#seaplease

(fake fic game)

okay so for the hypothetical fic title “once more, with feeling,” i’m envisioning some kind of acting/fake dating situation. so imagine if you will: closeted racer oscar who gets papped one night with a guy at a club. nothing super incriminating, but enough for people to be like ?????? 🤨🏳️‍🌈??????. and oscar has come to terms with his own sexuality but the last thing he wants is to be the queer face™️ of formula 1, so he goes to his annoyingly hot pr manager carlos sainz and is like hi 👉👈 please save me

(ask me about some ship headcanons!)

6. Which character developed feelings first? And is there a specific moment or way this could've happened?

7. Which character confessed their feelings first? And how was it? What did they do? How were they feeling?

8. What was their first date like?

this is such an interesting bunch of questions and I think I’m actually going to kind of answer them all together because at the end of the day they basically boil down to one of my fundamental carcar headcanons, which is that carlos believes saying something makes it real and oscar believes experiencing something makes it real.

so, case in point: feelings. to oscar, developing feelings is defined by the literal experience of Having Feelings. he might not recognize them for what they are in the moment, but once he does, he can retroactively be like “huh, yeah, that was a Feeling, I guess.”

carlos, on the other hand, is someone who has to label things. he can do friends things with someone and act like they’re friends and talk like they’re friends, but until he mentally files them in the “friend” folder, they aren’t friends. similarly, he can like spending time with oscar and want to touch oscar and think about oscar in a way that most would not consider very just-friends-like, but until carlos consciously moves him into the folder labeled “feelings” in his head, none of those are Feelings. to label it as feelings is to cross the fucking rubicon from “guy whose presence i don’t hate/tolerate/actively enjoy” to “guy who i Like,” and that semantic shift, i think, holds a lot more weight for carlos than for oscar

so what does this mean for the progression of feelings > confession > dating for carcar? well, my favorite configuration of carcar getting together is a FWB to lovers situation, so this is all written within that context, but I still believe it could be applied to a friends/rivals-to-lovers situation. that said, i think in quite a literal sense, that they start developing feelings at a similar rate. however, oscar is far quicker to identify his feelings as Feelings, and then is sort of comfortable waiting around in that liminal space of friends-with-benefits-but-maybe-not-just-that. externally, his behavior wouldn’t change much, but internally, he’d be doing the mental calculus of “if I tell him, is this going to fuck things up between us? would that be something he’s open to? how would he react?”

for carlos, meanwhile, i think there is much less of a difference between acknowledging the feeling versus acting on the feeling. so the minute he mentally takes oscar out of the “friend” folder and puts him in the “feelings” folder, that means carlos HAS to do something about it (remember the call carbono video where carlos was like, “if the guy doesn’t talk to you, new set of tyres immediately”? imo carlos is not a guy who silently pines and waits once he finally decides he wants something). so even if he’s objectively having the exact same emotional experiences as oscar, he would be much more hesitant to label that experience as feelings. however, once he does make that switch, he is far less comfortable waiting around to act on those feelings, and so ultimately confesses first

ALL THAT BEING SAID, in my mind palace, oscar’s truth is:

oscar developed feelings first (or at least at the same rate as carlos)

carlos confessed his feelings first, which oscar reciprocated equally as strongly

BUT carlos’ truth is:

carlos developed feelings first (because if oscar’s feelings were really Feelings first, he would’ve shown outward interest/confessed before carlos had the chance)

carlos also confessed first, which oscar, if he reciprocated, did not reciprocate as strongly, or else oscar would have confessed first

once each of them realizes they’ve conceived the progression of their relationship in wildly different ways, they of course both think the other person is a total weirdo for handling it the way they did (“if you liked me before, why didn’t you tell me, oscar?” “so, in your mind, the time we planned to hook up after australia but didn’t even get that far because i was so dejected and exhausted that you just made me dinner and held me for like an hour instead was just guys being dudes????”)

and re: first dates—this disagreement bleeds over into what each of them considers their first date. for carlos, their first date was the first time carlos said “I would like to go on a date with you,” and oscar came over and they made dinner together and hooked up etc etc etc

haha thank you for asking sea!! my second halloween fest idea is a carcar ghost au !

basically, we’d open at the beginning of the 2023 season when oscar is just starting to integrate into mclaren. danny ric, trying to do the good countryman thing and give oscar some pointers, is like, “oh and don’t worry about carlos, he might start bullying you when you miss an apex but he gets easy enough to tune out after a while.” and oscar is like “????what the fuck are you talking about.” which is how he finds out about carlos, the incredibly annoying ghost that haunts the mclaren second seat (or like, whichever one lando isn’t in lmao)

and carlos’ existence is sort of an open secret around the mclaren garage. he jokes around with the engineers and makes wrenches clatter to the floor right when oscar is walking past to startle him and whispers alternate tyre strategies in his ear during a race like a second engineer and overall is a menace to oscar’s general existence. but the thing is everyone else seems to LOVE carlos. they think he’s so funny and charming and a delight to be around and oscar’s the new guy so like he doesn’t wanna harsh anyone’s vibe but also, what the fuck, guys???

I feel like I once read you talking about an au where carcar are both working at a "Disney on Ice" type of deal together-- if you're so inclined, what does that look like?? Is Carlos a prince? Are they both stuck having to maneuver in cumbersome Mickey suits?? something else??

oh my gosh i DID once talk about a disney on ice au!!! first off, carlos is one million billion percent a disney prince. you do not waste a face like that by putting it in a mascot suit. carlos is like. prince eric who charms all the kids and in-character flirts with all the moms at the meet and greets lol

oscar i could see as a prince charming but also wouldn’t it be so fucking funny if he was in the mickey suit. getting tackled by small children at the meet and greet all while being completely unable to speak. he would hate that shit and he would resent carlos for getting to actually like talk and move around and jump and spin without his damn costume getting in the way lmao

(re: me calling NEW OLYMPIC CHAMPION(????) misha shaidorov op81’s figure skating equivalent yesterday)

(send me a driver and i’ll give you an olympic figure skater to root for)

omg i love this for many reasons but mostly because the question “which figure skaters would these guys root for” is subtly but crucially different from the question “which figure skater are these guys like.” i’ve already answered the similarity question for oscar and i currently have an answer to that question for carlos marinating in my drafts, so let's expand on who these guys would root for in the olys here!

from this ask game:

27. do you like tomatoes. no nuance.

omg no nuance is my least favorite way to approach anything in the world but um. uh. yes?

28. what is the best dumpling filling?

pork & vegetable dumplings my beloved <3 pork & kimchi also vvv good

29. what is one (or more) roman empire events/ person/moment that you think about all the time?

apologies if you were looking for an f1 related answer here but on some level i am always thinking about tessa virtue and scott moir’s 2018 olympic free dance to the moulin rouge soundtrack. and on an even deeper level i am always thinking about how they had to change their rotational lift so that tessa was sitting on scott’s shoulders for less time because it looked too much like he was eating pussy to be aired on international tv

haha remember when i thought it would be a great idea to reblog an ask game in the throes of finals season. oops! from this ask game

16. What’s your most common “Additional Tags” tag?

just checked and it is . ah. accidental voyeurism. great work everyone, let’s hit the showers. and, you know. if we accidentally see anything while we’re in there—

17. Your favorite character to write this year?

honestly i think it’s been alex! mostly because i tend to use him as a mouthpiece for all my “what the HELL is going on between these guys” thoughts when writing something like small and soft, flesh and blood. he’s like. my lone human in the muppet movie, but in a way that he’s not so mad about. love him sm

18. The character that gave you the most trouble writing this year?

oooh i think oscar. i feel like my perception of him has changed a lot over the past year and I’m still trying to figure out what kind of a guy he’s most interesting to write as. quietly confident and to the point? awkward and tightly coiled? I’ve seen him characterized in so many different ways and I’m not sure which feels like my own quite yet!