The only thing that feels a little off is the cheerful music playing. Sure, I mean, gardens are happy places, but this is just downright weird.
Thank you for reading and keeping up with this story! We’re back after a long break to see how our character progresses forward.
‘Enter username: ___________’
Username…?
Like the ones you enter in video games?
Am I playing a video game?
Do I exist inside of this game?
Too much. Too much to think of right now. It gives me a slight headache, but I will it to go away and try to make sense of my current situation. I think it over, and remembering that I can’t even recall my own name, I’m at a loss. Does my memory even matter anymore, if my suspicions of being in a game are right?
Wait. What if I was made in here, manufactured by someone I don’t even know the name of? Then obviously, I wouldn’t have any family outside, or friends, or any memories at all. It makes a little more sense to me now. In the end, does it even matter? What am I going to do with my memories, if they even exist, inside this place? There’s nothing they would possibly help me with.
I give up and look for the skip option. Oh. They don’t have one. Looks like I can’t go on without entering a name. Remembering the original name this game gave me, I say the letters out as clearly as I can, and the white box turns green with a large check sign on it, and starts fading.
‘Registered! Welcome, GL!TC# !’
I find myself in the same place I was standing at, but the girl in front of me isn’t there any longer. I try calling out to look for her, but I realise she’s probably too far to even hear me. Having given up, I trudge further indoors to get a better look at things.
As I move forward, the room starts slowly morphing into something different, like I’m walking through a tunnel. The mansion seems to have been left far behind, and I found myself in some kind of garden. The only thing that feels a little off is the cheerful music playing. Sure, I mean, gardens are happy places, but this is just downright weird. Is it supposed to mean something? I don’t understand it.
Slowly, I think I’m getting used to how strange this place is. The sudden shifts in things around me don’t bother me as much, and I’ve gotten over worrying about things that make no sense to me. It’s a little calmer, now that I at least have some ideas and assumptions as to who I am, where I am, and what I’m doing. A video game, right? I don’t think I’m much of a gamer myself, but at least I know that every game has an objective. So, if I finish a task, then I’ll be done, and I can leave. All I need to do is figure out what that task is.
I walk further in, and something pulls me in further and further. I think it’s the sweet smell of the flowers that keeps me moving forward, and before I realise it, a giant wall of hedges has grown behind me and I can’t go back the way I came, which means the mansion is out of reach now. How do I manage to get myself stuck everywhere, somehow or the other?
Hedges keep growing around me until they’re too high to see beyond, and I can see miniature pathways form through them. A maze. The game’s thrown me headfirst into a maze, but this time I know what to do. Obviously, I have to escape, which could mean finding the exit or locating the very centre. Sadly, that’s going to be a ridiculously difficult task seeing as the walls have grown to easily thrice my height, and the skies are darkening ominously, with the looming threat of a thunderstorm.
If I were to think this over, I’d say that there were definitely more people like me stuck here. Well, if not exactly in my situation, they’d at least be people like the one I saw earlier, xXPhoenixX. They’ve got to have the same objective that I do, though perhaps they’re aware of what they are to do unlike me. But there’s one thing I know, and it’s that I am absolutely not going to give up until I get out. There isn’t a chance that this place will make me lose my resolve, and I’m going to leave.
Right in time as the clouds begin with a light shower, the hedge right in front of me clears a pathway for me, and it looks easy enough to go through. The thing is, I can’t see where it ends, or any places where I can make turns if I want to. To my right, there is an opening that had been there from the start, which looks like the real beginning of the maze.
Do I take the path that goes straight in and gives me a shortcut to make it easier… or take the route that seems like the hard way in?
This is where you, the reader, come in. What do you think our character should do? Please choose one letter of the options below, and share it with us in the comments, or on any of our socials. You could also leave the reason you made your choice, if you’d like to!
A) Take the freshly cleared path that the hedge created. Obviously, any kind of boost in this game has to be helpful.
B) Take the path to the right. Who knows how many more tricks this game could play to make the character lose? There hard way might end up being the safer way.
C) Stay put. Someone’s bound to find the character, and they could ask for help. However, there is the rain that’s about to pour.
Boom. This lady who was my sister was just back from the dead, and she was the one bossing us around and ordering a quest. Respect.
From the moment she appeared, we kept flooding Luck with hugs. ‘Death! Where were you all this time? Anyway, did we win the war?’
I replied this time. ‘Eh, about that- no. Evil’s controlling the world now along with Confidence.’
‘Yeah? Let’s go kick their butts! What are we waiting for? Bring Fortune and let’s go.’
‘We lost Fortune and Chaos in the first battle, Luck.’
Luck did better than we expected her to, taking it all in her stride. ‘They’ll get reincarnated soon. Let’s go! By the way, what’s up with the sky? It’s all black! I thought it was morning?’
We filled her up with the story of Evil the Old Hag Who Battled for Doomsday with her Children and Got It. Well, I shouldn’t say we. Mostly, I told the story, with the other gods filling me up when I forgot something. While we filled her in, her eyes got wider and wider, and when I finished telling her, she opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again and said, ‘Gods, no. Just- No. This all the better stresses the point that we have to get the battle started for good. Let’s buy our ruddy weapons and get in battle!’
Boom. This lady who was my sister was just back from the dead, and she was the one bossing us around and ordering a quest. Respect.
And so we all went to Yukon to buy weapons from Monty’s Assorted Knives and Blades, who were the best blade makers in the whole world (According to Moral). However, going there brought some bad memories. The first time we went there, we’d almost been made into kebabs by a giant croc who pretended to be the shopkeeper, Monty. I considered pointing this out to Dad and then figured that I’d only get nonplussed, sassy jokes in reply. I’m not a fan of nonplussed, sassy jokes in the front of a dangerous situation, so I didn’t tell him. I know what you’re thinking. ‘Hey, idiot, you’re making the same mistake Death did,’, but I figured we didn’t need much caution because Death had placed some superb enchantments on the guy. So, we went to buy weapons.
There’s a reason Monty’s store is the best for weapons. See, it’s got everything from broadswords to daggers. We were surprised to see the ‘CLOSED’ sign on it, since Monty hardly ever needed sleep, according to Chaos (Speaking about Chaos rings some bad memories. But seriously, by this time, you would have figured that thinking about literally everything brings bad memories for the gods). Luck, who was having her first time in this shop, looked around curiously at the weapons. Which meant she had to look in every direction, since Monty had hung his stock even on the shop’s roof.
I struck up a conversation with Monty while the others shopped, since I already had my own sword. ‘How ya doing, Monty? Sales gone well?’
‘Ah, no, kid. This is gonna stink, but ever since the days became darker- I don’t know what’s up and I don’t believe what the weather people are in the news reports- the sales have been lean. You’re my first customer in-’ He did a quick mental calculation.
‘Let’s see- six months.’
‘Six months?!’ My jaw dropped. ‘How did you earn money?’
He shrugged. ‘Didn’t. Begged for food and drank water from the Pelly River.’
I shook my head. This was all the more reason to get this party- sorry, do the quest thing and get the battle started. The others were finished with selecting their weapons. Luck had a longbow, Dad had decided to replace his lame stick with a broadsword, Happiness had a dagger and Death had a pike.
Monty said, ‘Yes sir? Are those your final choices?’
‘Yes, Monty,’ Said Mom.
‘Let’s see- the longbow costs one hundred fifty bucks, the dagger costs sixty, the broadsword costs five hundred, the pike two hundred and the dagger costs a ninety.’ He did some math on a rough paper.
‘Sir- your purchases cost a thousand dollars.’
‘A bit expensive, isn’t it?’
‘Sir, you’re my only customer in about six months and I gotta live for the next six too.’
‘Very well, then.’ Dad paid Monty and we took off into the skies to our house.
Although gender is a social construct, someone’s gender identity is their own sense of self and only for them to decide.
Most people confuse gender with biological sex and just to put it out there, they aren’t the same thing. Gender is a social construct used to characterize traits exhibited by a person while biological sex refers to a person’s biology and usually people tend to reduce it to just chromosomes when in reality it isn’t as simple as that and relies on other things like primary and secondary sex characteristics etc. Another common misconception is that people can pick their gender when in reality it’s set in stone and there for the person to discover, and it’s not subjective as that implies that changes in someone’s life can also have an impact on their gender which isn’t true either.
Both biological sex and gender like many other things in biology, are a spectrum, not just 2 categories. In biological sex, while the majority of people are born either male or female a small percentage are born intersex, where they can’t be put into either of those groups. In gender since it is also a spectrum and most people identify as a man or woman while some identify as 2 genders (bigender), more than 2 or all at the same time (pangender), somewhere on the spectrum (non-binary), when their gender can change from time to time (gender fluid), or not being able to identify anywhere on the spectrum at all (agender). People’s whose biological sex and gender identity align are cisgender. Some people’s gender identity doesn’t align with their SAB and these people are transgender, trans people make up only about 1-2% of the world’s population. People who are born male but identify as female are called transwomen and people who are born female but identify as male are called transmen.
Although gender is a social construct, someone’s gender identity is their own sense of self and only for them to decide. Being masculine or feminine doesn’t define one’s gender, they’re both terms humans came up with that are associated with the characteristics often displayed in males and females respectively. Like how a woman can be masculine by wearing a suit and liking the colour blue or how a man can be feminine by wearing a skirt or a dress, doing these things doesn’t make anyone any less or more of a woman or man. The definitions for the terms masculine and feminine constantly keep changing over the course of time and so does what being a man and woman is. The only thing that makes you a man or woman (gender-wise) is the fact that you feel like one. I don’t want to reduce gender to be just a feeling because there has been extensive research showing how the brains of transmen work more like a cis man but for simplicity’s sake let’s just say it’s a feeling.
Usually if you’re trans you experience a weird feeling where you know something’s off. How I would describe it is being stuck in a box with water filled up to the top to the point where you can’t breathe and every time you need oxygen you really need to try hard to reach the air. The unease with one’s gender not aligning with their sex is called gender dysphoria. When the dysphoria gets bad it feels like the top of the box has been completely closed off and like you’re drowning.
Not to worry though as there are many ways that can tremendously help eliminate some if not all dysphoria. When someone finds satisfaction or joy in their gender identity and expression. My best at explaining how it feels is when all the water in the box is drained and you no longer have to swim to the top to breathe. A few of the ways that can help with dysphoria are:
-Dressing up more masc (for transmen) or more fem (for transwomen), going by different pronouns or changing their name.
- Going on puberty blockers, they’re sometimes given to trans teens to help ease the dysphoria, it’s basically like pushing a pause button on puberty and helps them look and feel more like the other gender without having any long term effects and being completely reversible.
- Some trans people go on hormones, like transmen go on testosterone to deepen their voice and grow facial and body hair easier etc. These changes although permanent are given to adults who have a prescription for it.
- Usually when a trans person has extremely bad case of dysphoria, they get gender conformation surgery, top surgery or bottom surgery. These surgeries change their body to look and function more like the other gender.
I hope this article was somewhat informative and helped you understand more about genders.
(p.s. show some love for this article in the comment section to support the author on their journey to finding their gender <3)
Who wrote children’s songs- because honestly, a lot of them sound more like horror stories.
Recently I’ve been experiencing an art block and a writer’s block so I’ve been procrastinating writing 3am for the longest time so don’t be surprised if I ditch it next edition .-. But I feel like once you have nothing at all to do or worry about and you aren’t pressured into doing something it feels easier to do it- maybe that’s just me tho :// (this is me from one week later and I finally finished writing the rest of the thoughts just because the power went off and I had nothing else to do- oml I can time travel confirmed?!)
Have you ever seen people put up lights in big stores or street lamps turning on because I never have- And also people who paint and draw on empty walls- I kind of want to paint on one of them- when art students draw on walls it's considered art but when I-
Who makes children’s songs because honestly a lot of them sound more like horror stories rather than lullabies if you read the lyrics- It was never mentioned in Humpty Dumpty that he was an egg- and the last line literally says ‘all the kings horses and all the kings men couldn’t put humpty together again’ which is a pretty dark line to put in a children’s song, who gave that a catchy innocent tune and decided to aim it towards children and w h y . The old man who bumped his head probably died of serious brain damage- I will stop ruining your childhood now.
What does one do if the blinking lights on an ambulance gives them a headache severe enough so that they pass out-
I wear full sleeves a lot even though it’s scorching hot in Chennai and I don’t mind them but sometimes when I’ll be washing my hands and I’ll get water on the edges of the sleeves and internally cringe. I always forget to roll my sleeves up before I wash my hands and I can’t do it after I’ve gotten water on my hands because then I’ll get soap and water on my sleeves and at that point it’s inevitable that I’ll get water all over them anyway- water running down elbows when i wash my hands makes me want to slam my head against a wall like please stop all I'm trying to do is not get covid
Something else that I find annoying about full sleeves is that whenever I decide to wear a hoodie or sweater on top the sleeves roll up creating a very uncomfortable situation where I have to take off the hoodie and wear it properly again even though I know the sleeves are going to roll back up and create a lump underneath the sweater- and it’s one of those small things that can make me more cranky than I already am.
One of the pet peeves I have about dipping biscuits in your drink is that 30% of the time they end up dissolving in the drink and end up ruining the entire thing and when you finish drinking it you have some sediments from the biscuit left behind. Why.
Why is it that most people either hate or love kpop- I don’t think I’ve ever had a conversation about kpop that didn’t turn into an argument when there are people from both sides involved.
Our school’s pcs have a bunch of random games installed in the majority of them like Broforce, Purble Place, Solitaire, Minesweeper and that weird mosquito game were all you did was smack mosquitoes until they died- I’m pretty sure I would’ve never discovered these games if it weren’t for the cs classes, so I want to know who downloaded the games, how did they do it and from where did they find these games because I’m pretty sure they weren’t there when the school bought the computers. I think it’s also worth mentioning how it’s the same games like Purble Place that are played all over the world and not just our cs labs-
I sometimes wonder who actually takes the time out of their lives to sit down and write WhatsApp forwards- like how bored and jobless must you be to type out paragraphs that either contradict themselves or look like they’ve been written by an actual 3 year old with 0 common sense, and how people actually believe it just because it’s written in text and their favourite aunt forwarded it to their family group still blows my mind. But then again I’ve composed a few copy pastas myself so I sound like a huge hypocrite-
I feel like if animals could communicate with us then more people would start marrying them and less people would consume them- the second part sounds kind of fun though
After re-reading this I realize this edition’s 3am was a little more on the ranty side and I said a lot of controversial things so I apologize if you found this edition boring or I said something that was offensive to you, please do let us know in the comments. That being said I actually really enjoyed making this edition. :pp
Some dreams, you can remember, and you felt like you were in the real world. But have you heard of lucid dreams?
We’ve all had some really weird dreams, haven’t we?
Dreams can be a mix of many things. It can be frightening, interesting, funny and flat out weird at the same time. Have you ever been in a situation where after you wake up from a dream, you want to tell people about what happened during the dream because you found it very interesting, but right as you start telling them, or writing it down as an idea for a story, you just immediately forget most of what happened in it? That happens to me a lot, sometimes even on a daily basis.
Some dreams, you can remember, however, and in those dreams, you felt like you were in the real world, and you can picture the dream itself in your mind. These dreams are called vivid dreams. During some dreams, you can feel like it isn’t real, and you can control it a bit, using your mind to make certain things and sounds seem, which are called lucid dreams. Sometimes, you can have both a lucid and vivid dream at the same time.
What’s really annoying though is that the moment you realize you’re actually in control, and you can do anything imaginable, you wake up. It’s happened to me too many times to count.
(Editor’s note: these scenarios are subjective, and don’t apply to everyone who dreams. There may be times when you can in fact steer your dreams to directions that you want to, or you might have never had a lucid dream.)
As far as I can remember, I’ve had three straight up weird dreams.
The first one is very short, yet very weird. It was in our school, but I was walking on bamboo poles, for absolutely no reason. Then all of a sudden, I was walking towards the primary block, and those poles just disappeared, and I fell. So normal, right? In addition to that, as I fell, the whole world spun around, and when I hit the ground, I didn’t feel anything. It felt as if I was floating on air, and at that second, I felt my head hit my pillow loudly, and I woke up with a startle.
The second one is also short, yet bizarre. I was walking along small bridges that were made of white brick walls and red brick, across small brooks. There were many birch trees around me, and yet for some reason I said to myself, “There are many acacia trees in this place!” After that, I jumped beyond heights I’ve ever jumped to before. I jumped extremely high, reaching the skies. Quickly, I realized I was about to fall onto the ground, and needed to do something quick. I tried grabbing hold of a tree’s branch as a fell, but slipped. I fell to the ground, and a similar thing to the previous dream happened.
Finally, the third and last dream I can remember; the weirdest of all. Now, I really don’t remember this one that clearly, but here’s the gist. I was in a shopping mall, trying to search for a frying pan. I met a classmate of mine, who for some reason screamed at me. Scenes quickly changed out of nowhere, and I ended up in our apartment, and I was holding some sort of small device. There was some random armed person chasing me, looking towards the device in my hand. I ran away to the staircase of the building, up and up. I saw a friend of mine, and my sixth sense told me this building was going to blow, so I shouted to him, telling him to get the other residents of the apartment evacuated. I reached the terrace and suddenly, my hand held a grenade. My sixth sense again told me that the person was up to no good, and if I was going to die with him trying to kill me, he would go down too. I took a glance at the side of the terrace and saw all the residents safe downstairs, far away. I took off the pin of the grenade, and threw it down on the floor. It exploded, and the last thing of the dream that I remember is me flying into the air after the impact of the grenade, and again, falling down to the ground, waking up from the dream with a start.
Did I just get an idea for a story?
Peace of mind
Are we too young for this?
Are we too young to live like we’d rather not?
To feel like we have to be something we’re not?
For social expectations to make our minds rot?
Are we too young for this
Too young to cry ourselves to sleep
Too young to hide when we weep?
Because we have to be strong
Are we too young for the pressure, that not only society but our own minds start to affect us?
For the stress of having to wake up not knowing our purpose
And being told that if we don’t, that we’re worthless?
Are we too young to be depressed and make jokes about it
Because we’d rather not be alone with our thoughts
To feel like we’re drowning in a sea of expectations
And although we keep trying we aren’t good enough?
We are too young for this and it’s a sad reality because all of us face it
Yet none of us truly know how to embrace it
We’re all sad sometimes, and we feel lost
But that doesn’t mean to keep working hard, no matter the cost
We all need breaks and we all take time
But in the end, the only thing that matters is the peace of mind
- Vedika
There once was a girl naive,
Who never lost her way.
Eyes set upon her goal
As good as her elders say.
Never fell for anyone, quite the opposite,
Many stared, their attraction prominent,
But never a time the arrow wavered,
Set upon her only goal.
A whisper that caught her ear
In her freshman high school year
Of a boy who seemed to have it all,
A boy who always had it all.
She set a look upon him,
The boy who allured her that
But curiosity always seems to kill the cat.
The world became a wonder
Mud became music,
Filled with colours
It's quite amusing.
How deeply this girl naive fell
For a boy to who her love she would never tell.
Little did this parrot know
She'd lose her wings before she could show.
She trusted him enough, out in the open
Looks like the heart has finally opened.
Life would feel grey and dull
And without him, she'd be so null.
When she talked to him, the twinkle in her eye
Was always brighter than any star in the sky.
Never a moment when her thoughts weren't filled
With this boy and how to build
The relations that she always wanted
After reading books and poems about this that ranted
"So what is your motive?" The boy asked
Indirectly, but it needn't be masked.
She read him through, very well
But she wasn't able to find the words to tell.
The fear set in, angry and red
As she thought the ecstasy, would be dead.
She was ignored by her one and none compared
After him telling her that her feelings he shared.
But this was all a lie, she then realised.
Tears streaming down, she thought it was just a sigh.
Being lied to, she could never handle.
An answer from him, she demanded.
Days passed , her heart froze
When he told her it was no and to leave him alone.
"Is that all I meant to you?"
Sobs the poor girl
Her words are slurred
Buried in her tears.
She writes and writes
But it always hurts.
The once pretty poems filled with joy
Now turned into hated ones about the boy.
But she couldn't bring herself to hate
With how much she loved him as this rate.
Curiosity kills the cat.
For it to wither slowly or quickly.
Never fall for anyone.
Trust me.
- Tejasmira
Of dreams lost
Those fuelled by fury
Invalidated,
For they said
It’s okay.
When it’s not,
Really
For who are they?
Figures
Fame, famine
Filth
For that’s who they are.
Have some faith,
They’ll say.
Fine
Is it okay?
For that’s what they don’t deserve.
- Anonymous
Lost to the Voice
A game. It is all a game.
“Welcome, darling!”
The beginning floats on again
Again and again, like an endless dream
What will you give up this time?
“Come, come, what is it that
You wish for today?
Whatever it is, it is all yours,
I promise.
All I want in return is nothing,
Simply the smallest of prices.”
The Voice invites, always sounding like
It talks with the warmest intentions.
Like a drink poisoned with the sweetest honey
It never takes much time to
Get drunk and lose yourself
In the fair paradise it offers.
Of course, the masked words and
The invisible meanings that the Voice croons
Don't make themselves seen just yet.
If you are one with the forces of luck,
The secrets give themselves away
And give you the time to think,
And run away, while you still can.
But, and I pray you are not, if you
Are in the slightest, anything like I
There is no escape.
You could search for the doors until
Your eyes are ruined with time and age,
But it will all be in vain.
Here is my story.
For you, I write in the hopes
That you will never dream my dreams,
Hear the sounds that sing to me
Or see the sights I wish I never did.
“Darling, is that all you wish for?
I trust that you believe in the happiness
That will blossom in our give and take.
But are you in complete surety, darling,
That this is all you ask of me?
There are more bottled up wonders here
Than you could possibly imagine, and
They're all yours to take.”
(As long as you pay the right prices. You know that, darling.)
The whispers have never once committed
The sin of asserting anything false.
Not once will the Voice lie to you
About what it offers.
But do not be fooled, the exchange is not complete.
A lie of omission is never really a true lie.
Formless as the voice is, it creates
The perfect show of everything you've wanted,
Inside of miniature containers,
Packed away in glimmering glass vials of their own.
To me, one floats off its place on the shelf,
And rests just in reach
Of my heavily tempted fingers.
“Take it, darling, it's yours.
This magical vial of wonders
Has all that you ask for.
No more, no less.
To give you this, I ask but one thing of you.
Leave me one object, of my choice.
Like you chose the perfect vial,
I will choose something to take from you.
Worry not, darling,
I will take only what is of no use to you.
Trust in me.”
Do not, under any circumstance
Make the decision of claiming the vial
If you find yourself in a place like my own.
Whatever it is you are offered, no matter how tempting,
Take my word, you will never escape
The regrets that follow you to the ends of the world.
I got what I asked for.
It was nothing close to what I wanted,
But I was not cheated. What I asked was delivered.
But I will never, ever let this go
For before I could ever agree
To the conditions the Voice laid,
My own voice had gone into
Just another glittering vial on the shelf.
- Bhargavi
It was all a trap.
Kiev had been completely destroyed, nothing was left of it. I had spent my entire life in Kiev, it was my home. It turned into a wasteland, just like that. I went to sleep that night, thinking about all my memories in Kiev.
In the morning there were rumours that we were going to be deployed to Poland to carry out a stealth attack on a US army base, Russia wasn’t going to give up that easily. We spent the rest of the day doing maintenance on 2 of Ukraine’s old Su-27s. The commanding officers had been really quiet about what exactly we were going to do for the past few days; my guess was that they were planning a top secret large scale retaliation. But other people suspected that they were planning a mutiny against the Russian government. Whatever it is, I didn’t like either of the potential outcomes.
In the meantime, all I could do was hope for the best. In the morning, we were briefed on a mission to capture a United States military base in Poland, just like what the rumours said, we were to leave in Humvee Armored personnel carriers at night and sneak across the border into Poland. It was too dangerous to fly across to the border. There was an E-3 sentry airborne warning and control system aircraft in the air at all times, which would detect our aircraft as soon as we got close, which would result in them sending up fighters and we would get shot down. This mission required stealth.
We were asked to carry Fort-14P handguns and AK-74 assault rifles and load up the ammo into the Humvees. We left Boryspil at night and made our way to the Ukraine-Poland border. The US Military base was at the town Tomaszaw. It was the perfect place, not many people and close to the border, perfect for launching attacks on Ukraine. It was built right before the war, days before war was declared, it was extremely convenient, and maybe a little suspicious even.
It took 6 days to get to the border, we had to make sure to stay clear of Kiev because of all the radiation. We arrived at the border and quickly got ready to sneak across the border and capture the base. There were no guards at the base, it was pretty much empty. It felt too easy. Suddenly, we heard the roar of a jet engine going by, and we saw bombs dropping. It was all a trap.
This edition a creature will remain unheard of because our author is taking a break, but do look forward to a new creature next edition!
F1 as a sport costs a ton of money, but where do teams get this money from?
Formula 1 is an incredibly complex sport, it requires years of research and development to make an F1 car. This costs a lot of money, but where do teams get this money from?
Teams like Mercedes and Red Bull have massive owners backing them up. Mercedes and Red Bull pour in a ton of money into their respective teams. But what about a smaller team without a huge organization pouring money into them, like Haas or Williams? Believe it or not, the Formula 1 management actually gives teams money to race. Every single F1 team receives 36 million dollars every year from the Formula 1 management and this is only the first payment of money from Formula 1.
Teams get different amounts of prize money depending on where they finish at the end of the season. Then, there is the long standing team payment to Ferrari for being in F1 for such a long time. On top of this there are many other special payments to teams. F1 gives money to teams because it gets people watching Formula 1 which gets Formula 1 money. So in reality, it’s the management which makes the most money, which allows them to give money to teams.
Teams also make a huge chunk of their money through sponsors, companies pay teams to have their names on the side of the car. Formula 1 teams usually have one main sponsor like Petronas for Mercedes and multiple smaller sponsorships. Investments are also a huge source of income for teams, the parent company or shareholders invest money into the team. And finally, you have Driver-linked income, but this is only seen in smaller teams where a driver pays the team a specific amount of money to drive their car, this harms the team as it brings in a driver only because they have given money to a team instead of signing a driver based on skill. This lets drivers who are not as good as other candidates drive the team’s car just because they gave money to do so. For example, Lance Stroll gave 35 million to Williams to drive their car in 2017.
Then, there’s driver income. Each driver gets paid a certain salary depending on how much money the team has and how good they are. A rookie like Zhou Ghanyu won’t get paid all that much, but a 7 time world champion like Lewis Hamilton gets paid millions of dollars. Drivers also get bonuses depending on the number of points they score for the team, for example a driver could get paid 50,000$ for every point he scores in a season. Some drivers also get sponsors from companies for them to do a brand deal with them, for example Tommy Hilfiger has a deal with just Lewis Hamilton and not the rest of the Mercedes team.
In the end, it’s Formula one who profits the most and is the one benefitting the most.
Hey guys, this is the author speaking (and not Adam), and I wanted to say, that I really messed up this story. Honestly, this started out as a little thought in my head, which I documented on a piece of paper. It slowly grew, and I made it into a story.
But then, a problem arose. You see, I had joined the Particle, only after starting the story. Due to the deadlines and my own procrastination, the quality of my story kept going down and down. Well, writing stories aren’t something you can do in a day, right? It led me to improvising and making bad ideas, and the story really isn’t going the way I originally wanted to. Therefore, I decided to scrap this story.
This doesn’t mean I’m quitting Particle; it just means that I’m discontinuing this story. But that’s not the end.
I’m planning on revamping this story, at my own pace, and make it into a whole book (and maybe even a series!). I don’t plan on finishing it anytime soon, though. And don’t expect it to be anything NEAR what T8TFM had, heck it may not even be in the future.
Anyway, thank you all so much for the motivation and happiness you guys gave me, as the only reason I was even continuing the past few chapters, was because of you guys (:
Varsha: Our amazing comic illustrator! She finds inspiration in the small, vague
details
hidden in the world, and incorporates them into her everything.
Jyotsna: The first to introduce the bob obsession, she’s the peacekeeper (I see you
hunger
games fans), is on the tranquil side of our team, and writes stellar articles.
Aadhav: our talented pianist! He loves anything musical, from singing to of course,
playing
the piano. He loves sports too, and is an avid Agatha Christie fan.
Moukthika: Our Artist! Her art skills are next level - Even buzzfeed agrees that she’s
artsy and she cooks really well.
Bhargavi: She’s our editor and personal kpop spammer; expert at burning toast. She’s
also
everyone’s (self proclaimed) favourite unnie.
Vedika: The one team member who’s up before the sun with a smile, she’s our motivator.
She’s a part of our photography gang, and contributes art and articles every other edition too!
Darshan: Our photographer, tech enthusiast, and self-proclaimed halo sweat who is supposed to help code the website.
Aravind: Fellow youtube animator addict, he's known to be talkative and lighten the
mood
anywhere he goes! He contributes both articles and stories.
Paddy: known by the name ‘Evil.’, he’s our evil, chaotic teammate. He’s the inventor of
a
language we’re proud to use. He talks equally as often as Favorite Unnie, and is the author of the
regular
section, 3 am brain factory produce.
Sriram: A voracious reader with his interest in a variety of genres, his fingers can do
magic with both pen and brush. He loves cooking and eats cricket for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Anhiti: The youngest here, she makes the website for the particle. Famous for
convincing
us to save the reefs – budding artist and author. (Don’t tell her, but she’s basically kpop spammer
#2.)
