confirmed still stumbling over his words.

“It’s okay, I speak English.” The girl met Angel at eye level as she squatted down and reached across his face to search for the book.

“I’m trying to fit in, act like a local.” He let out a nervous chuckle that made her smile.

“We stick out like sore thumbs.” Her thick accent was littered with humor as she related to him.

“You’re not local?” Angel asked her out of curiosity.

“No, I’m from Mexico but not La Paz. I learned English in the States a few years ago.” She wasn’t willing to give up more specifics but Angel wasn’t one to pry either.

“Any advice on how not to stick out and seem like a local?” He laughed as he adjusted himself to stand up.

“No one cares here, everyone minds their business, it’s why I enjoy living here.” She stopped dragging her finger along the books as she found the one she was looking for and pulled it out by its spine. “La Lagartija y el Sol.”

“Thank you, I think he’s gonna like this one.” Angel pointed to his son who was sitting on the couch mindlessly going through the few books that he had grabbed himself.

“It is about perseverance and bravery, two traits you’ll need if you want to try and fit in as a local.” She teased. “The book is bilingual, also. Might help both of you.”

“Good to know, ironically, my mom used to read me the bilingual version and well, you’ve seen how well that worked out.” He was now standing with the book in his hand.

“Takes perseverance.” She smirked. “Let me know if you need any more help.” And with that, she was moving back behind the children’s circulation desk.

Angel stayed with Maverick in between the two shorter shelves where the playsets were, letting the boy enjoy the toys and time out of the house. They picked out a couple DVDs too in addition to the 3 books in his hands, just trying to think of ways to pass the time back at home. About an hour and a half had passed and Angel decided it was time to leave to grab some lunch and maybe head to the marina so he began to approach the childrens desk with Maverick in one arm and the things he planned to check out in the other.

The same woman came out from the back office and smiled as she situated back in her seat at the computer that was likely from the early 2000s.

“Do you have a card with us already?” She looked up at him before taking the movies and books off the part of the desk that was raised to be more of an appropriate height for those standing on the opposite side of it.

“No, I’d have to sign up for one if that’s not a big deal?” His tone had a little apprehension in it.

“Nope, just need to get some info from you.” She began clicking things on the computer and then asking him questions. “Need a name, address, and some form of ID.”

Angel froze for a minute, he wasn’t exactly sure what he felt comfortable giving up information wise. He was well aware that this was some random woman at the library and not the cartel or even a police officer but it just felt nerve wracking.

“Um, do I need to give all that information?” He stood awkwardly as he re-situated Maverick on his side.

The woman looked up at him and immediately understood. “I can make it work with just a name.” She agreed. “I just need you to promise you’re going to return those items in 3 weeks because if not it’s my paycheck the replacements come out of.” Her face was soft when she spoke.

“Promise. You can put the card under Angel Reyes.” He leaned over to see what she put into the system.

After a few minutes she took out a card and scanned it before placing it on the table in front of him. “If you have any trouble just ask for me and I’ll take care of it. I put the address in as my own.”

Angel was speechless for a minute before he spoke up. “Thanks, I didn’t mean to have to have you–” she cut him off before he finished speaking.

“It’s okay, I get it.” Her eyes moved to Maverick, who was beginning to fall asleep in Angel’s arms, and then back to Angel’s eyes before grabbing his things to check him out. After scanning all the items and placing them in a bag she moved to go grab something on the other side of the desk. “Also,” she twirled in the chair. “I pulled this for you. I think you and your son would enjoy it.”

La Frontera: El Viaje con Papá - A Journey with Papa.

Angel stared at the book for a minute with a smile on his face.

“You know, I always wanted to travel. I had dreams about it. Going all these different places. I went to some but like I wanted to see things my family saw, see things they didn’t, just have the world at my disposal, right?” He was staring down at the book, holding it in his hand, wiping his tumb across the cover. “But now I just don’t feel that way anymore.” He put the book down on the table and snapped himself out of his thoughts. “Sorry,” his head shook. “I didn’t mean to unload, I don’t get to talk to many people that aren’t above the age of 2.”

The woman smiled, “You know, sometimes that feeling of wanderlust is your gut telling you that you are not in the right place.” Her shoulders shrugged like what she said didn’t hold a heavy weight to Angel’s ears. There was a moment where he just took in those words before she spoke up again. “Maybe you’re just finally in the right place.”

She had gone back to doing something, not paying Angel any attention as he slowly put the book in the bag. Maybe it was true, he was in the right place, he had finally escaped all the violence, the stress, the uneasiness, and he could feel free. That still didn’t come without punishment. The thought of feeling free reminded him that his brother, father, and mother died being stuck. The images of his mother on the floor of the shop followed by his father on the gurney and his brother on the floor of the Mayan clubhouse rotted his brain. Repetitive words of the things they said throughout their lifetime haunting Angel. How could he be free when he felt so chained to their memory.

“Are you okay?” The woman’s voice snapped Angel out of his thoughts.

“Si, Yes, Gracias, seriously for all your help.” Angel started stepping away now.

“You are welcome, Angel.” She smiled and went back to her work before looking up when Angel stuttered after wishing her a good day but realizing he had no idea what her name was.

“Isabeth–Isa.”

Angel stood there frozen again and repeated her name. “Isa?” The woman’s head nodded and she looked at him confused.

“Is there something wrong with that?” She let out a nervous laugh.

“I’m sorry, that was sort of my mom’s name.” He closed his eyes with a smile.

“Sort of?” She twisted her head and met him with the same smile.

“Yea, sort of–it’s complicated.” He chuckled back.

“Well to make it more complicated, you can call me Izzy. That’s what my friends in the states used to call me, I kind of miss it.”

“How’d you know I was from the states?” He asked curiously, a look that didn’t last long as she gave him a knowing look and tried to hold in her laugh. “Fair enough, Izzy it is.” He nodded and with that he left the library with a feeling of content.

It was nice to finally have a conversation with someone that held some sort of mature value, despite the fact that it brought Angel some of his darkest thoughts, but he would have had those regardless, at least this time he was offered some solace. Maybe he was finally in the right place, maybe this is where Maverick needed to be, where he needed to be. Perhaps it was everyone he lost that guided him to this spot simply because it was the right place. Maybe wanderlust didn’t need to be about huge travel but just roaming around your own space, your mind even, finding one place of peace and calmness where all the bad things weren’t allowed to go. That was what Angel’s next adventure would hold, wanderlust of his mind, a place where all his demons and nightmares weren’t allowed, and just peace and tranquility could be found.

#Angel Reyes #Angel Reyes fic #Angel Reyes x OC #Angel Reyes Fanfic #Angel Reyes Fanfiction #Mayans MC #Mayans FX #Mayans MC Post Canon #Mayans MC Fanfic #Mayans MC Fanfiction

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formulawrite · 2 years

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Romantic Gateway // F.D.

Summary: Felipe has a different idea of romance than his girlfriend

Warnings: None

"I can't believe you just said that" he said almost offended

"It's a fact, Paris is more romantic than Venice" i shrugged

Felipe and I were having dinner at the restaurant at his hotel, summer break was around the corner and we were planning a romantic getaway for a week, but of course we turned into a competition

"Paris is not that great, Is too crowded, the food is not that great, and i don't speak french" he pointed at me with his fork

"yes it has it's down side like everything does, and i also don't speak italian but i still go to your house there." I said finishing my wine “but please tell me a more romantic scenario than dinner on top the Eiffel Tower with the view of the entire city lights."

"a nice lunch by the Italian shore, the best gelato in town, boat ride down the canal, then i'll take you back to our hotel room and..." he started to whisper on my ear

"okay let me stop you there cause i’m terrified of that boat thing, plus we both know i'll say i'm not going to eat to much ice cream but then i eat too much ice cream and feel too stuffed to do anything else"

we start to get up heading to the elevators

"it's not ice cream is gelato"

"same thing" I leaned against the room door as we reached the floor

"it really isn't"

"fine, but i still had a better time in Paris one time I’ve been there than every single Venice visit" I said throwing myself in his bed his room

"It’s not the place babe is the person, speaking of... who took you to such an incredible romantic journey in Paris that anything else sounds dreadful?" he sat next to me

"babe don't start"

"i'm not starting anything, i just want to know who turned you into number one Paris public defense attorney."

I close my eyes thinking if i should tell him

"...Lando. When we first started dating."

"really? the ex that broke up with you over an instagram dm on your finals week? really?"

I shouldn’t have told him, i roll my eyes starting to get up but he pulls me back to the bed

"no no no i'm sorry i'm just messing with you" laughing and caresses his thumb on my cheek "ok how about we meet halfway and do both."

"you want to go to Paris and Venice?" raising my eyebrows

"yes" he shrugged “why not?”

"can't we just go somewhere else? like Portugal? Greece? or Brasil? you're already going there i could join" i was whining, there’s no way i’m packing a bag three times

"i'm going on a business lecture for my sponsor and São paulo is not romantic, c'mon i'm sure we can do both in a week"

"if you were born 3 days earlier we wouldn't be having this conversation" this time i managed to get up and get my washbag for a shower

"Not everything has to do with me being a gemini, i promise i'll plan everything to perfection"

"fine, but if it's not romantic we're breaking up"

"yes ma’m"

I stop before entering the bathroom

"this has nothing to do with you wanting to outdo whatever happened in my trip with Lando right?"

"c'mon do you really think i'm that competitive?" he responded trying to sound innocent

"you just turned this conversation into a competition love" I shouted already inside the room

"you started" he shouted back

...

"wow"

He really wasn’t kidding when he said perfection, the hotel was amazing with a breathtaking view to the ocean

"i told you, it's not the place it's the person" he was putting our luggage around the room “but the place does help”

"it was one wow because we have a nice view, i'm not sold yet" turning around to wrap my arms around his neck

"you will be by the end of the night" he wrapped his around my waist

"you seem confident"

"i am, i prepared the perfect date for my perfect date"

"you're so cheesy" i smiled giving him a quick kiss "i love you"

"I love you too, we have a few hours until our reservation at the reastaurant maybe we can take a bath and relax a little"

"we?" i raised my eyebrows at his suggestion

"i only said we should have a bath, you're the one with the dirty mind here" walking me to the bathroom

...

He was right, the dinner was perfect, candle light by the shore, the walk to the gelateria was even better, the simple street lights illuminating the cobble stone street, we talked and laughed about stupid things while Felipe walked with his arm around my shoulder the whole path kissing my forehead from time to time. it really was perfect.

"oh my god"

He was right again, gelato and ice cream are very different things

"i know, you should start listening to me a bit more"

he laugh as I punched him on the arm

"you ruined me for ice cream for life"

I was suddenly startled by a voice next to me

"un bel fiore per una bella ragazza?"*

the man who approached us was holding a basket with roses offering me one, i looked at Felipe for help, i had no idea what this man just said. he started to get his wallet chuckling at my expression

"la sua bellezza merita un intero campo di fiori, forse glielo regalerò un giorno."** handing him some money and taking the rose "grazie" the man left nodding with his head at us and walking to next couple sitting a few table from us.

"what was that about?"

"nothing, just agreeing how beautiful you are" he said smiling and handing me the flower.

we left the shop and sat at a bench near the pier with my head in his shoulder while he caressed my arm. it was silent. comfortable silence. i could spend the rest if my life like this.

"you were right, this was perfect"

"i'm glad you like princesa" I smiled, i always do when he calls me that "i like seeing you smiling like that"

"i like it when you make me smiled like that" i reached for his lips

"i was thinking... maybe we don't need to go to Paris... maybe we could stay here a bit more" i looked at him with hope

"we can stay here the whole month if you ask me" he said burying his face on my neck

"now that's a little dramatic"

"not if it's true"

"how about we go back to the hotel and finish what we started in the bath" I got up pushing him with me to press his body against mine

"i never been more in love with you" we kissed before he practically dragged me to find a cab

Guess Venice is not that bad after all

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* - a beautiful flower for a beautiful girl

** - her beauty deserves a whole field of flowers, maybe i'll give her that some day, thank you

#Felipe Drugovich #felipe drugovich fic #f2 #f2 fic

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the-dance-of-italy · 3 months

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Ok you all asked for it:

(Well one person did so far)

For all porpouses, im naming mine The Last Testament or TLT, and it's something if a reincarnation AU.

anyway, here's the ideas/HCs or whatever:

Jésus 🇵🇸 🇲🇽:[Still woking on Him]

-One of his parents is a refugee from Palestine into Mexico (Im respecting that fact abt him on account of the aprox. 13,000 refugees living in Mexico) (Haven't decided who tho, probably Miriam)

-Lives in Mexico City...kinda. Isn't really from there. (will elaborate later).

-Has a Pitbull he rescued named Angel

-Likes cumbias, bolero and regional. Is neutral abt banda. Hates corridos. (Music genres)

-Trans FTM and AceAro.

-Works at his parents artisan shop making traditional crafts based on both cultures.

-Went to college for psychology, then dropped out almost two semesters before graduating.

-Autistic and has ADHD. -Artisan / Gaphic Designer. Went to college for political studies and psychology, but dopped out. -Does Gaffiti with Tadeo and Juan often. -Meeting the guy who's supposd to be the antichrist is like a doppelganger sitation for him. -Meets his heavenly parent during a weed trip.

Tadeo (Thaddeus) 🇲🇽: [Woking on him]

-Also lives in Mexico City.

-Has worked both as a taxi driver and as a microbus driver.

-Is a Chivas fan (football soccer team).

-Obv believes quesadillas don't have to contain cheese in them. [Wrong, but he's from the capital so ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯].

- Definitely has gotten into heated arguments with Jesús abt it.

- Loves cumbias and rap. Doesn't like banda too much. Hates corridos of all types.

- Definitely a cholo. -Owns a volkswagen beetle. -Has a torta and taco food stand.

Simon P 🇰🇷🇬🇷 (lives in 🇺🇸):

-Works as a butcher or has a fish shop (haven't decided)

-Didn't go to college because he had a child at 19 (almost after highschool graduation. He did love his wife very much despite marrying so young and both still inmature then.

-Becomes a widower after she dies in a fire.

-They had 3 kids that he is left alone to raise.

-Currently 28 y/o and third eldest of the group.

-Very conservative until his eldest child tried to come out to him as trans. Didn't go well at first, with him believing someone put ideas in their head.

-Meets Jesús in a forum online asking fo help about his kid. J' is the one who knocks some sense into him.

Andrew 🇬🇷🇰🇷 (Lives in 🇺🇸):[Still woking on Him]

-23 y/o studying to become an obstetrician, since their mother died giving birth to him, due to a doctor's malpractice.

-Learned about reproductive rights after meeting Juan and Jesús in a forum.

-Closeted gay because of Simon.

Felipe (Philip) 🇪🇸:[Woking on him]

-Runs a bakery with his family in Barcelona. -Besties with Nathaniel

Nathaniel Bartholomew 🇵🇭:[Woking on him]

-Neurologist -Meets Felipe in Spain after going to study abroad there

Thomas 🇮🇳 (Lives in 🇺🇸) : [Woking on him]

- Architect. -Is studying abroad in LA -Has a drug addiction problem - Meeting Jay makes it slightly worse. -His best friend is Lil' James.

Mateo (Matthew) 🇨🇱 (Lives in 🇺🇸): [Woking on him]

-Autistic

-Used to work in border patrol.

'Zi' (Simon Zee) 🇧🇷: [Woking on him]

- They all call him that on account of his name being Simon and the zi in Brazil. -Has Vitiligo

Mary (Magdalene) 🇦🇫🇺🇲: [working on her]

- Drag queen or Trans Woman (Haven't decided, fuck it, why not both)

- Parents disowned her after coming out and kicked her out at 16 y/o.

-Became friends with Jay after meeting him at a shelter. Worked odd jobs with him until they could afford an apartment together.

-Works in the same bar as him.

Jay (Judas)🇪🇬🇺🇸: [Woking on him]

-Went to college for political studies, dropped one semester before graduation and switched to psychology. Dropped two semesters in and switched to Art.

-Has a black cat named Baphy. (Yep, edgy motherfucker.)

-Works at a local gay bar near his neighborhood.

-His parents disowned him after he came out as Gay. Later he discovered he's Pansexual.

-Used to be a sex worker. Sometimes still does it even though he doesn't need to anymore.

- Listens to 80's and 90's music the most. Likes MJ, Bowie, Twisted Sister, Queen, ABBA and Elton John... -Doesn't know what to do with his life -Puts others peoples needs before his own. Cant say no to others. -Great at math, good at administrating money. Actually ends up buying the bar he worked at (with illicit money).

L. James 🇺🇸: [Woking on him]

-Is a Oncologist.

Sean (John) 🇮🇪 : [Woking on him] -Immature -Doesn't know what to do with his life. -younger brother. -Does mostly wheatpaste and sticker art

B. James🇮🇪: [Woking on him] -Punk -Friends call him Jay. Closest friends call him shaggy. -Always starting ending fights with the police -Has moderate alcoholism. -Does gaffiti and wheatpaste.

Juan (John TB) 🇵🇷 🇲🇽: [Still woking on him]

-Obv. Jesús' cousin.

- Left home to backpack travel around Latin America [refuses to go to Europe or the United States, but would love to visit Asia and Africa. Terrified of Australia.]

-Has dreadlocks and they're incredibly well taken care of despite traveling without much rest.

-Meets Andrew and Felipe during a spring break vacation in Colombia. (Already knew Andrew through the forum but didn't know it was him until they met there).

-Vegan probably. -Get's kidnapped by a cartel after messing someone's bussiness. He get's brutaly murdered afterwards by them to get rid of him. Eleazar (Lazarus) 🇺🇸/?? : ryu -Has and incurable illness. -Is always hospitalized, if he's dispached for a while, he's in a wheelchair.

#my writings #i guess #bible fandom #jesus fandom #man idk I'll update as i go...

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myimaginarywonderland · 1 year

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Hello people it's me. After struggling how to do this, here's finally how I am uploading my post about Lance's F1 career.

I decided to hit you guys with the qualy comparisons of him and his teammates first and foremost. It's just data where I highlight the Qualifyings he did better in but I thought it would be nice to see how far of he actually was.

Before going into my very long rant (about 8000 words) that I tried to keep as objective as possible I do want to note that of course there will be personal opinions and comments throughout as I am also just human and a fan as well. And with that note, let's dive in

Lance Stroll's journey to F1 and the question of why he is probably one of the most underrated drivers on the current grid

Lance career began in 2008 when he first started carting. During 2008 and 2009 he won multiple championships in the Canadian junior category. 2010 saw him winning the Rotax Mini Max of the Florida winter Tour. In that same year he was signed on by the Ferrari driver academy. Considering he was only 11 at the time and had basically only just started carting, that was a huge deal. Yes not every signed driver by Ferrari makes it blah blah but they made it very clear that they saw potential in him and wanted him to be racing in Europe for them. So, 2011 saw Lance first time competing in European championships. In one of those he was 9th for example. The just mentioned WSK-Euro Series in KF3 saw some familiar drivers such as the winner, Max Verstappen. Some other names that might sound family for example P2 would be Esteban Ocon or George Russell in P7.

2012 and 2013 saw him once again in many carting championships before he started Formula racing in 2014. He competed in the Florida Winter series where he got a pole and two podiums once again up against Max and drivers such as Tatiana Calderón or Antonio Fuoco. But most importantly from that year, he won the Italian F4 championship by nearly a hundred points. 2015 saw him competing in the European F3 championship where he finished 5th after the following drivers (all names many of you will be family with): Jake Dennis, Charles Leclerc, Felix Rosenquvist and Antonio Giovinazzi. That same year also saw him finishing 8th in the Macau GP behind once again driver such as Charles Leclerc and Felix Rosenquivst. He also in that year won the Toyota racing series by over a hundred points. This year he also left the Ferrari driver program and joined the Williams academy. He became their development driver for 2016.

In 2016 he once again competed in the F3 to this time win it by a nearly 200 point advantage. P2 saw Maximilian Günther and P3 was none other than George Russell. He also raced the Daytona 24 Hours where his team finished 5th overall.

Before we move on F1, I do feel the need to address something that has been brought up multiple times. The rumours that Lance had a better car because his father was rich, that his team-mates never had a chance etc. I think that is complete bullshit and frankly manly used to underline his talent. Even with the best car, the worst driver would do something wrong. Sure you can call him mid but considering the huge gap he had in his second year, I think it's fair to say he had talent in him. Also the fact that Felix regularly comments on Lance posts does not seem like there is any bad will against him. Yes, he had better equipment etc. to win but the way he wrapped up the season still speaks to his talent.

2017- The start of it all

Lance started his F1 career in 2017 with Williams. His team mate then was Felipe Massa. This was a huge leap considering Lance short experience with Formula racing and it was understandably questioned. Nonetheless 2017 saw him starting alongside Felipe who jumped into that seat after Val signed with Mercedes following Nico's retirement. I think it is also noteworthy to mention here that in 2016 he already was a development driver for them so there was always the probability for him to drive. I personally think he could and should have done another year in Formula racing (F2) but that is my own opinion. What people however also seem to forget is that will it might have been to early for him in F1, he did have a bit of experience as the Williams development driver. And considering that they had just lost Val who looked like one of the youngest and most promising drivers on that grid, it made sense for them to search for another young driver for their team.

He made his depute in the Australian GP. During that third free practice, he crashed as he was going too fast which then resulted in him having a penalty (he qualified last.) At the race start he gained about 7 places before he had brake issues and had to retire the car. His second race saw him qualifying tenth but immediately taken out on the first lap by Sergio (could be argued for a race incident but I think there's more blame on Perez.)

Now, his third race same him time wise qualify closer to his team mate but only in 12th place. In the race he flat spotted his tyre and did an early pitstop before his collision with Sainz. (Sainz came out of the pit lane very quick and just dive bombed into him. He was behind even after exiting the pit lane so Sainz should have waited for Lance to drive past.)

Russia finally saw a turn around in his luck. He once again qualified 12th and finished the race in P11. His fifth race after that saw him just mere 3 tenth off his team mate but sadly out in Q1 and overall he finished P16.

Monaco saw him crash out in FP2 and qualify 18th. He got up to 15th and then later in the race had to retire because of overheating brakes. Luck once again not on his side.

Canada finally saw a change when he not only qualified 7th but managed to come 9th in the race. He finally scored his first points in his home race.

Then Azerbaijan happened and for the first time ever Lance out-qualified his team mate and got 8th. But that is nothing compared to the drive he managed to pull off in that race. He wasn't the quickest but he once again proved that sometimes just consistently driving is enough to get into a good position and then profit from it. Many of the top teams drivers dropped out due to penalties or problems but that doesn't discredit Lance consistent drive in the top 10 which managed to get him a podium spot. Incredible how he managed to keep a gap and his place and only just missed out because of Val in the last corners. If not for that he would have gotten P2. A great race from him.

Next race once again not a great Qualifying in P18 but still managed P10. The first two laps saw Lance move up to P11 and then hang around that most of the race.

Next race he qualified 16h (penalty moving him up 1 place) and dropped to 16th .

The next race he qualified 17th and finished 14th. His qualifying was hindered by Kvyat.

After that he got once again unlucky and because off a damaged rear wing was only able to set one lap which meant he qualified 18th and finished just outside the points in 11th.

Then, something I feel like many people also don't know, Lance started the next race as the youngest driver ever on the front row (he originally qualified only 4th but penalties of both RedBull drivers put him up to second place.) During that entire qualifying he was only slightly off from the top 3 teams. Did he drop back during the race? Yes, he only finished 7th but you have to consider that his car did not have the race pace to compete with any of the three top teams and he wasn't even in the best midfield car. Side note, this was a wet qualifying and just behind him was Esteban. Funnily enough that changed in the race where he and Esteban where the best mid field drivers behind the top teams.

The next race yet again saw him qualify 18th and yet he finished the race in 8th. A chaotic race with many DNFs saw Williams massively profit, especially Lance. After that the following race saw him qualify 13th and once again finish 8th.

After that another qualifying in 18th. That race saw Lance up to 11th before he sadly went off and then seemed to struggle with the car. After that he ultimately failed to finish as a result of a puncture on his front wheel.

In the US GP he qualified 17th as a result of a penalty for him hindering Romain. The race saw him finish 11th, just outside of the points. Mexico saw him qualify 12th and finish in 6th. A great race from him where he was in the top 5 until Seb overtook him.

After that he once again qualified 18th and finished 16th. He was two laps down after a problem with a front tyre. The last race saw him qualifying 15th and he finished 18th .

Another incident that many like to blame him for here is the post-race crash with Seb. Bizarre but truly only because it seems like neither is really fully at fault. Also, if this is one of the only things you can use against a driver, maybe you might want to reconsider if he truly is such a bad driver. Anyways, I still put a video here for anyone that is interested. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRAN9pzdwsw

So, what does that mean for his first F1 season?

Well, his qualifying besides Imola you could argue was lacking pace and I absolutely will agree that it was bad. Then again what would you expect in someone's first F1 season, especially when up against a solid driver like Massa? Still, his qualifying definitely should have been better, I will agree. He was too inconsistent and too far off. In comparison to Massa he seemingly could make up places more easily though. All of the negatives are clearly overshadowed by the fact that in his first F1 season he was only 3 points behind his team-mate with double the amount of DNFs.

Not to mention that he not only is one of the youngest podium sitters but he is also the youngest front row starter (All in his first season.)

He had 4 DNFs of which he was not at fault for anyone of those (maybe in the racing incident but then again I see the blame more at Perez side than anyone else’s.) Yes he had about 3 free practices were he crashed then again he is was a rookie. Sure it's not great but accidents like that happen especially when you are not only new to the car but the entire form of racing.

So, all in all if you look at his statistics:

For his first season he managed a podium, a front row start and 6 points finishes in maybe the 6th best car? He finished just three points behind his team-mate in 12th (with 40 points) in the overall standing. His average Qualifying position was 14 and his average race finish was 11th.

Considering he had no F1 experience, had only been racing in Formula championships for 3 years at that point and was up against Felipe Massa who is still regarded very highly, I would say he did quiet al-right.

If anyone is interested in his DNFs, so you can form your own opinion:

Sadly I can't find a video of his first incident but the race is easy to find.

Here is him and Perez https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka11N-hLshE

Here is a video of him and Sainz colliding https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDNGfCTpJpQ

This was in China where he had a puncture on his front wheel (Also he could barely avoid Daniel since it is hard to steer when your wheel is like that yet he still managed to not make it into a big incident which I think deserves some credit)

https://www.facebook.com/Formula1/videos/japan- 2017-lance-strolls-puncture/907887256034924/

2018- a season to forget

Now in 2018, without a doubt there was a huge step back which is because that car was truly not it. I would say it was the worst car on the grid, therefore you should take these results as the lest credible. That Williams wasn't predictable in many ways and you could probably name this as the season the team went downhill. With Sergey as a new teammate and Lance only a year in F1, there also was the problem with having inexperienced drivers to give feedback for that car and lead the team.

In the opening race he qualified 14th and finished in that same position. After that he qualified 20th and finished 14th again. China saw him 18th and once again finish 14th .

Then he just merely missed out on 10th and qualified 11th and somehow managed to get into the points at 8th. I should mention however that this race saw may DNFs but I think he still did a good job with that car.

Spain saw him 19th but he managed to finish 11th in that race. Again capitalizing from DNF but still impressive considering he qualified behind his teammate. His bad qualifying continued with 18th and saw him finish in 17th .

Sadly at his home race it wasn't much better with a 17th place and DNF after a collision with Brendon Hartley. France saw him qualify last again and DNF as a result of a tyre blow out.

After that he finally managed to get into Q2 again, qualifying 15th and finishing in 14th , getting a 10-second penalty for ignoring blue flags.

In Great Britain Lance had to start from the pit lane because parts of his car were changed and still managed to finish 12th. Once again he was able to profit from some unfortunate DNFs but still a good drive.

In the 11th race he qualified 19th and once again had a DNF as a result of a problem with his brakes (They retired the car during a safety car period).

The next race saw him qualify 15th but start from the pit lane due to changes under Parc-fermé which meant he only finished 17th. Spa saw him qualify 19th again and finish 13th.

Monza finally brought good results in a 10th place in Qualy and a 9th place finish. He was nearly the best of the rest in a car that somehow just seemed to work on that track. Probably his best race of that season. A great drive.

After that he qualified 20h again and finished 14th. Once again making up places and outplacing his teammate.

Russia saw him last in Qualifying and 15th in the race. Then he qualified 14th and finished 17th.

The US GP saw him qualify 18th and finish 14th. Qualifying in Mexico saw Lance 19th again but he finished the race in 12th.

That picture didn't really change much in Brazil where he once again was 19th and finished 18th. And the season didn't really end on a high. Qualifying last and finishing in 13th.

So, how can we sum this up?

Well, even though this season was arguably his worst he still somehow got 6 points which is 5 more than his team mate Sergei Sirotkin. While his Qualifying still was lacking(an average of 17), it is still impressive that with that car he managed to have an average race finishing position of 13th. It is also notable that he was often times making up at least 3 places in his races where he finished higher which given the struggle that car seemed to be is worthy of noting. In comparison to his team-mate it is clear that Lance struggles in Qualy but consistently finishes in a similar position.

Out of the two of them he also managed to get multiple points finishes even though he qualified further back, something which I would argue is a strength of him. Yes most of their points finishes were as a result of the others misfortune but still, they had to capitalize during these races and most of that did come from Lance. Also, quiet a bit of Qualy saw him closer to his teammate.

Here's the DNFs for anyone that is interested:

Canada was arguably the biggest one where I understand why people might blame Lance but seeing how unpredictable that oversteer was and how he struggled with the car I would say it was more a racing incident than anything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwPn_GCa3mU

The tyre blow out in France https://twitter.com/F1/status/1010997824928878592

There isn't anything about Germany but watching the race you will see them retire the car towards the end.

2019- a season of change

Lance went to Racing Point and now has Sergio Perez as his team mate. Obviously with Lawrence buying RP and saving that team as well as Esteban losing his seat, Lance was not at all well received and already was guaranteed to be heavily judged, more so than what would have likely been fair. While I do get that point of Esteban losing his seat, I would also argue that the team of Sergio and Esteban was clearly not working and would have in the long run probably cost that team more points than they liked so I think there also is a tactical reason behind it.

In Australia he qualifies 16th but what people don't remember is that in Q1 he and Checo were only separated by less than a tenth of a second. That race sees Lance finishing 9th. After managing his tyres longer than Perez he managed to stay in the top 10,even closing in to 8th while having to keep others behind.

The second race of the season sees Lance qualifying 18th and finishing 14th. Next race Lance qualifies 16th and finished 12th.

The fourth race sees Lance qualify 16th and finishing 9th. He made up a flew places and was even closing in at the end.

Spain sees Lance qualify 17th and not finishing after coming together with Lando.

The next race saw Lance qualifying 18th just behind Sergio and ultimately finishing 16th.

Lance home race once again sees him qualify 18th just under a tenth behind Sergio. He manages to finish in 9th place. Just going to add this little video that quickly shows some of the moves he made . A great race for him.

https://www.facebook.com/Formula1/videos/canada-2019-stroll-puts-on-a-show-for-his-home- fans/824107727965322/

The 8th race sees him in 18th but he manages to finish the race in 13th, just a place behind Sergio.

Austria once again sees Lance just a tenth behind Sergio in 17th and that race he finishes in 14th.

Something very similar happens the next race when Lance is just about a tenth of Sergio and qualifies 18th. That race he finishes 13th.

The German GP sees Lance finally in Q2 in 15th place. That race he comes 4th. An incredible drive to the surprise of many considering this is a wet race where a lot of drivers got themselves out of podium positions. Yes he was leading that race for a short while and was potentially on for a podium but I don't think there is any way he could have beaten that Ferrari or RedBull/Toro Rosso package who just seemed more dominant. Yeah sure you could argue what would have happened but the fact was, Racing Point made the smartest decision that race and got the maximum points thanks to Lance driving.

After that great race he qualifies 19th and finishes 17th.

In Belgium he qualifies 13th but due to changes of car parts starts from the back. Despite that he still finishes that race in 10th place.

The next race he finally manages to outqualify Sergio by quiet a margin and gets himself into Q3 and 9th place. Sadly he drops back to 12th in the race.

In Singapore he once again is less than a tenth behind Sergio in Q1 but sadly only manages P16.

During that race he gets up to 13th place.

Russia sees him P15 (P14 after a penalty for Pierre) and then up to P11. He just missed out on points.

In Japan he once again outqualifies Sergio and get P12, managing to climb up to P9. He finished just behind Checo.

Mexico saw him 16th and getting up to 12th.

In the US GP Lance once again by a huge margin manages to outqualify Sergio and gets 14th place.

In the race he finishes 13th. In Brazil he qualifies 17th and DNFs. The last race sees him qualify 13th and sadly not finishing.

This was an incident at Monza that many like to use against Lance where Seb clearly rejoins the track in an unsafe manner causing Lance to nearly crash. Lance does it similarly and I agree that it was stupid from him but also Lance clearly was on the racing line and his engineers should have told him who was coming from behind as every driver would want to go back into the race and away from the racing line. You can clearly see by the speed of the cars behind that the field was close together. Still not a good manoeuvre from Lance but in my opinion different from Seb.

https://www.facebook.com/Formula1/videos/2019-italian-grand-prix-vettel-and-stroll-collide-at- monza/269709670687851/

So what can we say about Lance's season?

I think he showed a step up in Qualy. If you look at his and Checo's times in most Q1s they were often less than 3 tenths apart and they were times when Lance was even less than a tenth off. I think he was still inconsistent but his Qualifying definitely improved. And I think the big points gap is largely down to Lance qualifying further back. You can see that there are quiet a few races where they made up the same places but because Lance qualified further back so he got less points.

Then again you have to question how much of their points or performance difference might be down to Checo having been with the team for a longer time and being a more experienced driver.

Did he outperform the car? Did Lance underperform? I think you can see progress here from Lance and I think many people misjudge their points difference. You also have to see that Lance in that year could have gotten a podium and scored the teams highest result. If you round their averages, Lance qualifies 15/16th place and finishes 12 while Sergio qualifies around 12/13th place and has an average finish of 10th .

Here's the DNFs for anyone that wants to check them out:

This is Lance and Lando. Honestly, for me a pure racing incident. Lance didn't expect Lando to make a move there, Lando might have been a bit too enthusiastic with that manoeuvre. I wouldn't put blame on one of them, just a simply misjudgement and miscommunication that cost both of them the race.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.spanish-gp-norris-stroll-clash-brings-out-

the-safety-car.6060938080001.html

In Brazil he ran over debrief and as a result of that might have broken his front suspension.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.brazilian-gp-stroll-retires-with-front-suspension-damage.1687522499774886264.html

In Abu Dhabi there is firstly a first lap incident which damages his car. I can see fault on his part but I also think that this is just a typical first lap incident that is unfortunate. I couldn't exactly find a clip where it shows him retiring but ultimately a brake issue forced him to retire.

2020 and the story of what could have been

Oh 2020 my behated. Lance is still with Racing Point and still has Sergio as a team mate.

The first race saw him qualify 9th and than immediately out of the race. He had to retire with engine issues and could have possibly scored points had that not happened (he would have likely been P8 or P9.) The next race saw qualify 13th and finish 7th just behind Sergio. An incredible drive that saw him defending his position until the line quiet literally.

Hungary saw him start from P3, an incredible Qualifying and finish P4, just behind the Mercedes and Max. He was basically a top driver during that weekend. There was no better result to achieve.

The British GP after that ended with him in P9 after starting P6.

In the Anniversary GP he started P6 and finished in P6.

The sixth race saw him start from P5 and finish in P4. Once again being the best outside of the expected top 3.

It continued so well with a start and finish of P9 in Spa.

It got even better when Monza came and Lance managed P3 after starting P8. Yes, he did throw away a potential win but I am certain that he would have been overtaken by Sainz anyway because he had more speed that weekend with the McLaren package so I don't think he could have ever finished higher than P2.

And then it went downhill with Mugello, kick-starting the “What ifs”. From P6 (he moved up after Perez took a penalty) to a DNF. A puncture sent him to the barriers possibly costing him a podium.

Before going off he was P4 chasing P3. At the very least he would have gotten a P5 finish.

Next up was Russia where Lance qualified 13th. When I say it starts to go downhill, I mean it. He was fighting for P11/P12 and then got taken out by Charles. I am certain he would have at least got P10 if he hadn't crashed out, potentially even up to P8.

The next race Lance misses out because of Covid so on to Portugal we go. He qualified 12th, not bad. Then of course there is the incident with Lando which for me personally was a racing incident but I can see the blame on Lance. It was an ambitious move, some might cool it reckless but so many people would be praising any other driver if that had worked. It ultimately resulted in him having to retire because of that damage.

Next up was Imola where Lance started 15th and finished 13th. Due to contact with Esteban during the first lap he had to pit early and that basically ruined any chance he had at the race.

And then Turkey happened. The heartbreak and elation that weekend inspired. First off all, if anyone tries to discredit Lance Pole as anything other than possibly one of the greatest Qualifying results in the last years I am smashing their heads with a hammer. Yes that Racing Point was a fast car. Yes, they obviously could be podium contenders if Mercedes or RedBull messed up. But considering Max reputation and Lewis pure race craft, I don't think anyone thought that they would be anything other than the top 2 drivers. And in comes Lance with a lap about 3 tenth faster than Max in a worse car.

Incredible. And then Racing Point saw that and + Sergio's P3 and went “Nah, we can only have one of them on the podium.” During that race I genuinely thought the first 30 laps that Lance would win. And then they go against his pit call which turns out to have made things worse (no pace) and discover later on that Lance had a problem with his front wing which slowed him down. Therefore he only got 9th.

I don't really want to talk about Bahrain because the only thing that mattered about that race was seeing Romain get out of the car but I have to if I want to recap Lance performance. I am going to keep it short. He qualified 13th and didn't finish as he was turned upside down by Kvyat. Would have probably been a points finish but truly nothing of that race really matters or mattered other than Romain being okay.

The next race finally saw something good again with Lance qualifying 10th and being third on that podium. This was overshadowed by Sergio's win but it was a great result from him and the team.

The last race saw Lance in P8 and finishing in P10.

Spain had a great start for him again which I just want to add here.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.spanish-grand-prix-stroll-overtakes-bottas-with-amazing-start.1687526223371988110.html

So, what is the overall season summary?

This was without a doubt Lance best season. I mean come on. The only reason why people think he did bad is because they merely look at the points which you can't. Lance had so many DNFs this season where he wasn't at fault and which meant he missed out on huge points. I don't doubt that if he only had half of the DNFs or even if Turkey had gone the way it should have, he would very much be closer to Checo. Without a doubt he was never as close to a team-mate than he was in 2020. Even Qualy shows how mostly they were so close pace was. I think he would have had at least 2 other podiums (Mugello and Turkey) if luck had just been a bit more on his side. So therefore I think he would have had at least a 100 points. Sadly that didn't happen.

But this was undoubtedly his greatest season so let's just collect his achievement that he did have: He got the best qualifying results of the team that year, a pole and a third place. He also got two podiums and two fourth place finish. All the races expect 1 that he finished were Top 10 finishes. He outqualified his team mate multiple times.

Here are the DNFs if anyone wants to look them up:

There is no clip I can find of the Austria GP since they basically just call him into the pits.

The Mugello DNF (This is a fairly heavy crash so don't watch it if you can't see stuff like that) A possible puncture, another incident completely out of his hands.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1ebaeSw8ZE

This was Russia where Lance got taken out by Charles. I don't really think it's the worst attempt I have seen but yeah, blame to Charles because he clearly saw Lance if that camera perspective is anything to go by.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2020-russian-grand-prix-sainz-and-stroll-crash-out-in-chaotic-sochi-race-start.1687515300528811143.html

Lance and Lando's collision during the Portuguese GP (I can accept that the move by Lance wasn't the smartest and I can also fully understand why people blame him.) However I think so many people jumped on this because of the Free Practice incident between Max and Lance where it was clearly just a miscommunication and misunderstanding.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2020-portuguese-grand-prix-stroll-and-norris-collide-at-turn-1.1687510148078074772.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QJTAVnaLRI

(This is said Free Practice accident)

Kyvat flipping Lance (again you shouldn’t watch this if you cant deal with heavier crashes). Some say racing incident, I would say more blame an Daniil but I am just happy Lance was okay especially after Romain's accident before.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2020-bahrain-grand-prix-stroll-flips-and-crashes-after-kvyat-contact.1687510862145773128.html

2021- up against a champion

Now it's time for change! Not only is the team now Aston Martin but Seb is Lance new team mate. And the car is well there.

In the first race Lance outqualifies Seb and not only starts but also finishes in 10th.

Imola presents a similar picture where Lance outqualifies Seb and gets 10th place. And he finishes 8th! Sure he got a 5 second penalty for leaving the track but that is still a good start to the season.

In the third race it starts to go a bit downhill with Lance qualifying in 17th and finishing in 14th , just behind Seb in 13th.

Spain once again sees Lance start and finish in the same place, this time 11th. That qualy saw him just miss out on P10 where he was off less than 10/1000. He had some good battles though like with Fernando.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2021-spanish-grand-prix-stroll-wins-wheel-to-wheel-battle-with-alonso.1699487558908336755.html

The next race is good once again. Lance qualifies 13th and finishes 8th. Considering that this is Monaco and there isn't really any overtaking opportunity, that's huge especially with Seb finishing P5.

Baku sees well a bit of a downer. First he has his Qualy crash (Absolutely his mistake then again hitting the wall happens to many drivers) and during his race he suffers a tyre blow out which causes him to crash

(See the qualy crash here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txr4NfOoZys).

In France he once again fails to set a qualy time to get out of Q1 but more as a result of bad timing. He couldn't have predicted the others would crash so no fault on him there. He even managed to set a lap which was sadly deleted but would have been faster than Sebs. He somehow manages to get back to 10th place just one behind Seb in the race.

Styria sees Lance qualify in P10 and finish in P8.

The next race once again sees him P10 in Qualy and then the race finishes with him in P13 with a 5 second penalty for speeding in the pit lane.

The tenth race sees him start in P15 and finish in P14 in the sprint. In the actual race he gets P8.

Hungary looks promising with a P12 start but then well carnage happens. I will comment on those incidents in a bit.

On to Spa where he qualified P15 but was sent back to P20 as a result of the collision in Hungary. I won't talk about this race because it was still one of the biggest jokes and bullshit things this sport has done in recent years. Lance got a penalty for the work done under the stopped race. All in all a weekend to forget.

Zandvoort could be promising with a P12 start. Nothing major happens, he also finishes P12. He has a moment with Seb where Lance moves across from Seb to possibly cover him off from overtaking him. Dangerous driving I will admit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLT3XQ96FAY

Monza sees him Qualify 12th and manage to get up to 10th during the sprint qualy. In the race he finishes P7. He does another borderline move on Seb which I won't deny. I however feel like people over dramatize it. For me that wasn't nice but it was still okay. The only reason why people really criticize it so much is because you shouldn't do that to a teammate. Again I can understand why people dislike it but that still doesn't take away from the great job Lance did that weekend, considering he just missed out on Q3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rRMnO3mmPY

Russia is there, with a P8 start and a P11 finish. But we obviously have to talk about it. Not only did he have a great start where he overtook multiple cars but he also hit the wall and had contact with Seb. He hit the wall as it started to rain but he was still able to keep going. The incident with Seb is well yeah Lance fault. But I think it wasn't so much mean spirited as more plain underestimating space and possible struggle with the conditions. Seb even said that it was a misunderstanding and that Lance probably didn't see or expect him there.

https://www.facebook.com/Formula1/videos/2021-russian-grand-prix-mega-stroll-start/228625209311917/

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2021-russian-grand-prix-onboard-as-stroll-slides-into-the-wall.1712063737151581609.html

Turkey has a P9 start and a P9 finish but once again shows Lance skill as it is a wet race.

The next GP sees a P12 start and P12 finish. Quiet a race though as Lance was first spun by Nicholas Latifi and then nearly had a collision with Mazepin.

https://www.facebook.com/Formula1/videos/2021-united-states-grand-prix-nicholas-latifi-and- lance-stroll-collide/248666900567613/

https://www.facebook.com/Formula1/videos/2021-united-states-grand-prix-mazepin-strolls-close- call/402411924879898/

Mexico comes with a slap of penalties so qualy doesn't really matter anyway. He also crashes in Qualy. https://www.facebook.com/Formula1/videos/2021-mexico-city-grand-prix-stroll-crashes- out-of-quali/627086791628083/

Still a P14 finish though.

Brazil once again sees the useless sprint Qualy which manages to get Lance up from P15 to P14.

Nothing really happens in that race position wise for him so he stays P14. However he has a scrap with Yuki which honestly was just Yuki in my opinion trying a way too ambitious move. They actually fought quiet a bit that race. Lance retired in the race as a result of the damage he suffered from the accident in the first lap.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2021-sao-paulo-grand-prix-tsunoda-and-stroll-collide-at-interlagos.1716425125628029095.html

Quater sees Lance in P12 and he manages to get a P6 finish! A great drive from him especially considering that he had to make his tyres last longer.

The penultimate race sees both Astons struggling in Qualy with Lance in P18. He manages to get up to P11.

We don't want to talk about Abu Dhabi because it was a robbery and a shit show but we have to because people keep saying it was only bad for Lewis when drivers like Lance where also massively effected by the FIAs incompetence. He started P13 and finished that race but by god was it a nightmare. I am just going to leave the comms between him and his engineer here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK5SbgqcjIA

My summary:

While last season showed how great Lance can be, this season was huge for him in terms of development. Not only did he outqualify Seb multiple times but he also was incredible consistent.

Almost every race saw him somewhere between 8 or 12th with an average finish of 11th. Yes Seb has more points but almost half of those came from his podium (which I am absolutely not discrediting or taking away, just merely pointing it out.) If you consider that Seb has over 10 years in that sport compared to Lance rushed into it and now being in his 5th + Seb being one of the greatest for many, it truly speaks to Lance credit how close he was to him and how much he managed to consistently score.

I won't deny that this however also is the season where I would argue Lance had some questionable manoeuvres and many borderline racing incidents. This however also shows that even with a car that wasn't great Lance was consistently in the midfield battling for points.

Here's the DNFs:

Baku which sadly was just out of his hands

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2021-azerbaijan-grand-prix-stroll-escapes-heavy-high-speed-crash.1701823437935060912.html

The Hungary chaos from multiple perspectives. You can clearly see that Lance is of course at fault for it but he immediately recognizes that and apologizes. There's been mistranslations where it looks like he blames Val which is not true. He knows he fucked up. Drivers look up but yeah totally on him although I will say I first thought he was trying to avoid that carnage by going onto the grass. In his interview after he says he possibly ran over debrief which given the carnage in front of him isn't hard to believe. So yeah, for me personally more of a domino effect then anything.

Valtteri's bad start set a series of unfortunate events into motion.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2021-hungarian-grand-prix-drivers-react-to-turn-1- crash.1707071583705474820.html

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.lance-stroll-reacts-to-disaster-hungarian-grand-prix-start-crash.1706899140973058269.html

2022- a shitbox in green

Another year at Aston Martin with Seb but instead of a bad car they now got a green tractor to honour Sebs environmental perspective.

In the first race Lance qualified 19th and finished 12th. The second race sees Lance start in P15 and finish P13 but a lap earlier due to a longer pit stop and damage after coming together with Alex.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2022-saudi-arabian-grand-prix-albon-found-to-blame-for-clash-with-stroll.1728538480607161440.html

Australia sees well a bizarre qualifying. Lance and Nicky crash during Q1 for which Lance later gets penalized. In my opinion completely undeserved. As you can see, Nicky clearly moves over to let cars pass which Lance then does only for Nicky to seemingly want to retake that position very fast with a much to small gap. I don't fully blame Nicky but I understand why Lance didn't expect him to come back so quickly and I personally see it as a bad communication example more than an accident where you have to shift blame.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2022-australian-gp-qualifying-latifis-car-destroyed-in-bizarre-crash-with-stroll.1729611513723725817.html

In the race he manages to get back up to P12.

Imola once again has a sprint weekend which doesn't affect Lance who still remains P15. In the race he manages to get back to P10.

The new Miami race sees Lance qualify from P10 but due to an issue he has to start from the pit lane. And still he gets P10.

The sixth race he quallified 18th and finished 15th. He didn't really score points but he could have scored higher had he not been spun around by Pierre.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lSP08f5Slk

Next up was Monaco. Lance qualifies P18 and finishes P14. He hit the wall during the formation lap but then again it was a wet race.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2022-monaco-grand-prix-latifi-and-stroll-hit-the-barriers-on-wet-formation-lap-in-monaco.1734171020113023239.html

Baku saw Lance qualifying 19th and not finishing. His Qualy which I will give people was bad. Like crashing twice (also the second time was a result of the first) isn't what you should expect from someone who at that point was 5 years in F1. However he had engine issues that entire weekend which is also why he didn't finish so you start to wonder if they maybe played a tiny role.

His home race saw him qualify P18 again but he finally got points again with a P10. His move on Seb was dangerous and probably cost Seb a position or two. But also, Lance start in that race was like incredible. What a great start.

https://twitter.com/F1/status/1591574059808165888?lang=de

https://twitter.com/F1/status/1587415154936930304

Silverstone sees Lance start last and finish in 11th. A good start which saw him avoid all the chaos in front.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7_Elsl4jGM

Austria once again sees a sprint which means he goes from P17 to P13. Nothing changed in the race and he finished in P13. Some battles that were nice but ultimately with the Aston Martin tractor not that great.

The next race saw Lance once again in P17 and finishing in P10. An incredible race from him and I just want to show his start because we rarely ever saw how great his starts can be and how close the midfield is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOaKfdx6wrw

Hungary saw Lance qualify P14, finally into Q2 again. The race saw him finish P11. Considering he got spun around at one point by Daniel I would say that's a good result.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5I-95BkUK4

Next up was Spa where Lance once again got into Q2 and qualified 14th. Because of penalties of other drivers he started P9 and finished P11.

Zandvoort saw him even into Q3 and qualify P10 which is also where he finished the race. Up next was Monza where he was once again starting from P17 but because of penalties got pushed up to 12th which was very promising. Sadly he had to retire the car because of breaks overheating.

The next race had Lance start from P12 and finish in P6. And then Japan came back. Lance only qualified P19 but finished P12. The start he had to that race was just wow. During a wet race he not only managed to overtake multiple cars but he also just quiet literally drove past them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwJvwpCnRwU

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2022-japanese-grand-prix-lance-stroll-makes-lightning- start-to-go-from-19th-to-p11-on-opening-lap.1746188182712421933.html

Next up was the US GP where he qualified 7th which considering he was best of the rest in a car that was 9th fastest deserves a shout-out. Especially when it put him up to 5th because of other penalties.

Sadly his race was over rather quickly. He DNFed after colliding with Fernando.

https://www.facebook.com/Formula1/videos/2022-united-states-grand-prix-fernando-alonso-and- lance-stroll-come-together/885762125676389/

I have seen people say that Lance move is dangerous but you are allowed to move over to defend from an opponent, some of you need to remember that. Yes he should have moved more clearly but there was still like Lance said enough space. I think it was just a bit misjudged which lead to the racing incident. But yes I can see why people were to put blame on to Lance since he should have not just moved a bit or could have defended it later. He got a penalty for his move which would be applied in Mexico. A penalty that I agree with because his defending was too robust and late.

Mexico saw Lance start as a result of his penalty for last race. He finished 15th.

Brazil saw him qualify 15th and finish 16th in the sprint. What he did during the sprint to Seb I'll agree was a bad move. In the race he managed to get back up to 10th.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hCpPzHBQ1k

The last race saw Lance start 14th and finish 8th.

I think looking back on it now especially comparing it to 2021 and 2020 which were undoubtedly some of Lance best performances, it's hurts seeing 2022. There were many mistakes made by him and I think a lot of that is also down to him just not seeming to be comfortable with the car plus Aston just struggling in general. Lance Qualifying was definitely lacking and there is no doubt that he clashed more with Seb than he should have. I won't say many of the incidents he had that season reflect good on him.

However I think it's truly unfair that people would judge him based of one season that was bad when he had a car that was nearly the worst car on the grid. It is also very clear that controlling that car was very difficult.

I also raise the question again: How much better do we expect him to perform against Seb? This isn't me dismissing his incidents this is merely looking at results.

How much can you really expect from Lance to be close to Seb in that car without trying to diminish as arguably the better driver? How much can we compare their performances? Or rather how much can we judge Lance especially when he was against Seb, a 4 time world champion, a runner up multiple times?

If we were to merely look at results for this (which I have started before aren't everything), we will see that really they aren't that far apart. In the races where both of them finished they are mostly only 2-3 places apart which is interesting if you consider that Lance often qualified further back.

But, like I said results don't speak for everything so if you were to say which season was Lance worst, I would probably say this.

I want to draw your attention now though to some positives from that season like Lance amazing start in Japan which shows he is talented.

Or the fact that Lance got Aston Martin's highest Qualifying that season with 7th which turned into a start from P5 after penalties of other drivers were applied. He also had the most positions gained and was in the top 10 for most overtakes in that season.

Here are the DNFs:

This is Lance and Alex making contact which resulted in both of them out of the race. Personally a racing incident for me as they seemingly both misjudged the space or weren't expecting the other to turn in. I would argue it's a bit ambitious from Alex but I don't think it was penalty deserving on either end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDg9cweEbew

Side-note: I also don't know why people think Lance crashes a lot or is know for his dangerous driving. Sure during his first season he crashed twice in free practice and had a few DNFs but almost 80% of his DNFs are either not his fault or simple race incidents. Then again he had 2 other free practice crashes in his second season but that doesn't make him a bad driver? The worst he ever clashed with another driver was Seb in 2022 which I will give people. However I really don't see why people say he is famous for colliding with others when many couldn't recall any incident that involved him and another driver that wasn't in 2022 or the last season. He isn't memorable for bad driving although 2022 might reflect badly on him.

So what is the conclusion?

Why did I title this document the way that it is? That is simple to answer. I completely mean it.

In his career if we ignore 2018, Lance has had/has the following teammates:

- Felipe Massa, who was nearly a WDC

- Sergio Perez who was one of the best midfield drivers at that time

- Sebastian Vettel, a 4x WDC

and now Fernando Alonso, a 2xWDC.

People forget that not only was Lance in F1 with very little experience at an early age but he has also had world class drivers, some regarded as the greatest as his teammates.

Not only that but he has consistently improved over the years and had rarely any bad clashes that he was responsible for.

The worst he did was against a 4 x WDC in one of the worst, if not the worst car on the grid, a car that he didn't feel confident in and that was hardly able to be predicated and difficult to control. That was his worst year in F1 where a lot of the mistakes where his fault without a doubt.

But people truly forget how great Lance can perform, especially in the wet and how he dominated Perez in 2020 until his streak of luck was cut short to no fault of his own. Not only that but he outqualified Seb in 2021 multiple times, was more consistent than him with his race result etc.

Not to mention the things he has already achieved.

He is one of the youngest podium sitters, the youngest front row starter (all from his first season), has multiple podiums (and would have had more if not for his unlucky streak in the later half of 2020), has a pole and has managed to be close to many of his teammates (if you don't only lock at results.) Not to mention that even though his qualifying was inconsistent, he always had good standout performances.

And he is one of the best starters on that grid. There are some races where he just drives past 5+ cars like it's nothing which often shouldn't even be possible with his bad car.

Yes, he was inconsistent in Qualy many times and yes he had some questionable drives but the later can be said for almost any driver on the grid. Drivers are bound to make mistakes and also sometimes experienced ones because it happens.

Considering how well he is doing in this season with a still healing injury, I truly do not get how he is this discredited and underrated. When it comes to teammates he has arguably had some of the hardest to compete against in the last years.

Not to mention he came into this sport without anyone believing he deserved there. He even questioned his own place in this sport which is bullshit considering he had enough wins and champions to warrant an F1 seat.

#f1 #lance stroll #so yeah this is it guys #if anyone wants to reblog or give me feedback I highly appreciate it

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georgiapeach30513 · 2 years

Text

More Than You Know, Part 5

Summary: You learn the truth, and have to make some hard decisions

Pairings: EZ Reyes X Reader, Ari Levinson X Reader

Rating: mature

Warnings: mentions of Angel’s death, explicit language, angst, 18+ ONLY

Word Count: 2.6K

Series Masterlist

Angel grabs the photo album out of EZ’s lap and looks closer at a picture of you in between Ari and Angel. Your face shines up at Angel, while both the men’s arms are wrapped around your waist. The second photo saw you on your tippy toes giving Angel a kiss, while Ari stepped away. “Has Ari always loved my mama?”

His finger paints more over Ari’s face than his father’s, and Felipe gives him a big smile, “What makes you think Ari loves your mama?” Felipe’s smile gets even bigger. He was not a big fan of you with Angel. While he loves your little Angel, he knew that his son wasn’t ever fully going to leave the Mayans, while Ari was heading out. Even asked him if he could talk you into leaving with him.

“He told me,” Angel looks up at his uncle frowning, “I don’t know my daddy. I know he’s my Angel daddy, but I’ve never met him. I can’t miss him. I miss Ari.”

“He lives next door, little man,” Angel picks up the album, and slams it onto EZ’s lap. Shuffling off the couch he walks over to the window pointing at Ari’s house.

“He’s never there anymore. Mama’s got a new boyfriend,” he rolls his eyes. “I saw him almost kiss mama, but because Jax is always over here, he doesn’t come by anymore. He doesn’t like Ari.”

“What did you say?” EZ’s eyes darken, and he scoots his body towards the edge of the couch. “Who is your mother dating?”

“Jax. I don’t like him. He doesn’t sit on the floor with me and play like Ari does. And…he was in her bed the other night.”

“Does he wear a cut like me?” EZ asks tapping his cut.

“Duh.”

“Son, what’s going on?” Felipe asks, but EZ stands up irritated and walks towards your room, “You can’t go in there. That is her room!” Looking around your room, there were no pictures of Jax in there. Nothing but a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt in the hamper. “EZ, she will not like you in her room.”

“What are you looking for?” Angel asks, peeking around his grandfather.

“She’s not using protection,” EZ glares at his father who points the way out of your room. “He’s got clothes here.”

“I told you he sleeps here. Sometimes mama takes me to Ari’s.”

“Mother fucker.”

“Ezekiel, your nephew is here. What is going on?” Angel starts pouting up at EZ sensing something is wrong. Felipe tries to soothe him, but he shakes his arm off of him.

“I want my mama and daddy!” Running down the hall to his bedroom, before slamming the door shut.

“Who is he calling his daddy?” EZ asks as he grabs up his phone dialing your number. “I need you home now.”

“I am working. That is why you and Felipe are there. You’re sleeping on the couch, and he’s got the guest room. What is it that you need?” All it takes is to hear a faint music in the background. “Why is my baby locked up in his room? EZ what happened?” You ask readying your things to leave. You can lie and say it’s a family emergency. It could very well be one. “EZ?”

“We’ll talk when you get home.”

Walking down the hallway, you reach above the door to get a key to Angel’s room, and he is fast asleep. Ari’s favorite album playing, and you reach over to turn it off. Your hands trace Angel’s features. So much of your little boy reminded you of his father, and you found yourself missing more. You know it's the withdrawal you feel from Ari. Even with Jax there, you felt more alone than ever.

“What happened?” You look up at EZ who points to the door. “EZ, his face is blotchy. Why was he crying?”

“I need to talk to you away from him,” there was a deepness to EZ’s voice. Too serious for him. Darkened, and it terrified you. Leaning over to give your precious boy a kiss, and you stand to follow him back out to the living room. Felipe in the kitchen cooking, and you shake your head at EZ when you see the album.

“Is this about Ari?”

“This is about Jax Teller.”

“Oh, god. Here we go. He’s four EZ. Jax is nothing but…”

“He’s the reason Angel is dead,” you take a step back from him shaking your head. “He’s the one that pulled the trigger and left Angel without his dad,” your breathing picks up, it was like there was not enough air to breath. Grabbing your chest as you search for anything to fill your lungs

“No, it’s not possible.”

“I was there. I know SAMCRO. The Reaper? That’s them. Jax is the president? Blonde hair, slicked back, white shoes?”

“Stop,” Felipe walks in to see you, looking over at EZ.

“Ari is the one that hit his bike and caused him to wreck after he pulled the trigger, but his main goal was to get Angel to the hospital. Jax murdered Angel. I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“H-h-he saw his bike. Angel, he had a moment and knocked it over. He said he wanted to learn to ride, and Ari was going to teach him. Oh god,” bile fills up in your throat, and you try to stop yourself from vomiting. “I gave him an out that day. Told him Angel didn’t ask for his dad to be dead. I’ve been fucking the man that murdered my Angel? He’s been in my fucking house, and he’s seen my son. Angel’s son. He has been around Angel’s son, and he never fucking said anything. Gemma warned me. Ari knew?”

You go from sadness to anger. Looking at your front window to see he was still gone. Every part of you wants to grab Angel up and run away from it all. When EZ gives you a single nod, you sit on the couch, bringing your legs to your chest and cry. “My baby was around him. He didn’t like Jax, and I thought it was because of Ari. Jax never paid much attention to him, and I just assumed he didn’t want to get attached, he…he saw Angel. Ari let my baby be around him. He…I’m done. I’m just done.”

You walk back down the hallway to your son’s room. Going to lay behind him, and you hold him tight. It wasn’t fair to him. None of it was fair to him the most. And you don’t know how you can tell him that both of those men had to go.

Your phone lights up yet again with Jax’s name, but you ignore it. Cuddling closer to Angel, and you give him a kiss to the top of his head. His little giggles echo off your bedroom walls, as he watches some cartoon in your bed. Looking up at you with his deep brown eyes, puckering his lips for a quick kiss before he returns to the movie. Getting a handful of popcorn, and you lean back a bit more.

Your phone ringing again has you wanting to launch it across the bedroom, “Just answer it. He’ll stop calling if you just answer him.”

“Stay here, baby,” you say, giving him a kiss. Walking out into the living room, you go to close the blinds, noticing that Ari was back home. “What?”

“Wow, that’s how you answer the phone? I’ve been calling.”

“I’ve noticed. About ten times in the last hour. What do you want?”

“Did I do something wrong?” He takes a pull of his cigarette, and you swear you can smell the stench. It sickens you now that you know what he did.

“You tell me.”

“I’m not following, Darling.”

“Angel Reyes doesn’t mean anything to you? You know, it could have been a coincidence. It’s very common names. What’s not common is the fucking Harley in my garage. One that has a scratch down the side of it because of you! I hate you. You took everything from me. You fucking knew who you were not only laying beside, but fucking me. You took him from me, from my son. Do not call me ever again.”

“Who told you?”

“Doesn’t matter. Jax, I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to touch you, and I can’t wash myself enough to get you off of me. Do not call me again. I was nothing but pussy to you anyways. Thank you for breaking my five year spell. I gave you an out before. But this is me ending it,” you click end on your phone, and stare blankly at nothing. You’re sure it wouldn’t be that easy, but that was it for now.

Now it is the man next door. You can’t believe that Ari wouldn’t tell you. He told you he would always protect you, and he still let a murderer in your home. But worse, around your son. “Mama, it’s just getting to the good part.”

“I’m coming, Angel,” clicking off the light, you leave your phone in the living room. Going to spend some much needed time with the only man who has never disappointed you.

Ari watches your house from his porch. He had started to spend more time at home, because Jax was there less, and that worried him. The two of you had been hot and heavy, and now there was nothing. He’s unsure what brought that on, but he wonders why you hadn’t called. Anytime Angel would give a wave, you would pull him into the house.

He bites at his lip. You had returned the Caddy to Jax, and even bought your own clunker. He hates waiting. Hates wondering. And the fact that you don’t even call or text anymore. It’s just blank. Seeing Angel bring in a bucket of Hot Wheels to the living room, playing alone, while you cooked. It was time for him to make the first move.

When Angel hears the loud boots of Ari, and sees him walk past the window, he runs to the door and opens it before Ari even knocks. Smiling and jumping up into his arms. Everything with Ari was natural and easy. He took to being Angel’s father figure well, and right now it just hurts.

“Are you coming to play with me?”

“I need to talk to your mom first,” your eyes close slowly, as you wait for the inevitable heartbreak. “Hey, you okay?” He leans up against the counter right beside where you are. Trying to get you to look at him, but you never do.

“No,” you answer shortly, still refusing to look at him. His hand presses against the small of your back, and you struggle not to cling to him. Just stepping aside, pretending to do something else.

“What’s wrong?”

“Everything.”

“He, uh, break up…”

“We weren’t together like that, Ari. I learned the truth. I had to hear it from EZ because someone was too chicken shit to say anything,” finally looking at him, his gaze turns down to the floor. “He was around my baby. Mine. My son. And you couldn’t tell me?”

“Would you have listened?”

“Yes!” You stop, waiting to see if Angel was going to run in there, before looking at Ari. “You saw him on our first date. You couldn’t have just come up with an excuse to end it, and let me know what he did. Your timing has always sucked,” defeated, you move back to straightening up the kitchen.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means, I wanted to date you, and you set me up with Angel.”

“You loved him.”

“Loved you first. You couldn’t bear the thought of dating me, so you pawned me off to someone else,” he shakes his head no at you, but you continue. “I went on a date for the first time in five years, because heaven forbid you act on any of your feelings. We slept in the same bed, and you never made your move. But that date, I wanted you to ask me to not go. I would have for you. My son slips up calling you daddy, and you step up for him, but not for me. I told you while I was dating Jax that I would quit with no questions asked to be with you. I’m beginning to think this attraction that you have for me is in my head.”

“It’s not.”

“Oh, horse shit, Ari. I have given you time and time again to be there for me. I know Angel needs a dad, but I also need a partner. You could do both, but you won’t. I have given you every opportunity and opening to make this happen, and you choke. You suck, and I’m done waiting. Angel’s murderer was in my home, and around our son, and you allowed it to happen.”

“Our?” He perks up a bit, and you can’t believe that came out.

“That’s not what I meant. I meant, mine and Angel’s. You would be a great dad, but I’m not so sure about a husband. I need both. A father for him, and a husband for me. Leave,” he shakes his head no, but you give him a little shove. “Leave!”

“No.”

“I’m done embarrassing myself, Ari. Leave.”

“Mama, no! I don’t want him to leave,” Angel runs into the kitchen, those big brown eyes welling up with tears, and you can’t bring yourself to look at him.

This was not how you wanted things. You didn’t want Angel involved. Never wanted him to be a part of this. “Leave!”

“No, mama please, don’t make daddy go.”

“Ari, I can’t do this. Quit standing there, and leave,” Angel grabs onto Ari, crying and reaching up to him, but he never moves. His eyes never leave yours, and it hurts. “Ari, please. Just go.”

“No.”

“Ari, I’m not doing this anymore. I want you out of my house!”

“Mama, please don’t make him go. I want him as my daddy!” Ari’s face tilts to the side as he stares at you. Both of your hearts break with Angel’s confession. “No, no, no, no, no! I want him.

“Ari, go,” you reach down to pick up your crying child and he kicks and screams at you. Still his cadence about how he wants Ari as his daddy. “You have had plenty of chances. The biggest was to get Jax out of our lives. I can’t. Do this.”

“Mama, no!” Angel screams as Ari heads out towards this door without another word. “No! Ari, I want you as my daddy! Don’t leave me! Don’t leave. Her loves you! Her really loves you!”

The front door closes, and Angel’s head falls on your shoulder. His body heaving as he cries for the loss of Ari, and you want to collapse yourself. Want to beg Ari to come back. Want to demand to know how he feels, and that this was the last chance. Desiring nothing more than to tell him you were sorry, but for what? Ari was the one that disappointed you every time, and it just made you feel it was all in your head.

“I hate you!”

“Angel, I’m sorry. Ari had to go.”

“You took two daddies from me. Put me down! I want down! Put me down!” Placing his small body on the floor, when he runs into his room, slamming the door before you finally allow your own tears to fall, and you can’t stop them.

Wiping at a never ending waterfall of the briny tears. Struggling to breathe, and not knowing exactly what you should do. Your body was begging you to go after Ari and to tell him how you felt. “I only ever wanted you,” you say out loud when you hear the rumble of his bike. “I loved you more than you know.”

Masterlist

Taglist: @tis-thedamn-season @marveloustaylortot @pono-pura-vida @sstan-hoe @peaches1958 @spnaquakindgdom @nana1000night @thedarknessilove @ilovetaquitosmmmm @brattyfics @raging-panda @nunya7394 @berberriescorner @capswife @thisreadswhatever @flannellover67 @ticosas @terry2227 @infatuatedjanes @phoebeztonkinz @lilac-tea-time

#more than you know #ari levinson #biker!ari levinson #ari levinson x reader #biker!ari levinson x reader #ari levinson x fem!reader #biker!ari levinson x fem!reader #ari levinson x y/n #biker!ari levinson x y/n #ari levinson x you #biker!ari levinson x you #jax teller #jax teller x reader #ez reyes

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