#bearer

every section of the fic is about ferrari or about max, which is the curse and/or the love of it all of course. the #thesis is that both are inextricably intertwined for charles as different aspects of racing which is so integral to his sense of self and the thing he loves above all else that is so painful and also so beautiful, victory comes hand in hand with an appropriate amount of anguish etc, but to extremely and misleadingly simplify things the associations alternate so that ferrari is closer to the more unpleasant/difficult kisses and max is closer to the more pleasant/easy kisses (george / lewis / seb → ferrari, pierosc / jannik / max → max). but obviously it is not that simple at all and everything is both romantic and difficult and charles will not compromise one for the other. penultimate section being seb is extremely important because of his narrative link to both ferrari and max and because that is charles’ most difficult connection to sort through (although i think it is probably even more difficult for seb than it is for charles). 

but generally max is in the background moving closer and closer to the foreground with every section whether charles consciously realises or wants to realise it or not: pierre bringing up that charles’ true love is probably someone from karting (which is brought back in max’s section by charles but of course he and max turn it from a neutral statement, someone from karting, into a competitive one, someone i beat/someone who beat you in karting); charles comparing oscar’s kinetic intuition to max; charles seeing max from a distance leaving the sauber garage and noting the existence of distance but also its surmountability; jannik’s max-like inevitability of victory and charles enjoying pushing back against jannik in the same way he enjoys pushing back against max because he's the guy who is a bit insane in question And i have always said btw that jannik and max are narratively paralleled; “pair of bulls about to lock horns” having been there all along Just Like—; max breaking seb’s records. i really had so much fun making max the bus driver because he is the endgame that all things are heading towards. and charles will win everything he will have both love and victory my final message goodbye.