leeseokmin | Reading

⏱️ forever is a feeling
jeonghan/seungcheol
word count: 5.3k/?

I don't want to post this until I know about how long this fic will be, or at least until I get to a point where I know I can keep pushing from. And I still have a bit to go. Writing a story based off another story, while also being mindful of the conventions that this AU (ex-idol POV character, current idol love interest) has set, is difficult, but it's not impossible. It's not really about the job so much as being an idol is a job and the feelings of shame around failure. (Wow, wonder what could make this fic so easy to write right now lol) I'm just trying to get through a first draft so I can say I have this on paper... but I'm barely past the first chapter. Who am I, even.

I do think that this is going to be another long-ish one, which means I do have to finish an existing WIP before I post this. Or I will punt myself into space.

⚾️ [working title: i love you all the way/sugar in the tank]
jeonghan/dk
word count: 1.3k

This should just be PWP, but I'm getting stuck on backstory and it's pissing me awf. What's it like, being able to just write regular ass PWP? Would love to be me someday.

💭 a fortune for your disaster
jeonghan/seungcheol
word count: 0

Starting over on this project completely and going back to the drawing board.

zimriya's writing a great telepathy fic right now that's helping respark some thoughts, but so far it's [LOUD CRICKET SOUNDS].

♻️ discord remix
word count: :|

To my beloved recipient, I really am trying my best. I had a clear vision and then I psyched myself out and wailed about how this is bad because [LONG REDACTION] and then [EVEN MORE REDACTED] and uh. I feel really bad because I was excited about doing this but I flopped!!!! I have a really good title and playlist, though.

🫂 time to pretend
jeonghan/dk/seungcheol
word count: 0

Idolverse polycule bodyswap AU set in 2020 is going to kill me, a Virgo with cannot be wrong about the details disease. I do have the advantage of this being the OT3 that I've written about the most over the last six (EEEK) years, but brother.... I'm gonna walk into the sea.

🐶 break you down
mingyu/dk
word count: 8.6k/?

The beautiful thing here is that I rewrote parts of Ch 2 and now I can use alternating POV however I fucking want now. Which means I'm probably going to write a lot of this fic in DK POV because it comes easily for me, but I'm gonna use Mingyu POV for like. idk. Porn. Whining. The more devious things that are happening in this fic. Challenging myself to write a romcom is hell, and yet I do it every damn year.

🎨 brush strokes
jeonghan/seungcheol
word count: 6.8k/?

Honestly, I might rework this in totality so the fic itself is about 10k. Because the central prompt was that Seungcheol's daughter is Jeonghan's classmate in a calligraphy class and I'm doing way too goddamn much. They don't even need to boink in this, I just wanted to write something ridiculous and cute.

Did I mention that writing is my hobby that I love????

There are other ideas with solid foundations, but these are the ones that I click on to stare at the most. It's helpful that I have a non-Jeongcheol WIP, because I'm going to become the Joker if I write these two any more than maybe 5-6 times this year. I'm trying to get back into my roots as a rare pair enjoyer >:(

I'm also very vaguely planning out a Smallville fic because of who I have become.

Current Mood: blah
Current Location: hell
Current Music: makedamnsure - taking back sunday

mark posting in

dw_maintenance

Hi all!

I'm doing some minor operational work tonight. It should be transparent, but there's always a chance that something goes wrong. The main thing I'm touching is testing a replacement for Apache2 (our web server software) in one area of the site.

Thank you!

latespring

It's been a while since I've done one of these! This is a bit of a looser format this time. I kept getting caught up in trying to figure out how I wanted to do this wrap up, when I'm the only one dictating its format.

So, here's how this month has been!

( happy new year )

Current Mood: busy

infrequencies

Spoilers for a show that’s been off the air since 2011 inside. I'm having a normal one.
( somebody SAAAAAVEEEE MEEEEE )

Current Music: apologize - onerepublic

rhodochrosite

SKINCARE

not a lot of change, vast majority of these are products I've already reviewed. holy grails marked with *:

AM routine

wash face with water
*ma:nyo galac niacin 2.0 essence – beloved holy grail which I have been religiously using for more than five years.
dr satin caviar ghk-cu skin recovery essence gel – I ran out of moisturiser halfway through my taiwan trip and couldn't find either dr g clear soothing cream or clinique moisture surge anywhere so i went into watsons intending to get the naturie hatomugi on mich's rec and then got aggressively sold on this one by a staff member instead so I was like sure peggle i won't say no to a buy 1 get 1 deal. this is a VERY light and watery gel, so light that it's more of an essence than a moisturiser really and probably not moisturising enough on its own for the current state of my skin (quite dry) but it's fine for a summer day moisturiser under sunscreen. definitely won't be enough for winter but i'll switch back to clinique moisture surge by then.
beauty of joseon relief sun rice probiotics sunscreen – gifted to me and it's fine, no white cast and light nongreasy finish and doesn't pill under makeup and feels hydrating. I do prefer the skin1004 hyalucica sunscreen though I have bought the round lab birch juice sunscreen to try next.
if I'm not going to work I will use a tinted sunscreen instead:
- skin1004 madagascar centella tone brightening tone-up sunscreen – this is genuinely awful like there is just no way to use this to make it not pill. I have tried waiting half an hour after moisturiser to let it dry down and that does not help at all. the formula is thick and unpleasant to apply. it always makes me so sad when skin1004 products don't work for me because I love so much of their work but this is definitely an anti-rec. but I refuse to waste product so I will finish the tube if it's the last thing I do.
- aestura derma UV 365 red calming tone-up sunscreen – this is a much nicer formula than the skin1004 in the sense that it actually stays on the skin and the brightening/skintone evening effect is quite good.

PM routine

*skin1004 madagascar centella cleansing oil – just the best oil cleanser ever.
etude house soonjung whip cleanser – it's no peach & lily power cleansing gel but it's also not $70. does the job of second cleanser fine.
institut esthederm osmoclean hydra-replenishing fresh lotion – rec from an olive young staff member who took one look at me and typed into papago Are you very red and sensitive? 😭 my skin was genuinely in the trenches when I was in korea, I had some kind of butterfly rash/uv allergic reaction and half convinced myself that I had lupus so I was desperately trying to find something super hydrating and gentle and soothing to fix my skin barrier. kind of dubious about whether this is actually doing anything because it's pretty much just water in its viscosity so i am unsure how effective the hydration really is but I have a massive bottle and it doesn't seem to be harming me.
*dear klairs supple preparation unscented toner – I just keep coming back to her, every time I think I don't need her and I drop her from my routine my skin gets noticeably worse.
differin – purchased otc when I was in la with mich since it's prescription-only here (although I think adalpalene has recently become otc here too) and it's extremely effective but I have to be soooo careful about applying only a tiny tiny amount especially in winter or it is like a hydrogen bomb on my skin barrier.
*skin1004 madagascar centella ampoule – if I could only have one serum ever it would be this one I do intend to repurchase until the end of time.
dr satin caviar ghk-cu skin recovery essence gel
isntree hyaluronic acid water sleeping mask – I usually layer this over the dr satin at night because otherwise the dr satin is not moisturising enough.

MAKEUP

daily work makeup routine:

kissme heroine make prime liquid eyeliner rich keep (mocha greige) – this was a rec from mich, it looked sooo good and precise on her I had to try it for myself and although I've only had it for a week or so I think I like it more than the regular heroine make eyeliner which has previously been my holy grail. i like using lighter shades for a more subtle look at work but a lot of grey/brown eyeliners are so unpigmented that they straight up disappear but this eyeliner hits the right balance of visible v understated. staying power is fine as well, she holds up through the work day and a 5k run (haven't tested it with a 10k yet), and the tip is very fine so good for drawing thin wings as I prefer.
jung saem mool essential skin nuder cushion (light) - I thought I would never love a cushion more than I loved the clio mesh but she has been supplanted although I still think the mesh application is nicer than the jsm's traditional sponge cushion. basically since my skin has gotten a lot drier after I started using differin and I haven't fully figured out the right skincare to handle it yet, the clio mesh was starting to pill really badly on me, so I picked up the jsm at olive young in seoul on pea's rec. it applies so beautifully, very light and skinlike satiny finish, still looks fresh after a 10k run. love her very much, will repurchase.
the saem cover perfection tip concealer (clear beige) – the formula is fine and doesn't lift my base but the shade I got is too light so it's really annoying to use for spot concealing. I have a tiny bit left of a maybelline concealer I've been using for like 5 years that I tend to reach for instead because the shade match is better.
kissme heavy rotation colouring eyebrow (natural brown) – just picked up the first brow mascara I saw at donki i'm not really fussy about brows. I think the brush on the wand is too thick and gives too much pigment payoff for my liking but also I think it might be because I seriously need to thin my brows out. might go lighter or switch to clear gel when this one runs out.
judydoll double under eyeliner (#N01) – recently started getting into aegyosal makeup and this definitely makes it a lot more convenient, the shadow end is a good greyish contouring shade but the highlight end is a little too bright for me, I swipe it very very lightly under my eyes and then blend it out with a small brush or a fingernail if I'm lazy. I still do undereye glitter at the centre of my eyes, usually the glitter from the espoir real eye palette or sometimes one of the silver glitters from my cheeryep palette.
I have a bunch of blushes that I rotate through – the blush shade in my espoir palette, a light pink Innisfree blush which I think may be coming up on 7 or 8 years old, a dark pink shimmery judydoll blush which I think I have reviewed previously, and more recently acquired:
- fwee pudding pot blush (like) – got this after pea pointed it out at tokyu hands and I fell prey to the hype. my first non-powder blush and I still don't know if I like it tbh. I find it kind of a hassle to apply compared to powder blushes which are quick and easy… I always end up using too little out of fear of pigment and then it doesn't even look like anything. but it is a really interesting texture and the colour is pretty, quite a vibrant cool toned pink. the blendability kinda mid, I have to work quickly to make sure it diffuses out properly and I feel like I shouldn't need to work this hard but im not sure if it's just a cream(? jelly? non-newtonian fluid?) blush thing. anyway I think it looks so luminous when blended out with very pale pink powder blush but I think it would look even better with lavender or blue blush so I might investigate that.
- girlcult emotion blush (invisible rosy) – ok so I did buy this for the packaging because I think girlcult products are gorgeousss but I love how this looks on me, I've never tried a red/maroon blush before since I usually go for pink blushes but this looks like actual blood under the skin (like in the sense of a natural flush). the formula is like the fwee blush but I find it easier to work with maybe because it is a little bit more natural in finish so it looks less pigmented and also because it's in a compact rather than a pot so there's more surface area for the brush. really good for if I'm going for a less girly look.
clio prism highlighter duo (lavender voyage) – nose bridge, nose tip, cupid's bow, under the tails of my eyebrows, and I would do inner eye corner if I hadn't developed eczema there after crying so much over fuckass abu dhabi 2025.
canmake marshmallow finish powder (matte light ocher) – i don't love this tbh but I think it's because I started using it at a time where my skin was getting drier so I don't really need the coverage of a pressed powder anymore and it tends to separate a bit by the end of the day. I use this on my forehead and nose corners or just to set concealer. probably won't repurchase but the packaging is pretty if a bit flimsy.
pramy setting spray (matte) – i've just finished a bottle and i really liked this. was doing like 3-4 layers when I was in seoul for tds4 in july and my makeup did not melt off my face even when it felt like my skin was melting off my face. but also I think the products I use are quite budgeproof generally. the mist was quite fine which I liked (urban decay setting spray pissed me off bc it would spray out huge droplets) and there was no offputting smell also unlike the ud setting spray.
I also rotate through a bunch of lip products. recently acquired:
- amuse jelly lip tint (seoul girl) – once again a tokyo 2024 purchase. basically I saw the Recommended By Wonyoung sticker, blacked out momentarily, and came to with another lip tint in my duty free package. i do regret not getting one of the Japan exclusive shades but I didn't realise they were Japan exclusive until we already left donki ): seoul girl looks a lot pinker than I usually go for lip tints (I had a similar shade of etude house dear darling water tint and I do not think it looked good on me) but the shade is actually so nice and not as scarily vibrant as it looks in the bottle. and the formula is really lovely! it has better lasting power / less patchiness than the romand dewy tint and etude house dear darling tint, and I like the viscosity better than the judydoll. the jellylike glossiness is also really nice and works as advertised. I think this is actually my favourite lip tint formula I've ever tried, thank you wonyo <3
- girlcult unreal high shine lip glaze chameleon (dementor) – this is a very dark and gothic red, usually I will just apply a tiny bit to the centre of my lips and diffuse it out so it looks less scary to me. pretty much my only non-pink/mauve lip product. it has a very thin and watery consistency like the judydoll tint I had before but I find it a little bit drying. I will usually top it with a gloss because I don't use enough for it to have any kind of finish but I do really like it for occasions where pink does not feel like the move. beautiful packaging also, as with all girlcult products.
- aou dewy bar (fig) – bought on a whim at hemeko and I don't love the formula, you have to have extremely moisturised and line-free lips for it to apply well and the colour is a bit too shiny and vibrant like they weren't kidding about the dewy but I think it makes me look a bit like a clown. the bullet itself is also very soft so it's easy to over-apply.
- alternative stereo lip potion balmy rose (soft mauve) – I wanted a mlbb product and this is pretty much the exact same colour as my lips to the point where maybe it is a bit redundant but I like the cream-like formula a lot. it's not matte but it's not glossy either, like it really is giving Normal Lips. good for when I can't decide what colour I want to do.
- flortte sea pearl lipstick (shell pink) – this is like the better version of the aou lip balm it does everything the aou does but better and the packaging is prettier too. hydrating on the lips, glossy finish without being too shiny, applies well over slightly drier lips, colour not too bright. I like to throw this one in my bag for touch-ups regardless of which lip product I started the day with because it does pigment + gloss at the same time in a bullet format which is easier to reapply than a tint.

other makeup I wanted to discuss:

cheeryep 16 colour eyeshadow palette (fleeting life) – I bought this because I was struggling to do concert appropriate makeup with my neutral and pink/mauve palettes and wanted something more striking. I love the colour story on this even though it is intimidatingly intense. the shades are really pigmented and the formula is lovely but I will need to do more experimentation to figure out how to put together a look that is not decaying zombie adjacent.
entropy tulle gloss (robe) – it's just sooooo pretty. I don't think the mauve colour really shows up on me but I love the sparkle, the formula is not annoyingly sticky and it has decent staying power like the glitter does last through a bit of eating and drinking.
nuse reju lip gloss (dazzle grape) – the actual gloss is nice, though it's not pigmented enough to really add any colour to bare lips so I tend to use it on top of a lip tint or as a touch-up throughout the day. unfortunately the formula seems to both separate and dry out very quickly so you either get some kind of clear oily liquid or a dried lump when you first squeeze the tube which is very wasteful and annoying.
unleashia healthy green cushion (#21) – almost forgot I tested this out. application was so annoying because the cushionless gimmick meant no palette space to tap off excess product and the foundation also dispensed really unevenly, and it would separate on my forehead by the end of the day. did not like it at all.

FRAGRANCE

some notable acquisitions:

j-scent hojicha (coconut, peanut, laver / jasmine, mint, wintergreen / iris, cedarwood, vanilla, clover) – got this in tokyo as well but I had been looking for a tea scent for a while (have been dithering over acqua di parma osmanthus for 2 years) and the roasted note in hojicha is so interesting and unusual. the projection is super intimate and the longevity is low, but it's a rollerball application so that’s to be expected. I think this pulls slightly savoury on me which makes me kombucha girl a bit but I like to layer it with a vanilla gourmand to sweeten it back up. wish I'd gotten the ramune as well, such a fun scent!
byredo rose of no man's land (turkish rose, pink pepper / turkish rose, raspberry blossom / papyrus, amber) – rollerball gifted to me, a very standard and unthreatening rose scent which is not something I would typically buy for myself but I like layering this under kenzo flower in the air so it doesn't disappear instantly.
royal water angel wings (lemon, peach / orchid, freesia, lily, rose, violet, hyacinth / musk, sandalwood, amber) – I don't even know how to describe how this smells, it's clean and cool but in a sweet way that doesn't immediately pull floral or fruity or soapy, almost aquatic to me but not like an ocean or swimming pool it's like how fantasy books describe mountain spring water as fresh and sweet. if I concentrate I can identify the peach and white floral notes but it is really not like anything I've ever smelled before. longevity is great as well. really love this one.
setsuna dancing in the moonlight (vanilla, caramel cake / marshmallow, ice cream / sugared musk, white chocolate) – this is an indie australian perfumery and I'm always happy to support local small businesses but I really wish I liked this more! on paper this looked exactly up my alley since I was looking for a new supersweet night occasion appropriate gourmand, so I blind bought the sample size. I've seen the scent described as sticky date pudding and I think that is fairly accurate in the bottle but on me it just smells like traditional chinese medicine. like it's not giving dessert, it's giving qi replenishment. really strong, projection and longevity is amazing from just one spray but I don't necessarily want to smell like herbal jujube soup yk.
phlur heavy cream (lemon sugar, marshmallow, orange / jasmine blossom, coconut cream, ambrettolide / vanilla mousse, salted caramel, whipped cream) – birthday gift from pea and I loveeee it, perfect light vanilla caramel gourmand with a refreshing citrusy note that stops it from being too cloying for everyday use. i don't typically like lemon notes in vanilla gourmands because why is there sour in my dessert scent but I think it works well here because the scent is so airy and balanced and it interacts with my skin chemi really well. this is my Going For A Walk / grocery shopping scent, like it's just super easy to wear.
p-seven honyun black tea (bergamot, mandarin, pepper, nutmeg / lavender, carnation, orange blossom, iris, black tea / cedarwood, guaiac wood, oakmoss, vetiver, musk, tonka bean) / ruby black tea (honey, cane sugar / cinnamon, jasmine, oolong tea / cedarwood) / vintage black tea (bergamot, sage, fir / brown sugar, vanilla, assam black tea / healingwood, amber, musk) – bought the discovery set at a niche perfume shop in taiwan recced to me by pea. all three of these are very lovely office safe tea scents, good blend of vivid black tea notes with an appropriate amount of sweetness. ruby black tea is probably my favourite out of the three I love that honey top note.
voyager criollo (dark chocolate, coffee, plum / raspberry, jasmine / patchouli, tonka bean, honey) – also bought in taiwan. was not expecting to love it as much as I did especially because patchouli is usually a bit offputting to me, but it smells like a delicious cherry ripe on me in the best way possible. I had been wanting a night gourmand scent since the setsuna wasn't really working for me and this is giving sophisticated and mysterious and scorpio in a way that makes me feel a bit like I'm cosplaying a girl who is much cooler than me but I do believe in fake it till you make it. starting to think that honey is a note I need to be looking out for more. I had actually been intending to pick up d'annam mooncake from the delicious sounding notes but every sweet note disappeared on my skin and it just smelled like straight up salt and eggyolk which was very sad, and i didn't really love anything else i smelled from d'annam.
janua mine wish (pear, freesia, bergamot / jasmine, grapefruit, pear blossom / cedar, amber, satin musk, cotton candy) – decant generously gifted to me by pea, the fairy floss pear i ate delicioussss this gets me so many compliments at work. perfect sweet fruity floral for summer, nothing groundbreaking but doesn't need to be because it's very good at being what it is.
giorgio armani my way (orange blossom, bergamot / tuberose, jasmine / vanilla, white musk, cedar) – got a free sample of this last week when I was shopping for running gear and was shocked by how much I like it even though I should not be surprised since I generally love department store designer frags because they're always bubblegum candy sweet. I think the orange blossom note is what makes it more interesting to me than other similar generic designer perfumes?

hwarium posting in

17hols

What happens now?

prompting is closed
comments, fills and remixes remain open (forever)
masterlist and notion database are up to date, admins clock off

( mods says a few words )

rhodochrosite

so I neglected to recap 13 months of reading in which I actually did not read that much but I did start reading sports bios/autobios for various canon review purposes late last year, which was probably the first time I have read nonfiction for leisure since I was like eight years old. here is a quick review post, not including the books that i read by ctrl f'ing to "vettel" "seb" etc. tennis and f1 below:

( You are only as good as your wins. )

rhodochrosite

highlight reel of quotes from unstoppable: the ultimate biography of max verstappen - mark hughes.

MAX INTERIORITY STUDIES

Introduction
Talk to him today and there’s no apparent damage; he’s relaxed and sociable, with a ready smile. The most special part of his personality, the most critical part, is that he is not cowed by anything. He fears no one and reputations mean nothing to him and never have. He’s straight-talking and on track he’s always the dominant one in any tango. But there’s been zero rebellion. Not as far as anyone knows. Just wide-eyed, straightforward, matter-of-fact openness, very characteristically Dutch in that way, taking forward the life and career Jos helped to shape.
//
Sensitive enough to engender a good atmosphere around him but not particularly reflective, Max doesn’t give the impression of devoting much time to contemplation. So the deep psychological questions about his childhood relationship with his father just wouldn’t resonate.
//
He’s a nice guy, a caring guy, a reasonable guy, but not one seemingly troubled by things beyond his immediate orbit. There is always this pull towards equilibrium. Not in the car, obviously.
//
But he is defined within the terms of the sport, and is not the sort of character who will transcend it in the way Lewis Hamilton has or Ayrton Senna did. He’s too straightforward for that, too uninterested in the world outside of racing. Because it’s a world in which he’s never lived. But within the bubble in which he has spent his entire existence, very few in history have ever flown so high.

Chapter 1: Monaco
Two things about Max Verstappen: his competitive zeal is extraordinarily intense, even by the standards of an F1 driver, and he tends to be binary in his assessment of situations—black or white, not grey.

Chapter 2: Father and Son
That Max is every bit as tough as Jos, however, is beyond question, and his aggression can flare, Jos-like, when provoked, both in the car and out. He has better control of his temper than his dad ever did, though. He can usually decouple the instinct from the action.

Chapter 3: The Making of a Champion
It is easy to see how, having reached the pinnacle of the real-life sport, Max found a new obsession where he could strive for excellence, assimilate afresh the requirements needed to dominate. This gives us perhaps more clarity on just where the urge to race in the first place came from. It wasn’t from Jos. There was no rebellion from Max against Jos’ dictates because it was Max who was pushing for it and Max who always wanted more. Max soaked up the knowledge and skill like a sponge as fast as Jos could pour it in, until he had surpassed his father.

i reckon a bit of a nature/nurture chicken-egg situation here tbh

//
‘Some people probably cannot deal with that kind of behaviour,’ said Max in 2021, ‘but I needed it. I was that type of character, probably, who needed this kind of treatment.’

macks……………………………………………. me in hell: Where is jos verstappen

//
When he’s racing, Max is entirely devoted to the task at hand. When he’s not, he relaxes.
//
He races because that’s what he does, that’s pretty much all of him… Just as reaching the goal of F1 was almost a routine matter; just as winning a grand prix on his debut with Red Bull was too.

Chapter 4: Disrupting the Hierarchy
[Max’s] recovery drive to victory is a beautiful demonstration of how he can decouple, in an instant, his natural ‘elegant’ driving style from the competitive necessities of the moment when overtaking sometimes demands a more brutal approach. Some of his out-brakes of rivals are far from elegant, but still require incredibly finely-honed skills to be made to work. It’s not only his super-precise sense of where the last possible braking point is (which is very different to the best braking point in terms of the ultimate lap time), but also the subsequent control which invariably rescues the wild moments his manoeuvres have given him. So he can drive with all the flamboyance and apparent wildness in the world when he needs to, but the default is the elegance which enables him to extract the ultimate lap time from a kart or car. And even at 12 years old—and almost certainly from well before then—he can effortlessly, unthinkingly, switch between the two at will.
//
Max clearly had that sublimely sensitive feel almost from the start, incredibly attuned to the messages the car and tyres were giving him in a way that few have ever matched. He didn’t know as much about the technicalities of karts as Jos and never sought to.

Chapter 5: Man and Machine
Max intuitively understands the dynamics and how to make the car go faster, even if not always the technical reasons behind that.

Chapter 7: From Rookie to Record Breaker
But Max had never been overly concerned with others defining for him the realms of the possible.

Chapter 8: Tensions Running High
But when attack and verve were the order of the day, [Max] was truly formidable.

Chapter 9: Heroes and Villains
That’s how it is with Max. Things happen, then it’s in the past. There’s little or no reflection. It’s a quality which takes the poison out of potentially vitriolic situations as he doesn’t seem to hold grudges. Winning is all there is and everything else is subservient to that.

Chapter 13: Irritations vs Rewards
Late in the race, he asked Lambiase what the fastest lap time had been. ‘We’re not concerned about that,’ replied the engineer. ‘Yeah, but I am,’ said Max.
//
As the marketing-led direction of the sport ramps up, it seems Max increasingly struggles to shut off that inbuilt Verstappen impulse to dismiss what he sees as stupid and irrelevant, and it eats into the energy reserves that keep him doing F1. There was a revealing moment in the official press conference that preceded the Miami Grand Prix weekend, after Max was asked a particularly vacuous question, when a look of irritated exasperation flashed across his face, before he then composed himself to give a suitably bland answer. These giveaway micro-expressions seem all of a piece with his growing disenchantment with the sport he has come to dominate. How big those reserves are and how much they are replenished by the rewards are racing are something only he could know—and even he probably doesn’t.

RED BULL’S GOLDEN CHILD SOLDIER

Chapter 1: Monaco
The events of Monaco 2022 are quite illuminating in this regard. They tell us about the complex, delicate relationship between Red Bull and Max and how even though they rely on each other totally for their combined success, in some respects it’s still not a full marriage. They have been partners for many years and enjoyed good times. But there’s still a distance—and it’s put in place by the Verstappens. It’s about control.
//
Verstappen is central to Red Bull: it all revolves around him at an operational and support level, he’s very happy in that role and that brings its own spiralling benefits… But even now that Max and Red Bull were contractually aligned for the foreseeable, it still wasn’t the Ferrari/Schumacher love-in where the joins were almost invisible and not a raised eyebrow of public criticism ever crossed Schumacher’s face. It wasn’t even the slightly less serene but still very close relationship of Mercedes and Hamilton.
//
It just works, [Horner] says. ‘Max feels very comfortable in the environment. There is a belief and a passion and a shared philosophy of how we go racing and I think he enjoys that. He is very loyal and protective of the team.’
//
Red Bull, much more than any corporate automotive team, can wear a little bit of controversy quite comfortably. The Verstappens fit into this ethos well—it’s even possible that Max derives some performance from it. This boy was always going to go racing if he wanted to and had the talent. It’s led to a certain free-spiritedness in his approach, answering only to himself.
//
Perhaps more than any driver on the grid, maybe even more than Fernando Alonso, Verstappen is racing on his own terms. Red Bull’s only intolerance—and it’s a severe one—is lack of performance, which is not something Max has ever had to worry about. He oozes performance, it’s locked into his own DNA, allowing him to be supremely relaxed in doing what he does—which only adds to the performance.

Chapter 7: From Rookie to Record Breaker
It’s tempting to imagine Max awakened the spirit of the rebellious young Marko. The Verstappens were the beneficiaries of his enthusiastic crusade, probably way more than they had anticipated. It made Max’s position far stronger than it would have been at, say, Mercedes or Ferrari. He was much more than just another driver in the Red Bull programme. He was Marko’s pet project.
//
‘He motivates everyone in the team,’ Xevi Pujolar told De Telegraaf. ‘Everyone sees his talent. But also his way of racing. Max is an attacker and that is something that captivates your mind.’
//
Christian Horner: ‘Max can be very demanding and very sharp when emotions are running high. He’s a thoroughbred, very strong-willed, and there’s many an engineer who will wilt under that pressure because Max’s expectation is incredibly high. GP is able to handle that and they each can give as good as they get, so much so that sometimes you forget which is the driver and which is the engineer.’

Chapter 10: All that was Needed was the Car
‘Max is a very difficult teammate,’ says Christian Horner, ‘because it must be soul destroying that you are looking at a piece of data and he’s three quarters of a second up the road and you are thinking how the hell has he done that? And it’s not just at one race, it’s at every race. Yet he doesn’t demand number one status, he doesn’t have anything in his contract that stipulates he has to have all the best bits, the newest bits, the developments; he is very fair in that respect, but the team will always gravitate around the driver that has the best chance at the end of the day.’

Chapter 12: Unbeatable
‘Can we do this for many, many, years?’ were Max’s words to his Red Bull teammates as he rode the high of his slow-down victory lap in Abu Dhabi 2021.

DRAGON & PHOENIX

sure i'm just visually doing ctrl-f to leclerc but why else am i reading sports nonfiction if not to improve my yaoi scholarship.

Chapter 4: Disrupting the Hierarchy
Both were disqualified, Max for deliberately forcing Leclerc off the track in retaliation for earlier contact when Leclerc had relieved Max of the lead. Leclerc’s disqualification was for driving Max off the track after the end of the race in a fit of pique.

“a fit of pique” is soooooo cute

Chapter 5: Man and Machine
Frits van Amersfoort: ‘An average race driver, normally gets better where he was always good, but forgets where he was weak. And it was the opposite for Max. He knew where he was weak and what he had to work on, and that’s the talent, that’s something you can’t teach. Charles [Leclerc] was exactly the same; from day one they knew what to do.’
//
Atze Kerkhof: ‘With a textbook driving style—aggressive on the brake and very smooth coming off, turning at the right time, you can get within five-tenths [over a lap]. But that last five-tenths is dancing on a very thin line, balancing the car and stepping away from the textbook braking style—it’s still there in the basics but it needs to be adjusted intermittently in millimetres to have a positive effect on the balance. And that’s what [Max] and Charles Leclerc can do better than others.’

Chapter 10: All that was Needed was the Car
Max’s old karting adversary Charles Leclerc, now at Ferrari, was setting the tracks alight, especially in qualifying.
//
At Silverstone, the Verstappen-Leclerc dice continued where it had left off in Austria, albeit only for third position this time as Mercedes dominated. Their wheel-to-wheel dice had the crowd cheering wildly and this time it was Leclerc who emerged on top.

Chapter 12: Unbeatable
The Mercedes, driven by Verstappen’s 2021 rival Lewis Hamilton and Hamilton’s new teammate George Russell, were badly afflicted and would no longer be Red Bull’s main competitors. That turned out to be the Ferrari driven by Verstappen’s old karting rival Charles Leclerc.
//
Max’s on-track problem was now Leclerc, who in Bahrain qualified on pole, 0.1 seconds faster, and proceeded to lead the race, with Max in chase… After the first pit stops, Leclerc calmly repelled Max’s three out-braking moves on the Ferrari.
//
In Saudi Arabia, Max at his tenacious best won a brilliant race-long dice with Leclerc…
//
What was noticeable about his thrillingly close dices with Leclerc in both Bahrain and Saudi was that there were none of the ruthless, zero-compromise moves he'd so often used against Hamilton. He denied there was any difference, but others saw it.

WHO ELSE SMILEDDDDD... max races charles more respectfully than he races other people it's trueeee

THE TWO BULLS IN THE RED BULL LOGO IN QUESTION

Chapter 1: Monaco
Team boss Christian Horner is a skilled operator and understands the delicate dynamic well. His first experience of walking that line came in Red Bull’s first era of title success with Sebastian Vettel who didn’t always react well to any challenge from teammate Mark Webber.
//
‘[Max] can be very sharp and cutting,’ says Horner, ‘when emotions are running high and a lot of engineers would wilt under that strain. He is demanding. The fuse is a little shorter than it was with Seb.’

Chapter 7: From Rookie to Record Breaker
Horner: ‘It’s a quite different relationship to that between Rocky and Seb. Rocky really got into the mind management of how to get Sebastian in the right mental frame whether it was writing things on his balaclava, naming his car, all these little things. It’s a lot less touchy-feely with Max and GP. They are just brutally honest with each other, no holds barred, and in that respect, I think it’s a very pure, very honest, relationship.’

Chapter 10: All that was Needed was the Car
Horner: ‘Sebastian was a very deep-thinking person that needed to feel very secure; he was studious in his attention to detail. That’s where he got his security and confidence from. Max in many respects is much more binary, more straightforward. You bolt him in, you know you’re going to get 110 per cent. You know if he feels he isn’t getting 110 per cent back that pisses him off and he is going to voice it. But that is it. He doesn’t carry it out of the car. But then, he is not going to be the guy that is going to be in a debrief for two and a half hours. He is very specific about what he needs from the car in order to go quicker, he has a very good feel for what he does need, for where the limitations are, but he is not going to take 25 minutes talking about a formation lap and the clutch-biting points and temperatures and so on that Sebastian would do even before he got to the debrief. Max is just very focused on this is what I need to go faster, give me that and I will sort the rest out.’

Chapter 11: Long Live the King
Waiting for him by his motorhome was Sebastian Vettel, who said he just wanted to check that Max was okay. It meant a lot.

GOAT4GOAT

Chapter 3: The Making of a Champion
[Max is] the ultimate insider. When Lewis Hamilton, maybe the ultimate outsider, made his F1 debut in Australia 2007, as he climbed from the car he caught his father’s eye and they celebrated. ‘We’ve done it! We’ve bloody done it!’ they said as they hugged and laughed, having pulled off something that had seemed so extraordinarily remote when they started, so impossible. It’s not a scene which would probably have much resonated with the Verstappens. Max is a way less complex character than rival Hamilton. But then he’s bound to be. He’s had a way less complex set of circumstances to grow up in and a far more certain path to achieving his ambitions.

Chapter 4: Disrupting the Hierarchy
Giancarlo Tinini: ‘Also, he has the same competitive instinct as another of our old drivers, Lewis Hamilton, someone who had to be first in everything, even if it was going down the stairs or drinking a hot chocolate!’

Chapter 5: Man and Machine
Jenson Button: ‘Lewis [Hamilton] can drive with pretty much any balance, it doesn’t seem to matter. He can seem to be struggling but when the moment comes he can just pull the big lap out of the bag regardless of the balance. But Max does seem to be at his absolute fastest with a very unstable car. I think he can get even more from such a car than Lewis. but maybe Lewis’ spread is wider, I don’t know. It’s very close.’

Chapter 6: Fast Track to Formula 3
Tony Shaw: ‘But [Lewis] just took the thing by the scruff of the neck in a very limited around of time. He didn’t mess around, Lewis. He just went hell-for-leather straightaway. Whereas the test with Max, it felt a lot calmer… What they had in common as young teenagers is that they were both bloody quick and totally unfazed to be in a racing car.’

Chapter 7: From Rookie to Record Breaker
[Max] was asked there [at Austin] if he considered Lewis Hamilton—on the verge of sealing his third world championship—the best driver in F1 and replied, ‘I don’t know. Give me his car and I will tell you.’

Chapter 8: Tensions Running High
As they started for the third time, Max was immediately stalking his prey Rosberg…

re Brazil 2016, didn’t want to create a whole new section for 336 but enjoyed how this was phrased lol

//
Ahead now was Hamilton, who was displaying much the same virtuosity as Max but in a faster car.
//
‘I could have closed that door, obviously,’ said Hamilton to Max in the cool-down room before the podium celebrations.

‘But you were fighting for a championship,’ Max finished off.

‘Yeah, I didn’t want to risk it,’ said Hamilton.

That conversation summarised the basic dynamics of the race but the bold way Verstappen had made his move clearly registered with Hamilton, as he referred to it a week later after winning the Japanese Grand Prix with Max right on his tail…. It sounded for all the world like Max had got into his head.

Chapter 9: Heroes and Villains
Verstappen had pricked [Lewis’] attention in Malaysia the previous year and the tension was only building. Max was surely fully aware of the significance of how he chose to race Hamilton.
//
It was a brilliant win by Ricciardo but perhaps more significantly, an extraordinary little vignette of the pride of the pack and the young challenger whose thrusting energy had been de-railed by a cynical slap down. Was Hamilton surprised that Max had tried there? ‘Yeah,’ he replied. ‘I’ve not ever seen anyone pass anyone there, certainly not a top driver. I’m surprised he tried it.’ Leaving unsaid that Lewis himself had invited it.
//
Verstappen refused to surrender and the wheel-to-wheel dive lasted for the next few corners until Hamilton used the run-off on the exit of Turn 18, effectively surrendering rather than risk contact and a non-finish.

‘I thought you gave me a lot of room,’ said an amused Verstappen later. ‘Yeah,’ said Hamilton, ‘I never know with you. I didn’t want a coming together…’
//
Hamilton seemed to be offering advice, saying, ‘Yeah, but he had nothing to lose. You did.’ It was an expression of the different stages they were at in their careers, Hamilton talking from the perspective of someone who’d been annealed by years of success and was able to take a strategic view, Max still with it all to do and bursting with unfulfilled ambition.

But Max’s charging, uncompromising style continued to make Hamilton wary of him on track.
//
Chapter 10: All that was Needed was the Car
‘I braked into Turn 1 and all of a sudden Max is alongside me. If you’ve seen races before, I always leave Max a lot of space—it’s the smartest thing you can do. But there wasn’t a lot of space for me to give him…’

Max was still clearly very much in Hamilton’s head. Whenever he was around, Hamilton was not racing naturally.

Chapter 11: Long Live the King
The principle of entropy always prevails, though, as the energy dissipates and the names made by success are coaxed away by rivals; a steady erosion of the advantage over the team in the ascendant, in this case Red Bull. If we’re lucky, there will be a season or two of overlap where the titans go at it; if we’re really lucky, the generational shift of the teams will play out between the king and the pretender in the cockpits. So it was in 2021…
//
It was a season which cast the two combatants in elemental roles, accentuating the contrasts in their make-up. Hamilton is more emotionally driven, has worked hard through his racing life to put a lid on the cauldron and to direct his feelings. His competitive self—the intimidating warrior—is quite separate from his persona outside the car, which is a sometimes vulnerable, questing one, wrestling with the big questions. Then there’s the showman within him, the guy who will crowd-surf at Silverstone or do smoking burnouts on his motorbike in the car park for the fans at Monza, the fashionista, the musician. He’s all these things and more. The social justice and race equality campaigner, the LA scene face who mixes in Hollywood circles, and still, sometimes, in off-guard moments, the boy from the Stevenage council.

In Hamilton, you can sense the immense pride at having achieved against the odds. There’s a keen antenna for criticism, which he’s had to work hard at concealing. When the pride is pricked, he’ll fire back with steely conviction, the underlying intensity of his self-belief seeming to ooze from his being. There’s also a need for recognition, though, for external validation. This is someone who still carries the scars of having forced his way into a sport that looked unattainable for reasons of both finance and race, and who hasn’t forgotten what it felt like to be fearful that it could all be taken away.

For Max – someone who was injected direct into the veins of F1 – it's much simpler. He's a lighter, sunnier, less complex personality. Neither criticism nor praise appears to make the slightest impression. He really isn't interested in validation and has what appears to be almost a disdain for his success, like it has always been, for him, his destiny. It isn't so much carried with arrogance as just matter-of-fact realism, hardly something even worth pondering. There are just the realities of what he is facing at any given race weekend.
//
Although Verstappen and Hamilton are near-neighbours in Monaco, the chances of them hanging out are close to zero, not because of any animosity—they are neither of them poisonous characters—but simply because their wavelengths do not resonate in either frequency or amplitude. The only time that happens is on the track.
//
In 2021, Hamilton and Verstappen were the two greatest racing drivers on the planet. One of them had been around long enough for that reality to be converted into career numbers and had almost forgotten what it was like to lose, even though he knew it would come one day. The other had been stared of that winning feeling for too long, had been waiting years for this opportunity of racing where he knew he belonged—at the very front, all the time, fearless and ready to battle all-comers, but especially the man with all the titles and plaudits.
//
The bigger point had been made at the first corner by Verstappen: he would continue to race in the same merciless way he’d always done, and Hamilton would have to tailor his approach accordingly. Hamilton, who had several times over the previous three years admitted that he didn’t really know how to handle Verstappen’s aggressive style wheel-to-wheel and would instead just give him room, had evidently realised that was a policy he could no longer afford.
//
It was an unsettling thing for Hamilton: the spotlight was now on how he, with the pride of being multiple world champion, was going to handle this seemingly unstoppable force. It was all part of the Max effect.
//
Verstappen raced that corner exactly as he’s always raced. What was different was Hamilton’s refusal to accept that.
//
On being asked if he thought he made Hamilton nervous, [Max] replied, ‘He would never admit that. At least I’m not afraid of him. Yeah, I think I’ll make him nervous if he sees me in his mirrors. He’s a different driver than me, less aggressive. He doesn’t know how to race like I do.’

Chapter 12: Unbeatable
Giedo van der Garde: ‘I think now Lewis has a lot of respect for Max and Max now has more respect for Lewis. When they are together there is a bit of a tension, the energy between them is sometimes too high and I think that is why they crash.’
//
‘It wouldn’t have mattered anything for my race, because we were just way too slow. But it’s just a shame, I thought we could race quite well together, but clearly the intention was not there to race.’

‘You know how it is with Max,’ countered Hamilton. Clearly, their uncompromising attitude towards each other when their cars were competitive was still there, one year on.

in the first worship

you make the one devoted to devotion
devoted to you.

you bring the mountain into your lips.

without prayer, your mouth blooms.
- dia || chronic rambler || '98 -

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October 2021