✨Dumbass For The Plot✨

I’m glad I found out now ‘cause now I gotta change some show names since there is a non zero chance we crossed paths since I was very well known up that way for most of the 2010s lmaooo

So stoked to hear you’re liking it so far!! I do have more written but I gotta get this phase of OMAY done before I crack on there

But in all seriousness, when I started this story it was just that—a standalone story. Not a verse, not a collection of intertwined narratives spanning over a decade, just a drop in the bucket story of the 2022 season.

El Plan: 20 chapters, 60k words. nice.

And to be fair, I exceeded the words pretty quickly once I found a style of story telling that fit what I was trying to. Fair enough.

Extended Plan: 20 chapters, 100k words. maximum.

But at the end of Austria II—Chapter 11 for the number lovers out there—I threw out a smartass comment asking if y’all wanted a side fic.

Ya did.

From there, the verse was born and surged rapidly out from the centre and OMAY became the foundation of something far bigger—Of Us All.

Suddenly it stopped being a Max story about facets of control, inlets and outlets, and love and care with a healthy dose of kink and sex on the side—y’all have been super patient on that front tbqh—and turned into a sprawling verse with a lot of moving pieces.

Seb was never meant to be more than a man with a past who wanted to make it easier for the next one.

Dan was never meant to spiral himself down the drain only for someone to throw him a rope at the last second.

Nico, Kimi and Valtteri? Maybe a cameo.

Lewis? Might pop up just from the nature of the whole schtick.

The group chat didn’t exist at all until Summer Break III (Chapter 16) and mentions got edited into earlier chapters.

The only concrete plot points I had from day one were:

It’s a story about the ebb and flow of control as a power source.

Max has a restrictive eating disorder that had been going on since karting.

Charles is a Top.

Max is a sloppy drunk and likes Charles’ clothes before he likes Charles.

Dinner goes wrong in Austria.

Lando makes the call in Singapore.

Max pulls himself from the race somewhere.

And the one thing that’s really fucked me over in all this: Charles wasn’t meant to end up traumatised by everything else that went on around how sick Max got. Like, sure—he was never gonna be stoked. But he wasn’t originally supposed to crumple to the point where he could no longer safely support Max.

Which leads me to ✨…the problem…✨ When I mapped out the relationship timeline, I was working on ‘El Plan’/‘Extended Plan’ 60k or 100k, it didn’t matter. I had 20 chapters to fuck around and find out.

Well.

We’re now at 8 individual fics.

With a total of 43 chapters so far.

And 387k words… so far!!

OMAY on its own is sitting at 32 chapters and 295k words.

All this to say, I have completely fucked the pacing and don’t quite know how to fix it.

If you hadn’t worked out that Max and Charles were going to end up together… consider yourself spoiled??

But the issue I’m having is under the ‘El Plan’/‘Extended Plan’ I had worked out the emotional beats from the strain and tension of Max being sick and worked them alongside what was happening in the verse at the time.

Giving Seb a complex backstory, chucking Dan in the drink and waterboarding him for sport, and letting Charles have a genuine human reaction to experiencing on trauma after another, and to loving someone who was that sick completely altered both the emotional pacing and the pacing going on in the verse at the time. And that’s how I’ve ended up here.

I still have a heap of emotional development and growing back together to do and I am quickly running out of verse content to get it done—especially considering Sequel I kicks off right at the start of the 2023 season (it has a name btw, it’s ‘Of Guilt and Pleasure’ because I locked myself into a naming convention 18 months ago with the first side fic).

Basically, I have way too much respect for the verse, and even more so for you guys to smoosh them together and say ‘kiss,’ and yet I’m not quite sure how to accelerate the point so they get to it themselves before the verse clock ticks over to the next one. And yes, I absolutely agree that it’s an ongoing process that will still be repairing in the sequels, but at the same time I don’t want to have to force people to read the next one just to get the ending for the main pairing in the first one.

Ultimately, they’re both processing a huge trauma in their own ways, they’re putting the time in to grow as individuals, and they need to to be able to get to the place they were in relationship wise before it all kicked off.

Vulnerability, trust, connection, respect and want.

Right now there is want. They’re too raw for vulnerability. Trust was obliterated (both parties feeling abandoned, let down and betrayed in different ways). Connection and respect is tied to trust, and right now that’s too much risk.

Therefore—cannot shove in bed with lube and say have fun. Would not be fun.

Problem.

But yeah, that’s the nuts and bolts of where I’ve gone—the answer is nowhere, and that’s kinda the problem.

I don’t know if I’m writing this to let you guys know what’s up, or just to sadly show you one of those cognitive puzzles and I’m just whacking the pieces together.

Either way, you all have been a massive part of the story from day one—and I’m at the point of asking for help. I’m essentially asking y’all to be a fresh set of eyes on operation: Get Max And Charles Together But Make Them Think It’s Their Idea.

And if you’re reading this thinking ‘I don’t write, I dunno,’ I know you read things. You know what’s good, you know what endings feel satisfying and which ones make you go ‘ugh that was lazy writing’ (trying to avoid those personally).

If you’ve got any suggestions, ideas, theories I would love to hear them!!

Thank you all for the love, support and patience over the last 18 months—and thank you in advanced for the next 18.

Let’s knock the bastard off!!