#also I was front row

[wastedpurity]

Tonight I saw Mia Farrow and Patti Lupone in the Broadway show The Roommates. Absolutely incredible! At one point they slow dance and the intimacy I felt from them made me shed a tear.

[once-in-a-half-life]

saw a tweet and immediately had this joke in mind

[apparently-artless]

⚾⚾ WEEK #03 OF #WEEKLYDAIYA ⚾⚾

Daiya no Ace S02E46 - Miyuki Kazuya ↳ requested by Kitty (@otakubox)

[puyopuyo]

Idk if you still take these messages- but happy penis Friday!!!!

i do! im just not online that much, so i have been missing penis friday p bad l8ly. wishing u a v happy penis friday tho! and that any/all the 1's i missed b4 this have been just friggin delightful, dunky hot coco 4 u (^w^)

[backmarkerr]

please....can u speak on the conspiracy

So the conspiracy (more like a theory, really) is that Kimi was pushed out of the team starting in 2008 to make way for Fernando, who was more appealing to the big sponsor coming in. Before you click out thinking "Max, that's stupid, no team would throw a championship for a sponsor." I agree! But keep in mind that they didn't throw the championship, they fully expected to win the WDC with Felipe (and almost did) and did in fact win the WCC in 2008 with Felipe and Kimi despite everything. But there were really suspicious things going on. So with that in mind...

It's 2008. Kimi has just won Malaysia, the second race of the season. Three days after his win, there's this:

.

Ok, kinda weird, but whatever. F1 runs on rumours, right? Suggesting that Kimi might retire when he's doing so well is silly. And in the article they seem to be pretty ambivalent over whether it would be Felipe or Kimi to leave.

Fast forward to Spain two races later. Kimi scores his second win of the season and takes the championship lead. The season is shaping up pretty well for the defence of the title, you’d think this would be a good time for him, but again, the story du jour is Ferrari wanting Alonso in Kimi’s seat for 2009.

[x] I guess now we know at least Massa's seat is secure...?

If you’re like me, that sounds stupid. The reigning champion just won the last GP and his contract runs until the end of 2010, so this media narrative makes no sense. Something pretty catastrophic would have to happen for that to ever come to fruition, right?

So anyway, he gets a first row start in Monaco. Great, that's almost a surefire win/points, right? Wrong, he got a drive-through penalty due to the team not fitting the wheels to the car on time before the race start. Not a great race and he ends up outside of the points. Lewis is now ahead in the WDC by 3 points. Not really a disaster, but...

[x] what on earth...

[x] again the talk of retirement.... I mean, it's weird, right?

Zero points in Canada due to being rear-ended in the pitlane, which the team can’t control. Then he’s back to being neck to neck with his teammate and Lewis by the time the British GP is done in early July, with all three drivers on 48 points. Good news, right? Just gotta stay on track and not fuck it up somehow.

[x] sigh... (this one's a little harder to source as it was printed media, but I've seen this exact interview quoted in different pages)

So anyway, they change his front suspension for the next race in Germany. Kimi has always been very sensitive to changes in the car, so he knew something was wrong. Ferrari (via Michael, who was then head of development) say he's just not adapting well to the upgrades. Maybe, sure, but why aren't you bringing upgrades that are geared towards your world champion?

(an interesting remark from Mark Hughes here if you scroll down to the comments, which adds weight to Kimi not being listened to when it came to car development in 2008)

Bar a podium in Hungary, Kimi scores 0 points in 4 out of the next 5 races. It takes until either Monza or Singapore (hello crashgate!) for Ferrari to put his suspension back as it was.

He proceeds to get 3 podiums in the remaining 3 races but it’s not enough to catch up. By Singapore he was already 27 points behind his teammate (reminder this is the old points system) and very much expected to play the supporting role. In the penultimate race in China he very obviously gave up P2 to his teammate:

"I know what the team expects." [x] / [x]

Yet the narrative in the media and from Ferrari themselves is that his motivation is bad and he's not assertive. It was so pervasive that to this day people still parrot it and say he just didn’t care after 2007, despite Kimi always stating he was fully committed and clearly getting annoyed whenever journalists asked about his motivation even years later.

Montezemolo at the end of 2008 even 'joked' that "Kimi in the recent races was replaced two or three times by a friend, but next year he'll be back." Basically saying that Kimi wasn't really present, you know? An interesting thing to say when this absent driver scored 18 points in the last 3 races (three consecutive P3s), while the one who was amazing and had the team's full backing scored 20 (P7, P2, P1).

A whole 2 points' difference, maybe someone should hire that "friend"...

So why did they do this?

Well, the theory is that Santander (I promise this isn’t like the dumb Sainztander takes) wanted a Spanish-Brazilian lineup due to financial interests (Spanish bank, big market in South America with a looming IPO in Brazil), so Kimi was basically being pressured out of the team from early 2008 onwards. Like I said at the start, the team weren’t really throwing away 2008, as they expected to win the WCC with both drivers (they did) and Massa to be able to win the WDC, which would of course be beneficial for their new sponsor. And he almost did. Almost.

[x] they're not in charge of driver selection but this specific driver line-up would good for them. (this archived copy of the article is from 2010, but the text makes it clear it's from 2009)

Of course at this point we have to wonder if a team like Ferrari would bow down to a sponsor's demands. I can't tell you what the internal considerations were or how much money was on the line, but it's also not like Santander were telling them to get rid of Kimi for a bad driver, you know? Fernando is a great driver, so from Ferrari's perspective they were just trading a great driver for another great driver who also appealed to this huge sponsor, and an Alonso-Massa line-up would be solid. And with the previous talk that Ferrari and Alonso had already inked a deal in 2008... It's just difficult to believe there isn't a grain of truth here.

So the alleged initial plan of having Alonso in 2009 was foiled when Kimi activated the renewal option in his contract. It was then that he was bought out of his last year (apparently paid for by Santander).

[from the book The Unknown Kimi Raikkonen]

As we can see, by the end Kimi was also fed up with what was going on, especially people pointing the finger at him and at his motivation, and his frustration is very clear in interviews like here at 2.35 and here:

Publicly, Ferrari said they wanted someone more in line with how Michael used to be (ironic since Montezemolo allegedly didn’t like how Michael made the team his), who could communicate with the team and give better feedback (ironic when Todt, Dyer, Stella and others said Kimi was very clear and precise.) Kimi himself has always stated that he wasn’t the issue, that his motivation was never lacking and that the real reason he was pushed out was politics and money.

[x]

[x]

If it had only been the mechanical stuff, I’d be willing to chalk it up to just bad luck and incompetence. Shit happens. But with all the rumours around it even before things went bad on the track and Kimi stating that his work and performance weren't the reason he was let go it becomes impossible for me to think there wasn’t an actual push going on to replace him.

Hell, even famed Ferrari fanboy Sebastian Vettel didn't think it was realistic for Kimi to return to Ferrary in 2014 precisely because Kimi isn't one for "bullshit" and "politics". Why would he choose to say that specifically? And according to Finnish media Kimi’s 2014 Ferrari negotiations included Montezemolo personally apologising to him. Now why would he apologise if they hadn’t done something wrong?

Personally I think Kimi's "certain people did certain things" refers to this. He never trashed anyone and always said he had no ill-feelings. And I believe him. But it doesn't mean nothing happened, lest we forget how well he handled Lotus not paying him.

The thing that really bothers me is that Kimi got the reputation for having low motivation and not caring about what he was doing (I heard that take just last month from an F1 youtuber, how Fernando was hired in 2010 because Kimi had mentally checked out 🙄), when obviously someone who wasn’t motivated and didn’t care would have simply called it quits under these circumstances. Instead he got P3 in the standings in 2008 (I know he’s talented, but he must have been trying at least a little), trained hard to lose enough weight to use KERS in 2009 (why would he do that if he didn’t care) and took the team’s only win that year despite the car being shit. Interestingly, pundits acknowledged his good performance complicated things when it came to Ferrari’s rumoured hiring of Alonso. So imagine how much more complicated things would have been had Kimi done better in 2008?

Anyway, this is long, but if you want something longer then I definitely recommend this post here. You might not agree completely with the original authors (there are parts where I wish there was more info), but I think they offer a lot of good research and information regarding the overall situation back in 2008/2009, and it's a good jump-off point for your own research.

But yeah. 2008 could have been everything. Or at least better.

[anto-pops]

Nearing the end of my HL replay and I just gotta say Anne and I are a different breed. If my brother was adamantly searching high and low in crumbling ruins, reading ancient texts, casting Crucio on his besties, and still making house calls while I was cursed and basically dying I would maybe not be such a huge wimp about it

[kira-light0-but-i-reblog-stuff]

Due to my current obsession with Martin & Lewis, my mother has also decided to watch some of their movies and has become almost equally obsessed.

So, today at work, she brought up Martin & Lewis to a 90-something year old woman who, my mother knew, from experience, would talk about politics non-stop if she didn't change the subject, and lucky for her, by bringing up the fact that she's been watching M&L movies, my mother got an hour long story from someone who once sat front row at one of their shows. I've never been so jealous of a 90-something year old. I've never been so jealous of my mother either, like, I want to hear the story!! My mother couldn't even remember all of the details the woman told her because of a language barrier :(

It should have been ME!!

[momomallowart]

The new CG has me in a mood (and the mood is punk goes pop) ʕ≧ᴥ≦ʔ🤘

[starry-bi-sky]

Danyal Phantom Doodles uhhh i’ve got a handful of Danyal Al Ghul drawings that I like enough to share.

[genericaces]

more rambling about a s5 au: lindsey comes back for a redemption arc to act as legal counsel for angel's team. this ostensibly gives gunn a reason to opt out of the lawyer operation, but he does it anyway because he doesn't trust lindsey not to fuck them over.

lindsey acts as a moral foil to gunn, who comes to believe his necessary contribution to the team (since he's no longer their only lawyer) is being the defender of the group's principles while working at w&h. they frequently butt heads while working on a case, but eventually develop a begrudging respect of each other's respective strengths.

this hostile-to-friendly-rivalry arc is tested when it comes out that w&h was responsible for some demon problem that's been plaguing gunn's home community. gunn has, unbeknownst to himself, been somehow contributing to it while working at w&h; lindsey knowingly contributed to it when he was last working there as a lawyer. lindsey is forced to confront who he was, while gunn is forced to confront who he’s becoming.

since he was involved in the project, lindsey uses his insider knowledge to help come up with a plan to fix the problem. they execute it, something goes wrong, and lindsey risks his life to ensure the plan goes off successfully. he expects congratulations and a pat on the back from gunn, but gunn isn't interested in absolving lindsey's sins (or his own), and their warming relationship freezes over.

at some point, gunn lets himself get taken by the senior partners in an effort to deal with his guilt over various lapses in judgment/perceived moral failures. during their rescue mission to the holding dimension, lindsey stays behind in gunn's place so he can escape, assuring gunn that he's the lawyer the team needs right now. their mutual arcs culminate in lindsey rejecting the idea that redemption is done for recognition, and gunn rejecting the idea that guilt/self-punishment is inherently redemptive.

eventually after being busted out by illyria, lindsey is there to empathize with gunn about losing parts of yourself (body, mind, and/or soul) to w&h, relationships to power when you've grown up without it, and what it means to live with the consequences of your actions. both of them reflect on the nature of redemption/forgiveness/intent as they grapple with how to own up to an appropriate share of the blame.

[spaceratprodigy]

💋 Cybill and Iris 💋

@grimreapersbutt — it is mandatory Looking At Them hours btw

Commission Info | Ko-Fi | My Links

[chandralia]

the intimacy of Deku just sitting behind Bakugo in class…

[shalom-iamcominghome]

Hello and I hope you had a nice and restful shabbat :) as someone starting conversion, do you know any good places online to buy kippot (or do you just make your own?) I'm looking for places near the usa if possible, but if you don't know of any that's totally fine!!

I got mine from this Etsy storefront, and while Etsy has many problems that have arisen as of late, I would absolutely encourage you to look into independent artists! I've used amazon (once) before, and that's definitely an option depending on your goals, however, I personally vouch for a good crochet or knit kippah.

You can absolutely make your own, though! Frankly, I think making your own judaica is the way to go. If you're inclined toward crochet, I was checking out this pattern! I don't knit nor do I sew, so I can't tell you how easy it would be in either medium, but if you're a crafty type, you've at least got to try it out!

[astragatwo]

The new W Corp besties

[jula483]

I went to three Taylor Swift shows in Warsaw last week and I thought I would share some pics from night 3 🥰

and I can't believe I'm saying this, but she looked at me during Anti-Hero????

[verflares]

nothing more frustrating than playing New Video Game and/or digesting new media in general and you're like "mmmm this is kinda bad/boring. honestly." so out of curiosity you look up to see if anybody else feels this way but you are instead greeted with if you think anything about this is bad or boring you need to be put in front of a firing squad