"uncertainty principle" dvd commentary

[girlrock]

uncertainty principle / 814 (15.0k, t)
>me: does this even warrant a dvd commentary when it's the most basic fic ever and has no depth
>risa: dvd commentaries are not restricted by genre!

hence... welcome to the landoscar kidfic dvd commentary.

tbh i'm really happy i finally wrote this because i've always wanted to write a kidfic but spent a long time thinking it was inherently impossible :') i LOVE found family and domesticity and meddling child ocs and i also really like the possible scenarios that alt reality/canon divergence offers for f1 fic. another prime inspiration is that lando norris is just generally obsessed with children and clearly wants a baby, so oomfs and i have been continuously drafting/narrating random 814 girldad ideas and the like for a million years... and then in like june(?) 2024 i officially created miapia.

honestly i don't even know where the idea for her came from anymore LOL but i really wanted oscar to have a precocious karting daughter who meets lando and basically just storms her way into his life and is like >You should come watch me race. and also sets him up with oscar (subtly) while lando, who is now in his 30s and watching everyone he grew up with finally settle down, is kind of immediately charmed and starts to give into the side of himself he'd steadfastly refused to nurture for all these years. and then once i came up with the name mia we were like... lando should give her all sorts of silly nicknames (mp, mimi, miapia à la dannyric, pastry jr, etc.) which oscar pretends to be annoyed by but actually secretly finds adorable. 😭😭😭

some early stuff:

at the beginning, i also spent some time playing around with her age because i was like... well i don't want to make her too old to the point that she's like too much of a teenager + karting too competitively where the logistics get kind of complicated, but also if she's too young there's not that much stake in the hobby yet. i felt like age 10 was a good settling point, where she's competitive enough at the honda cadet stage but isn't doing international euro series/okj stuff yet.

honestly writing landoscar fic... especially lando pov because he's bri'ish which has similar but ultimately different considerations to oscar pov (also was no one going to tell me that british people use feet for their height!?! i thought you were like "the rest of the world") is so funny because i feel like i'm cosplaying as a little paddington bear when i write in my document. and honestly i don't really think it's that big of a deal if americanisms slip through but from reading 18 million words of tw fic wherein authors will use words like humour, favourite, rubbish, fancy (v.), mum, etc. for characters who live in california, i kind of get how it can disrupt immersion so i do want to at least be earnest in my attempts to hono(u)r the source material 😭 but it is hilarious when i'm highlighting the most innocuous little bits to ask english oomfs about like IS THIS HOW YOU PEOPLE SAY IT. it's a work in progress...

speaking of british/australianisms though it's such a shame that i didn't have an organic opportunity to sprinkle in mia's australian side... in my head i was characterizing her as a little british girl who's been raised by her australian father (cricketluvr) to only cheer for australia in intl tournaments and knows Way Too Much About Cricket etc. etc. she BLEEDS GREEN AND YELLOW!!! anyway you can just imagine it. in your heads. also this is why she's so foul-mouthed oscar does Nawt gaf

personally i enjoy writing oscar pov because his voice comes to me pretty naturally, but funnily enough basically all of my wips atm are in lando's perspective rn!!! i think it's been fun to branch out and delve into lando's personality, because he's a big overthinker/has a lot of simultaneous confidence and self-doubt in himself and it kind of creates a natural psychological conflict. in drafting this fic, i realized that i didn't really want to make it super conflict-heavy narratively, so most of the "issues" are just lando talking to himself/working through his priorities and where he is in life while he struggles with loneliness/feeling behind his peers. also i just don't know how to write plot... T__T soz

i looooveee young single dad oscar in this 'verse because i enjoy the idea of him being 22 like Welp guess i've got a daughter now. that's how life goes i suppose. and just adapting to it... even though of course things aren't EASY and he struggles, he wouldn't have it any other way and i really wanted all of that fondness to show through their interactions ;;___;;

i decided pretty early on that i was going to make oscar a (Not-So-)Secret Lando Fan, and then i also thought it'd be hilarious if mia were this like Typical Motorsport Kid who's OBSESSED with max v and doesn't even care about lando (as a driver) that much and meets him and is like well you're not as cool as max verstappen obviously, who is a 5-time world champion who knew when to quit f1 and is going to win le mans this year, but my dad likes you so i guess you're cool. and in the end she likes him more as a person anyway!!! kids are silly like that...

i thought the star wars motif was also sweet as a way to tie together their bond (the lando & leia duo of it all :'))) + mia's nerdy hyperfocus interests—she only cares about TWO (2) THINGS. and her dad being happy. of course

i've had this fic planned for months and months but as always i ended up writing the majority of it (12k/15k words) over a single weekend, read it over once or twice, got it briefly britpicked, and pressed post.... LOL. i really had fun with it though and i'm happy to finally have a self-indulgent little found family story under my belt :_) she's silly but she's mine!

some lines:

the general psyche etc etc

Lando's just Lando. There were girls, and then the guys, too, when they were thoroughly vetted and deemed suitably discreet, even a drunken fumble with Garrix here and there, getting pissed in a tucked-away VIP corner and waking up in a stranger's bed staring off the massive welt of a hickey seared high up on his neck like a perverse keepsake in their bedside mirror.

—

Lando is self-aware, thank you very much. It's what he does with that self-awareness that generally comes back to bite him.

"Because I'm his favourite?" he asks.

"Because you're nice," she announces. Like it's the most obvious thing in the world. It shouldn't pierce Lando in the chest as badly as it does, a gaping, bleeding stab wound. "And he should have someone nice."

Fucking hell.

necessary lando-doesn't-know-words moments:

"Oh my god, Bob," Max says, his emphasis a hot mess, like he's forgotten how to speak English. He makes a strangled noise that has Lando wondering whether he's got anyone around who can perform the Ham-whatever manoeuvre. It'd be extremely inconvenient if he died on Lando now. "Oh my god."

—

It feels like he's watching a little piece of Mia bloom in real-time. If he had a diary, maybe he'd pencil it into today's entry: MIA MADE HER FIRST KARTING FRIEND. MANUMENTAL.

and the karting inchident scene... i loved writing this LOL because lando is forced into his first real Adulting Position with her and is like oh my god oscar is going to kill me but also who raised this maniac (oscar did). also lando inevitably resonating with her stubbornness / realizing that she DOES feel bad but is just embarrassed about having messed up in the first place and being more willing to let it fester than amend the situation because facing things head on and being accountable is Cringe And For Babies :(

"MP, mate, look at me. What did you call him?"

She stares at her palms as if they hold the secrets of the universe, chagrined. "Stupid…?"

Lando blinks. "That's it?"

"Cunt?"

Lando blinks at her again, this time more furiously. "What?!"

"I called him a stupid cunt, okay!"

"Jesus, Mia," he groans. "Your dad is literally going to kill me. Dead! They won't find the body!"

"I didn't mean it!"

"Well, that's all the more reason to not say it!" Lando exclaims, exasperated. Suddenly he understands how Sophie felt all those years handling him during his media scrums.

—

"Fine," Mia mutters stubbornly. But Lando can tell that she wants to and is just embarrassed about it, and that he can work with. It's only ever been his entire life. So he takes her hand and leads them over to the little boy she'd apparently verbally eviscerated fifteen minutes ago, wondering how on earth he got here.

i actually came up with mia becoming friends with conrad on a whim but now i LOVE the thought of them being tiny besties together lol. they're so cute to me T__T KIDS REALLY ARE THE BEST!!!

"Sorry I missed the party," Lando tells him. Oscar shrugs, hesitating lightly, before he brings Lando in for what could possibly qualify as the shortest one-armed hug in Guinness World Records history.

The phantom touch lingers. A ghost caress.

"No worries," Oscar tells him. "She had some schoolmates and Conrad over. Got her a Yoda cake?"

"Of course you did."

—

Oscar raises his eyebrows, unimpressed. Those things really know how to arch. Damn. "Someone who has no regard for propriety?"

"What!" Lando objects. "I'm the most appropriate person you'll ever meet. I'm all about—whatever you said."

—

"So polite," he breathes out, running his fingers over the messy waves of her hair. "You're just like your dad, aren't you?"

Oscar makes a choked noise beside him. Lando's terrified to meet his eyes, sure that he must look half-crazed right now, his face cracked open and pouring with fondness. His heart thumps viciously against his ribcage like a trapped animal thrashing for escape.

the entire gift scene... i love awkward pining bantering girl dads <3

"D'you still have it?" he asks playfully. "The poster."

"Duh," Mia says, rolling her eyes. "He wouldn't throw it away. It's you."

It's him. Isn't it?

IT'S BOTH OF THEM TT___TT ......

"You know," he tells her. "I really lucked out. A lot of the guys are only just getting their kids into karts, but look at you. Almost to the top of the ladder!"

"Yeah, yeah." Mia pulls out a nutella biscuit and starts munching on it. She got her sweet tooth from her father. "You're a regular old Jos Verstappen."

"That's not something to joke about," Lando tells her, mostly because it kind of seems like something Oscar would say. Lando is nailing this parenting thing.

also not me assigning max v's unborn child as mia's future potential teammate in this verse LOL. sorry. once again this is the silliest thing in the world. yay kidfic