#everyone needs to watch this race

[idontshitpostbuttheolympicpark]

current status: heartbroken by the 2003 brazilian gp

[bikefuckersoftheworldunite]

possibly the last time sete gibernau has ever been happy aka post race at qatar 2004

[griffinsoup]

some people fixating on specifically marcille as being "the racist" is... a bit weird to me considering that the majority of the cast have said/done/exhibited something indicative of passive or active racial prejudice or ignorance at one point or another. and that is a very deliberate feature of the storytelling.

[sainz100]

Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz | 📸 via scuderiaferrari

[giddlygoat]

my brother can make me laugh without moving at all. he can make me laugh on command, just by existing, and there is no physical tell or indication that it is about to happen. it’s like he can will me to laugh and i will. of course we’re not telepathic, but we do speak in unison sometimes. we improvise like no one’s business. we could fool anyone into believing we are psychically linked. when i try to explain it, i sound silly saying it out loud, but i really CAN tell what he’s thinking. we exchange so much information just with a look. he can make me cry laughing and he doesn’t even have to move

[skitskatdacat63]

2009 Malaysian Grand Prix - Jenson Button(ft. Nick Heidfeld & Timo Glock)

[reegahearth]

Oh you guys weren't kidding that Earthspark season 2 really can change its thesis and theme via one 3 minute exposition intro.

[grayintogreen]

So with all this TNEOL criticism coming back around and some absolutely heinously Bad Faith takes that the only people who took issue with it are people mad about hcs, I'm going to take some time out of my writing to propose how simple the Actual Plot would be to fix and why hiring someone who has only watched half of the series they're writing for and never even seen the character they're supposed to be writing, forcing them to watch everything at 1.5x speed and turning enjoying a canon into a necessary research assignment (and it SHOWS) is a bad idea.

While I do have ideas on how to improve the plot that range from having Aldreda and Brevyn combined into one person (giving Lucien dead little sister angst and a "no good deed goes unpunished" angle to his arc) to Brevyn being a rival/idol that he kills at some point (and not a love interest) to hammer home Lucien's "kill your idol" mindset, I'm going to be kind and just script doctor the plot as written, fixing the glaring continuity errors and Lucien's lack of agency in his own story.

THE FORMAT. Presumably the story as pitched was "Lucien backstory leading into his version of canon events," which... fine. I think some of the fault lies on that pitch, because it's way too much to shove into a 300-page book, but maybe only Sarah J Maas can drop six hundred pages and it hit the bestseller list on impact. Whatever. There's a simple solution to this that also fixes the extremely egregious error of omitting the VERY PLOT IMPORTANT EVENT of Lucien having spent considerable time in the Astral Sea.

Start with the shattering. Have Lucien's backstory come out in alternating chapters of significant events in his life as a framing device as he pieces himself together in Cognouza. This highlights the author's strength and what she was clearly hired for and enjoyed writing- the eldritch horror- while still showing us how Lucien came to be here. You can introduce the Somnovem and play with the cosmic horror elements and weird formatting stuff that people actually came here to see, because, let's be real, no one who is reading this is not a fan of the show and if you want to be weird, why not start weird? This also fixes another glaring issue I had which was the Somnovem and Lucien bickering throughout the back half. They believed Lucien was loyal the whole time and the only reason the bickering was added was to give some excuse for why he betrayed them- an excuse that wasn't necessary because CANON ALREADY GAVE ONE. You just SKIPPED IT. The juxtaposition of Lucien discovering the Somnovem in flashbacks vs him growing to resent them as we rapidly ascend into present day would be insane, plus it provides a parallel to Molly. Both start out empty at the beginning of the two year gap, but Lucien is desperate to regain his memories and sense of self.

THE BACKSTORY. I think if you have to keep the very Caleb-expy and borderline Widomauk-pandering backstory with the burning of the cart with Mom, Dad, and Sock Brother in it, you need to change one thing to make it make sense- that the parents and Elric weren't tieflings. That's it. It makes Elric being the favorite make sense, it establishes the Tavelles frequently have been making dodgy deals with hellish entities (Azraharai is supposed to be a night hag presumably but she's, uh, hot, which is weird for a hag) and that Lucien and Aldreda are proof of that transgression and therefore their mistreatment has some background to it.

Lucien's decision to join the Orders needs to have been HIS decision. My suggestion is have him refuse to leave Brevyn alone until she brings him and Cree with her, establishing two things; that Lucien wants to be like Brevyn and that Brevyn has a soft spot for Lucien's tenacity and refusal to back down which will give SOME credence to why they're so In Love later.

The Azrahari debacle needs to have been framed as Lucien deciding to go kill her while NOT on contract and the conflict is Lucien begging Cree to help him go off book and murder someone they weren't hired to because WHY are the Claret Orders sleeping on this woman? I also think removing the contracts entirely and focusing on the Orders being religious and hypervigilant would go a long way to avoid the Witcher allegations, while also pointing out a hypocrisy- they're focused primarily on the Marrow Valley and not the Quannah Breach, and the whole reason Lucien joined was also partially so he could hunt down Azrahari. This shows that Lucien has no respect for Authority and also starts proving that he can convince people to break off and do things on their own. Having this be the mission that all the Tombtakers (save Brevyn- I'll get there) go on together (maybe Cree insists they get more help) that establishes their bond would make the fight more dynamic and remove the weird "lol vengeance is hollow" feelings from a situation that really didn't need that message, while also tying two plots together.

From here, we can establish that Lucien going off-book and doing his own thing is something he does frequently. Having the Tombtakers all go to the mission in Rexxentrum together is another way to give us a fun Tombtakers group scene, because what the book needed was more establishment of their bond to run parallel to the Nein and make everything that happens later more poignant. From here, everything with Vess and Aldreda can continue as planned, but THEN Brevyn shows up to bring them back to the Orders. Lucien, since he had planned to run off and leave the Tombtakers high and dry anyway with Aldreda (this establishes how quickly he discards his friends), is fully committed to just leaving the Orders and the Tombtakers agree. Brevyn decides she wants to follow. THIS is what sparks their romance- maybe Brevyn has always been attracted to him and he's always idolized her and this leads to some emotional reveals. I think, ultimately, the romance has to be shown to be extremely unhealthy with Lucien seeing Brevyn as someone so glorious (repeating the motif of her being "the favorite" that the book didn't do anything with) that if she chooses him, then he must be special and Brevyn... just liking him. I think Brevyn could stand to be less girlbossy, because Lucien is supposed to be the girlboss of this novel. An OC in this situation does not need to overshadow the actual protagonist which was my main problem with her. I didn't pay $20 for Ensign Oakbender to be The Best At Life and the Reason Lucien Does Everything Right Down To Wearing Open Shirts and Liking Butterflies.

So from here, we can establish the Tombtakers getting a reputation worthy enough that Vess would want to hire them for mercenary work. The Tombtakers are RARELY EVER shown to be fucking competent at any point in the book (seriously how are the tribes holding down a group of blood mages- that should have been the moment Lucien terrified the entire town into respecting him), which is ridiculous because they are in canon, barring Lucien's failed survival checks, which were as much a fault of the group as a whole. It's just funny to blame him.

I think the best way to deal with the Brevyn Death Scene is for Lucien to find the book, read a little of it in private, have his first dream of the Somnovem and excitedly run to tell his gf who is just "um that's sketch" and you can do this one of two ways: the first being that she just thinks that's sketch (and even if you can't call it that, you CAN have her use Grim Psychometry on it because someone should have) and the second being the more pragmatic approach which is that if Lucien takes something that DeRogna has explicitly said she wants (all magical items), he's putting the group at risk of not being paid. Lucien reacting badly to Brevyn not yes manning him (and possibly abandoning him the way Aldreda did- REMEMBER HE HATES BEING ABANDONED) gives credence to his tight response to Caduceus's plea for perspective. It also makes him worry that because she's Perfect Brevyn, she'll turn the other Tombtakers against him. This results in a conflict and you can go two ways with this too- either Lucien kills her on accident and lies about it or their fight starts the clusterfuck that leads to her getting mashed to paste. (I like the latter because if Lucien chooses to save the book and leaves Brevyn to die, it parallels what happens with Cree.) Either way, Brevyn's death is ruled as an accident and Vess and the Tombtakers part on sour, but not as ridiculous as they do in the book, terms. Lucien reads the book. Insanity ensues.

THE SECOND ACT. So as stated in my first point, the first act would end with Lucien being brought back as he remembers the most recent events of his life and having made the decision to subjugate the Somnovem. This part of the story is generally considered to be better than the first half so mainly what needs to be fixed are the glaring contradictions to canon events, the Tombtakers' incomptence, the Somnovem's presence, and the way Brevyn hangs over the narrative- using her more as a symbol for how much Lucien sacrifices to get what he wants would be best. Personally, I think Head!Molly needs to bring up Aldreda as his "humanizing" factor with Brevyn being solely used as a reminder of what is going to happen to all of his friends. This allows Aldreda to still haunt the narrative since she was FORGOTTEN ABOUT.

As for Molly... Look, I have a mixed bag of emotions on some of Head!Molly's shit and I'm not going to deconstruct that here. I do think his arguments need to be less "why don't you like my friends they could be your friends" though, especially since if you're going to do a Tombtakers story, you need to commit to the fact that the Nein were absolutely shitty to them for no reason from THEIR PERSPECTIVE. If you can't commit to the villain-centered morality in regards to the heroes' actions in a narrative about villains, you don't need to be writing this story. Molly's arguments look stupid when viewed from Lucien's side of things and yet he's framed as being perfectly reasonable.

Beyond that, I think not declawing the Tombtakers and allowing them to be considerably competent threats instead of half-starved, freezing idiots and focusing more on Lucien's Eldritch Madness, as opposed to just general madness would go a long way.

And there you have it! The most generous, kind script doctor for the book I can give. That is all it would have taken to make a book that was very different from what I expected, but wouldn't have utterly pissed me off and, in fact, would have been looked back on fondly as a flawed but otherwise fun story.

[ildiavoloro55o]

You see this man?

Yeah. Him.

He is the only one that keeps me happy and sane during race weekends. Everyone else either gives me heart attack or makes me stressed out or makes me want to commit arson.

[townslore]

discovery of the day

[north-wilkesboro-moonshine-cave]

weird evening

[6ebe]

F2 has crazy graphics man what 😭

[mithliya]

The "i wouldnt date poc women" which is firstly grammatical incorrect (people of color women) anon is so fucking stupid because exactly what is that you dont like about women of color that includes all women of color? Eye color? There woc with lighter eyes, hair texture? There are straight haired woc, nose shape? There are button nosed woc. Skin color? Lighter skinned ones. There is not a single feature that could make one exclude entires ethnicities. Only racism

i was thinking the same thing. and her claiming not to be bait while being like “oh so you want me to FUCK ~poc women~ to prove i’m not racist?”

when i said TO HER very clearly in reply to her prior anon here:

like maam you were told to do the opposite of “use [your] vagina as a way to combat [your] subconscious/probable racism”! the desire to frame woc as rapists who desperately want white women to fuck us to prove they’re not racist is an intentional twisting of what is actually being criticised. i said if u only find white people attractive, that probably is rooted in racism. race isn’t this clear defined constant category where you’ll never find a white person who can pass for a person of colour or never find a person of colour who can pass for a white person, it’s not a quality that is related to sexual orientation so it’s not comparable to lesbians not wanting to date males, it’s not even constant enough for there to not be a variety of features and skin colours and eye colours and hair textures within one race.

if someone said to me “i’m only attracted to pale skin”, whatever, it’s a preference and can come about from many things (tho of course there being cultures where pale skin is prioritised and viewed as more beautiful often is rooted in white supremacist beauty standards- so it’s not above questioning). if someone said “i’m really into blue eyes” that’s also whatever, tho again it could be rooted in more questionable things. if someone said “i connect at a deeper level with people from the same cultural background as me”, also whatever and makes total sense. but then when they say “i’m only attracted to white people and my genitalia only responds if someone is A Member Of The White Race” it just gets confusing like, do u mean ur only into blondes (which non-white ppl can be)? blue eyed pale ppl (which non-white ppl can be)? ppl with thinner lips (which non-white ppl can have)? what exactly does that even mean. if they’re primarily white but have some more distant non-white ancestry is it a deal breaker? if they’re not white at all but look white is that where u draw it? like it doesn’t make sense in so many ways. is her “vagina” an aryan detector or what?

and the only way she can counter me is by insisting i want white ppl to have sex with us or to look at the dating histories of white ppl to determine whether they’re racist or not despite me explicitly saying the opposite 🤭 i would actually much rather that white ppl like that figure that stuff out far, far away from us and without even trying to touch us or go on a date with us or anything else. i’d much rather they exclusively date white ppl and just stay away from us

[httpiastri]

Did you watch F2 qualifying yet? 😢

i did… but at what cost……

[woosansang]

.

[saintofterror]

i saw eden????? in person????? like i was in the same building as him….. i heard my favorite songs live…. i heard balling live and sci fi and drugs…. i cried during forever//over…. i heard eden Actually SING “everything will be alright” live with my own ears……I SAW CRASH LIVE?????????!