#i think the insane thing is this post is already immensely long and there's still so much

[maybevillage]

my really really long rant about endwalker

i'm not kidding this is really long. spoilers ahead of course, like immediately upon entry. sorry i sound so angry the whole time

unfortunately for me and for anyone reading this, endwalker is one of those cases where i like/d so much of what happens that the many weak moments make me more critical of the whole than i would be if it was just wholly bad like stormblood, bc it's a waste of potential. a lot of the time the moments i liked would even be happening simultaneously with the things i find so problematic: cheap storytelling decisions, cheap moments that only serve as fanservice or for shock value that only detract from a characters’ pre-existing complexity, poorly done rehashing of elements from shadowbringers, a lot of hollow pseudo-intellectual arguments, rushed and underdeveloped writing in one instance and then meandering wastes of time immediately after….these issues are so consistent that rather than try to break up endwalker's story based on these things, i will just try to run thru the whole thing chronologically and hope i don't get too repetitive. that's why this isn't an essay with some pretense of structure. i'll do my best.

what's crazy to me is i thought endwalker was going to be my second favourite expansion. this was despite not caring about its original main conflict--i thought fandaniel just wasn't a compelling or even interesting villain. he comes out of nowhere. and he's also asahi so that association is hard to break away from bc i find asahi silly. and he suffers from the same writing issues zenos does, where nearly every cutscene with them did little to develop their characters further from the baseline, only reiterated what i already know bc they literally never say anything else: zenos wants to fight wol, he's bored with everything life could possibly offer, fandaniel will ensure zenos can fight wol through his towers bc he no longer plays to the tune of his unsundered masters... even though what fandaniel was promising to cause were the final days i just didn't really care. in the wake of shadowbringers the final days are like a pretty big deal, but something about reviving a catastrophe i had just finished wrapping up--i thought, naively--made bringing them back seem really thoughtless. i don't really need to see anymore final days...like how much more do i need to understand how bad it was? i mean i think shb did a pretty good job????? of making the final days seem pretty fucking bad. why not come up with something new because this is endwalker and not shadowbringers haha? the only fresh thing about this new uncooler final days was the motivation behind them. fandaniel wanting to bring about the final days bc he wants to die and thinks everything should die with him vs emet-selch's unwillingness to die no matter what bc the final days took everything from him and he needs to bring it all back. still, recontextualising the final days from a past event into a present issue ruins them to me. whatever, i thought, there's no way we're letting the final days happen so what does this matter anyways. there's no way.

so yeah post-shb into ew was starting to lose me plot-wise. not the end of the world (LOL?) though bc the atmosphere in the beginning was so subtle and fresh and rich like dew in the morning that i was willing to look past it. going to old sharlayan i liked a lot. i liked going there not as a more typical homecoming for your friends but to instead uncover the sharlayan forum's cryptic behaviour. this kind of intrigue was what i really wanted after the grandness of shadowbringers and i really do think endwalker gave me that for a while. i liked the opening scene on the ship a lot bc it felt exciting and uncertain and new, especially talking to hydaelyn. i liked how she had become such an unstable variable after originally being the most anchoring presence in the entire game: learning she's a primal, whether she's actually “good” after listening to emet-selch’s explanation of her origins and actions in shb, and the fact that her appeals to her champions have been fewer and fewer… i thought her meeting with you at the very beginning of endwalker was cool and foreboding. i also really liked the emet-selch narration btw, i thought that was a fun choice. who better to guide you into the final stages of your adventure than the person who left you with that final, most important task. i wish this had been the only callback to his character at all. 

so a big part of why i like/d endwalker so much is all that atmosphere. and something i can't really put into words. it just felt cool and cohesive at the start. old sharlayan is one of my favourite locations now; i like that despite its rigidity and (to me farcical but w/e tangent) pursuit of rationality/knowledge, there's the quaint island charm and fresh winter sea and overgrown greenery and forest paths. i liked that the game enhanced the usual hubworld tour chore by having g’raha and krile follow you around to give you more personal anecdotes of the place, really gave it a more lived-in feeling, which really added to both them and the location. i also really liked all this charm and familiarity in tandem with the secret hostility of the place bc of the forum, having to sneak around and so on, sharlayan citizens not really recognising you somehow? but being very aware of a warrior of light threat to their way of life, even if i find that non-intervention way of life silly.

i also really liked labryinthos. it's a really creative place. i liked its uncanny false sky and controlled environment, and yet all the people scrambling about inside. and the music felt kind of magical like i had encountered another fairy area or something idk it all felt very whimsical. thavnair i really liked as well but i feel like my immediate impression of the place was kind of poisoned by the stereotypes, like the huge focus on trade and the first impression being undercutting foreign tourists but then i started to really enjoy the part where you run around with matsya and help him sell fish. i liked the mundanity and slow pace of that exercise bc it felt like a much more involved way of learning about thavnair and its current issues through conversations rather than the fetch quest slog, and this is one of the things i like a lot about the beginning of endwalker. the gameplay really improved i think bc they found more creative ways of having you interact with your surroundings, rather than having the usual running between npcs to fetch things for them or other chores. like rather than doing a string of quests and then being rewarded with development of the story, the gameplay simultaneously develops the story. like turning into frogs i thought was fun, testing nidhana’s aether lamp was fun, etc. it felt like they had better ideas about how to progress the in-between parts.

thavnair quickly started to upset me though bc it started to feel like the only relevance the location had was what they could give you for your military cause, that is, the scales. like alchemy is this place’s big highlight and its just the scales the scales the scales and the tower aughhhhhh!!!!!!! the tower!!!!!!!!!! i wish they had focused on something but i guess this is just to be expected with ffxiv...any interaction with a foreign ("foreign" as far as square enix eorzea is concerned) culture really boils down to how they might bolster your military efforts, the azim steppe for eg. so it felt like my concern for an individual (matsya) and the experience firsthand trying to help him with his day to day; the idea that every single person on earth is important and shouldn't be made to suffer, and helping that single person... was like overshadowed by something more focused on a “greater good", that is, the construction of the scales to defeat the towers to save the world ad infinitum. but if you played endwalker then you would know how this idea of only concerning oneself with a "greater good" and this diluting of the importance of an individual's life for the sake of this idealistic whole causes some problems for a certain someone..................so why didn't the game focus more on these themes? probably because at the end of the day it's a video game by square enix and you need a big boss to fight or something or bc this expansion is insanely unfocused i don't know. i feel like this concept about the importance of the small things that can add up to one life and how that one life is beautiful and important crops up with the significance of weeds despite its importance overall. i don't know if i think this is one of the main underlying themes of endwalker just poorly executed so as to not even be there or if i just wish it was one of its main themes. anyways i'm getting distracted, what i mean to say is thavnair gets dehumanised throughout the entire expansion in the most horrific ways possible so i guess this was just the start

moving on... i liked the part in garlemald a lot, which i didn't expect bc i don't expect this game to handle anything regarding imperialism well. i liked that the garlemald you finally experience, after it being one of your main enemies and this very proud nation, was just this dead quiet and ruined place. the quest where you follow that girl is another eg of how the gameplay was a bit more immersive, i think it helped me feel the loneliness and the danger of the place, that i could be a danger to this girl. that i really had to try if i wanted to help her. what i didn't like was alphinaud's and alisaie’s babying attitude towards the garleans? like ok yeah of course we’re gonna have patience and grace for GARLEMALD meanwhile lyse was losing her head at the ala mhigans whenever they disagreed with her. like sure arguing won't get anywhere but it felt like the twins were reckoning with children sometimes, it was so strange. but i did like that the game didn't shy away from making the garleans just unpleasant to be around at best, and an actual danger to you at worst. it's just better to me to make them harder to reconcile with so that there's no frustrating cheap shots at redemption but rather a good, sobering look at a society that's been totally and willingly misled. and i liked that alisaie's and alphinaud's attempts to help those garlean kids ended so badly, even though i'm not usually a fan of such cruel outcomes. it felt like we were seeing a garlemald not necessarily being punished for its actions more than we were seeing a place built on shitty ideals crumble bc of those ideals. i thought jullus was a good char and helped to carry that idea of disillusionment forward. i didn't care so much about sympathising with what he'd lost, but i did find it interesting how they contrast him with the legatus he's working under, who even while the place is in ruins is still more concerned with war than providing for the people relying on him. i don't think the part in garlemald is perfect by any means, like it doesn't do anything too brave, but ig it was a lot more subtle and complex in its storytelling than i expected. and it wasn't meaninglessly cruel. like i'm glad those shock collars put on the twins were only used to gauge jullus' emotional growth or something like him not wanting to activate them rather than them actually being fucking used which would have just made me close the game and not look back.

from here on is where i struggle to lock in for the rest of the story. starting with when zenos kidnaps you in the midst of the fighting at camp broken glass--i don't think i have ever been more immediately mentally locked out of a story. endwalker is darker than usual, trapping people in fleshy towers, two young girls lying dead on the ice, tentacles erupting out of tempered garlean soldiers... and so on. and while i don't personally like things that are overly dark or cruel, it's not that i think they're bad, just that with moments like that it's a lot better imo that a point is being made or they add something to the story, and that it doesn't feel soullessly random or disrespectful. unfortunately this stops being the case for the rest of the expansion..... like something about the weird eldritch feeling of fandaniel pulling you out of your body and putting you in a random soldier's was throwing me off immensely. it felt like i was playing a different game, like so disconcerting i found it distracting, because why would he not just do this to screw you over more often? i didn't understand them having access to such an unrestrained power. at the same time it was also just too wacky to really take seriously despite the apparent gravity of what was happening. zenos inside of my bunny girl's body??? i don't even understand why they did it? to piss you off?? the duty where you play as the imperial soldier was interesting i guess but i couldn’t understand what the meaning behind being made to struggle through that experience was... like didn't we just spend all that time sympathising with the garleans and wrap that section up already? why do i now need to sympathise with/experience firsthand what its like to be a garlean footsoldier? and it annoyed me because these parts felt emotionally rich, like stumbling across those garleans fighting that machine and trying to do your best to help them; dragging yourself across the ground to get to your friends before something bad happens to them, and running towards them before zenos hurts them while in your body--i thought all of that could've been really poignant if not for the actual situation being so silly?? they could have just kept some of those ideas, wol dragging themselves across the ground for eg--the extent to which they're willing to stop harm from reaching their friends (which reminds me of what vrtra says to you about the importance of protecting your friends the first time you meet him. but that was such a one-off moment that goes nowhere... i just wish ew would pick something, anything, to be a poignant message about love on planet earth if they want nihilism to be the main villain, and just stick to it)--and do something that felt a lot more relevant to the established story thus far? just felt totally pointless

what makes this worse is this ridiculous part is iirc right after fandaniel reveals that the entity tempering all of the garleans is varis reanimated as an ancient oh-so-important primal...?? like here's (what i thought was going to be) an actually important point in the story being sidelined for a moment that just goes absolutely nowhere. they certainly made it seem important for a moment, and i think this would've rounded off what was being said about garlemald well; the garleans are so taken in by the farce of their homeland that they think varis is calling them to reclaim their country over the radio, but all along what's actually causing their nation to fall apart is this monstrous version of their late emperor. the irony would've been interesting but they just do nothing with it... (i think desecrating a dead person's corpse by turning it into a monster is really weird btw, even weirder that they do it for no reason. whatever ew is weird.) i thought, considering that this plotline was being established from before endwalker started, that anima was going to take some time. not so. ffxiv would rather have you and zenos enact tropes from a disney channel movie. you merk that guy at the end of the tower of babil and from then on every important plot point the expansion could possibly have moves at fucking mach 567472838758745745

because why all of a sudden are you getting beamed up to the moon? and fighting ZODIARK? i was so confused when asahi i mean fandaniel was punching shit into that fuckgin allagan computer like fandaniel what the fuck are you talking about... i couldn't process anything that happened here. like i'll willingly put aside boring practicalities like why anyone can breathe on the moon, but not so much how fast this all happened and how out of nowhere--is this the reason fandaniel is also amon btw? so that he can use their allagan computers to do this? bc i honestly can’t find any other reason why him being amon is relevant when they revealed that in the tower of zot...like i dont get why that's important

and it doesn't get better after this is the sad thing to me. it doesn't pick itself back up. it is just extremely unfocused right until the endwalker. i was willing to move past getting rid of zodiark so quickly because it's not that i hold standard storytelling rules so dearly in my heart that i need the biggest final boss of the entire series to get a bit more gravitas. it actually ended up being a pretty interesting decision--dispatching the largest villain at the heart of the game being the catalyst for the biggest catastrophe you've ever heard of. like i like that wol gets played. but the entire mare lamentorum section that follows is disrespectful. this expansion suffers from some extreme tonal dissonance, bc how does wol learn that the final days are now upon them and then proceed to spend their time leisurely touring the moon rabbit facility to tell them that the clothes they’ve made for humans to wear isn’t fashionable? why on god's green earth does that matter at this current juncture? this part is one of the worst story-writing sinkholes in the expansion to me, bc why are the discrepancies between what the loporrits know of humanity vs what humanity is actually like something the story chooses to grapple with? we're building an ark to save humanity, and instead of approaching this in a contemplative or emotional way, the point of conflict they choose is logistics? in the expansion about nihilism? at best this conflict was overly realistic..... mostly it's just boring, and at worst the FINAL DAYS are now upon us, so why am i taste-testing carrots? how could the sharlayans, the most focused group of people on the entire planet, have been collaborating with the loporrits for decades and not even have one of the most basic aspects of staying alive squared away? i’m supposed to not only believe that nobody knew after all that time the lopporits think people only eat carrots, but also waste time on fixing this? whyyyyy would they even devote any time to this at all when there are so many more complicated and interesting ideas that they let flounder bc they rush through them at breakneck pace constantly? we just fucking killed zodiark! is this why they stick urianger up there to do all the fixing actually? to save time offscreen? maybe that's why they chose this asinine chunk of the story to start processing his character? though why they would choose to add more to a plate they can barely balance i don't know. i don’t even feel like getting into what they did with urianger bc it will just piss me off. i think only my love for rabbits and how i will never ever not find urianger precious were stopping me from putting a hex on square enix

the following section of the story is easily the worst part to me in the entire game. like i would rather replay stormblood multiple times in a row than ever sit through the final days coming to thavnair ever again. i've already said bringing back the final days would just be bad; a disservice to the time spent on it in shadowbringers. what more is there to say on that front? nothing. and the way ew utilises the final days tells me that the answer is nothing. it just wanted to unleash the violence of that event on the non-white area and spends an insane amount of time doing it. i can think of no other time in this game where there is so much wanton death and destruction for no useful storytelling reason other than to relish in the cheap shock of witnessing violence, violence they are unwilling to inflict on its white areas, because even in garlemald you only see the aftermath of what happens rather than being in the midst of it. it was actually making me feel fatigued. it was just so much of the same thing over and over with no real meaning to any of it. and that's not to say that meaning justifies suffering, but this is a game.....with a story... first and foremost? there needs to be some kind of reason to move the story forward? but nothing new or inspired is being said, just "the final days are really bad"

i’m actually not even sure where to begin so i’ll start with a glaring issue: i hate that people turn into abominations. people “randomly” turning into monsters just feels too unwieldy--how could there be any sense whatsoever that that situation is controllable? even learning that it's caused by feelings of despair is shit because emotions are so vague, how could there be any worthwhile attempt to control your emotions, let alone while watching your loved ones turn into/be eaten by monsters? this entire part felt so wildly out of hand/unpredictable to me that every single moment onward that wasn't more or less focused on maintaining this extremealy volatile situation felt like an unforgivable lack of priorities. it was extremely distracting to have it hovering over everything; everything else felt absolutely inconsequential in comparison. bc what the fuck do you mean people are randomly turning into monsters?? also the stakes were already really high just knowing the final days were coming, so raising them that much higher felt unnecessary to the point of it being hard to believe. and then bc you know there's no way any character important to wol is going to turn into a monster, subjecting commonfolk npcs to this just feels absurdly cruel, and also just made it obvious how much of a cheap scare it all was, bc it can't have any real narrative importance as a result of only happening to random npcs. it was all so blatantly fake-deep. there was no meaning behind them originally being people except for the useless horror of it--the scions still referred to them as monsters to be put down rather than as the people they used to be, just like any other monster in this game. dynamis was more of a retroactive explanation for why people turned into monsters, rather than people turning into monsters bolstering any understanding of dynamis. in shb the sin eaters had some method to them that made them more believable. you fight them throughout the story rather than them just being dropped on you midway through, they helped provide a picture of what kind of world the first was, they were emotional diving boards for characters like alisaie to develop personal goals and so on and so forth... the horror of the sin eaters had a narrative purpose. in endwalker it feels like they didn’t know what to do but wanted to replicate parts of shadowbringers, but didn't know why those parts worked so well bc they're too obsessed with trying to shock their audience. this part just sucked beyond description.

and it just continues to get worse. how can you be the one writing the parametres of a situation and you create something that's literally unmanageable, so that when its only manageable bc you need it to be, it's just so obviously shit writing? my sister described endwalker's writing as really contrived, like when they need something to happen (and that thing is often a really bad idea) they just shove it in there at the cost of keeping their characters in character, or having their story threads--both the interesting ones and the stupid ones--fall totally flat. she says they shortcut the writing. and it's true. for eg, the characters literally don't feel like themselves at times, or get utilised in really moronic ways. like when wol just watches the satrap die, another cheap scare btw he literally gets grabbed an eaten in a way my sis (i was ranting to her a lot about this game ok) described as straight from attack on titan. just gets grabbed and eaten. and this happens to him for such asinine reasons: 1. so that this random asf plot point of vrtra revealing himself as the true satrap can bear fruit. for some fucking reason. i struggle to understand why this is important at all but i guess it's yet another little sideplot that ew just can't seem to resist adding to its already towering plate at the plot buffet, like whatever is going on with urianger and moenbryda's parents/the loporrits, or zenos who now spends most of his time offscreen, or the twins and their father, etc, bc ew likes to waste time 2. so that g'raha (???????????????????????) out of fucking nowhere can have a big boy moment and direct the scions and the people of thavnair in their time of need. what on earth was that scene supposed to be? fanservice? a reminder that g'raha was a leader back in the first? which blows my mind bc mere moments before he had a scene i really enjoyed despite the circumstances, where after a man witnesses his son get turned into a beast and then stepped on by another beast because endwalker is literally jacking itself off to suffering and expects me to be doing the same... g’raha goes up to this man and stops him from panicking and turning into a monster himself. while i don't think any of this should be happening, i thought it was a nice take on his character to have a more sensitive moment in such a harrowing situation. i don't know, have a character demonstrate some emotional skills instead of the usual fighting ones. ofc all of this i thought mere moments before disaster. why was any of this necessary? literally why not just have the satrap, i don't know, take charge of his country when he's needed most, even if he's only been a figurehead the whole time? why let him go out so horribly when he obvious loves his people with his whole heart just so that vrtra can step in without any sort of conflict? i don't understand the focus on vrtra at all

and it actually just keeps getting worse.. the following part where you have to find matsya's friends at palaka's stand was awful. the friends have a newborn baby, so it's obvious that only that baby is surviving bc ew is convinced you don't know how harsh the world is yet. that must be why this part is so long? i'm repeating myself but so many other things that shouldn't be rushed get rushed, only for ew to devote a lot of time to sections like this where nothing changes or develops except for compounding how bad it all feels. i think it was at this point actually, that i realised endwalker actually had some underlying point it was trying to make. it would've been impossible not to realise bc of how heavy-handed it is. i'm not even going to try and paraphrase bc it was so random the way it was introduced i thought i had missed some lines of dialogue or something when it happened:

the suddenness of this felt like when a writer forsakes trying to show what a story is about and instead opts to speak to their audience directly through poorly disguised self-inserts. like i know things are bad right now guys, but the preaching tone of this is jarring. like maybe if you spent some time trying to develop your themes you wouldn't have to be doing this endwalker. i know you need your final villain to literally parrot these ideas for the rest of the game, but if this was supposed to be such a core point of the story why wait all the way until now to just beat me over the head with it? was watching a child be crushed underfoot supposed to make elderly man of palaka using the phrase "at journey's end" seem profound?

anyways then you go and try to save matsya’s friend (the mother bc the father has now died, of course). this leads us to another forced decision that doesn’t make any sense: alisaie and alphinaud fail to kill a single abomination--just the one solitary abomination that was stalking the poor woman--so that we can see it fling her into the water and her corpse dangling on the surface. in what fucking world do alisaie and alphinaud, who have single-handedly dispatched numerous abominations prior to reaching this point, fail to kill just one of them between the two of them in a way reminiscent of a cartoon, one being knocked into the other and them both falling over? how is that fucking possible? and then to somehow make things worse, because that's still possible, despite the fact that wol spends this entire segment in palaka’s stand being told by alisaie and alphinaud not to leave matsya alone because he can’t fend for himself, the twins suggest sending him back on his own to deliver the baby to palaka's stand? why??????????????????????????????

this is what i mean when i say the characters get used in the most bullshit ways for the most bullshit reasons. it's like the game needs as much suffering as possible to happen so that it can make a worthwhile point on this later on (spoiler: it doesn't) so it pulls shit like this. why would the twins, who we just watched try to spoonfeed the garleans cereleum straight from the tank, leave matsya on his own if not solely bc the story needs the doomerism of the Resolute Citizen to ring true? and this is also what i mean when i say the scions try to manage a disaster that is just not manageable, bc they for some reason believe that bc they've taken care of the abominations they saw in the area, that means the area is safe enough for matsya to go back on his own? like are we just suddenly pretending the nature of these creatures doesn't imply that anyone can turn into one at any moment? everyone is ALWAYS in danger? we're just going to mill around while matsya weathers the most potent fear of his life running back to the village on his own, with the baby of his friends who just died moments before, while we all know that extremely negative emotions cause people to turn into the monsters? why are we doing this after we just went to so much trouble keeping people safe (or failing to, really)? forget turning into monsters for a sec, why are we even letting him experience such painful emotions at all? anyways the fucking baby starts turning into a monster because this is endwalker.. but i will say that matsya running and chanting that little piece up there about how life is suffering to try and convince me it's true calm himself down was one of the cutscenes i liked the most from this entire part, maybe endwalker in general. it was another one of those emotionally poignant and well-executed moments that just suffers from how much i wish it was happening under totally different circumstances. i don't even remember why one of us doesn’t go with him, like i don't remember what we were busy doing bc it was that unimportant--no wait, i remember! we were waiting for matsya to reach the total end of his rope so that when all things seem lost, when those monsters obviously show up on his path back to the village out of nowhere like they've been doing the past painstaking quest after quest of this entire part, estinien and vrtra can get this really cool moment of jumping into save him! it all makes so much sense now. i've never seen estinien do anything really cool before like diving down from the sky with his lance, so i understand how this was a really important moment that the game needed to make happen. also how vrtra really needs to prove to the people he can be a good satrap bc ahewann just died and all. yeah, i totally get it. perfect. just great. 

what is the message behind despair turning you into a monster? we're about to get into it with meteion and try to convince her she's wrong--come out championing the idea that suffering is just one of the many aspects of life we need to accept, and yet we're going to preface that with a part where to feel despair is bad? you get punished if you do it? honestly?

whatever. elpis...we go here because we need to learn about the elpis flower. i'm thinking we're definitely just going to ask the watcher, right? like the guy on the moon who told us the name of the flower in the first place? and time is of the fucking essence here, so surely we just go back to the watcher and ask him what we need to know and come back? wrong. we're going back to the first. to talk to elidibus. i thought we killed elidibus? does nobody truly die in this game except for my favourite character? so wol gets sent back to the first, and there's this upbeat tonally dissonant little section where you catch up with some old friends like beq lugg and those kids you helped back in shb bc now is just the perfect time for pleasantries and remembering how good shadowbringers was. ew trying to relive shadowbringers was already something i was feeling out in thavnair fighting leagues of "terminus" creatures and not "forgiven" ones, and watching the carefully constructed horror and gravity of the final days get reduced to an average apocalyptic shitshow. so i can't say i appreciated this part. also people are indiscriminately turning into monsters. i can't help but have that hang over everything constantly until the end of the expansion.

anyways we go to the crystal tower and drag out elidibus even though i personally prefer when characters have their final moments and are properly laid to rest. like i hate to not only beat a dead horse but also reanimate said horse and then drag its corpse around. well fuck what i want. so elidibus willingly does this favour for us i guess and sends us to the past somehow with some useless warnings about how we won't be able to interact with our surroundings or change the past. i say useless because the former is just untrue, i'm not sure why he bothered to say it. the moment we step foot on elpis you get a nice gift of aether from emet-selch that renders you tangible and now you can proceed to live love laugh with him and hythlodaeus on elpis even though people are indiscriminately dying back home. and the latter warning, well. i don't know, that just seemed obvious. i'm kind of just a hater.

time to be positive again for a short moment, if you can believe it? emet-selch is one of my favourite characters. i enjoyed this new light cast on him...for a short while. i like his relationship with hythlodaeus and i really like hythlodaeus; i’m really fond of the faceless simulacrum version of him you meet in shb and i'm really fond of him now. learning about the unsundered world in person rather than through hearsay was interesting, and although i can't lie and say i don't think this all kind of felt like a huge tangent despite the important aspects of the plot that come out of it, i still like it. i guess it feels this way because a lot of big plot points have already been established, like the ark on the moon and the sharlayans' involvement and the final days, so this was all kind of too big to me to be coming this late into the story. it doesn't feel all that relevant to prior parts of the expansion either except for hermes, who has been poorly developed throughout, so okay, i get it. it's time to give one of the main villains some depth (i want you to guess if this is successful or not). hermes has a lot of qualities i really like. has a child, secretly nurturing a potent sadness, thinks differently from the world around him because at his core he’s too deeply empathetic…. even though i was still largely aware of the insanity happening back at home which i'm going to keep repeating, i still enjoyed elpis At The Start. the exposition of this part was easily better than its resolution. it was taking the time to develop hermes’ character so that you could see if the game was written well anyhow how he became the fandaniel of the present. i really liked his relationship with meteion too. it's getting hard to talk about what i like without simultaneously talking about what i don't like so i'm going back to criticising now, positivity over, sorry....

personally, i’d have been totally fine without any more development to emet-selch’s character. i think it was nice to see a fresh perspective on him and all, really rounds out who he is from what you know and what he talks about in shadowbringers. and i actually like a lot of the things he said throughout, not all of it, but a good amount of it was fun and sorely needed whenever hermes was being annoying, which was often. but there was a lot of times wehere i thought, i don't really need to be hanging out with emet-selch right now? i don't need my wol and emet-selch to be friends? considering who he is....? .............and what's going on back home? how many more moments showing how endearingly prickly he is do i need to see? like sure, i can enjoy this emet-selch fest in isolation of what's going on because me love emet-selch like it's not like i think these moments are bad or anything but i don't know, don't we have other things to be doing? i'm not diametrically opposed to fanservice, i like when things are kept fresh and lighthearted. but. well you know by now. about the people turning into monsters. i guess i just both enjoyed this part and wished it happened under different circumstances or in a different way or something, or maybe not at all, bc as things progress his character just gets more and more diluted.

i actually really liked meteion. i will say i’m really tired of non-human, overly childish girl children creature characters who become villains, because i think there's this concept where…idk how to say it? i wish i could find something that talks about this more... it's like the dehumanisation involved when non-binary characters or non-white characters are often not human (not that these things are done in the same way). but i feel like women or females ig are often the ones chosen to be non-human in this particular way...? like, when emotional labour is involved. or when it needs to be some taboo evil entity. it's like a guy and his part-animal female second lead or part-alien love interest or female-voiced ai system or android or abandoned girl he finds/rescues. it's kind of like the born sexy yesterday trope but without the blatant sexuality (i don't want to go on a tangent). quite often this weird quirky alien and playful girl child is a harbinger of destruction. take drakengard, for example, or fire emblem engage, or cc from code geass iirc, or veronica from fire emblem heroes.. there's apparently something about childishness and girlishness and innocence and corrupting that innocence or being fooled by that innocence that seems to incite fear of the unknown enough in people for villainous children to be a trope in general regardless of gender, but it was just something i was thinking about in regards to meteion's character, especially when she becomes evil. and this blurry line between her as a "being" with a consciousness and free well as GIVEN to her by hermes, and her as a "tool" to be used by him as well, doesn't really get addressed in any meaningful way at all. like sure, she doesn't need to eat but she can still enjoy candy apples and flowers, and can empathise bc often of her own volition she wants to cheer hermes up, but actually her ability to empathise is programmed; so let's send send her, this highly empathetic being (with consciousness and free will and tastes and personality) into the cold expanse of space for as long as it takes for hermes to find his answer, that's totally fine. why did he make it a girl? why couldn't they address the fact that the loneliest bastard in this entire game made himself a child? like i'm not saying there needs to be clear-cut definitions on what meteion is or why she or hermes take certain actions, but it feels like a lot of things regarding their characters are really complex and implied to be really deep, and then just don't go anywhere or are completely ignored or unexplained? and because these things are so present yet passed over, it leaves me genuinely confused about most of what happens on elpis and how these two specifically reach any of the conclusions they do once things start going south

like i thought what she and hermes were going to add to the story was going to be a lot more interesting and complex than what it turned out to be.....a banal mantra on the "mercy" of nihilism. i can barely reconcile what bothers hermes in the first place with what meteion concludes from her sisters' expeditions, like they almost feel irrelevant to each other. he's upset over man's lording over who deserves to live and the callousness of making and unmaking life. he feels sadder about the coming death of his friend than the average ancient, and doesn't want to accept meaningless platitudes about dying for the good of the star. ok, i agree with that. so he wants to know what meaning there is to life, if it can be so easily judged and discarded...? okay. so his answer is to....secretly create creatures without any of the rigourous testing they usually go through to prevent them from being dangerous, and then send them on a potentially dangerous and traumatising mission to answer his vague philosophical questions? like.......? so when she reports back traumatised and tells him every single society out there is suffering (which i just find so unbelievable btw), then the answer to his question must be that suffering is the meaning of life--which she figures bc she's an entelechy so i imagine she's highly susceptible to her emotional surroundings, and because his pseudo-intellectual question is so poorly framed (something only emet-selch points out in a throwaway line btw). and this alone spurs him on to allowing meteion to unmake their entire society in the most violent way conceivable? you literally tell him that the final days are coming as a result of his actions, but he's fine with it because he'd rather that than enact some policy changes at his workplace, or talking to someone? everyone seemed to listen and respect his decision when he suggested helping that creature learn to fly instead of just killing it, i'm sure he could've talked it out? isn't he in charge of the place? this entire section was so hard for me to follow bc i kept thinking something more complex was making everyone behave the way they were, when it was actually just totally senseless.

as an aside, i hate how they chose to make the way meteion reports information so cooly technological btw, it felt not only anachronistic but corny. i’m sure there's a better way to have her impartially report things without making her sound like she's reporting weather conditions on some distant planet in star trek. anyways, when you frantically search for meteion after she receives her transmission was another part that took up a lot of time for no reason. it just made everything feel so dire when i could barely understand why any of what was going on was such a big deal. and i’ll never be one to say that any bureau of anything should “detain” anyone, but why hermes was so frantic to prevent meteion from being brought to the convocation i just don't know. like he goes on the run with her so that he can hear the end of her report? is that really it? i just find it hypocritical that he doesn't want her to be sent to the convocation where they'll limit her free will or fucking whatever but he's totally fine with ordering the meteia into space? why am i being made to guess what the convocation is going to do to meteion when hermes is making it seem like such a big deal?? what fucking sense does that make? what on earth was he afraid of? their judgment? the convocation members deciding whether meteion is good for the star or not? could they not have just reasoned this out? aren’t they a "highly advanced" and "reasonable" society? like okay he sees through the veil of his utopian home but i just did not get a sense of how much it was bothering him at all, like i cannot stress enough how him going turbo feels like an insane jump from what his problems seemingly were. why did nobody stop to think this through or communicate to each other? is it because of the bullshit time paradox this game has trapped us in so that nothing we do will amount to anything anyways so we might as well make the most confused villain of all time be responsible for the biggest event in this game's history?

but it annoys me because meteion and hermes felt like such a waste of potential, maybe the biggest waste to me in the entire expansion. i was really intrigued by their wholesome relationship at the start, knowing that hermes was a main villain. and that he can't find connection or meaning in an otherwise "perfect" society, so he has to create it for himself and try to find it elsewhere, as far as the reaches of outer space... he wants to make what's hurting him stop hurting him. i like that he approaches such human desires with meteion despite her non-humanness, and that she can return those feelings to him. he wants to signify meteion’s return with a flower because they both like flowers… like those things we can’t put into words but share with others, moments, emotions, connections……..but nope. nihilism beam. it feels like the worst sort of retroactive writing ever. they didn't even think too hard about dynamis--this hugely important thing, except nobody has ever heard of it, aside from nidhana back at home? while members of the highest office in the most advanced society earth has ever had are left squinting.

and the entire section after you fight hermes just pissed me off. we kicked his ass so that we could stop him from inciting meteion any further, and yet we just let him hear her out anyways? he's yelling at you during the entire dungeon that he just wants the time to hear her out, we're chasing after him so that we can stop him from doing that, and then we just let him hear her out anyways? and then even when we do that she doesn’t even say anything different? she just goes right back to reporting on different worlds and how self-destructive they are and That's All She Really Proceeds To Say For The Rest Of The Expansion But Fucking Who Cares Anymore. so we let her repeat herself. this sends her into a spiral, because she's an entelechy who just got hit by a high frequency nihilism beam, but subjecting her to all that despair is only ever addressed by one of the scions in a throwaway line near the very end of the story in ultima thule... and then hermes...captures venat, emet-selch and hythlodaeus??? he captures two of the strongest characters in the game? did we not just kick hermes’ ass??? what is going on?

emet-selch: that's bullshit, and you know it's bullshit

hermes: *says more bullshit*

i really think hermes might be one of the worst villains in the game. it's a shame bc i think he's such an interesting character. i'm not sure why he started behaving like such an incel when he was right to be troubled by the things he was? why did they even bother have wol relate to him over experiencing sadness from loss if that just went totally nowhere? why does he behave so hypocritically? being saddened by loss leads to him setting the stage for the final days? him hating man's jurisdiction over other lives leads to him wiping emet-selch's and hythlodaeus' memories, and subjecting the entire planet to the worst test ever? he's not even morally grey or anything! just annoying! i saw someone say that it's even worse that he wants the ancients to prove that their life is meaningful to them, bc it's true, they do??? like isn't that what venat interrupts them from doing in the answers cutscene, calling back for that lost life? isn't that what you learn in shadowbringers? didn't an entire half of their population sacrifice themselves so that the other half could live? what the fuck else did they need to prove?

this part was pissing me off even more because i never even wanted hythlodaeus or emet-selch to learn about where wol came from or about the final days coming in the first place. i thought that was an awful writing decision. telling them just felt weirdly cruel to me considering elidibus explicitly told you there was nothing you could do to change it. maybe this is just my opinion, but why would anybody want to know that their planet is going to go up in flames and there is nothing they can do to stop it? telling venat i was like sure, she becomes hydaeyln so this makes a little more sense to me, but the other two…….? this is around when i was getting tired of the emet-selch cameo, because i don't really care to know what he thinks of his future self? i couldn't really understand what the point of any of that was? so it annoyed me even further that it amounts to nothing anyways when they get their minds conveniently erased. it felt like a fucking joke. why did we revive these characters, develop them, and then just treat them like tools...? like now that we're done using their powers and creation magicks--i thought, naively--we just toss them aside? like ohhhhh noooooo now they won't remember all the fun we had on elpis this is so sad......but at least before he got his memories wiped emet-selch, even though he definitely totally doesn't believe a fucking word i say, renews his shb vows to wol and leaves the future in my hands again? yeah, i totally wanted to hear him say that a second time. forget how deeply affecting and important a moment that was at the end of shadowbringers. i really needed to see him do that one more time in this shittier, more contrived context. that's really what i needed from endwalker. also i've been on reddit reading what people have to say about endwalker out of curiosity (ppl make a lot of good points that i haven't) and someone pointed out that moments before all this happens venat literally pulls memories from the aether around you so that we can watch hermes send the meteia to space. what on earth is stopping anyone from doing that for hermes, hythlodaeus, and emet-selch? but whatever, i already know the writing doesn't care how silly it is anymore. two of the strongest ancients get bound by a weakened hermes, only break out after the story conveniently needed meteion to start flying into space, and then venats lets her escape somehow even though doing so essentially dooms their entire planet. ok

so we’re back home and we have to go immediately help the thavnarians who are being punished for not being white again. the sharlayans were going to bring them to the teleporter to the moon in garlemald to start getting them on the moon, but oops, the final days have come to garlemald, so now we can't use the teleporter, so if you're thavnarian your life sucks. who saw that coming? absolute waste of time. so then we have to get rid of more beasts because we need to waste even more time doing something we already spent an agonising amount of time doing in thavnair. and then immediately after this we need to......wrap up yet another asinine plot thread endwalker is so obssesed with adding to it's already convoluted story: fourchenault excommunicating his children...? it seemed really important when he did this in post-shb, but materially nothing for alphinaud or alisaie really changed, everyone still gets into sharlayan no problem. ultimately i just didn’t really know why they chose to pursue this mini-plot at all because how many more pushes does alphinaud (i'm saying alphinaud bc he does not share that spotlight with alisaie lmfao) need to become resolute in his goals? he already does this throughout the series? they ruined arenvald's legs in post-shb so that alphinaud could become more resolute in his goals, why keep dedicating time to this? just keep juggling endwalker, just keep juggling. anyways we’re in garlemald, we calm the final days for now, zenos shows up out of nowhere to remind us he’s still in the game. and to be fair to him that was one of the most interesting cutscenes he’s had the whole time, and, get this--they have him randomly answer hermes' question? about the meaning of life? while talking to jullus? like jullus gets mad at him for not giving a fuck about causing what happened to garlemald, and zenos responds by saying: "ask any creature of this star and those above for answers, and they will tell you what suits their fancy. and they would be right to do so. what meaning there is to be found in the petty vicissitudes of your existence must be gleaned by you and you alone." like......? he just provides the answer right there in a conversation with jullus? did this expansion have any interest at all in putting any of its different parts in conversation with each other, or are we supposed to just try and build a good story like a puzzle, where the pieces, albeit interesting, don't actually fit together? weren't zenos and fandaniel working together at the beginning of the expansion? he should have just posed this question to zenos because the answer was apparently right fucking there, with the flattest character in the entire game, this whole time? whatever, i still liked this scene. alisaie putting a curse on zenos was very cool of her. so we're back in garlemald and....….tonal dissonance! puddingway shows up. cute scene where g’raha’s ears perk up also bc he's the one who hears the loporrits coming. just in case you forgot about g’raha, which is an oxymoron. and then maybe the second worst segment of endwalker...........we go back to labryinthos. 

now i love labryinthos. i thought it was interesting we only collected one aetheryte the first time we were there, and i was hoping the place would be as intriguing to me as it first was when we got back. admittedly learning that the sharlayans' secrecy only amounted to contributing to the moon project was kind of a let down, but i thought maybe there was still more to it. i mean, an ark to the moon? the abandonment of one's home planet? it's not like the ideas aren't there. let's go back to elpis for a second. one of the moments that really stood out to me during that part was a throwaway line that emet-selch says to wol after hermes starts freaking it:

he's right. i don't think hermes found society so truly beyond help that he couldn't turn to any one of his peers for help before devising such a reckless plan. but i'm not trying to rehash my issues with hermes, more that i think an interesting parallel could have been made, possibly, with the ark flying to the moon as currenlty the most viable solution to the final days problem? challenging this notion of just throwing it all away as a last resort? especially because it's so obvious to me that by the end of this expansion nobody is actually going into space to start a new life out there; trying to sort out living accomodations and acquaint the lopporits properly with earth is just a waste of time. so why not pose the underlying question of the entire expansion, about what makes life meaningful, to the last bastion of hope in the entire universe--the sole planet amongst millions of dead stars that still believes in itself? would it not just be free real estate to try and connect this story's multiple parts together by ...connecting this story's multiple parts together? the scions say repeatedly how much they'd prefer to protect their planet rather than leave it, and everyone on earth vouches for you because they don't want to leave, either. could they not have made a connection in some way between that ark and the meteia's voyage to outer space? could the writing not have turned around and asked the actual inhabtants of the planet of that we've helped and saved and laughed with and broken bread with or whatever the fuck what they think about the meaning of life, now that they have to leave that life behind? i guess fucking not??? i guess endwalker would rather only highlight civilians when they're being turned into abominations to drive home the same points about life = suffering constantly, and not the points about how despite the suffering life needs to be lived? because they don't actually seem to care about challenging meteion's nihilism when that can just be lazily solved by beating her up at the end. hermes could have been learning to love the world he was on, the smaller things that make it beautiful. because that's what he does, he creates this creature that is built to understand him, and it does and it shares these small joys with him. but nope, time to waste time doing fetch quests in labryinthos. find every single researcher who is obviously losing their mind with stress in labryinthos and give them their government-assigned lopporit while this hectic music with only one minute's worth of loop value plays in the background. go and deliver these papers with alisaie and alphinaud bc if you do a former friend of their father’s will tell them that their father actually loves them duh that’s why he disrespects them publicly every chance he gets. go follow one of the lopporits around while they sample fruits so that they can learn to make food other than carrots. go and watch urianger reconcile with moenbryda's parents even though she died all the way back in a realm reborn. fuck you. also everyone is still just a bad day away from turning into an abomination. just in case you forgot.

that shit where asahi shows up to take fandaniel away for the final time might be top three most bizarre scenes in all of final fantasy fourteen btw. i almost didn't want to mention it, but i need it on record how silly i thought that was. we are in the final stages of this expansion and it still can't stop wasting time. did we see ardbert's thoughts on elidibus using his body? no. but asahi was who they chose to get upset about this? ok.

i liked the trial against mother. you might have noticed i've had very little to say on venat this whole time. that might just have to be its own post or something if nobody is sick of me by now. but anything to do with working together with your friends to overcome a trial is good.

that's what i liked about ultima thule. at the same time, this is where the game finally just loses me forever. i think, somehow, even despite all the things i didn't like, the way the story is told i still enjoyed, even if what it was saying was often. bad. there's still a lot of moments i really liked despite it all. but after ultima thule i was just done. we get on the ark. great. i like that things don't go as planned because meteion intercepts our ship. but now meteion is finally here, which means it's finally time for me to reckon with the pseudo-intellectual nihilism she's been touting every chance she gets. it's hard for me to suspend my disbelief that every single society out in space wanted oblivion, but if that's what endwalker wants me to believe for the sake of its story making sense (oxymoron) then fine. ok. but that's all that's ever said. "life is suffering" "life is suffering" "the final days are really bad"

just the same pseudo-intellectual browbeating about how living just leads to constant strife and the most beautiful thing to do is to just end it all for everyone ever again. like sure, empath hears death cry repeatedly--i can see how meteion could change so permanently. i think that's fine. i doubt that's why she's so repetitive. i genuinely just 't think there's nothing anyone really had to say on this. and the thing is, we've heard this argument before? the idea that humanity is imperfect so they don't deserve to live? it will all amount to nothing, so why let it continue to exist? these are major points of conflict from shadowbringers because it's what emet-selch was always saying. the difference is that emet-selch is just an easily more interesting and fleshed out character whose arguments are largely more complicated, even if they're just as morally wrong. like it's extremely easy for me to answer whatever meteion is saying with a resounding no. and while i feel that emet-selch can also be easily disagreed with on what he believes, bc i do disagree--he at least introduces ideas that complicate the story and his own character. he challenges the scions on their hatred of primals--their god is a primal. he offers visions of a world where nobody has to struggle ever again, where strife doesn't exist, and so on and so forth. while that doesn’t justify his actions, nor do i think they should, i think he at least gives the characters something to think about. he throws their own actions back at them. why would the scions not want a world without suffering? when emet-selch asks alphinaud if he believes half of the sundered world would give up half of their number to save the other half, alphinaud is unable to answer because he knows that the answer is no. i don't think humanity should be tested, let alone with such an insane standard, but i at least think that the questions being asked in shadowbringers were interesting. there's a point to them. with meteion, all she basically says to the scions is that she’s going to fucking kill everyone they know and love in the worst way possible. nothing to chew on that wouldn't better be solved by just getting rid of the threat. i don't know why they even bother arguing with her ever. she doesn't even feel like a character to me in that last section of the game. and they keep trying to have her seem all scary by having her get really close to the screen or move around without warning which is all very silly to me. i at least did like how much of a threat she was, and the way thancred vanished, and then everyone finds themselves in that dark area in front of the ship wondering where he is while the ultima thule music plays for the first time, distantly and quietly. i actually really liked that part. i thought it was really moving. i wish it had stayed that way.

the first area of ultima thule was the best part imo. i liked the immense darkness and quiet and lack of wind and the foul air and  yet, green grass. i liked the strange horror of being the only person at first who could really see the dragons, and then learning that estinien can see them too. i liked how that was the segue for his sacrifice. having those "final" moments with a specific scion each time until that climactic moment that pushes the group forward i really liked. i liked that thancred was no longer with them but still with them, a presence over them keeping them safe from harm. i found that very touching. but i was actually really confused while going through ultima thule becuase of how they visually shows what happens, like while the swirling vortex each scion would stand in was cool, and then standing to face off against that dark bird, i think what those things actually represented i just did not really understand what was actually being done or going on. i think that might be because dynamis suffers a bit from being just too nebulous or underdeveloped. i don't mind how abstract of a concept it is, i mean aether is used to do all sorts of never-explained things all the time.. it's more like... if ultima thule is going to be a place ruled by emotions, with laws different from what the scions are used to, it's hard for me to see how they were able to really draw any conclusions about where they were or what to do. it actually kind of reminded me of the logic of jojo's bizarre adventure where an attack only overrules another attack not becuase of some fundamental power scale the reader understands, but bc of what araki feels like contriving to get the story moving the way he wants. and that's fine because it's jojo. but this is ffxiv, so in my mind ultima thule should have either remained abstract and they don't try to explain the rules of the place so much, or they should’ve just made what was going on less abstract if they were going to try to logic the place out

what i mean is: the scene where estinien argues with that dragon so that he can overcome its despair is really cool. i liked that he turned into a cool wind. i liked that your friends sacrificed themselves for the sake of their home, that the power of their hopes for wol to overcome this final challenge was the only way they could move forward in such a stagnant place, as well as the only way they could be protected by meteion's violence. but after estinien does it--and he admits that he doesn't know how, just that it was the right thing to do--it feels like the writing immediately tries to specify what's going on so that there's some easy way forward the scions just have to follow the rulebook for, so that they can get to meteion. when urianger takes wol and g'raha aside i was actually just so lost. i don't know what it was i wasn't getting. i still don't. like to kind of say that there’s always one "individual" in these fake worlds who is despairing more than the others that can be located if they just identify a certain set of behaviours... this kind of just waters down what the scions are doing and the magic of being at the universe's end or w/e to me. we use language because of our inability otherwise to really express the depth of emotions and sensations that exist in this world, not the other way around--trying to box in something so complex through things like processes and so on...so to try and narrow down this part kind of rung a bit hollow to me. it was somehow both overexplained and underexplained at the same time. this might seem kind of nitpicky but i guess it was just hard for me to enjoy ultima thule when i was genuinely confused almost the whole way throughout. and bc the ea and the omicrons were so goddamn annoying. trying to do this slapdash learning about their societies at the very end of the game was just like...? okay? why bother, all they really care about is dying anyways. and then that final dungeon, ew's final attempt at replicating the wins of shadowbringers (the amaurot dungeon) with meteion's voice over. like who cares now meteion, you are somehow still just repeating yourself. endwalker is almost at it's end girl, i get it. everyone wants to die.

where i actually started to get annoyed though was where y'shtola says in no uncertain terms not to use the retcon crystal hydaelyn gave you to call their spirits back. y'shtola, you shouldn't have bothered, because you know wol is going to do absolutely that. why even have her say it? there is no sense of risk whatsoever because that crystal is involved. i still liked the sacrificing, but maybe they should have framed it in a way where it wasn't obvious that the scions were going to be totally fine. ew literally didn't seem ballsy enough to kill all of the scions, and i don't think it should've either. but then it just makes this all very wishy-washy. and even worse was when wol used it to summon HYTHLODAEUS AND EMET-SELCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHY!!!!!!!! WHYYYYYYYYYYYY?????????????? i was so annoyed. i'm still annoyed. back when their memories got wiped hythlodaeus was like oh yeah by the way emet did you know that in the aetherial sea you can get your memories back haha? and i was like okay cool so when they die they can get their memories back, whatever, still don't think me and emet-selch should've been live love laughing on elpis. i didn’t actually think this game would be so juvenile as to let you get to meet them once more with their memories fully intact. i don't know why ew has to dot every i and cross every t and sign off every single bit of intrigue with the biggest fucking full stop The End ever where emet-selch is concerned, holy fuck man. i hated this decision so much. your friends SACRIFICE THEMSELVES so that WOL can face meteion. they believe that at the very end of everything, hydaelyn believes that at the very end of everything, WOL is the one who can defeat meteion. they all put so much faith in you. and the first thing you do is summon emet-selch and hythlodaeus because what? because you just can't fucking help yourself? just shit all over the importance of carrying your friends’ beliefs in you. christ i hated that. i loved seeing the elpis flowers grow all over that fake sun. why couldn't that have been wol who grew them, wol's turn to use dynamis to overcome meteion's despair, flowers that represent the hopes every single person on earth has placed in them to see their star to safety? why? emet-selch there for what? to set in stone his position as the Tsundere once and for all? is that it? to have him renew his vows to wol for the millionth time just in case you forgot that he wants you to take up the mantle of their future? i wish they would go back to never making emet-selch palatable and less hostile to the warrior of light, it feels like such a disservice to the character he was in shadowbringers and to just their characters in general like i do not want to be canon friends with emet-selch! it's not necessary! it's fucking emet-selch! what's even worse is that for some reason while the flowers are growing, emet-selch is just point blank explaining what's going on. he literally says something like, "these flowers are the hopes of everyone meteion you're washed. by the way, if you didn't catch that, wol. you can summon your friends back now." immersion gone. any sense of playing a game that actually gives a fuck gone. so we call our friends back, only to send them away again with the teleporter because meteion is just too strong for us. to be fair i liked that decision, but why fake me out a second time having me think yes, finally wol is going to face meteion ON HER OWN. and then have ZENOS show up? i actually just stopped playing and went to bed. genuinelly just fuck me. who fucking cares anymore.

and then after you finally get meteion to stop being emo and she offers to reconcile with you by sending you safely back to your friends it's like, actually i can't even accept this meteoin. because i have to go fight zenos now. and then it's crazy to me that after you kick zenos' ass for like the millionth time, we're literally on the edge of the world so i'm finally expecting him to say something worth listening to, he opens his mouth and says "you know, wol, this whole time... i've been so bored... and the only thing that gives me joy is fighting you...” like. stuck record. the writers dragged him all the way out here to be a stuck fucking record

i like endwalker btw. kind of. like i know nobody who reads this is going to believe me but i really do. if it had just, well. i don't even know. there's too much wrong with it. it wastes too much time and just doesn't seem to be able to let go. how is it possible that an expansion can make me tired of callbacks to haurchefant being important to wol? i've never felt that before. like how many more flashbacks to his grave does one need to have to know that when wol is fighting for their world they're fighting for their friends too. but this game just cannot let things go. it NEEDS to make that joke about alphinaud gathering firewood four more times. it makes anything i appreciated the second or maybe even the third time just upset me. they can't let anything go, they have to wave it in front of me like it's a dog treat and i'm a dog. a fucking dog with blonde hair and blue eyes

[smehur]

Some Harry/Draco Fic Recs

There is so much great fic in this fandom, I'm struggling to keep track of everything I read and like. I already mentioned some of my early favorites here, but I have since found several more.

In no particular order:

Hermione Granger's Hogwarts Crammer for Delinquents on the Run by waspabi

In which Harry did not go to Hogwarts, but is instead found by a group of seventh year students led by Hermione, and recruited for the war at the ripe age of 17.

I'm not usually a fan of AUs, but this charmed me within the first few paragraphs with irresistible characterization. Harry is a little different than how I imagine him, but the premise allows for it. And the Harry/Draco romance is possibly the sweetest, softest I've seen so far. 10/10 would read again.

In Pieces by dysonrules

Harry returns to Hogwarts as the new DADA instructor, only to find his teaching efforts thwarted by a very familiar ghost.

When I got this rec myself, I wasn't sure I would like it, because, well, the summary spells it out, doesn't it? But I ended up loving it. It's incredibly sweet and tender and sad and hot. I couldn't put it down.

An Emerald In The Sky by corvuscrowned

The hardest part about shagging an Unspeakable is that they’re not allowed to speak of anything. All Draco knows is that Harry works in Time. Harry works in Time, and while he’s out there in all of that time, it is as unforgiving to him as it is to anyone. Somewhere along the way, Draco realizes he's been thinking in lines, when he should have been thinking in circles.

This story moved me like few others. It's a masterpiece of 'show, don't tell' in that elusive way I have never been able to tap in my own writing. It speaks in images, and the images capture incredibly specific, perfectly chosen details that paint years and decades of slowly fading hope. Just the thing for one who considers their own aging and mortality increasingly often.

Take You Home by lq_traintracks (lumosed_quill)

Everybody’s a little fucked up after the war, Draco especially. What starts as hate sex after a night out, eventually turns into something else, something more like comfort. And even though his friends all tell Harry he’s just being used, all Harry’s doing is making sure Draco gets home in one piece. He’s not falling helplessly in love.

From the author of one of my early favorites (Right Hand Red), a hugely enjoyable read that makes love to a post-war Draco (and his long hair in a man-bun that he fastens with his wand). I gulped this down in one sitting.

Hey, Potter by SunseticMonster

Harry returns to Hogwarts for his 8th year, determined not to let Malfoy get to him. But when the snarky teasing starts up again, Harry finds that returning the jibes with compliments has a far more interesting outcome.

I am in love with this premise. It works so well? While I wished for a bit more shipping and a bit less collateral, I still enjoyed this story immensely and went on to read almost everything the author wrote for the pairing.

An Issue of Consequence by Faith Wood

Draco has woken up in an alternate universe. Or he has woken up utterly insane. Nothing else can possibly explain why Harry Potter suddenly seems to think he's Draco's boyfriend.

The light-hearted summary belies the gravity of the plot of yet another favorite tale from the pen of my favorite author. The POV immersion is so deep that I absolutely did not see the resolution of the mystery until it was revealed, and then I was just as shocked as Draco. Fabulous stuff.

A Doll's Tale by Faith Wood

Harry/Draco, as observed by Draco's childhood doll. Please note, this doll is very self-absorbed.

This... broke me a little, lol. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing (too) heavy, angsty or dark about this story. It's as innocent as they get? But it just clicked so well with the idea I've been brewing in my own (yet to be published) writings, of Draco as this... sensitive boy hiding under the guise of confidence and cruelty. And the plot-twist, Merlin. Was it obvious? Maybe, but not to me! It struck me like a (fluffy toy) train and days later, I'm still recovering. I want to take this fic and hug it when I go to sleep.

Actually, I'm in a bit of a pickle, as my instinct is to list pretty much every single thing written by Faith Wood that I've read so far. But that would be silly, so I'll list only one more, as a treat.

Beholden by Faith Wood

Draco Malfoy might not be a killer, but it turns out he's an effective painkiller. If stopping pain was all Draco's touch did, things might not be so complicated, but either way Harry can't afford to be choosy.

I already mentioned this one in that inaugural post I linked at the very top, but: 1) it's now completed and can be safely binged on; and 2) the only thing I said about it back then is that it deals with chronic pain, which was particularly relevant at the time because I was at the peak of sciatica and could relate to poor Harry all too well. But that's just one of the many merits of this incredible story. Now that I'm feeling better, I'd praise it first and foremost for the patient exploration of the characters' inner worlds and the gradual, methodical and inexorable buildup of their feelings and convictions that eventually leads to falling in love. A masterpiece of slow burn. I plan not only to read this again, but to study it in the hopes of improving my own craft.

Tagging the authors I found on here: @dysonrules @faith2wood @corvuscrowned @lqtraintracks and also my friend @kuraiummei who helped me find some of these gems.

Thank you for enriching my life. ❤️

[fandomfluffandfuck]

as someone obsessed with pussy steve, it drives me insane because i was doing my final exam today and all i was thinking about is "am i going to read the same pussy steve blog of S? yeah tf i am" and im here requesting from u some more pussy steve bc goddamn thats my obsessionnnnn. plus it's my first time asking u to write anything (i dont do shit but read things here and trying not fail school at the same time)

related to this pussy Steve ask

also... we're channeling this vibe shamelessly as we continue on from that last post, still set during WWII

Good job with your finals!! Let's dive in 👀

Steve can't fucking take it anymore, groaning as he flops back onto the squeaky, lumpy mattress that's supposed to be his bed. They've been holed up in this goddamn remote rubble city for what feels like years after clearing the town of HYDRA and Nazi agents with no action to burn off his excessive energy. The once standing city has long since been evacuated because of the air raids. The bombs have flattened almost half of it, shaking the other half immensely, but without orders to go elsewhere, the Howling Commandos are lying low, trying to plan their next move on their own. It feels like a waste just to march all the way back to camp but they don't have any other leads. Not yet.

And the Howlies have scavenged the area already, gathering any remaining, surviving food that isn't their shit MREs, plus having made sure no civilians were left behind before sitting down to talk and plan.

And talk and plan and talk and plan.

Steve can only strategize for so long, he can only play card games for so long, he can only draw on scraps of paper for so long; the serum has left him even more hot blooded than he was with all this vivacity he couldn't've dreamed of before, as thin and sickly as he was. So it's a fucking problem. Sitting still.

Waiting.

They should be doing something. Seeing action. Doing good. This is war. It feels so bizarre to sit between what they have just seen and what they're going to see. Bad things.

So, yeah, Steve is having a hard time unhelped by the fact that they're stuck in the one reliable structure that happens to be a small inn with thin walls. It's a blessing to have their own rooms and real beds, just enough rooms that they only have to pair up rather than sleeping in a dog pile together, but they might as well be together with these paper walls. Thus, Steve is being extra careful as he attempts to burn off some steam, alone while the others do... whatever... out in the main room (maybe a game of poker?) by stuffing the undershirt he's been wearing beneath his red white and blue uniform into his mouth.

The shirt tastes of salt and musk, balled up and packed between his teeth, filling his mouth, keeping his jaw open. Keeping the sounds he wants to make down. Most of the sounds. He can't help the sounds his body makes that don't come out of his mouth... wet, slick squelching sounds from between his legs, his fingers plunging deep into himself as if he's trying to get to his heart. In the scenario where he wanted to get off and be done with it, he'd be making tight, hard circles around his clit, pressing down against it hard, impatient and rough with himself, making himself a little raw with it but a lot sensitive--but that's not what he wants right now. He wants to burn through energy now. So, he has two fingers crooked inside his pussy, plunging them in and drawing them out slow enough that it makes him crazy. It's enough to feel good, so, so good, but not enough to get him off.

Steve's not wearing his uniform without the undershirt while he fingers himself. Well, he's not wearing it in full. He's kept his pants and boots on in case they need to get up and go, but... his pants are gaping open.

He's undone the long zip and aaall the latching buttons, ripping the taps as wide apart as he can get them without just taking his pants off. His hand shoved beneath both layers--pants and underwear.

His boxers are ruined. Wet. Soaked.

Registering just how sticky and wet he is, pulling his fingers out of his cunt to trace his puffy, swollen slit, he plays with his own wetness. He's dripping. He doesn't touch his aching clit directly, but he does put pressure on the legs of it, tracing the v down his vulva, spreading his legs wider, just a tiny bit, so his lips are out of the way as much as they can be, exposing himself, touching himself, and--

Choking on a whimper as electric pleasure shoots through him.

That's the closest he's let himself get to touching his clit in, in... however long it's been? An hour? Two? Ten minutes?

Steve doesn't let it last. Instead, blearily, he presses his middle and ring fingers back into himself. Back into the scorching, melted heat of his body. His foot kicks out, restless, needing something to do with the thick lust building inside him. Groaning softly through his shirt, Steve arches his neck, lifting his head off the bed just enough to let it come crashing back down heavily, giving his sweat-soaked blonde hair an impressively ruffled style.

As thoughts as he feels--his coherency consumed by pleasure--Steve suddenly flushes, wondering if Bucky will be able to smell it on him when he's done (if he doesn't already know what he's locked himself into their room to do). Once he's worn himself out, cumming on his own fingers after too much build up to be comfortable, leaving himself hurting with too much tension and desire, will Bucky know? Steve will button and zip up his pants and put his shirt back on and waltz back out there, but will it all be only for Bucky to corner him away from the other guys and maybe tip his chin up, fingers on his jaw, eye-to-eye, give him those dark eyes that say, I know what you did, maybe Bucky will kiss his neck and murmur to him hotly, or maybe he'll bend him over, their clothes still on, his cock a hot, thick line in his trousers, pressed against his slit, sweet talking him with his players voice, saying filthy things about how he can smell it on him like he's a bitch in heat with the most syrupy tone, crooning so Steve will get stickier, wetter, and gooey-er. Melted in the center like some kind of oozing, chocolate dessert. Hot and ready to be devoured.

Bitten.

Licked.

Swallowed.

Steve is thinking about his best guy's cock and he's thinking about his mouth, too, now. He's thinking about those sweet talking, wicked lips. He's thinking about his immaculately styled head of hair between his thighs, going to town. Not an ounce of reservation in the way he dives into him, in how he licks, how he slurps, how he fucks.

Jesus Christ.

Steve's jaw works around his balled up shirt, clenching. His throat contracts as he swallows thickly, praying that he doesn't wail like he wants to. The sound is in his chest, rattling around, building into this aching pressure. He can't fit anymore arousal inside himself. He's gonna burst.

Then, when he's weak and he just can't fucking stop himself, Bucky on his mind like always, Steve curls his fingers just enough to catch the raised spot inside him, spongy and sensitive. So fucking sensitive. His sweet spot that causes his hips to involuntarily buck up, searching for more, needing more. If he weren't gagged, he'd be moaning for it.

Moaning Bucky's name.

Bucky's on his mind already, so, of course, he wants Bucky on his tongue, too. Worse, he wants Bucky inside him. He wants him so bad that he's fucking aching, clenching around his fingers, hips squirming, toes curling, panting. He wants Bucky's cock in him so bad, slamming home so he's leaking around it, wetting his balls and smearing all over both of their thighs. He's a slippery mess.

He wants Bucky so bad that he has to stop thrusting his fingers in and out of his tight cunt to work a third finger into himself, chasing the girth of his dick. He can't get as deep as Bucky does, and it's just not the same to the point that, that--

Steve garbles out something of a sob. His eyes sting with tears. His head is so hot with frustration. Hazy and smoking. He can't think. He can't keep his rhythm. He's shaking.

Fuck.

When he pulls out to add another fingertip--stretching before he eases the entire length of his own finger in--he realizes he can smell himself. Already, he could smell himself wafting up from his unwashed shirt, sweaty, but now he can smell the hot, briny musk of his own arousal, carried on the sex-thick air of the quaint inn room. Humid and heavy.

He can smell himself. Sweat, musk, and leaking slick. It's an unmistable scent that turns Steve on more than it should, considering it's his own smell, twisting up in his gut and making him feel tighter, tenser, hotter. He can taste himself. Sweat, musk, and dirty, unwashed cotton coating his tongue, dripping down his throat, joining the lust already pooled low in his belly. He can hear himself. Slick, squelching, and lewd with his fingers curling inside himself. Muffled and drowning with sounds dying in the back of his throat before they have the chance to come out of his mouth. The soft snuffling, shuffling sounds of his pants folding and brushing against the bed sheets, fabric rustling and creaking as his thighs spread instinctively until the the seams groan. Every sound is another piece of wood added to the fire, burning hotter until it crackles and pops with the explosions of hot sap. Steve is feasting on these sensations as much as he's feasting on the slick, velvet feeling of the inside of his own pussy. He can touch himself. Smooth, wet inner walls that cling so tightly to his own fingers. If he could lift his head, the weight of his empty skull, so weakened, he could see himself, too--his hand moving in his pants, the veins running over his muscled forearms bulging with the effort of working his fingers so much.

God, he wants more in him.

His fingers work faster, curling a little harder, plunging deeper until he's erupting with another garbled cry.

He wants Bucky's cock in his pussy, throbbing with the pound of his best guy's heart, at the same time that he wants Bucky's thumb to sneak down between where their sweaty bodies collide with every frantic thrust, slicking the digit up with Steve's overpouring wetness until he reaches back, traces the sensitive, pink flesh between his legs to get to his asshole and pops it inside him, too, giving him something extra. Extra stuffing, his thumb in his ass, pressing back against his pussy. The thin wall between his holes. Giving him something more to clench down on while he wails, crashing over the edge as Bucky grinds so deep he can taste it, choke on it, so deep that his pelvis rubs on Steve's swollen clit and makes it impossible not to cum.

Guh.

Steve is drooling, soaking into his own shirt, thinking about Bucky.

Drowning in pleasure from his own hand.

Steve is rocking up into his hand, his hips with a mind of their own, or, rather, mindless in the pursuit of pleasure, instinctively rutting, humping, rolling, and just going. He's trying to swallow moans and gasps to varying degrees of success. He knows not all of them stay down in his tight, heaving chest, but he doesn't know how loud his noises are, his heartbeat is too loud in his ears.

Regardless of his noises, he keeps chasing his pleasure, his clit swollen and peaking out as much as it can from it's hood--leaving it vulnerable and draaagging just lightly against the heel of his hand. It's agonizing. With every feathered drag of his sensitive clit against his hand, it's making his sounds grow worse. He will be wailing soon no matter what he does. No matter how much he tries to keep it down.

It aches.

It hurts.

It feels sofuckinggood.

His jaw is working so hard that it feels like his teeth will rip into his shirt soon. Gah. Oh, ah, yeahh--

The temperature keeps going up and up in and all around Steve, fever hot, when the door swings open.

Steve is so tightly wound that he can't freeze. There is no way to stop the forest fire within him. It's going to have to come to its own conclusion when it has burned through everything he has, only ash left. Nothing can put him out.

So it's a damn good thing that it's Bucky that walks through the open door, hurriedly slamming it behind him when his eyes land on Steve's debauched, twitching form on the bed they've been sharing. A cold rush of air comes in with him, leaving all the hair on Steve's body to stand on end in salute. He quivers harder.

Bucky wastes no time. He is deadly, vicious in his pursuit--the sound of the door slamming hits Steve's ears, delayed with his mushy brain, and then Bucky is immediately on him like a predator pouncing.

His body is heavy on top of him, pinning him with the drag of his uniform against Steve's sensitive, sweat-glistening skin.

Real.

He's so real that it's visceral. It's not just Steve's heated, out-of-control fantasies as he approaches his orgasm without breaks.

Bucky cages him in with his body, one of his hands planted by Steve's head, steadying himself, while his other hand grabs ahold of Steve's forearm to rip his hand out of his pants.

Steve does wail then, through his makeshift gag.

The look on Bucky's face is evil, mocking him playfully, asking, oh, really, is that how it is?

After all these years, they read each other like open books. Steve knows he knows how turned on he is, and it's devastating. Bucky probably knows just based on how much he's blushing and how he can't keep his eyes open, how long he's been going at it for. He knows how much it aches to be untouched when he gets like this. Especially now. Post-serum. It's all he can think about. He can feel his heartbeat pounding in his pussy. He's hot and swollen and so wet that it brings stinging tears to his eyes. God.

He's so fucking needy.

He needs Bucky. He needs--

Bucky sticks both of Steve's hands above his head, crossed at the wrist, and uses one of his own to pin them there. Steve could easily break away any time, but now. He's so worn down. He's weak. His brain has gone out of his head, and all of his super-strength has drained from his body out of his weeping cunt. He's depleted. He can do nothing by lay there, helpless and vulnerable, as Bucky shoves and pushes and shimmies his pants and underwear down. He barely gets them halfway down his thighs before he stops, and because of it, Steve sucks in a sharp breath through his balled up shirt. The air of the room is shocking against his soaked, sticky center.

Guh.

GUH!

Steve makes a fucking stupid sound when Bucky quits messing with his tangled up pants to instead mess with his pussy. He slips one, then two, then three inside him. Fast. A predator tearing through prey, no time to think, just do. His shit eating grin tells Steve that he's impressed with how sloppy he's gotten himself, and he wants to cry in embarrassment but also pride.

With three fingers inside him, Bucky curls them and grinds them deeper, deeper, curls, deep, curl, deep--

Steve's head is spinning. He doesn't even know what Bucky is doing to him. It just, it, it, ohgod, his eyes roll back so far, so hard it hurts, it feels so good. It's wrecking him. Whatever he's doing to him. Maybe it's Bucky's reckless thirst for him. Maybe it's the serum burning like venom in his veins. Maybe it's both of them mixing together into one harsh cocktail, so intoxicating it immediately makes him drunk.

The things Bucky is doing to his body make Steve want to shriek in pleasure. He's letting go of his wrists but it's not like Steve can move anyway and it's for good reason that he's not pinning him anymore because instead he's pressing down on his belly with that hand as he curls his fingers more, more, more, curling them towards himself hard, pressing so hard on that spot inside him that Steve doesn't even, he's not even sure he can comprehend the pleasure cutting through him, it's so much pressure building up inside him, taking more space than he realized he had even inside this bigger, stronger body, he can't, he's not strong enough, he--

Steve gasps and squirms, not understanding, wanting to babble, oh, oh, Bucky, what-I, I'm-! Wait! What is that feeling? Why does it feel like that? Wh--he can't, though, he can't say anything, his mouth stuffed.

He screams behind his teeth and--

Steve fucking whites out.

He's there one minute and then he's gone in a flash. Too much pleasure. Too much pressure. Too good. He's half convinced, totally out of his mind, that he's exploded or, or...

Oh.

As Steve returns to himself in bits and pieces, still shattered in the aftermath, he's almost sure he's lost so much control of himself that he's pissed himself. He's so fucking wet. Soaked down his thighs and down Bucky's wrist. If he has pissed himself, then he's given everything up to Bucky, his body entirely his lover's, every part of it, but then.

JesusfuckingChrist.

Then, Bucky's voice breaks through the ringing in his ears, and he's softly, quietly purring to him, mindful of their thin walls in a way Steve has not been while being stripped down to the bone in exhausting, overwhelming pleasure. Bucky's voice is all low and hot, too turned on as he works Steve through it, touching him much softer, nicer, lighter while he tells him how fucking hot that was, watching him, feeling him squirt around his fingers. And, holy shit, he's gonna make him do that on his dick. He will.

It's a promise.

Now that he knows he can make Steve squirt, he's gonna do it all. the. fucking. time.

Steve whines through his gag, his body trembling hard with his fading fever. Oh. It hits like a sledgehammer to the back of his head. He's going to die. Bucky is gonna kill him, making him squirt, making him writhe, making him want to crawl out of his own body, giving him too much gutteral, visceral pleasure.

Bonus:

I've had a draft sitting here on Tumblr for a while that simply says:

Lil pussy Steve domming big, beefy Bucky. Steve's wearing a pair of panties to a party, getting them messy in a closet or bathroom or... both... where Bucky fingers him until he cums, then, once they've finished and Steve is desperately wet, he makes Bucky put swap underwear with him. Bucky obeys because of course he's done--he's big and he falls hard. Steve's wet, dirty panties, though, they're much too tight and remind him for the next few hours (hours that Steve, the introvert, suspiciously makes them stick around the party for) exactly of what they did. How he made his dom squirt and make these panties wet and smell musky and hot like his pussy does. Ruin them. Ruining the panties, ruining Bucky.

Plus, the whole rest of the party, Bucky has to live with the fact that Steve doesn't have any underwear on because rather than put Bucky's boxers on, he shoved them into his pocket where he could take them out at any time. Fuck, they could fall out at any moment! Bucky can't focus on a single fucking conversation.

And it's not until they get home that Bucky gets to cum.

When they're finally, finally home, Steve pushes Bucky down onto the floor, mounts his lap, and grinds into his hard, hard cock bursting out of his teeny-tiny, too-tight panties. The underwear is so little and delicate, all wet lace, that Bucky nearly ripped them putting on his bigger body. Demanding him to cum and ruin them further, one of Steve's thin, bony hands constricts around his throat.

Oh, yeah, he owns this big, subby mess of a man.

So... do with that what you will 😏

[formereldestdaughter]

ok wait i need to hear more of your thoughts on peeta owning a bakery....

This is one of those rare times where I’m pretty sure this anon isn’t someone I know personally bc I’ve subjected anyone who will listen to my rant about the Peeta Bakery Headcanon. Anyway, you’re gonna regret asking this anon bc there are fucking Layers here.

I know this is probably a controversial take based on the number of fics where I’ve seen it, but I simply do not think that Peeta would open a commercial bakery after Mockingjay!! Like on a metatextual level, I don’t think it really fits with the point of the ending of the series. It actually sort of fascinates me that it’s just such a common headcanon because the ending of Mockingjay is exceedingly vague. I think that vagueness invites us, as readers, to imagine a better world post-revolution. A world where Katniss would feel confident that her children would be safe from injustice, where she’d feel confident that her children would never know want the way she did as a child. A just world. A kinder world. Can a capitalist society ever be just? Is a capitalist society where a disabled teenager has no other means to subsist himself (or feels like there’s no other way he can be a contributing member of his community) really the post-revolution world we dream of? Is that really the best we can imagine?

(This got so insanely long I’m adding a read more lmao)

I get that showing a better world is not always the point of post-mockingjay headcanons/fics. Like there are plenty of really great post-mockingjay fics I’ve seen where, yeah, part of the fic is that society like ISN’T all that different or all that much better. I’ve seen that really well done! Hell, I’ve written them myself! It’s easy to imagine how a lot of aspects of society would not get an overhaul, a lot of the same structural inequalities would continue to exist. One headcanon that really stuck with me (I can’t remember which fic it was from) was that Peeta sells basically mail order baked goods to people on the Capitol, sending them iced cakes and pastries by train, because there are still people who were “fans” of theirs during the Games. And idk this doesn’t actually have much to do with my point lol but I liked it because it’s kind of fucked up and like! Yeah! It makes sense! If he needed money that would be a good way to make it! War often makes people rich, often for horrible reasons, and often it’s people who already have capital in the first place.

Anyway, more about the hypothetical bakery because alright. I bring up the fact that “yeah society not being all that different post-revolution and still being an unjust capitalist hellscape” could be a reason why Peeta re-opens a bakery because that’s actually never the types of fics where I see the bakery headcanon. Fics where Peeta opens a bakery are usually trying to make the exact opposite point. Like. Things are getting better, now he can open a bakery! Look at how much better the world is now, plus he’s got a bakery! Peeta is healing, that’s why he can open a bakery now! And I am so, so sorry to inform everyone who’s never had the grave misfortune of owning a family business, but there is truly nothing further from the truth lmao. Like just putting aside the immense amount of emotional baggage that Peeta has about his family, running a small business is an insane amount of work in any context and being a baker especially is physically grueling and involves early hours (and long hours) that aren’t really the best fit with the multiple ways that Peeta is disabled now. (I could go into this more because I have a lot of thoughts. But I will spare you.). I also think it’s seen throughout the books that Peeta is someone who needs time to pursue creative outlets to process his feelings and someone who values leisure and values quality time with his loved ones. And having grown up in his family’s bakery, I think he’d understand the reality that running a bakery wouldn’t leave much space of those pursuits and wouldn’t leave much space for him to have the things that keep him healthy and stable. I think he’d know that the way he is now— after two Games and the war and unspeakable torture at the hands of a dictator—isn’t compatible with the lifestyle necessary for running a commercial bakery.

And tbh with that in mind, I don’t think he’d push himself to re-open a business (one that would be a constant reminder of his dead family and his complicated relationships with them that got no closure) that would require him to sacrifice his physical and emotional well-being. Like I think he might look into the possibility, I think he might even start trying to open a bakery out of a sense of obligation/duty, maybe harboring some idea that this is who he was supposed to be, who he would've been without the Games, or that it’s this last piece of his family that can live on, or that it’s this last connection to his family so he can’t let it die too. But ultimately, I think any attempt to open a bakery wouldn’t get very far. Maybe he'd start wading into the logistical nightmare that is small business ownership and realize it's not for him (because it's probably also true that as much as him and his brothers were involved in the business, there's almost certainly parts they weren't involved with and didn't see, i.e., filing taxes). Or maybe looking into opening a bakery— how triggering it is, the stress of it— causes a downward spiral. Maybe he hates how much he's worrying everyone by unraveling. Maybe having a breakdown from the stress of just trying to open a bakery makes him realize, yeah, maybe in another life he would have ran his family’s bakery but the way he is now just doesn’t work with running a bakery, not without great sacrifices he's not willing to make. I just can’t see a bakery coming to fruition.

I know a lot of fics include Peeta deciding to reopen a bakery as a big step in his healing or include him rebuilding a bakery as part of his healing process but honestly, I think the opposite would be more true: I think Peeta either trying/failing to open a bakery or ultimately deciding not to open a bakery would be hugely healing for him. I think it would be a huge part of him accepting the way he is now as a person, his new limitations but also his strengths. I think it would be a huge part of him accepting the way his life his now and accepting that he likes his life the way it is, that he’s satisfied with his life without needing to own a bakery. I think it would be an important part of him coming to terms with the loss of his family. I think he knows he can never have things back as they were and I don’t think he would try to recreate them, especially because his family’s legacy isn’t a business. I think he’s emotionally intelligent enough and self reflective enough to realize that what mattered to him about the bakery— taking care of others by feeding them, being integrated into his community and being actively involved in it, brightening people’s days with delightful things whether that’s beautiful cakes or hearty food or delicious treats— and the things he learned from his family through the bakery, are things that he can carry on in other meaningful ways.

(Do you regret sending this ask yet, anon? Because if not, you will soon. I’m not done yet. There’s more.)

I wasn’t really sure where to put this next part in what is rapidly becoming an essay because it sort of combines the points about like “what do we imagine a post-mockingjay society to look like” with the practical difficulties of starting this bakery but here’s another thing: do people really think that the Mellarks owned the land the bakery was on?? Like, sure, the merchants are the petit bourgeois of Twelve but I still don’t imagine they really own anything. In a society where houses are assigned to people upon marriage, where property ownership and capital are so closely interconnected with citizenship (as shown by the Plinths who, by having immense capital, are able to leave their District and become citizens of the Capitol) do people really think the Mellarks would be allowed to own the land their bakery is on?? I always imagined it sort of like a tenant farming situation: the Capitol gives them the raw materials for the bakery and in return the bakery give them some absurdly high portion of their profits, or the Capitol sells them a year’s supply of raw materials at a premium on credit and at the end of the year the Mellarks have to use the money they made with those materials to pay it back, except it’s never enough to turn a profit so they always have to buy next year’s materials on credit and the cycle continues.

We (understandably) get a really skewed view of the merchant class through Katniss’s perspective so I can see why people come to the conclusion that his family owned the property and, as the last surviving member, he would’ve inherited it. I’ve seen the inheritance thing in fics a lot or a hand wavey “well Twelve was decimated to no one owns anything anymore so it can be his” or even like an almost sort of reparations type situation where he’s entitled to the land as a surviving refugee of Twelve. But I don’t know. I guess I don’t think it fits with everything else we know about Panem that the Mellarks would’ve owned that land and I think the question of whether the government would’ve let him take ownership of the land post-revolution brings up a lot of issues about the structure of society post-Mockingjay that I find more interesting to explore in other ways, especially when, from an emotional perspective, 1) I find the idea of Peeta not opening a bakery more compelling and 2) I don’t think it really fits his character arc by the end of Mockingjay to reopen a bakery, as I went on about at length above lol.

On the flip side: literally who cares!! Do whatever you want!! Headcanon whatever you want!! I get why people go for the bakery!! It’s fun, it’s wholesome, it’s a built in bakery AU that isn’t even an AU. It doesn’t matter if it’s practical or realistic!! It doesn’t need to be practical or realistic!! It’s fanfic of a dystopian YA series!! My unfortunate affliction is that I grew up in a family that owned a restaurant and that I have multiple degrees in the social sciences so I can’t see the bakery without being like “What about the overheard? What about the start up costs? Who’s spending long nights balancing the books? Is Peeta covering shifts when an employee calls in sick? Is Peeta the sole person working there until the bakery is open long enough (often a year or more) to start turning a profit? How does that sleep schedule work with his nightmares? How does that work with Katniss’s nightmares? What happens when he has an episode and suddenly needs to take the day off before he has any employees? Does the bakery just remain closed for the day? Can the profit margins withstand regular unexpected closures? Can the supplies withstand regular unexpected closures?��� And if the answer is “Elliott none of those things matter he’s not doing the bakery because he needs the money but because he wants to”, then my question is why does he want to? Does he not get the same sort of satisfaction out of feeding his loved ones? Doesn’t Peeta seem like someone who would rather give away baked goods than sell them?? Doesn’t Peeta seem like someone who would prefer to make cakes for people’s special occasions upon and then when they insist on paying him for it, he only lets them “pay for the ingredients” which actually cost significantly more than he says they did??

So yeah my point is that it’s a matter of personal taste! It doesn’t fit the way I see the series but that doesn’t mean it’s like wrong, I’m not an authority on Peeta lmao.

It’s also a matter of personal taste in the sense that I find the themes that most resonate with me at the end of Mockingjay (and the end of Peeta’s arc specifically) more interesting to explore in other ways. Grief, living with loss, relearning yourself, finding hope, figuring out your place in a dramatically different world when you don’t even know who you are anymore, healing, building a new life after such complete and total destruction of your old life— those are all things I find compelling about the end of Mockingjay but for me the bakery isn’t the most compelling way to explore them.

Not to say I find the concept of the bakery totally uninteresting. I have this fic about Johanna that I’ll probably never finish where the point sort of is that, yeah, her life really isn’t all that much better after the war. It’s been years at this point and she’s still miserable and she doesn’t know how to be a person but by the end she’s trying to figure it out. And towards the end, Peeta tells her that he’s spent years sort of passively, half-heartedly trying to figure out how to inherit the land his family’s bakery was on, only to find out it was never theirs in the first place. They’d been renting it the whole time and he’d never even known as a kid. So he sort of passively, half-heartedly went on another wild goose chase to find the owner and now, finally, after years of writing to various government agencies and being sent in circles and things being barely functional, he’s managed to track down the owner. Now it’s owned by the daughter of the man who owned it when he was a kid because the original owner (who was likely up to some sketchy war crime shit) died during the war and she inherited it (the irony…). He got in contact with her and asked how much it would take for her to sell it and she told him she’s not interested in selling but in light of the situation, in light of the fact that he’d have to build a new building in order to operate a bakery, that she’d cut him a deal— she’d only require 50% of the bakery’s profits as rent instead of the 80% his family used to pay. And of course Johanna is outraged, that’s not right, the owner shouldn’t be allowed to do that, they should do something about it, they should fight back. And Peeta is like. Not interested. He was actually sort of relieved that opening wasn’t very feasible. Getting the answer was a lightbulb moment where he saw that over the years of trying to look into this, he’s built a life that he likes— one where he’s stable, where his loved ones are stable, where he’s cared for and can care for others— and he doesn’t really want to change it drastically by opening a bakery anyway. He just needed an answer, one way or another, before he could get some closure and move on. (And the point of the conversation is Johanna is having her own lightbulb moment that it’s okay to move on, it’s okay to change, it’s not a betrayal of the people and things she’s lost but that’s not my point here!!).

But anyway. That’s obviously not about running the bakery— it’s about the choice to not run one.

Anyway!! Anyway… are you satisfied anon? Is this what you wanted?

Lastly, here is my most important qualm with the bakery headcanon: must Peeta be gainfully employed? Is it not enough for him to be Katniss’s boytoy? Can’t he just paint and garden and bake and hang out with his girlfriend all day? Is that really too much to ask?

[eddiediazismyhusband]

One Fan’s Thoughts on 9-1-1 Season 7

(fair warning this is about to be a long ass rant post so buckle up; if you, like me, get anxiety over speculation and discussion of the show, this may not be the post for you to read… but i need to get my thoughts out there because i have kept them bottled up for so long that it is taking a mental toll on me.)

there’s something so gutwrenching about laying awake in bed thinking about how you have been the closest you’ve ever been to actually seeing a queer ship you’ve stuck with for six years actually going canon just to be hit with an immensely overwhelming sense of doubt because every time the story presents a natural path to develop in that direction, the writers completely veer off in an insanely different direction despite constantly trying to push this narrative of “if it goes there naturally” while ignoring the plethora of times it already has gone there naturally but has been passed over for some insanely far-fetched plotline that contradicts points that have been set up in the past…

i’m not trying to put a dampner on things or worry anyone, and like i mentioned in my previous post i am NOT closing on buddie, but i still can’t help but feel cinical and pessimistic about it when it feels like Tim is just blatantly baiting us at this point. Like at times it doesn’t even feel like he’s actually open to exploring buddie when he is constantly retconning his own storylines from previous seasons, and making excuses every time he deliberately chooses to ignore the countless number of chances that crop up in the story, instead deciding that because he wants to redo hitchcock he’s going to rewrite the history he created in order to fit a convoluted plotline that borders on farse just to a) not give fans what they have been begging for for years, b) shoehorn in his vertigo fanfiction, c) stir up drama rather than actually giving us something pointing in a positive direction to combat the 5000 other depressing plotlines he’s trying to cram into a 10 episode season.

i really thought tim was going to bring back the old vibe we had before KR took over and messed things up, but so far this season has felt like a jam-packed rushed mess that resembles a middle schooler’s first forray into a wattpad angst fic, and it’s disheartening to have sat with the show since the first season just to see it fall off so hard w s6 b, only to rebuild hope that things might go back to normal w s7, just for it to spiral even further into jump-the-shark territory.

And this is not just about buddie. There have been numerous times this season that have just been recycled plot points from previous seasons rather than something new and fresh, simply for the sake of melodrama. Old plotlines that had been seemingly finished are being rehashed and recontextualized out of nowhere, characters are getting entire traits and development completely rewritten and replaced with something almost unrecognizable to newer fans, there has been very little positivity within the narrative to allow us to breathe between traumatic moments, and the few positive moments we have received have been lukewarm at best, and have done nothing but cause derision and hate to be spread throughout the fandom.

PR for this season has been a mess. At times it feels like Oliver Stark is the only actor who exists on the show, and that Buck is somehow the titular character— not that Buck’s coming out storyline is not important, it absolutely is, but the entire season should not be focused solely on him just because of a two episode arc that honestly didn’t tell us anything new about him besides canonically confirming what we’ve known to be true since the second season.

We have cast members stirring up drama by indulging fans through paid video responses, and cast members on live getting asked to weigh in on fandom drama that they honestly have no reason to be involved in. We have news outlets constantly being approved by the PR team to ask questions about a popular ship to bait viewers into watching the show when there has not been any concrete evidence either way of whether or not they actually plan to go there, dragging things out for another season when they have no confirmation yet in whether or not they will get a 9th season (and if they do, probably coming up with some other bullshit reason to drag things out), confirming that certain plot points were planned to happen in the past but for some reason now they are like “but that’s not what we’re doing anymore so you have to live with present and be happy with what you get.”

There is no reason why 6 years can’t be a long enough time for a slow burn. There is no reason for characters to be given increasingly convoluted arcs that callback to plotlines that have been otherwise nonexistent for years at this point. There is no reason to drag fans of a ship along just because you’re too scared to lose they’re viewership rather than just flat out saying “no we aren’t ever going to do it” or actually committing to it one of the hundreds of times the story opens a path to it.

No, the choices made this season were not “the only way” we could have been given the same dramatic beats. The choices made have not been some sort of end all be all to the story with no other possible outcome. Tim did not need to send the show off the rails the way he has just because he wants drama. Yes it’s a drama show, but there also need to be moments to breathe. Yes it’s a drama show, but that doesn’t mean you can’t let characters be happy. Yes it’s a drama show, but that doesnt mean you have to fuck up the narrative every time it starts going in the direction of something the fans have begged for for years just because you don’t want to give it to them.

It’s disappointing to see how careless they are being with things this season when previous seasons the actors and writers have been so cautious about what was said about buddie. now we have every interview mentioning buddie in some way, yet we only get told “idk 🤷” and see nothing concrete in the story to firmly hint one way or the other. It’s disappointing when you start feeling like you are being dragged along because a corporation knows that ship baiting won’t ever actually backfire/have a negative affect on them, so it ends up being a lose-lose situation for the fandom.

Maybe it’s because I have been burned too msny times by TV shows in the past, but nothing about this season or the PR surrounding it has given me faith that Tim or the writers actually care about anything other than viewership. Otherwise we would be seeing clear signs of the growing seeds of buddie, but so far all we’ve seen is the same framing choices that we’ve seen in every other season that are being made to deliberately keep buddie fans drawn in and theorizing when the writers have most likely already thrown out any plans that there might have ever been for buddie to go canon.

Mostly, I am disappointed in the fact that Oliver has been so heavily involved in pushing buddie speculation after being so careful to not lead people on in the past- i know that some believe that this was a sign that buddie is coming and he knows it is, but as the season draws to a close it feels more like he is just showing where his loyalty lies even though he knows the show isn’t going to take it there. I am not blaming oliver for buddie not going canon or trying to insinuate that he is queerbaiting in any way, but i can’t help but feel like i wouldn’t be so dejected about the way this season is going if he hadn’t started interacting with and sharing buddie content before any sort of confirmation was given.

now do not get me wrong i absolutely ADORE oliver and i am not in any way trying to attack him or speak against him in any way, I am simply saying that his sudden vocal support and campaigning for buddie is only going to add on to my disappointment in heaps if they don’t make buddie canon, especially after JLH said Tim made Madney happen bc she asked for it, but he still hasn’t made any sort of definitive move towards buddie after the same amount of time.

and lastly my disappointment also lies with the fact that ryan’s acting ability has been wasted on this crackfic plot… ryan is one of the most underutilized dramatic actors on the show, and the fact that the only serious arc he has gottne this season isn’t even that serious because of how out of character and preposterous it is is really disappointing. ryan deserves better, and eddie deserves better, and it is disappointing seeing him acting his entire heart and sole out in a plotline that makes his character out to be the bad guy in the situation when this is something eddie would never do under normal circumstances. Ryan’s talent has once again only been used to show trauma and this time it wasn’t even trauma that feels natural within the story, and especially after his recent interview it disappoints me that we are once again reiterating that eddie is somehow mentally unstable enough to have an emotional affair with a woman he knows nothing about just because she looks like shannon. Eddie has simultaneously had so much yet so little development, and seeing some of the theories of where his character is going in the context of ryan saying s8 will be a “reset” for eddie doesn’t fill me with excitement over where his story is going and actually makes me worried that we are going to see regression rather than progress for the sake of drama… i just don’t want to see eddie’s character revamped to a point where he has lost all of his development from the past 6 seasons just because Tim wanted to turn eddie’s plotline into a melodramatic telenovela.

Anyway, sorry for the rant— maybe it’s the stuff that’s going on in my personal life combined with the fear of getting played by yet another network tv show ship baiting that’s making me feel this way, but this season has left me feeling so pessimistic and cynical about the show as a whole, but mostly about buddie and it hurts. I love both of these characters dearly, and i want them to finally understand that everything they’ve ever needed in life they have in each other, but it feels like ever time we are on the verge, another wild card is played and it’s getting old atp.

i don’t say any of this to cause an argument. i don’t say any of this to poke and prod at people. i say this as someone who has loved this show and given it 7 years of my life who feels like my experience as a fan is being shat on in favor of melodrama rather than thoughtful storytelling… not to say there haven’t been really good moments this season, but overall, it has really soured things for me the way Tim has handled/taken the narrative in many ways, and I don’t know if I will be able to watch season 8 until i see concrete evidence that things will be better. i am not kidding when i say this takes the spot as my least favorite season after season 6, regardless of if we get any hope or not next ep… and that is what upsets me.

[yuseirra]

I ALREADY MADE AN ANALYSIS THAT THERE'S SOMETHING TAUNTING KAMIKI TO BECOME INSANE BACK ON JULY 11TH!!!!JULY 11TH!!!! AFTER FATAL WAS OUT!!! MEPHISTO IS HIS SONG!!!!!

oH GOD... I should have.. I should have posted that here too but it's one of the posts that didn't make it, why didn't I????? Let me bring a rough machine translated version of it okay. I have proof. I wrote it back so long ago!!!! Not long after I listened to Fatal!!!!!! UGH!!!UGH!!! I ALREADY PREDICTED THIS!!!! I

oH GOOdness. I'm going to get so many things right about this comic. I am not joking. THIS is how it's going to be. I.. I can't explain things any other way. I just. I just can't, if this isn't it, it's beyond my abilities to make sense of this character. but I'm really good with these. I feel I will be right.

***

I was listening to Mephisto and I really got a sense of it. This whole song is from Kamiki’s perspective, isn’t it? I was right that this boy (34 years old) offered something huge for Ai, wasn’t I? There’s a line like, "Since I gave you my life, you granted me time." People probably thought that was about Aqua, but I don’t think so.

As I mentioned before, here’s my theory: this guy practically has no will to live. After learning that Ai had died, there was probably nothing left in his life to be happy about or look forward to. I still need to dig deeper to understand exactly how much he directly contributed to that, but judging by his character, he didn’t seem like the type to do something extreme to others—at least not before he parted ways with Ai. Even if he wasn’t directly responsible for Ai’s death like Nino was, he probably did something that he’s been suffering immense guilt over, thinking, "I shouldn’t have done that." (If Kamiki really did give Ryosuke the address on purpose, then he’s seriously lost his mind… but from what I can tell, it seems like he was drunk. How on earth did those two meet anyway? ;) In any case, while others might think, "Well, it’s hard to say he’s the reason Ai died," Kamiki might believe he is. He may have even tried to kill himself after Ai’s death.

This character’s nature isn’t inherently that aggressive. When the people who tormented him died, he was overcome with guilt and emotional burden. He’s someone who gets hurt easily and is quite sensitive. (Even Ai leaving was probably because she thought he couldn’t bear the thought of having to take responsibility for their children on top of everything else. But I think...he would have been okay as long as he had her with him.) He struggled with the deaths of the people who wronged him, so when Ai died, he likely broke down even more, spiraling to the point where he was on the brink of death.

But perhaps at that point, he couldn’t die, and some godlike figure appeared before him offering a deal. He might not be able to die until he completes that deal. And since he has no attachment to life, it doesn’t matter what happens to him in the process. Out of desperation to undo the mistakes he believes he made, he might be willing to do things he normally wouldn’t. In Chapter 154, the surprised expression he had was because he never considered the idea that Ai might have worried about him. He thought she would live happily without a care for what happened to him. He had no doubt that everything would be fine as long as he did his part, but when he realized that wasn’t true, he was shocked.

The whole idea of a deal with a god is just speculation, as that’s not explicitly laid out in the story, but Tsukuyomi did appear. This is a world where gods can manifest physically. Besides that, I can’t think of any other motivation that would keep him going. Back when I analyzed Aqua and considered Mephisto to be his feelings, I mentioned something similar.

The speaker in Mephisto is in a mental state where "it wouldn’t be strange if they died at any moment." That intense feeling hit me while listening to the song, and it was heartbreaking.

Also, some of the lyrics are as follows:

"Tears and sweat filled to the brim are traces of blood" (If it’s Aqua, why does it mention "blood" here?)

"There’s never a day of relief"

"Every day, sad lights gather"

(What does it mean for "lights" to gather? Could it be related to people with star eyes?)

"Born of the abyss"

This fits Kamiki more than Aqua, especially the line, "You’re empty, so there’s no way you could receive love."

The mention of a "last chance" suggests that there isn’t much time or opportunity left, but Aqua has never really shown a sense of urgency about completing his revenge. Kamiki, on the other hand, likely views it as a race against time because he has something to accomplish.

Kamiki is someone who has been swayed and hurt a lot in life, and the only thing he truly loved and wanted was Ai. If he’s going to take action, it’s only for Ai. He has no lingering attachments to life. I think this theory is correct. It has to be. Otherwise, how do these songs even make sense?

What’s really funny is that every time I dive into a genre, I always end up picking the character who sacrifices themselves. There’s always a couple where one sacrifices for the other, but I never got that vibe from Aqua and Kana.

But if things unfold this way, it’s just too familiar, and that’s what’s funny. It’s like, "How does this always happen wherever I go?" So if I’m right, it’s hilarious. I listen to a lot of music, and in genres where the songs are well made, I tend to analyze them based on the lyrics. And when it comes to my favorite songs, I feel like they capture the essence of the story or the emotions so accurately, so it leaves an impression on me.

These songs are spoilers. I’m hesitant to speak too confidently because this excitement might fade later, but whenever I listen to the songs, I feel sure of my conclusions.

GUYS!!! LISTEN!!! I GOT SO MANY THINGS RIGHT ABOUT THIS COMIC I EVEN LOST TRACK.... I THINK THIS IS IT. I JUST CAN'T EXPLAIN THIS CHARACTER'S ACTIONS OTHERWISE. HELP

[tewwor]

SHIPPING INFO // ANSWER THE FOLLOWING FOR YOUR MUSES SO PEOPLE KNOW HOW SHIPPING WORKS ON YOUR BLOG.

WHAT IS YOUR OTP FOR YOUR CHARACTER(S)?

🧍 you know how long that'd take me to list out??? anyways, i'll limit the ones that have made me the most feral over the years —

@huntershowl + litho : yall want to talk about slow burn? that moment where we both clapped and they mushed faces together will forever be ingrained in my brain. 4 entire years worth of waiting....

@hnjwn / @cordoliae + chanyeol : insane. they're insane! the sheer depth they somehow fumbled into is just.. outstanding tbh. even though they're both hibernating, i had to mention them

HOW LARGE DOES THE AGE GAP HAVE TO BE TO MAKE IT UNCOMFORTABLE?

i'm personally only comfortable with romantic age gaps of around 10ish years. and, yes, i'll admit that does bleed into my characters a lot.

HOW FAR DO STEAMY MOMENTS HAVE TO GO BEFORE THEY ARE CONSIDERED NSFT?

just before sexual foreplay + more. not that i really delve into that a lot anymore. but hey! if the stars align and the mood's right, then it still might happen.

ARE YOU SELECTIVE WHEN SHIPPING?

with mutuals? no..... god no........ granted, chemistry is still a very big thing. not every random pair of muses will stick and that's okay! but if you have even an inkling of joy with a romantic ship between our muses, i'm almost always on the same exact boat. so please never, ever be afraid to voice that!

WHO ARE OTHER CHARACTERS YOU SHIP YOUR CHARACTER WITH?

**please know that i probably missed a ton ( rip my work shocked brain ), but these are just the first ships i can think of where we've had in threads or yapped ooc!**

currently established:

@huntershowl / @icarusplunged + seph/litho & seph/jie/ricochet & seph/adal/lior & rusa/ricochet — need i say more? the original marked dating sim hard launch tbh OHGAWOIGH anyways, doesn't matter how long either of us go on hiatus. one of us keeps crawling back

@miidnighters + bella/jie & hartley/cruor/iris — the way both of them just stuck? it's amazing, jaw dropping, heart warming!!! every aspect of a robust, well rounded relationship can be hit in either, i love them both so, so much.

just starting ( and super excited for ):

@xinxiins + jie — don't get me started on how many times my heart's ached already. there's such a cultural connection that guts me Every Time 😭

@chth0nia + cruor — every time i think of them, i think of that crying dog pic you sent. exactly how i feel about them!!!!

@bloodykneestm + whoever you want lbr — i've yet to write those starters for iggy and alastair but just you Wait……

@interxstitial + literally anyone — like, okay yeah there's ravi sure ( i do love them though ), but if there's anyone else that piques your interest... you just let me know and i'll fedex express ship them over. i'll even cover the cost dw

past:

@temporalobjects + botan/clarence/pildo & iwai + chanyeol : i don't think i've ever had a canon latch onto a ship so quickly before? and the fact that it's technically post canon and he's lumped with two sunshiny loveable dorks! then there's... yknow.. the other two that keep dancing around each other. shed many tears from angst and laughter over both ships, drawn at least 1 or 2 things for each ♡

@womanlives + mercy/jie & dez/clarence : my 'missing you' letter. i hope you know that those two ships have brought me such immense joy and tears at the same time. truly have a special place in my heart ♡♡♡

DOES ONE HAVE TO ASK TO SHIP WITH YOU?

more like showing interest, i feel like? asking can be sooooo anxiety inducing ( i know it can be the same with just mentioning it ), but there's a very good chance i'm already jumping up and down in glee with the exact same thought so! just let me know!!

ARE YOU SHIP-OBSESSED OR SHIP MORE-OR-LESS?

it's toned down a bit ( barely ) ever since i've been overtaken with how dear and important other types of connections are. but yeah, still love ships with all my heart

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE SHIP IN YOUR CURRENT FANDOM?

n/a

FINALLY, HOW DOES ONE SHIP WITH YOU?

just let a clown know. yall know where to find me in my lil' clown corner. if you're more plot heavy, then hell yeah! we can chat up a storm! if you're more 'throw things at the wall and see what sticks' intensive, then hell yeah! i love punting these idiots out and see what happens in the weirdest ( or saddest ) situations. applies to both monogamous and polyamorous ships!

tagged by : i was tagged... in it so that counts right? ( thnkx @huntershowl muah muah )

[mehoymalloy]

Fic Author Self-Rec!

Thanks for the tag, @foibles-fables

The Rules: Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Spread the self-love ❤️

Trying to run the gamut rather than going with recency bias (because Otohan, obvs~), so from oldest to most recent, we have:

Prometheus Bound (Aloy/Tilda van der Meer; Horizon Forbidden West, Rated M)

The fanfic I started writing for! This was my first "fine I'll do it myself" moment (because canon Horizon simply did not utilize Tilda to the best of all her manipulative, bitchy potential), as well as my first longfic! Also the first true sign of my thing about awful older women.

When the Darkness Comes (Silga & Untalla; Horizon Forbidden West, Rated M)

My Horizon Big Bang piece, and the first fic I ever wrote all at once before posting. Look I just adore these two NPCs that never meet in-game; they're now best friends because I said so and they hold a very dear place in my heart.

Let Me Lay Waste to Thee (Imogen Temult/Otohan Thull; Critical Role, Rated M)

Y'all. What can be said (Strap in I'm bout to say so much because I'm feeling especially sentimental, I should probably check my period tracker..) While working my way through c3, I got to ep33 (the "is she your favorite" episode), and instead of being traumatized by imodna angst, I saw the horrible awful murderous bitch tenderly and terrifyingly urging Imogen to give in and thought 'surely someone else has noted the Tension these two have.' Well APPARENTLY if anyone had they didn't do anything about it, because a couple weeks later I created their ship tag on AO3. Exploring this fucked up rarepair was the reason I picked back up writing after a six month break post-Big Bang, and ultimately Otohan became Thee Reason I kept writing. I never truly got the concept of a blorbo until Otohan (which is insane given we know next to nothing about her canonically and I just made everything up. Well, I extrapolated a lot but still I did so quite well imo). ANYWAYS, I love Themb. Y'all know this. Of course the first fic I wrote for them is my fave.

Unexpected Company (Grace/Athena; Stray Gods, Rated G)

If I somehow didn't realize I had a thing about awful old women, this made it embarrassingly obvious. I maintain that Grace and Athena really are wonderful foils to each other. I still absolutely intend to one day get back to the slow burn long fic I have for them, but this lil oneshot was such a fun way of dipping my toes into it through Athena's perspective.

A Dance With Danger (Imogen Temult/Otohan Thull; Critical Role, Rated T)

Obviously, Imogen and Otohan are tough to make work in a believable way (tho I like to think I do so well), especially when strictly constrained to a more canon lens. This fic was my way of tackling them from that strict angle, and my god was it difficult and immensely fun to write. 'What if Otohan attended the Jrusar ball waaaay back in ep 13?' was already a super fun concept, but taking an Imogen that was so much less knowledgeable and practiced with her powers and giving her the opportunity to get that information by literally dancing around this dangerous-but-can't-put-her-finger-on-why person? Mwah, they just WORK, people, I've been saying this for going on two years and I will keep saying it!

No tags from me but please feel free to nab and tag me, anyone who wants to~

[neotrances]

i genuinely think black slavery in the new world is one of the most horrific almost incomprehensible crimes against humanity to happen to human beings in all of human history i can't think of anything else that was worse taking into account all the different layers of suffering and brutality and sadness and cruelty and the length of time and scope of the atrocity. it's actually hard to wrap your mind around even with the best intentions. but the world is so incredibly brainwashed to downplay it it is INSANE. I GET SO ANGRY SOMETIMES LIKE WHAT THE FUCK. people are so conditioned to minimize it while giving other crimes against humanity plenty of lip service. and the appreciation for other peoples suffering is good don't get me wrong but the refusal to keep that energy when encountering slavery in the americas possibly the worst of the worst human atrocities to ever happen. like this was the same level of suffering and brutality of the Holocaust if not more so except going on for hundreds of years. I feel bad making that comparison but I also feel it is SO needed to break through the conditioning. like please everyone just think. that person asking how there could be generational trauma if it happened "so long ago", literally only ended what 150 years ago and went on for like 400 years. with civil rights being less than 50 years old. not only is the generational trauma still fresh but the generational legacy to dehumanize black people is still fresh because barely any progress has truly happened in the past 50 years due to this broken way white people refuse to face what really happened and cling to victim blaming like a drug. you still hear people claim slavery wasn't that bad because some enslavers were not as sadistic as others. i want to vomit. every qanon conspiracy about abused and trafficked children for sexual slavery already happened except somehow worse it was in plain daylight and legal, white slavers were running an inhuman mad max post apocalyptic fucking barbaric wasteland. this was already the apocalypse. these survivors are still trying to rebuild. i know you know all this sorry im just saying like we see it we really do and they make you feel crazy for being the one who can see what others illogically reject because it's too sacreligious to the religion of nationalism. the funny thing is facts don't care about white peoples feelings. slavery is the worst thing any human being has ever gone through and everything we understand scientifically about psychology tells us the ancestors should still be struggling immensely and should still be deep in the mire of residual abuse and healing, especially if they continue to be gaslit at large about what happened. white people who want to continue deny the simple facts of our reality and blame the victims are worthless

cosigned bc this was some real shitu just said

[aceofstars16]

1-5, 7, 9-11, & 16-20 for Forever, please?

1. what got you into this story?

I think I just saw trailers for it when it first started airing? I’m going to guess I saw something while watching Elementary cause they were both on TV at the same time haha. I really don’t watch a lot of TV, but I guess the premise intrigued me and then I really liked it 🥲

2. describe it in one or two sentences

An immortal is (by his son’s urging) learning how to live/let people in again (albeit *very slowly*) while also helping solve crime with a detective who he has an immense amount of care and chemistry with. Oh and there is another immortal who is kind of insane but that’s not the draw (for me 😂)

3. quickly list 3 things you like about the story!

Found family (or just family in general), amazing slow burn, complex characters you want to hug

4. assign this story a hyper-specific genre name, e.g. "inspirational religious semi-horror sci-fi western"

Uhhhh hmmm…I’m bad at genres lol…detective/mystery/heart-tugging/kind of dark sometimes 😂

5. do you have a favorite character? who?

This is hardddd….probably Henry, like, I love him, I literally wrote a whole post about why I love him he has such a caring heart despite everything 😭 But also Abe! And Jo! And Lucas always makes me laugh too 😂

7. how does the story compare to your initial impressions of it? has it surprised you yet? how?

Hmmm, it’s been so long since my initial impressions, but I feel like it does the immortal character very well, just…the emotions and trauma and depth, but also that he’s still human. I’m not sure about surprises, I think I forgot about some great moments, so maybe those are surprising haha

9. give the most UNHELPFUL and/or SILLY summary possible.

Immortal man runs into things without thinking, leaving his detective partner to run after him and get him out of trouble

10. if you made an amv about this, what song would you set it to?

Probably “Feel Again” by OneRepublic, it’s so good for Henry and Jo 😭

11. if you were put in the main character's position, how well would that go for you on a scale of 1-5?

0??? Bro, not only do I not want to be immortal but like…I *hate* medical things and he’s a doctor and a medical examiner…I would literally run the other way 😂

16. do you think this story has broad appeal, or is it meant for a very specific audience? if it's more "niche", what kind of person would most enjoy this story?

Hmmm, I’m not really sure tbh? I don’t think it’s super niche but it could be, I think if you like found family and like…an MC that is very human but also like…not…I don’t know man it’s hard to describe it’s just…emotional but like…in a good way, it feels real but that means the happy stuff is real too 🥲

17. compare this story to your usual tastes. how does it differ from what you've already enjoyed?

Hmmm I mean, like I stated, I’m not a huge fan of medical things, so…that’s different but as long as I can look away I’m okay 😂 There is something dark stuff with death in a sense, but like…that’s not why I like it, I like it for the characters lol

18. compare this story to your usual tastes. what parts of it are exactly the kind of thing you've always loved?

I think I’ve already kind of touched on it, but found family (mostly Abe and Henry), a very real but gentle and caring MC, actually one of the best slow burns, and it does have some mystery in terms of Henry’s past too (I do like kind of detective/mystery elements in shows and movies)

19. pitch an idea for a sequel or spinoff novel for this story!

At this point it’s been over for 10 years….honestly just like one episode 10 years after the last one as a kind of flashback of Henry telling Jo he’s immortal and them still solving crime together (and obviously married cause I need this okay). If it was actually like…further in the future, maybe something with Henry and his relationship with his kids with Jo (whether adopted or not), like them as adults or even grandkids (though I personally want him to like…start aging and actually experience all of life and not keep living forever but 🤷‍♀️)

20. what's the WORST thing about this story, in your opinion? (feel free to be positive, e.g. "it's not longer", if you want!)

It was canceled…I want more…also the creepy stuff I could do without, but like…yeah it being canceled after one season 😭

[sapphire-weapon]

For some reason, you removed the context, portraying yourself as victim. You didn't just hate *Leshley* name, you lynched everyone who didn't use it. I didn't, and you were immensely rude about it. This ship name existed way before Remake. And why haven't you done prompts for Christmas or valentine's week? But bashing other artist who hosted the event, and counteroffering your prompts, which didn't pan out. A bit of goodwill goes a long way.

look at all of the history revisionism happening in this ask.

all of my posts from that time are still up on my blog. i dare you to go find a single one where i lynched anybody.

here's a list of what I DID say:

"i hate the prompts for leshley week. like, all of the prompts. there's not a single one i'd want to write for. you guys have fun, though."

"i hate that the week is being called 'leshley'"

"this whole thing bums me out"

"no one's had a problem finding my stuff even if i don't use leshley"

"no one listens to me when i talk"

"i hate leshley as a ship name"

"i think leshley sounds disgusting"

"leshley sounds like someone vomiting"

"i'd much rather we be ashleon if we had to choose between them"

"too bad the eagleone name didn't reach the people it needed to reach"

"it seems shitty for me to host my own ship week when there's one already happening"

"the point of eagleone was to have one united ship name"

i never named names or singled anybody out. i didn't direct anyone to anyone's posts or blog. i didn't even vaguepost about anyone. no one was even alluded to. i was just venting in my own space about absolutely no one in particular.

all of this started on the 30th of october.

you fucks started sending hate on the 1st of november, after i was asked if i'd read a specific fanfic and i said no, and then after i was asked to name an artist for the ship that i liked and i apparently named the wrong one as to not meet your approval. literally it was said to me that you all took my omission of a specific artist as confirmation that i was shitting on them, which is so fucking insane i can't even wrap my head around it.

the prompts that i came up with for my own ship week were posted on the 15th of october, so two full weeks before "leshley week" was even announced. so, no, i didn't roll out a counteroffer of prompts that didn't pan out. i floated an idea that i ultimately never followed through with because i didn't feel confident in my ability to host something like that -- and then, weeks later, the actual ship week was hosted by someone else.

so, go. i told you exactly how to find it all. go find it. don't come back til you have a noose.

and just for the record, i didn't know there was a christmas or a valentines week even going on until this very ask BECAUSE ALL OF YOU FUCKERS HAVE ME BLOCKED. so how was i supposed to know about it? who could've possibly told me?

dear lord. get the fuck out of here with this shit.

[spell-cleaver]

Feel free to not answer this, but I know that you typically only post fics you’ve already finished so I was curious how many WIPs you currently have? You’re an amazing writer and I’m really excited to binge The Protégé when the final chapter comes out!

Thank you!!

I used to be able to work on multiple fics at once, but I've thoroughly moved out of that phase now, so usually I focus on writing one longfic at a time and try to work on that fic a little every day during the writing period. Now that I'm on summer break from uni, I'm back to working on one fic (in 2021 it was Sparks, last year it was The Protégé) and this year it's Gravediggers, which is a horror fic focusing on Luke and Aphra going on an adventure to Geonosis. I just finished Act I on Friday, so I'm about a third of the way through, and I'm hoping to have the first draft finished and ready to edit in about a month :D

That said, strictly speaking I do have more WIPs, they're just not active WIPs 😂 The Night Ferry will get finished... at some point... but it fell into the trap that Sparks did when I was first writing it, which was that I thought I could maintain this single-minded focus on one fic while still breaking it up with another chapter-by-chapter fic occasionally. I can't do that anymore, it seems! I can't break the focus. Likewise, there are stories in my files that are either a) brainstormed in immense detail, b) planned out in such detail that I could just start writing the story now if I wanted, or c) started writing, but lost passion and left by the wayside. Some of them go back to when I started in SW in 2017 (any works for previous fandoms will be in eternal limbo, I think). One story I'm still very interested in. It was inspired by a prompt I still have sitting in my inbox (the longer the prompt sits unanswered the more likely I am to answer, I promise! Eventually), but I realised it would be at least 50% space battle, so I'm putting it aside until I can take on a project to Get Better At Writing Interesting Space Battles. There's also a bunch of collabfics I've worked on that never got off the ground/finished.

Long story short, I usually only have one fic actively on the go at any time! Atm it's Gravediggers, which I'm insanely excited about and Im' having a blast writing :D Everyone sprinting with me on Discord gets to hear me cackle about whatever latest horrible thing I'm inflicting on Luke. But at the back of the folder are also a lot of fics that teeechnically fit the label "WIP" without being actively prioritised rn.

[piastrinorris]

rj's big sappy 2022 recap

when i started this dumb little blog, on july 9th, i was midway through writing an unambiguous love and rife with other ideas for more fics that i finally decided to bite the bullet and start writing. i'd been out of the fanfic writing game for a long time, and as a day 1 stranger things fan i knew how big the fandom already was, even before s4 came out in its entirety. but i was inspired to Just Start Writing Anyway. not to worry about notes, because yeah, it's oversaturated as all hell, but that means if numbers don't do well, there's an excuse, right? and i can just enjoy writing and posting and seeing what sticks.

but now here we are, nearly half a year later, with over 1.5k of you (!!!!!!!) and i am rejuvenated, i am inspired and i have never felt more love. so i'm gonna get real sappy and share that love with you all.

first and foremost, to the og's, @denim-mixtapes + @fanatictypist, i can't say anything more to you that i haven't already in the last nine years, other than thank you for reigniting the flame under my ass to get me here again. i love you both eternally.

to the other half of my brain, my platonic soulmate, @keerysquinn, i still cannot believe we had matching urls saved. i love us so much. thank you for being my muse, constantly inspiring and encouraging me, and making me feel less alone in this insane expanse of a fandom. thank you for always being my number 1 hype person, and being the best sister wife (gn) to our beloved scrunkly.

and on that note, to @bowerquinn and @hellfirehoe; the immediate friendship, guidance and support you both showed me from the moment i first started talking to you both is something truly special. i have never felt more welcome in a community than the way you made me feel from the moment we "met", and never more loved than through the absolute ferocity with which you guys have my back. i love the three of you immensely. slut squad 4 lyf <3

after having been in the [redacted] fandom for so long, i'd really lost touch in what i used to love the most about fandom, and on the surface there's so much flack that gets thrown around for what is and isn't "canon", what's "true" and what isn't, and so i had given up on my old love of crackshipping until anna and @heroeddiemunson once again reinvigorated new ways to interpret my favourite media since, i wanna say my old glee days?? i forgot how fun it is to just take two characters and explore their dynamics with little to no canon context. and that's had my creative juices flowing consistently for months now. i just have so much fun thinking about these things, and sharing them with people who get it, it truly never gets old.

speaking of bouncing ideas back and forth, i can't talk about the shit that's changed my life this year and not talk about busy streets and busy lives. while i've had stranger things-related fics that have reached insane numbers, and i am so very grateful for that, the small and mighty community that bsbl has formed is something i hold very close to my heart. i never thought i had it in me to write a longform story. to write believable angst, or slow burn, or even original characters that people would care about. that's why i've always only ever written fanfic. but the comments i get from bsbl chapters truly make me believe that i'm capable of far more than i'd thought before i started it. thank you for loving it as much as i do. <3

(also, while i do sincerely love and appreciate every sort of commentary on it, i do have to give an extra special dose of love to @reysorigins because their reviews on @reysorigins-library are, honest to whatever's out there, some of the most genuinely sincere ones to receive. seeing your own words recited back to you, singled out to praise them, is validating and inspiring in ways i can't put into words. thank you for what you do, rey <3)

it was never even meant to be the insanity that it now is. it started off as a dumb oneshot idea that i had no idea what direction it was headed in. then an inside joke in the jq server inspired me, and many others, to start bouncing more and more ideas about what ralph would be like in the modern world, and so a fic was born. a fic that's only 6 chapters deep so far and already 52k+ words. that's a whole novel!!! i daren't tag everyone who's contributed to bsbl bc a) it'd take so much searching back through multiple channels to make sure i included absolutely everyone, and i'd feel terrible if i missed anyone out; and b) if you're there for that, you're here anyway lol. so to everyone in the jq server, thank you for giving me the gift of the story that never stops giving back.

there are so many other friends i've made through the camaraderie of the writing community. again, at first it seemed oversaturated, like i was going to be just a drop in the ocean. but actually, that's not the case. it just means there's always going to be people who are willing to listen to your headcanons and hype them up with you. it's given me the confidence to - and i can't word this in any other way but i promise it isn't self-deprecating - just be really fucking annoying about the things that i enjoy. i've managed to find a corner of the internet that loves the things that i love as much as i do and in as big a way as i do.

and the inspiration i get from new friends goes even beyond writing! i've even been inspired to start learning how to make gifs now?? and not just compiling frames and putting them together, i'm learning all about colouring and rendering and blending scenes together. i've never been very visually creative, but i have so much to learn and i'm so excited to.

it's my 2023 goal to try and be more of an active friend to my mutuals. but i'm bad at reaching out lol. i would tag all of the mutuals i want to get to know better for accountability's sake but a) again i may forget people and feel real bad about it, and b) i don't want to annoy anyone with unwanted pings. but if we're moots, i am always down to talk more!!

2022 was always going to be a big year for me anyway. a couple of weeks ago, i celebrated a decade of my "second" life. but i've done other big things this year, too. i've been learning welsh and getting in touch with my own heritage. i've started to get over my fear of learning to drive. i applied for a promotion at work, didn't get it, but most importantly, i didn't let it get me down. it's just motivated me to get to somewhere better, where the talents i KNOW i have can actually be appreciated. if you'd have told me from ten years ago that, i'd have decked you lmao.

i couldn't have imagined at the start of the year that i'd pick up the one creative hobby i thought i was fully burned out from. but here we are. thank you for the last half-year-ish. whether you've been here for five months or five minutes, i appreciate your presence regardless. <3

[daylightaftertherain]

i was listening to Renegade by Big Red Machine (ft.Taylor) and like OMFG i literally have so many emotions over it being sooo wilmon-coded. LIKE EACH AND EVERY SINGLE LINE is just so them to me and im losing my mind ashdjgk

like the lyrics just radiate late s1 and early s2 simon pov energy- of him just not knowing the immensity of the pressure wille is under but also wanting to so desperately understand what wille expects off of him and for wille to just GET HIS SHIT TOGETHER SO THAT SIMON CAN LOVE HIM😭😭😭 i just might make a more coherent post on my thoughts and feelings but for now i would loveee to hear ur analysis :]]

bestie!!!! agree with all of your points 100%, and I'm so glad you gave me a chance to ramble about renegade. I fucking love that song and it is seriously one of the most wilmon coded songs ever

anyway here's an obscenely long verse by verse analysis bc I have nothing better to do rn and you've unlocked the insanity of my spending over a year obsessing over this song

okay first of all renegade tells the entire story of yr chronologically from simon's pov if you really think about it, so that's how I'm going to approach it

second of all, just the word "renegade" screams wilmon. it means "a deserter from one faith, cause, or allegiance to another," or "an individual who rejects lawful or conventional behavior." ajskhdkjashdjhsjdhkjs ??????????

I tapped on your window on your darkest night The shape of you was jagged and weak There was nowhere for me to stay But I stayed anyway

this gives s1ep4 vibes, what with the window imagery (august tapping on windows), and wille's "jagged and weak" state of mind. and the fact that simon fell asleep sititng up, because he felt like there was "nowhere" for him to stay, since he had to keep an eye of wille, so he "stayed anyway."

And if I would've known How many pieces you had crumbled into I might've let them lay

this to me could either be simon regretting briefly getting himself invovled so deeply with wille, but still sticking with him because he loves wille. or, simon realizing how much shit wille has to go through with his title and the environment he's been raised in, and thinking back to the argument they had in s2ep4 (ish? I'm not quite sure when they had the fight I'm referring to), where wille says simon's the one who can't accept who he is. it's simon thinking about how he probably would've "let them lay."

Are you really gonna talk about timing in times like these? And let all your damage damage me And carry your baggage up my street And make me your future history

first line is simon's first thought when wille tells him they only have to wait for two years in s2ep2, because they're past talking about the future, not when wille's already gone against his own promises and left simon alone (to simon, at least). next two lines kinda explain themselves, it's simon saying "don't you realize you've hurt me?" but, the "make me your future history" line is soooo good when you think about it with wilmon, because after s1ep6, their relationship became just "history," but after the s2 finale, they are literally making history, so it kind of foreshadows the jubilee speech.

It's time, you've come a long way Open the blinds, let me see your face You wouldn't be the first renegade To need somebody

first line is again foreshadowing for the speech, and wille has seriously come a long way over just two seasons. "open the blinds, let me see your face" has so much meaning behind it, what with the curtain imagery and the way the curtains were the only thing that could've protected their privacy, so "let me see your face" could be the feeling of the whole world demanding to know who simon was, since he was the only recognizable person in the video. but, I like to think about in another way too. wille hides behind a public persona, just like a pair of curtains, so "let me see your face" could also be simon pleading with wille to show the real version of himself.

"you wouldn't be the first renegade/to need somebody" could be talking about wille's therapy sessions, especially because queer people have always been renegades, but wille also being a queer royal?? and the way queer royals have existed throughout history and probably needed someone the way wille and simon need each other and a support system and someone to talk to in the way wille has boris now??? also the way the two lines are separated with "you wouldn't be the first renegade" being one line and "to need someone" being another and how that validates wille's queer existence first and then tells him it's okay to need someone regardless of who he is???? I'm going to jump off a cliff jfc

Is it insensitive for me to say Get your shit together? So I can love you

this. THIS. simon fell for wille just as hard, and he was in love in s1. I'm not accepting any arguments against this. this is him asking wille to figure himself out first and figure out what he wants before simon allows himself to properly love him again. poetry.

Is it really your anxiety That stops you from giving me everything? Or do you just not want to?

ashjgdkjhsgdskh okay so we know wille has anxiety, but we also know he's not completely helpless, like the boy can power through and be confident if he wants to. so this is so significant, since simon has seen the parts of wille that are willin=g to fight, the only thing that's stopping him is himself. and the "do you just not want to" has s2 simon vibes, but specifically episode three and four.

You fire off missiles 'cause you hate yourself But do you know you're demolishing me? And then you squeeze my hand as I'm about to leave

I might've already talked about this but this is just the entirety of the s1 "breakups" with wille pushing and pulling simon in and out, and how simon's a little more broken every time he gets rejected after allowing himself hope. and the "because you hate yourself" line is so ???? wille breaks thing off over and over because he feels like he has to, as the crown prince, but he also hates his title. simon on the other hand, sees wille as the monarchy, so wille hates himself. that means even as he "fire[s] off missiles" aimed at the crown, he's just demolishing himself, and hurting himself hurts simon.

And if I would've known How sharp the pieces were you'd crumbled into I might've let them lay

the difference between just pieces and sharp pieces comes into focus after the denial, because if simon still keeps trying to help wille piece himself back together, he'll be the one with bloody cuts all over his hands. that's why he breaks things off, and tells wille to do it himself. it also reminds me of the glass pieces of the snowglobe, and wille trying to put it back together (there's a whole other post about this I'll make later).

Open the blinds, let me see your face You wouldn't be the first renegade To need somebody

To need somebody To need somebody To need somebody To need somebody

"I could be free. with you." "this is how it is. this is how I feel. but you have to do what's right for you." the repetition of "to need somebody" and wille building a stronger support system through his friends and his therapist and the way simon also needs somebody too and wille's becoming someone simon can rely on and-

Is it insensitive for me to say (let all your damage damage me) Get your shit together (carry your baggage up my street) So I can love you? (And make me your future history)

*deep breath* *screaming* the first line is simon telling wille he doesn't really care if he's being insensitive, because wille hurt him. the seocnd line is that talk aboutside simon's house in s2ep5, with wille finally getting his shit together and metaphorically caryring all of his bagge up simon's street and laying everything out for him. and that's how simon falls for him all over again, starting the path towards the two of them making history together. *screaming*

(It's time, you've come a long way) is it really your anxiety (Open the blinds, let me see your face) that stops you from giving me everything (You wouldn't be the first renegade to need somebody) Or do you just not want to?

OUTRO TIME :D it's the jubilee speech in a nutshell, basically. wille's come so far from everything he's gone through, and "it's time" for him to make his stand. at first, it looks like he's not giving simon everything when august is about to replace him, but he gets up there, and "open[s] the blinds," letting everyone see him for himself, but turning after he comes out to smile at simon and letting him see his face. "you wouldn't be the first renegade to need somebody" wille's the first out queer royal, and behind all of that, he has people who he needs and who need him, and he and simon have each other. "or do you just not want to?" wille doesn't want to hide, keep secrets, and hurt people anymore, and he says that in his speech. wille ends it with doing the one thing he wants - telling simon and the world that he loves him.

[eddwardtheseventhspacewizard]

I’m really angry at my uterus and this and long ass post. I also briefly mention suicidal feelings brought on by the sudden surge in hormones that come with my period so proceed at your own discretion.

Man I fucking love how my uterus (that I have no use for because I will NEVER birth children) causes me immense pain and medication won’t fucking work even if it is EXTRA STRENGTH. I’m also transmasc and while I don’t get gender dysphoria from my period but I do get gender wrath because what the fuck dude?? I should NOT have to deal with this bullshit. I have a pretty high pain tolerance too so this is fucking insane. If you look up a symptom that would normally cause some level of concern and put “period” or “menstrual” in the search the results will be like “Oh yeah, this totally normal and fine. Just wait it out.” What. The. Fuck. Am I possessed by a blood demon or some shit? This should not be normal. Hours of just having to grit and bear it through the gradually increasing pain. If I had to describe my pain it would be between seven to ten. How am I supposed to function like this?? How is ANYONE supposed to function like this?! Why do bodies do this?!? Someone please take my uterus! I don’t want it!! I never asked for this!!! When I say I want to get my uterus removed assholes always say “what if you want babies?” I don’t. I’ve known that since I was FIVE. Also adoption is a thing and if my future partner cares about having a baby related to them then they can go do that but I’m not. I don’t give a shit if the kid doesn’t have my genes, it won’t make me love them less. When I tell my mom I want to be rid of my uterus she says “but you’ll have to take hormones!” oh no how scary I totally don’t plan on taking any hormones already. That is sarcastic. I plan on taking testosterone. Besides I think having a little more control over my hormones would be good for me because I have reason to believe that the sudden increase of hormones the week before my period makes me WAY more depressed than usual. It’s usually when I end up slipping up if you know. Having anti depressants has improved this by a good amount but it’s still difficult. I just don’t want to feel intensely suicidal and then have to experience agonizing pain the brings me to tears right after that every month. Is that so much to ask? Also my boobs hurt really bad. I mean I already don’t want them for transgender reasons but I also want them gone for convenience and comfort reasons. “You could loose sensation in your nipples!” Good. I fucking hope I do. I will have a whole ass breakdown if something grazes my nipple because I hate how it feels that much. I sleep in bralettes for fucks sake! Also I can’t stand when I feel my boobs move. It has also caused fucking breakdowns because it feels HORRIBLE! I don’t understand how anyone gets sexual gratification from BOOBS. I hate boobs. They can make some people have good shapes but I don’t get the sex part. I’m sick of people telling me “nooo don’t modify your body! You’re perfect as you are!” Because no I’m not. I want to modify for myself. Most the things I want to do can be transgender but they’ll also just make my life more convenient because I won’t have all the these extra parts. Like I just wanna go into the character creator and change my stats but everyone is trying to stop me for some reason. Gender is a game and I am downloading mods, why the fuck does how I play affect YOU.

[dear-ao3]

look guys, i know i say that every update to this post is insane. but this one is. incredibly. and insanely. bonkers. every turn in here is a left.

i don't even know how to begin this one, but welcome to australia, the race where no one knows how to act, everyone always collectively looses their shit, and this weekend they might have lost their shit a bit more than usual. today is march 25, 2024. grab a snack, make a drink, hold onto your hats and also your socks, cause this is the most insane update of the season thus far. and its very very long.

and before you skip this one cause you think its going to be another max win, spoiler: MAX VERSTAPPEN DIDNT WIN

now that i have everyone's attention, it has been two weeks since we last spoke. meaning that we are going to cover the race week and the off week drama.

oh also, everyone who complains about how long this post is, you all asked for this!! you said to keep it on one post and i am committing to the bit!! the post is staying!! block the tag if you want!!!

honestly the off week was kinda quiet, but there was still some good stuff.

like the ongoing red bull fiasco:

-they seem pretty allergic to talking about it but in short

-helmut marko is Not getting fired or banned or whatever they were going to do to him (supposedly)

-they were going to do that because they ordered him to stop talking to the press and then he kept talking to the press

-there was a rumor that horner was going to be let go before the australian gp

-this turned out to be fake

-reportedly though adrian newey is unhappy with the current red bull situation

-(aren't we all)

-and supposedly, according to AMuS, horner wants to move him from red bull f1 racing to the hypercar project that they have for supposed budget cap reasons. which seems kinda silly when hes the one who is making the car that is making them win everything

-also supposedly, newey has been in talks with ferrari, possibly in response to this

-according to sports illustrated, theres still an ongoing power struggle at red bull, and talks between newey and ferrari are supposedly at an "advanced stage" this isn't even the first time ferrari have tried to get newey, they tried back in 2014, but he decided to stay on with red bull. but newey has said that he has always wanted to work with lewis hamilton, who is going to ferrari for 2025, so this could be his shot

-and the person who accused horner appealed the decision to dismiss the complaint to both red bull and to the fia. i couldn't find a real source for that but a lot of accounts reported on it. she also appealed her suspension from red bull (i think this was back on march 16) and nothing has been said about this

-horner though did say this at the saudi press conference : "the reality is that there was a grievance that was raised. it was dealt with in the most professional manner by the group, not red bull racing, but the owners of red bull racing, red bull gmbh, who appointed an independent kc that is one of the most reputable ccs in the land. he took the time to investigate fully, all of the fats. and he came to the conclusion where he dismissed the grievance. as far as im concerned, as far as red bull is concerned, we move forward and we look to the future." (bbc)

-well. one person really didnt like this, and that was mr ralf schumacher, ex f1 driver and michael schumacher's brother

-hes already told horner to step down, but he got more intense: "it became problematic for me when he portrayed himself as a victim in the press conference in saudi arabia. im sorry for his family, yes, but there was only one person who started this whole thing: him. I think it can no longer be denied that he and his personal assistant must have become very close. i can't accept that he keeps saying he doesnt want to talk about it in detail....one thing is certain, as long as this chaos remains, it will do immense damage to red bull. horner said that no one is more important than the team. therefore, he should follow this command and resign as soon as possible." full interview here

-so. yeah. yikes on bikes for red bull as per the usual.

still confused? maybe this graphic from formula.room on ig can help:

but that was not all for red bull in the off week.

this next bit is kind of stupid but its important to me and its my post so i am including it.

redbull does promotional cans to promote their athletes, and previously they have had a whole bunch of their f1 drivers on limited edition red bull cans. now right after the singapore grand prix last year, a limited edition red bull can was released with both max and checo on it, meant to promote the us races (austin and las Vegas) and it happened to coincide with max's 3rd world championship victory. the can looked like this:

(hilariously the cans also featured a link to try and set a fast lap on one of the tracks to win tickets or something but it was written as "got what it takes" and then the link, fully implying they were looking for someone to replace checo)

but anyway. my local target usually has a nice display of these and as the season ended i saw less and less of them until it was kind of just sporadic, like they were cleaning out old stock. which is understandable, cause theyre limited edition, and its a new season of racing.

so last week i went to target and low and behold, a new red bull can greeted me:

max. just max. on the can. in ter est ing.

i did a bit of digging and all i found was this on the red bull website:

To mark the 20th anniversary of Oracle Red Bull Racing, Red Bull is unveiling a limited-edition can and pack featuring the iconic Oracle Red Bull Racing branding, showcasing three-time World Champion driver Max Verstappen and the Red Bull F1 car. The exclusive Red Bull Racing cans and packs will hit store shelves by late March 2024, coinciding with the launch of the 2024 season and in anticipation of three U.S. grand prix races. This collectible item celebrates the spirit of Red Bull Racing.

now this is Intriguing. previously, other drivers (seb and daniel) have also had their own special edition cans to celebrate them doing something or other, but their teammate also usually had one of themselves. a few year back i am Pretty sure that daniel and max each had their own can. and max and checo have appeared on cans together in previous years. and red bull has two drivers. so why. only one of them.

well.

the logical explanation here is that stuff like this goes into production months in advance and they wanted to celebrate max's third championship. but checo was on the can also the last few years.

now. towards the end of last year, there was very heavy speculation that checo was going to get replaced by daniel because checo was causing all kinds of problems for red bull. and if we recall all the way back up to the top of this post where i talked about daniels contract, its rumored that if checos doing badly daniel gets to replace him.

so. it is possible. that perhaps checo isn't on the can. because they weren't sure they would be keeping him for the whole season. and they still might not keep him the whole season. he has done well For Now, but he historically has a strong start to the season and then kind of fades into the problem realm.

is this far fetched? absolutely. but its red bull. anything is possible with red bull.

moving on from the raging dumpster fire, gunther steiner made a reappearance in the form of the gunther steiner column on f1.com:

-basically he said that if he were still a team principal he would sign ollie bearman. hes worked with ollie before because last year ollie did a few practice sessions in the haas car. and after his saudi drive gunther said that

For prospective employers, that drive will have taken a lot of doubts away of what he is able to do. He’s in a good place as at the end of this year, there are a lot of contracts up with drivers, so he can put himself in good a position. He can’t go anywhere he wants, but I believe there is more than one opportunity for him.

-he also said that he stayed at haas for too long and has liked being away from the track. he would come back, but only for the right project

then we have filipe massa who sued the fia finally over the 2008 world championship:

-this has been going on for awhile and i dont know a whole lot about it so if you want more info do your own research but to my basic and general understanding

-at the 2008 Singapore gp nelson piquet jr, driving for Renault (now alpine) purposefully crashed his car to help his teammate fernando alonso win the race

-at the time, people did not know that the crash was deliberate and it only came out a year later after piquet left the team that he had been ordered to do so by the Renault team principal at the time (flavio briatore) and the engineer (pat symonds) and renault was charged with conspiracy and race fixing, which were charges they did not contest and had the team principal and the engineer leave the team

-reguardless of that, the crash caused some problems during the race itself and without getting too into it, basically everyone came into the pits during the safety car to get fuel and tires (this was back when they did refueling during the races, they stopped cause its dangerous) and Filipe massa was prematurely released from his pitstop with the fuel hose still attached to his car and into the line of another car. the hose was removed and he was able to rejoin the grid, but was given a penalty and ultimately finished i 13th place

-fernando alonso was able to pit before the piquet crash and that ultimately made him win the race

-anyway, massa claims that this race is what caused him to lose the 2008 world championship to lewis hamilton (massa was one point behind Hamilton) and had the piquet crash been investigated the outcome of the world championship would have gone into his favor.

-you can read the further race play by play on wikipedia if youre interested

-hes suing for

“a declaration that the FIA acted in breach of its own regulations in failing to investigate the circumstances of the crash promptly in 2008” and “a declaration that if the FIA had not acted in breach of its own regulations, it would have canceled or adjusted the results of the Singapore Grand Prix with the consequence that Mr Massa would have won the drivers’ championship in 2008.

and 82 million dollars.

in the spirit of legal action, susie wolff filed a criminal complaint against the fia:

-have i talked about susie wolff before? i dont remember. in case i haven't, she's in charge of the f1 academy (the woman's junior division of formula racing) and she is also married to toto wolff, the mercedes team principal.

-back in december the fia stated a conflict of interest case because they thought that susie and toto had been sharing confidential information with eachother that the other was not supposed to know. i dont think they ever actually said it was toto and susie, but they said that it was "an allegation that confidential information was being passed between a team member and a member of the sport’s owner Formula One Management (FOM)." and susie is a member of fom.

-initially people thought that perhaps another f1 team had complained about this to the fia (because they do that sometimes) but then every single team released a near identical statement stating that they in fact did not do that and fully support the f1 academy (pretty much all of the teams sponsor an academy driver), and mercedes definitely didnt do it (the merc instagram posted a photo after all the statements had been made of george drinking a cup of tea which was hilarious)

-the fia dropped the investigation about two days later when it was clear that no now actually had any issue with toto and susie and it seemed to be some misogynistic bs from the fia.

-and low and behold, susie, just like she said she would, took legal action against the fia finally last week.

-she posted on social media the following:

“I can confirm that I have personally filed a criminal complaint in the French courts on the 4 March in relation to the statements made about me by the FIA last December,” she wrote. “There has still not been any transparency or accountability in relation to the conduct of the FIA and its personnel in this matter. “I feel more than ever it is important to stand up, call out improper behaviour and make sure people are held to account. Whilst some may think silence absolves them from responsibility – it does not.”

-sir lewis hamilton, a god and a legend, has always been very supportive of susie and her endeavors, especially with f1 academy (and the merc f1 academy driver dorian pin), was quick to repost it with his own support, saying that "its still a male dominated sport. and we are living in a time where the message is "if you file a complaint you will be fired" and that is a terrible narrative to be projecting into the world, especially when we're talking about inclusivity"

and finally, before we get to the really fun stuff, the fia president, mohammed ben sulayem, was cleared of wrongdoings and any allegations against him, but in true fia fashion, they didnt reveal their process of clearing him or any of the complaints against him

sir lewis hamilton did say something utterly hilarious about the whole ordeal though. and that was this:

and would you believe it, were not even anywhere near the damn race weekend yet.

because during the off week there was a whole shit load of unhinged pr and driver posts. i dont know if its the big time change or the fact that its summer in australia and everyones seasonal depression disappeared but everyone seemingly had the time of their lives.

red bull as we know is falling to pieces. and it is up to the pr team to make them stay at least a little bit relevant. so they decided to make the drivers do the water cup challenge

you know, that ages old trend where you try to fill up a cup of water without it overflowing?

and i would explain what happened, but its probably better for you to just watch it:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing)

charles leclerc went surfing. and as we already know he cannot do sports besides f1 to save his life. some fans saw him and took some pictures of him attempting to surf:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by F1RIENDS (@f1riendsmx)

charles then shit on this in his own instagram post:

later on in the weekend, charles also tried to play cricket, but ended up hitting a camera:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Scuderia Ferrari (@scuderiaferrari)

pierre gasley also became the co owner of a semi professional french football club called fc versailles. likely because he realized that alpine is going nowhere fast and he needed an alternative source of income.

alpine is also rumored to be going up for sale (as in, some of the people funding the team reportedly may not want to fund them anymore. can't find the source for that but i know i read it somewhere this week)

and then we have lando.

where do we start with lando.

well.

he chose violence from the second he touched down in melbourne:

now why did the girlies lose their shit over this? well.

lando's current teammate, oscar, is australian. his previous teammate, daniel, is also australian. (worth pointing out that daniel's racing nickname is also the honey badger)

and daniel and oscar (perhaps?) responded (to lando's instagram story?) a day later when they each posted this on their stories:

but that was of course not where lando stopped. and if ive said it once, ill say it again, you gotta respect a guy who likes to stir the pot. and stir the pot he did.

now lando never dresses seasonally appropriate. this is a guy who wore a sweatshirt and long pants in miami when everyone else was wearing t shirts and shorts. and he decided to finally break out the shorts and tanks tops for australia. and. run everywhere.

now, for those who remember it, this gave kind of the same energy as when daniel howell made that esports documentary and there was all that weird footage of him just walking around in it. there were so many of these photos circulating but for some reason the only one i can find right now is this one:

he also revived his jpg and mov instagram accounts

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by @lando.jpg

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by @land0.mov

and then, as if that wasn't enough, he went on chicken shop date:

the girlies sufficiently lost their minds.

and then, right before the race, he finally shaved his little goatee thing. (not to be biased on my own post, but it was time for it to go)

also, leading into the race weekend, people pointed out that oscar piastri's voice was the australia tram announcement (i can't find the video but trust me it exists)

and then there was the australian race ads. which featured the three australian drivers.

three? you might be thinking. aren't there only two?

well, yeah technically. theres daniel and oscar and then for some reason the entire country of australia decided to make valtteri bottas an honorary australian.

and now, onto the race weekend itself:

first we need to talk about stake

specifically valtteri, who took the honorary australian title to heart and ran with it in whatever the absolute hell this ad he did with uber carshare was:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Valtteri Bottas (@valtteribottas)

and then his teammate, zhou guanyu, furthered the bit by dressing up in a valtteri wig and putting a picture of valtteri on his special edition australia helmet:

there was also a sinkhole or a hole of sorts outside of the alpine hospitality, perhaps a bad omen for the weekend.

and as i said way back up at the top, every turn in this race weekend was a left. the first of which was about to happen in practice 1.

now i didnt actually watch this practice session because i had work but i know more or less what happened and that was that alex albon crashed.

it was a pretty big shunt with the wall (lando very helpfully said on the radio that there was "muchos debris" (lando does Not speak spanish hes just friends with carlos)) and while alex was okay, his car was not.

the session was red flagged (and we got a lovely shot of charles leclerc's eyes, as per is customary) (i was told i have to include the photo Or Else so here:)

now as we know, williams have had problems getting parts this year. aparently their methods are really out dated (aparently its all run on a microsoft excel sheet and they tried to blame microsoft itself for being the season why they didnt have any spare parts) and it is something that new team principal james vowels is trying to work on, but it is still a work in progress.

in any case, they needed a new chassis to repair alex's car. and they did not have one.

so what did they decide to do?

well. they figured that between their two drivers, alex and logan, alex had a better shot at getting points. (which williams have none of yet this year) so williams decided to have alex drive logan's car, sidelining logan for the race.

this was a bonkers decision for many reasons.

logan didnt actually do anything to deserve to get side lined, he actually finished practice sessions 1 and 2 in 13th and 14th place, equalling his best ever practice sessions

alex was the one that crashed, why were they punishing his teammate?

why re sign logan at all if williams aren't confident that he can perform when he needs to and score them points???

now i dont think that we have talked a whole lot about logan sargeant. hes a 24 year old from fort lauderdale, florida (only american on the grid baby!!!) and this is his second season. by all accounts he had a disappointing first season last year. his highest ever finish was 10th at the 2023 austin grand prix. he only got 10th because charles and lewis got disqualified, bumping him up two places. this is the only time last year he finished in the points.

i think he only made it to q3 of qualifying one time and it was at the las vegas gp, which the car was incredibly well suited for (but dont quote me on this).

prior to being in formula 1, he finished 4th in the f2 2022 championship. which is very good. for context, in the 2018 f2 championship george russell finished 1st, lando norris finished 2nd and then alex albon finished 3rd. in 2020 yuki tsunoda finished the f2 championship in third. and in 2022, when logan sargeant finished in 4th, liam lawson finished in third. in fact, logan was the only f2 driver from the 2022 year to secure an f1 contract for 2023.

reportedly, the reason why logan did not do well last year is because he has cripplingly show self confidence. and this was not helped by the fact that he was not performing well. he was the only driver to retire due to illness during the brutal 2023 qatar gp (high temperatures, drivers vomited in their helmets, drove with no hands, asked to have water dumped on them, couldn't get out of their own cars at then end, etc, bad times over all) (logan wasnt feeling well in the first place, but still).

logan barely got re signed to williams for 2024, they announced his contract extension in december after the season had already ended. and over the winter break he aparently trained his ass off because he felt as though he was not as fit as other drivers and he is well aware of the fact that he really has to prove himself this season to stay at williams, or at least to get a seat somewhere else on the grid.

and having your team kick you out of the car because they think that your teammate has the better shot at winning points is not the kind of message that you want to be sending to other teams.

the announcers (jolyon palmer and someone else who i can't remember) had a lot to say about this during the third practice session on friday.

they were mainly surprised at the decision because alex albon only did 11 laps during practice 1 before he crashed, logan had done two full sessions and done well. they went as far as to say "how humiliating for logan. williams thinks he can't score a point. alex did 11 laps yesterday and they think that he has a better chance of scoring a point"

now, alex has scored way more points than logan, especially last year. alex scored 22 points and logan scored 1. but this year neither of them have scored any points.

if we look at the williams stats from the last 2 races:

in bahrain, alex albon finished 15 and logan finished 20. both cars had severe technical problems and logan was on track to finish well before he spun out because of a mechanical issue and ended up 2 laps behind everyone else. several buttons on alex's steering wheel stopped working at one point.

in saudi arabia, alex albon finished 11 and logan finished 15. both cars still had technical problems and they were also being held up by kevin magnussen.

so, the two drivers should be on a relatively equal playing field here, but they are clearly not.

the announcers (and everyone else) were mainly confused as to why williams retained logan for this year if they didnt trust him to score a point (as that is how f1 works) and he clearly "hasn't got the backing of anyone" at williams.

but it gets worse for logan.

aparently, theres a clause in his contract that says that it was possible that he would get pulled out of his car for alex to race it instead because the team knew that they were short on parts. which again begs the question: “why did they retain sargent if they put it in his contract that if your teammate bins it were going to give you his car” 

williams came into this weekend knowing that this was a possibility because they had no space chassis because their spare car hadn't been built yet (this happened to a team before, haas, back in 2021 when their drivers destroyed so many cars that they didnt have any spare parts and then the following year their spare car got stuck in customs so they couldn't use it). and they ad to use one of their two curfews (each team is only allowed to break curfew twice during the season for car repairs) to rebuild the car around alex.

and as jolyon said: “he’s unlikely to score. the last thing he did was crash a car. he knows his teammate cannot score. he cannot crash another car. if he has another crash he will look really stupid.” 

alex albon finished practice 3 in p13. fans the whole weekend were outraged on behalf of logan.

the official press statements from williams were also very somber sounding:

the team said this:

following alex albans accident during fp1 at the Australian grand prix, williams racing confirms that due to the extensive damage sustained, it is forced to withdraw the chassis for the remainder of the grand prix. this chassis will be returned to the tram's hq at grove for repair. due to the fact that a third chassis is unavailable, the tram can confirm it has taken the decision for alex to complete the reaimeder of the weekend in the chassis that logan sargeant drove in fp1 and fp2

james vowel's statement was very long but he basically said:

while logan should not have to suffer from a mistake that he did not make, every race counts when the mid field is tighter than ever, so we have made the call based on our best potential to score points this weekend.

alex albon sounded displeased about the whole ordeal:

i have to be totally honest and say that no driver would want to give up his seat. i would never want anything like this to happen. logan has always been a consummate professional and a team player from say one, and this wont be an easy one for him to take. at this point though, i cannot dwell on the situation and my only job now is to maximize our potential this weekend and work with the whole team to make sure we do the best job possible.

(alex has also been a victim of the red bull second seat bs and had his own seat yanked from under him so he knows how this feels)

and logan said

this is the hardest moment i can remember in my career and its absolutely not easy. i am however completely here for the team and will continue to contribute in ay way that i can this weekend to maximize what we can do

also, the day that alex got into logans car for practice 3 and qualifying? it was alex's birthday.

they asked max verstappen his thoughts on the logan having to give up his car thing and he said "i understand it from the performance aspect, of course, but that doesnt change the fact that this obviously sucks for logan. if that were to happen to me, i would completely flatten my car, so no one can drive."

tldr: its not looking good for logan sargeant to keep a contract if three races in theyre not confident that he can score the team points and yank him out of his seat for his teammate to have a chance to drive when he has already crashed during the weekend.

aside from that, practice three was decently uneventful. mercedes are still struggling and according to one alex brundle (commentator) they even looked "grumpy" and red bull were not dominating as much as they usually should have.

there were also a fair amount of unhinged radios: (via the instagram acc f1feverr)

moving into qualifying. all eyes were on red bull, mclaren and ferrari, who all seemed to be the most competitive for the weekend.

and back in the ferrari was one carlos sainz jr who was, in the words of crofty, “minus an appendix and full of determination."

thats right, carlos sainz was racing again following his emergency appendix surgery in saudi arabia 2 weeks before. after his trip to the paddock for the saudi race (which was against doctors suggestions but aparently he woke up and immediately was like i want to go to the track and just sort of argued with everyone until they let him go) he aparently spent 10 days in bed and did absolutely no training for the australian grand prix. no running, no sim work, no neck training no nothing. he himself said that he was better, but definitely not in peak physical condition and definitely not 100%. they had to out extra padding around his seat belts so that it wouldn't totally kill him.

not too many insane things happened during qualifying, but there was the following:

-crofty said that "honorary australian bottas, who has been spreading his mullet happiness and has been adopted by australia"

-daniel ricciardo went 10th fastest during q1 only to have his lap time deleted due to track limits and put him back in the bottom 5 and out in q1

-esetban ocon managed to make it out of q1. in an alpine. he screamed very loudly over the radio when this was told to him

-martin brundle very disturbingly said that “when i was little i was told that they use the appendix for the bits in marmalade” and theres a lot to unpack there but i think we should just throw away the whole suitcase

-yuki tsunoda made it through to q3

-alex albon got out in q2

-sir lewis hamilton got knocked out in q2 by none other than lance stroll, and it was the first time since 2007 that he wasnt out in q2 at the australian gp

-in q3 charles leclerc had some technical problems with his car and ended up aborting his last flying lap, landing him in p5

-max verstappen became the first driver to crack 250 mph at albert park

-the top 6 were max, carlos, checo, lando, charles and then oscar

-however, checo was given a three place grid penalty for impeding nice hulkenberg, so the starting order ended up being max, carlos, lando, charles, oscar, checo

onto the race itself

hang onto your hats folks this is where shit gets insane

(lando did in fact have to hold onto his hat and also shove past several people to make it to the national anthem on time, which was hilarious)

and for the first time in many years, there was no crash in the first corner !!! no, the bonkers stuff came a bit later on lap 2

staring on lap 2 the cars can use DRS (which is where they open up the back wing to get an extra 20kph of speed as long as they are within 1 second of the car in front of them) and carlos was running very close to max, so he opened up the DRS and BOOM BAM KAZAM CARLOS SAINZ PASSED MAX VERSTAPPEN AND TOOK THE LEAD OF THE RACE

i am not at all exaggerating when i say that it felt like everyone freaked out at the same time. i was watching the race with my roommate and i could still feel the sheer insanity of the whole world

but that was not all

max said over the radio "i just lost the car, really weird" which is what made carlos be able to pass him.

(kind of irrelevant but martin brundle said around here about carlos "you do not look 100% young man" and it was just too good to leave out)

max was still holding onto p2, sandwiched between carlos and lando, until lap 4 when he first said "fuck the car is loose" followed by "i have fire. fire fire by brake" after smoking horrendously.

and i Guarantee you everyones thoughts while watching this were "max is smoking. holy shit max is really smoking. wait iS HE GOING TO DNF???"

spoiler, he did.

max verstappen dnf'd the 2024 australian gp

incidentally, the last time that he dnf'd was at the australian gp in 2022.

later on, max revealed that it was a mechanical problem with the brakes. one of his brakes got stuck on and overheated.

meanwhile, carlos was still going strong out in front. leading and controlling the race. not as much as max would have, but still enough. and so everyone who didnt want up in the middle of the night to watch the race was very very upset (hehe, i stayed up and i had a fucking blast, seriously the last night that i felt the insane during was the night of the destielputinelection)

meanwhile, the only thought in my head was that i wasnt going to have to hear the dutch national anthem

to positively no one's surprise, valtteri bottas had yet another bad pit stop, with stake blaming the wheel nuts as the primary issue.

all was fine and dandy until lap 16 when another tragedy struck

sir lewis hamilton's engine failed

which was nothing short of absolutely tragic. so with lewis out and a yellow flag with a virtual safety car to neutralize the race a bit, the boys continued

nico hulkenberg and alex albon fought for awhile for p10 (and points) until alex had to pit, firmly placing the williams car out of the points. which was disappointing considering the fact that alex was put in specifically to get points.

on lap 29, lando and oscar, who were running 4th and 3rd, were told to swap positions and lando pulled out in front of oscar to try and catch charles leclerc, who was in 2nd. the reason for this was because lando had fresher, faster tires and had been placed on a better strategy since he had qualified higher than oscar. notably though, an australian has never been on the podium at their home gp, so in the words of martin brundle: “that went down like a cold flat white with the crowd” 

then the shitty stake pitstops continued as zhou had a 19 second stop (darn wheel nuts)

pierre got a 5 second time penalty for cutting the pit lane exit (which he also did during qualifying)

on lap 50, perez, who had been flying up the pack like a rocket ship, suspiciously had no more pace in his car. later it was revealed that this was because one of fernando's helmet visor tear offs got stuck in his car.

and then, on the very last lap, george russell basically got brake checked by fernando alonso (who was having a problem with his car) and skidded across the gravel into the wall before landing in the middle of the track. over the radio he begged for a red flag (because he was in the middle of the track) but race control only gave him a yellow flag with a virtual safety car. likely because it was the last lap and george had been in the middle of the pack, meaning only half the grid had to pass him again before doing the cool down lap. if they had called a red flag (which they should have) people would have still had to pass george to get back to the pits.

and with that, the australian gp ended with carlos in p1, charles in p2, lando in p3, yuki and both haas drivers in the points and three dnfs.

insane.

even more insane when you remember that every time carlos has won a race, george russell has dnf'd.

and!! this is not the first but the second time that carlos has managed to break max's 10 win streak. the last time he did this was in singapore 2023, the iconic race where he kept lando in his drs behind him to help fend off the mercedes cars that had brand new tires and george russell ended up crashing on the last lap of that race as well.

reguardless. carlos won. fresh out of appendix surgery. with no contract for next year. this is now the second time that the "wrong driver" (not charles) has won a race for ferrari in the last year.

despite this, carlos asked over the radio if charles could pull up next to him on the cool down lap so that they could "celebrate this one together"

the post race interviews were hosted by gunther steiner, the disgraced haas team principal. carlos joked in his interview that “i would recommend all the drivers have their appendix out." charles only understood about half of what gunther was saying and the other half of the time he just blinked in confusion. lando said that he thought that he could have beaten charles if he had pitted at a different time.

and thankfully, we did not have to hear the dutch national anthem at the podium. truly the biggest win this weekend.

the broadcast cut off lando's champagne pop tho, thankfully we have mclarens ig account:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by McLaren (@mclaren)

it was also so terribly refreshing to see a ferrari driver with life and happiness in his eyes. carlos must have said the same stupid appendix joke in every interview he did and he thought that it was equally funny every time:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Lando Norris Fan (@f1_landonorris_4)

carlos and lando (though it was clearly mostly lando) also made this train wreck of an instagram post celebrating their podium together (for those of you who dont know, carlos and lando were teammates at mclaren back in 2019-20 and had such a ridiculous bromance going on. they are still friends (their hug after this race was adorable) and when asked about sharing the podium with carlos after the race, lando said that it was "quite romantic")

the weight loss hashtag was particularly insane of them (appendixes only weigh between 1 and 18 grams)

and, taking us into the silly season discussions was the podium post race interview:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐨𝐬 𝐒𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐳 & 𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐨 𝐍𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐚𝐧𝐩𝐚𝐠𝐞❤️‍🔥 (@carlandocontent)

-in his post race interviews, carlos said “i’m still jobless for next year so hopefully this will help”

-previously it had been rumored that carlos might go to stake because its going to turn into audi in 2026 and they are interested in him, but after the performance that carlos put on at the race, he probably wont go there if they can't even change tires properly.

-chrsitian horner, on the other hand, confirmed that carlos is on the short list of people for the red bull 2025 seat, something that was previously not an option at all.

-and then, unfortunately, daniel ricciardo has been given an ultimatum

-aparently if he does not step up his performance by the miami race (3 races from now) he will be getting replaced by liam lawson, according to helmut marko.

-this is both hilarious and also upsetting. hilarious because he was the one who replaced nyck last year, upsetting because they gave nyck almost half a season but theyre giving daniel barely a handful of races. also yuki only just scored the teams first points this weekend

-its kind of implied that if daniel looses his seat now, hes not coming back.

-daniel was interviewed post race and seemed just about as upset as he usually does these days (no life in his eyes) and said that before the race, horner came up to him and said that "he wished me luck and told me to keep my head up” so we will see what happens. had daniel's lap time not been deleted during qualifying, he likely would have gotten points this weekend.

and a quick speed run of other chaotic stuff that happened this weekend that didnt quite fit anywhere else on this post:

-oscars grandma made the mclaren team cookies

-fred vasseur the ferrari team principal signed the back of lams lawson's shirt

-alex albon smashed cake in a fans face

-pierre and estaban traded a selfie for some tim tams

-nico colored in kevin's beard with sharpie on one of his giant head cut outs

-valtteri bottas did scooter tricks

-everyone got quizzed on aussie slang as usual and very few people knew any of it

-all the teams posted a photo that was upside down to announce they were in australia

-lando said that his plan for the race was "not a jump start"

-they had valtteri rate people's mullets

-yuki got compared to a koala

-charles was asked to speak french and then he started speaking spanish

-logan was asked his thoughts on the Tasmanian state election and he said "i dont even know what's going on"

-someone shouted at lando when was he going to win a race and he flipped them off

-lando pulled his chair up closer to charles and carlos in the cool down room to get a better view

-they cut to lewis looking like a proud dad watching the race after his dnf

-toto wolff said that he wanted to punch himself in the face following the double merc dnf and hes now doubting that hes a good team principal

-jack doohan and nico hulkenberg had a whole conversation about nicos hair and what hair gel he uses after the race

-EDIT FROM THE FOLLOWING MORNING CAUSE I FORGOT THINGS:

-fernando alonso got a 20 second time penalty for nearly killing george russell

-max verstappens girlfriends kid (penelope) was at the race and it was her fist time going to one (i think she’s like 5 i have no idea) so we got to see max being a girl dad

-ryan air posted asking logan sargeant if he wanted a ticket home

-sebastian vettel is being rumored to be preparing for the 24 hours of le mans, he’s in the process of doing testing

and well in the words of nico hulkenberg "interesting race"

i think that just about does it

hopefully the next update is shorter

see you all in 2 weeks for the japanese gp!

Sorry i tried to scroll past but, i know nothing about f1 other than max verstappen is fast, my dad doesnt like lewis hamilton, fast car goes in a loop and sometimes expodes. Could you give me a crash course in f1 drama? Im very intrigued. Whats the tea as it were?

a terribly loaded question, but i will do my best. i’ve talked about some of the drama before like the red bull second seat and the chronicles of haas but allow me to briefly try my hand at explaining the nightmare that is the upcoming silly season

under the cut we go

silly season is when the drivers go through contract renewals, extensions and switches. usually it’s confined to the first half of the season (march-july) but it has been known to extend all the way to the last race of the season and they like to switch people around at random sometimes. driver contracts are complex, there’s a lot of money involved and basically You Are The Face Of The Team so if you have a shit season then you make the team look bad. but at the same time you could have a shit season because you have a shit car. it’s sticky stuff.

so. there are only twenty seats in formula 1. 10 teams. each team gets two drivers. (there’s also reserve drivers but we’re not going to get into that). who ends up with a contract is largely up to the teams, they can pull the contract out from under people they can also cut you mid season. they’ve done it before.

of the 20 drivers on the grid, 14 of them have contracts expiring at the end of the year. yes. 14. you see how this could get complicated.

so let’s meet the teams.

red bull racing. they came first this year (and last year) in the championship. like aggressively first. like they won the championship by over 350 points. they are definitely the team to beat. but if you end up with a seat at red bull, you do have to deal with max verstappen being your teammate and he won all but three of the races last year. he’s the golden boy. red bull are also notoriously silly when it comes to contracts and famously swap people mid season who aren’t performing.

mercedes. merc is home to 7 time world champion lewis hamilton and they have won the championship a great many times, though not since 2021. they are kind of in their flop arc and their car the last 2 years has been pretty garbage, but they have still made it work because they were able to come in second last year.

ferrari. god help the poor little meow meows with a ferrari contract. ferrari is a notoriously great team and they’re trying to get back to the top again but their strategy every single time has fallen short. to the point where their drivers are the ones doing the strategy in their cars while driving. they came in third last year and have been decently consistent at getting first in qualifying and then getting beat by max verstappen on race day.

mclaren. they’ve definitely worked their way up over recent years. they ended fourth last year and have had some championship wins before but not nearly as many as say merc and ferrari. their team ceo (owner? director?) is a little interesting and their car started out a pile of flaming hot garbage at the beginning of the year but they did manage to get their shit together.

aston martin. they are owned by canadian billionaire lawrence stroll, father of lance stroll (one of the drivers for the team). they’ve undergone several name changes over the recent years (force india, racing point, etc). they positively slayed at the start of the season and then one day they sucked. they finished fifth in the championship.

alpine. the frenchest french team. they’re (i think?) still partially owned by the french government. both of their drivers are french. (their drivers also hate eachother but we’ll get to that. just know they’re in the middle of a modern french civil war). they had the opportunity to have a good rookie driver (oscar piastri) this past year but in a thrilling twitter battle, he publically flamed the shit out of them and went to mclaren instead (and slayed). they're usually solidly middle of the pack. they ended sixth in the championship.

williams. williams has been one of the back of the grid teams for the last many years but they have finally started to get their shit together and don’t quite suck as much as they used to. all of the points this year were scored by only one driver though (except one but we’ll get there). they came in seventh.

alpha tauri. they are the sister team of red bull. so technically redbull owns both teams (meaning they can swap drivers between teams. they like doing this.) they’ve just kind of been There for awhile but they did slay towards the end of the season when one of their drivers led the race for several laps. basically tho, this team is the gateway to redbull. they came in eighth.

alpha romeo. recently renamed to stake f1 team (but sometimes they are going to be called kick sauber. this is a whole other drama post and i’m not getting into it). they’re also just kind of there. generally unproblematic. seems that really great drivers who get ixed out of a contract for a younger driver end up here or young drivers who are in their early years are here before they go to a better team. they ended ninth this year.

haas. oh haas. goofy team. they suck. point blank they suck. they keep loosing sponsors because they suck, they don’t win ever (one time they came first in qualifying last year). they cursed themselves in australia in 2018 by not tightening their tires and its been downhill ever since. they came 10th. their team principle got let go (fired?) who’s to say today.

so those are the teams. it is important to note that:

-there is a cost cap. each team is allowed to spend no more than 135m per year.

-not all cars are equal. some things are standard. they all undergo the same testing. but the cars are all very different. so you can be a good driver but stuck in a shitty car. which makes it impressive if you are doing well in a shitty car.

let’s meet our drivers!!!

starting with the guys who’s contract is not ending in 2024:

max verstappen. 3 time world champion. 26 years old. general beast on the track. he dominated the whole season. he’s currently racing for red bull and has a contract with them through 2028.

lewis hamilton. 7 time world champion. 39 years old. he drives for mercedes. he will not leave mercedes until he retires. he really really wants to win an 8th world championship and is willing to stick it out a few more years as long as merc still believes in him. his contract expires in 2025.

george russell. the other merc driver. 26 years old. hes aggressively british and says thinks like blimey unironically. walking meme. got his merc seat in 2022 right when they entered their flop arc by getting his tractor of a williams to finish second in qualifying in the middle of a rainstorm. his contract expires in 2025.

lando norris. mclaren driver. 24 years old. he has notably never won a race in his five years of formula one (mostly because right when his car finally was good enough max verstappen was 20 seconds ahead of anyone) but he is regarded as Very Good. he has only ever driven for mclaren. and even though there is another year left on his contract there is mass speculation that he will not renew his contract with mclaren after it expires and he may move up to one of the top teams (red bull, merc, ferrari) (tho i think he doesnt hate himself quite enough to go to ferrari). his contract expires in 2025.

oscar piastri. the other mclaren driver. 22 years old. this was his rookie season and he positively slayed. like people compared his rookie season to lewis hamiltons rookie season. he also had the positively funniest start to his rookie year because alpine announced that he would be driving for them (he had been their reserve driver and in the alpine academy) and he posted a tweet that basically said yeah thats false i never singed anything with you and im going to race with mclaren instead (he dodged a bullet) and then alpine tried and failed to sue him for $4m USD. he signed a contract extension with mclaren this year and his contract expires in 2026.

lance stroll. aston martin driver and son of the aston martin owner. hes doing ok, tho there was conspiracy that he wanted to quit and have a tennis career awhile ago. but basically since his dad owns the team it seems that hes guaranteed a seat for as long as he wants one.

so now. moving onto the good shit. the people who have contracts expiring in 2024. hold onto your hats people.

charles leclerc. (everyones favorite slutty little soup can). 26 years old. he is currently at ferrari and he has been since 2019. notably, he was given the longest contract in the history of ferrari after a stellar rookie season at sauber (renamed to alpha romeo, renamed to stake f1) where he got the tractor of a car consistently into the points. having the longest contract in the history of ferrari was a flex at the time, but now its likely how he will introduce himself at therapy sessions. ferrari have fucked this man left right and center up the ass with a plastic lunchroom spork. hes talented, he can drive, and he can drive well. but the strategy that ferrari has absolutely sucks. either something is wrong with the car (see him blowing out his gear box on the formation lap in monaco, his car completely crapping out and spinning into the barrier in brazil before the race even started) or they fuck up his pit stops or put him on the wrong tires and honestly its just frustrating. but will he leave??? likely not. you'd have to pry ferrari out of his cold dead hands and at this rate that might be where this is headed though there has been some minor speculation of him going to another team like merc or red bull, but merc doesnt have any open seats and red bull is a whole other dumpster fire of drama. ferrari are going to have to pay him a boatload of money to make him stay.

carlos sainz. the smooth operator. 29 years old. ferrari driver. previously carlos was at toro rosso (renamed to alpha tauri), renault (renamed to alpine), and mclaren before signing with ferrari. he has been at ferrari since 2021 and has voiced that he would like to stay with them for however long he can. there is speculation that lando might replace him at ferrari (but landos contract is not up until 2025) and there is also some speculation that alex albon might replace him. while charles is clearly the golden boy at ferrari, carlos is slightly slower but also definitely consistent. he was THE ONLY non red bull driver to win a race this past year, in Singapore after max verstappedn was knocked out of qualifying by alpha tauri reserve driver liam lawson (more on him later) and because he basically came up with his own strategy in the car while he was driving.

sergio perez. aka checo. red bull driver. 33 years old. and oh boy here's where we open the can of worms. checo was previously at racing point (renamed aston martin) and it was very near the end of the 2020 (?) season and he was out of a contract. he had a bonkers race where he was knocked to the back of the grid and then overtook everyone and somehow ended up winning (there is more to that story but just trust me) and christian horner, red bull team principle, mr ginger spice and definite disney villain called him and said congrats sir you have a seat at red bull! well. fast forward. hes been causing problems. problems as in crashing a lot, generally not doing great and pissing the crap out of red bull. it is basically guaranteed at this point that he will not be getting a contract extension. there was actually talk this year of him losing his seat mid season to one of the alpha tauri drivers, because remember, red bull owns both teams and they can switch them whenever they want to (and they have!) but ultimately this did not happen. even though checo has a seat at red bull until the end of 2024, its mass speculated that he is going to get switched with an alpha tauri driver, probably daniel ricciardo (more on him shortly) mid season because there is a speculated clause in daniels contract that says that if checo isn't performing well in the first few races daniel is getting his seat.

daniel ricciardo. 34 years old. alpha tauri driver. man oh man what a guy. outside of being the prankster of the paddock, he has one of the most batshit careers of anyone currently on the grid. he started out at red bull and was showing real talent and skill and was on track to win things (and was!) and was there until the end of 2018 when max verstappen (his teammate) started getting preferential treatment and also red bull started having a lot of problems with their engines (which were being outsourced from Renault (now alpine) and another team on the grid) and well very very long story short he made the surprise move of the century and decided to sign with Renault (which makes no sense they're the one with the engine problems) and was there for 2 years before moving again to mclaren where he was reportedly not treated very well and had a hard time driving the car so they mutually ended his contract with them early and he basically retired at the end of the 2022 season and became a red bull reserve driver. then halfway through the 2023 season alpha tauri ixed one of their drivers, nyck de vries, because he wasnt doing well and promoted daniel back up to a full time driver at alpha tauri (which we know is only a step down from red bull) but then he broke his hand in a crash in zanvort (?) and then he was replaced for a few races by formula 2 driver liam lawson (who we will also talk about) and then he came back to finish out the season in alpha tauri after he was cleared. daniel has admitted openly that he never should have left red bull and he was given bad advice to do so. hes towards the end of his career at this point and its well known that he Really Really wants to finish out his career at red bull again. he and max have already been teammates before and they do work well together and daniel is great driver (see his comeback in texas (or maybe it was brazil?) this year). so. Pretty Sure that daniels going to get either an extension at alpha tauri or go up to red bull. thats what we all want. get this man in a red bull we need him there biblically.

liam lawson. now technically liam is not actually a formula 1 driver. hes a formula 2 driver, but he was daniels replacement for five races and there has been some speculation and some confirmed news about him so hes getting included. when he was racing for f1 he was at alpha tauri. hes 21 and looks like he belongs in the movie grease. no one was expecting him to slay in formula 1 and he positively knocked everyones socks off. the scene: Singapore. which, if you'll recall, is the one race that a not red bull driver won. this was largely because liam lawson slayed the absolute game in qualifying. the qualifying part of racing determines what order the cars start in on the grid for the race and theres three parts, the first two parts the bottom 5 drivers each time get knocked out and then the top 10 complete for the last 10 spots. liam lawson knocked BOTH max verstappen and checo perez out of qualifying in the second round by going very slightly faster than them, effectively fucking up red bulls race and allowing carlos to win. and he also scored points in that race, which no one was expecting. now thats all fine and dandy, but here's the speculation: hemlut marko (im pretty sure) (who is somehow decently involved in the decision making at red bull though i couldn't tell you how) said that he thinks that liam lawson will be in an f1 seat no later than 2025. meaning that he will probably get offered a contract this year. and hes already raced for alpha tauri. red bull have sunk a good amount of money into him. they clearly want him. so if he gets offered an alpha tauri seat in 2025, that means theres a good chance danny rics is going to red bull. do you SEE how the plot here is THICKENED

yuki tsunoda. age 23. currently at alpha tauri. and fun fact, the only alpha tauri driver to race there the whole year. he had three separate team mates. he is slaying and hes often slept on. he has a bit of a temper and likes to shout on the radio and also hates working out (they had to force him to move to italy or something to work out, long story) but hes been kinda killing it. he led several laps in the abu dhabi race this year and hes decently consistent. people think theres possibility that he could get moved up to red bull on account of the fact that he is younger than daniel and clearly has more years in him,, but there is also possibility that he might not because red bull like to make stupid decisions. and if he doesnt get moved up to rebel, will he stay with alpha tauri? we don't know.

alex albon. age 27. currently a williams driver. alex albon is another one with a batshit career. he started out his rookie year in 2019 at alpha tauri then got moved up to red bull halfway through the year when red bull decided that pierre gasley wasnt doing a good enough job (more on him later) and stayed with red bull for a solid year and a half until he lost his seat in 2021 to checo. he has been with williams for the last two years and is basically carrying the team. like. williams as a team scored 28 points this year. and alex albon scored 27 of those 28 points. and as we know, williams is still kind of in their shit arc (though they are doing much better. they didnt score any points for a solid 2 (?) years. so this is an improvement.) and if you can get a shit car to perform you catch the eye of bigger teams. now, alex has already been a red bull driver. and he was on the cusp of podiuming two separate times when lewis hamilton ran into him. this (among a few other things) basically killed his chances at getting resigned at red bull because he wasnt ""performing"" and red bull are bitches who love to win. but some people think that red bull should give him another shot. like daniel, hes already been max's teammate and he can definitely drive. but theres also talk he might go to ferrari because ferrari think that he might compliment charles's driving style (or something). but going to ferrari at this point is kind of suicide. so.

logan sergeant. age 23. the only american on the grid. the other williams driver. he just finished his rookie year. he scored a grand total of one single point this season, in texas, and it was because charles leclerc and lewis hamilton both got disqualified because the floor of their car had more wear (by literally less than millimeters) than it was allowed to, bumping him up from 12th to 10th. he has never done better than alex albon. he was also the very last driver to get a contract for 2024, with williams waiting until i think december of 2023 to announce his contract extension. clearly, hes on thin ice. but people have also said that he needs time to get used to formula 1 (other people have pointed out that oscar piastri slayed his rookie season this year and this statement about needing time is largely false). where logan ends up next year though will largely depend on how well the 2024 season goes for him.

fernando alonso. 42 years old. many people like to point out that oscar piastri is actually younger than fernando's racing career. he won tiktok creator of the year (somehow) and is also a 2 time world champion. he retired a few years ago, just to show back up again and slay. during the first half of the season when aston martin had a zoom zoom car he killed it, and then they had problems on top of problems and he didnt do well. except for that one race in brazil where he came in third, beating checo by literally .05 seconds. he hasn't really made any hints about retiring a second time and he is kind of carrying aston Martin right now (he scored 205 points this season, coming in 4th and tying in points with charles leclerc, lance stroll only scored 74 points this year.) and they did have their best year yet this year. (though they are relatively new).

pierre gasley. 27 years old. french. drives for alpine. the french team. previously he raced with toro rosso (now alpha tauri), then got promoted to a red bull driver in 2019, then halfway through the season they decided he wasnt doing a good enough job and he got demoted back down to alpha tauri. then he won a race with alpha tauri just to stick it to red bull. after the great oscar piastri contract twitter war, he was signed as alpines second driver, with Esteban ocon being the other driver (more on him soon). estie bestie and pierre (both french) were childhood friends and now hate each other for unknown reasons and basically feuded on the track for most of the season. french civil war at alpine. he scored 62 points in 2023 and came in 11th. not really sure where he will end up, it is possible that he will stick it out at alpine.

esteban ocon. 27 years old. also french. currently driving for alpine. another one with a silly bonkers career. he started out at force india and had a baller few seasons there but his teammate at the time was checo, and checo didnt really cooperate with him too much and caused some drama that cost estie bestie some places and some points. max verstappen also beat him up in the garage once. thats not really relevant but it did happen. anyway, after the owner of force india was arrested for .... i don't remember what maybe it was embezzlement or bankruptcy or something money related, the team was backed by lawrence stroll and became racing point. but all of that happened mid season and lawrence was basically like look ill back you guys for now but next year my son gets a seat (lance) so one of you two (checo and estie bestie) have to go. and ultimately they let estie bestie go even though he was more consistent because checo had more sponsors and they needed money. so he was out of formula 1 for a few years (but was a merc reserve driver) and then went to Renault, which then became alpine. he did come in 12th though overall this season, just behind pierre. so. will alpine keep both him and pierre and keep the civil war going? whos to say.

nico hulkenberg. 36 years old. haas driver. in his 200+ f1 races he has never been on the podium and he really really wants to be on the podium. unfortunately this will never happen in a haas because haas fucking sucks. and everyone knows it. he is getting towards the end of his career though. though! stake f1 will become the mario Andretti and audi team in 2026 (don't question it) and they have supposedly voiced interest in nico. so we will see if he hangs on that long to end up at audi. for now tough, hes definitely hating it at haas. though, haas are going to have a different team principle next year so maybe that will change things. i have a sneaky feeling through that haas will probably end up with another 2 rookie drivers because everyone else is smart enough to not race for them.

kevin magnussen. 31 years old. haas driver. hes another deeply interesting character. he has had one podium. in his rookie season. in his first race. and none since. kevin started at haas in 2017 and then left at then end of 2020 when he basically got kicked off because the team needed money and they wanted to bring in drivers with more sponsorships. these drivers were mick schumacher and nikita mazepin. so kevin basically was forced to retire after the 2020 season. this went decently well for haas. until russia invaded ukraine right before the start of the 2022 season and, well, nikita was Russian and it was never distinctly proven that his dads company (who was sponsoring the team) wasnt also funding the invasion. so nikita got fired and they were literally like 2 weeks out from the start of the season, down a driver. who are you gonna call? kevin magnussen! and hes been back ever since. but hes clearly getting annoyed with haas. there was one great clip from this year where his car caught on fire and he kind of just stared into to, clearly hoping it would burn for a long time. so the likelihood of him extending his contract is looking slim.

valtteri bottas. 34 years old. currently a driver for stake f1 (alpha romeo, kick sauber, whatever you wanna call it). previously, he was a mercedes driver and notoriously helped lewis hamilton win a great many championships, until he lost his seat to george russell in 2022. there was a rather awkward part of the 2021 season where valtteri knew that he was out of a merc seat the following year and kind of just chose violence. he slayed. then he went to alpha romeo, grew a mullet and made a calendar of his ass. quite the glow up if you ask me. hes also very interested in cycling. honestly though, i have my own personal speculation that hes going to retire at the end of this year.

zhou guanyu. 24 years old. driver for stake f1 (alpha romeo/kick sauber, etc etc). hes doing alright. he just finished his second season, in his first season he was majorly out qualified by valtteri but this past season he managed to out qualify him a good 6 times. which is decently good for the tractor of a car hes driving. its possible that he could get a contract extension, but like logan, its probably going to depend on how the 2024 season goes for him.

and thats all the drivers. theres also a few others i didnt talk about, like some other f2 drivers who want seats and mick schumacher, who is currently a merc reserve driver, all of which could be contenders for f1 seats. but one things for sure. this is going to be the silliest fucking silly season.

feel free to add on and peer review me