#idk how daniil got back to 4 like i know he had no points to defend whereas zverev had a lot but he has gotten to the same round as 2023 so

[muirneach]

this will likely change after todays qf but the live atp rankings are so beautiful.... daniil back to 4, hubi at 7 and demon at 8 (both career high!) and grigor got to 9 which pushes stef down to 10....

[meyerlansky]

twenty questions for fic writers!

tagged by @redbelles AND @inkpot-demigod 🖤💙🖤💙 took me eighteen years but i figured i ought to get it done before the emoji asks >_>

1. how many works do you have on ao3?

39!

2. what's your total ao3 word count?

133,253

3. what fandoms do you write for?

right now it's just masters of the air, because i really only focus on one fandom at a time but i also don't really LEAVE fandoms so much as they go dormant for a bit. in the last year i've at least TOUCHED wips for boardwalk empire and the witcher, and once bachelor route drops i will probably go back to some of my pathologic 2 fics and maybe come up with new stuff. same with HotD s2, although i don't know how much new stuff will come out of that vs finishing up things in metamorphoses.

4. top five fics by kudos

keep safe broad shoulders, warm hands keds and tube socks vestis virum facit denuo

so mostly burakhovsky smut, except for keep safe which is outsider pov nearly-gen lambden (from the witcher and specifically witcher 3) fic, and i have NO idea how it's my most-kudosed fic; and keds and tube socks, which is a long-ass (for me) steddie fic that i WILL finish at some point i am so sorry to everyone who's subbed to that fic /o\

5. do you respond to comments?

I TRY MY BEST ;___; i really like talking to people about fic, mine and others', so every comment i've left unresponded-to haunts me, but sometimes i can't get over my own anxiety enough. the only time it's deliberate is if the only content in the comment is "you have to write more of this" or anything similar and phrased EXCLUSIVELY like a demand, because It's Rude and also i have no idea how to respond to that.

6. what is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

explicitly angsty is probably with my ash-stained palms or broad shoulders, warm hands because neither ryuzo or daniil get what they want in those ones, though i think bswh!daniil would get what he wants eventually. ryuzo, maybe not >_> dancing cheek to cheek (to cheek) is also probably up there, but that's more interesting because it's not angsty on the page! and i WAS planning on leaving it as is, originally! that's why it has the canon compliant tag! but now i'm 8k deep in a canon-divergent sequel so idk if it counts anymore. genuinely i was planning on answering this with "i don't write a lot of unresolved angst" but. hm.

...wait, also hot blood, deep roots. which is the dark mirror nightmare counterpart of bswh and is... definitely worse. and i have something even worse in my wips okay i guess i write more angst than i thought

7. what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

probably vestis virum facit, since the final section is implied to be far-enough post-plague that they're Gonna Be Okay. but like the angst question, i don't really think of too many of my fics as the And They Lived Happily Ever After, The End type so much as like... they're happy In That Moment and that's what matters

8. do you get hate on fics?

i got put on the patho fandom blacklist for associating with Freaks And Criminals, and then i wrote hot blood, deep roots to cement my spot on it, so if that counts that's the extent of it afaik. i do worry about catching flak for stuff down the line, but honestly haters tend to be cowards, sooo

9. do you write smut?

LOVE WRITING SMUT. LOVE IT WHEN MY GUYS NAIL EACH OTHER. IT'S MY FAVORITE. i had like a year-long stint before stranger things s4 where i only posted genfic and i was SO disappointed with myself, even though the stuff i posted was GOOD genfic

10. craziest crossover:

don't really do crossovers! but entertaining daemon au thoughts is how i know i'm in a fandom deep enough that it's gonna stick for a bit, even though i've only posted daemon au fic for bwe thus far

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

not to my knowledge

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

also not to my knowledge!

13. have you ever co-written a fic before?

i'm not opposed to spitballing with people, and some of my best bwe work has come out of very long headcanon exchanges with @goatsandgangsters and @therestisdetail in particular, but i am not a consistent enough writer to saddle anyone else with my habits, so that's the closest i've gotten to cowriting anything.

14. all time favorite ship?

L A N S K I A N O. they are my forever boys. nothing will topple them. ever.

15. what's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

NONE OF MY WIPS ARE ABANDONED THEY ARE ALL GOING TO GET DONE EVENTUALLY DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT

16. what are your writing strengths?

snappy dialogue and the internal character work involved in a tight third person pov, which is good since a tight third is the only way i like to write

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

speed. if i don't finish something inside of a week of starting it, it will drag out for an infinity and a half and i'll have to chip away at it and hate myself for being slow the whoooooooooole time. i also... i have no idea how to explain this, but i don't consider myself an especially creative person, so i have trouble if i don't have a jumping off point to start with? most of my fics have pretty solid touchpoints in the canon and tend to be one-shots, if not single-scene. coming up with new shit for my dudes to do can be a struggle. which, tbh, adds to the speed thing, especially for stuff that tilts off into canon-divergent territory

18. thoughts on dialogue in another language?

alright, listen, i might have an entire buryat dictionary database downloaded onto my hard drive to spice up patho fic, but i'm in agreement with previous answers on this one: it can get dicey to write in a language you don't know, and if your readers don't know it it will interrupt the flow in a way that's not usually what i'm looking to do in a fic. that said, most of my fandoms have at LEAST one non-english language involved, if not multiple, so i do end up doing a lot of research into those languages, and i'm absolutely not opposed to pulling out single-words or phrases after either a. checking with someone who speaks those languages, if it's a real one, or b. pulling them from their usage in the canon itself and/or sometimes extrapolating out a bit, like the high valyrian i peppered into chrysalis

19. first fandom you wrote in?

boardwalk empire my beloved 🖤🖤🖤 i played around with some stuff prior to that—i think i'd noodled with what would technically be alice in wonderland fic in high school, although i don't remember what happened in it—but nothing substantial enough to count as Actual Fic, and definitely not anything i have access to anymore

20. favorite fic you've written?

MAN. HOW TO CHOOSE. it's maybe a little bit of recency bias to say dancing cheek to cheek (to cheek), but i think it's a tie between that and junkyard dogs, and both for the same reason, which is that i am really proud of the character work they do with curt and eddie, respectively. i'm not SURPRISED jd is as low on the hits/kudos/etc scale as it is since it's genfic and billy is...... divisive........... but i really think i nailed eddie in it. with dctc(tc) it was fun to get to play with curt, who's... look, i'm just gonna say it, i think he gets mischaracterized in a lot of the other fandom stuff i've seen involving him, so it was fun to get how i read him down on the page. it's also interesting to not only develop curt internally but to look at the buckies from an outsider POV, because they are UNDENIABLY the love story at the center of MotA's narrative, but they're both IN IT so they can't SEE IT. i also don't usually do scene breaks? like most of my fics are single-scene but i dragged dctc(tc) out and shockingly it WORKED? so yeah idk i'm just really proud of it.

OKAY. WHOOF. TIME FOR TAGS. let's seeeeeeeeee i will tag @goatsandgangsters @hosseinis @chirpybirdy @sweaterkittensahoy @reiverreturns

@samuelroukin @stoportotouch @notgrungybitchin @adriennefrombrooklyn and anyone else who wants to, but no pressure as always!

[alexalblondo]

You can ignore this if you want and maybe I'm just a bit sensitive to it as someone who is Asian but I feel like Alex is treated more harshly than other people who's been in his position no matter what Alex's success is always reduced and undermined and all his mistakes are highlighted i can't help but feel like there's definitely some kind of racial issue there but like I said I might be just sensitive

Hello friend 💕

Sorry, this took a moment, I was watching the press conference and this is a question I really wanna focus on getting right cause it deserves it!

First of all: I agree 100%! Obviously there are other factors as play but I think - just like with Lewis - there is racism at play here!

(I hope it’s okay to compare these two situations but they ARE the only noticable non white men on the grid and I think it shows cause you don’t have people tweeting about, Idk what’s a stereotype, how the french always give up every time Esteban has to let Daniel pass, I guess - yet you get ten comments about Alex going back to his soup kitchen in Asia every time he isn’t perfect)

Second: never feel like you’re being too sensitive by pointing out something like this! The worst that can happen is a person disagreeing with you and having a valid reason for why what they are saying wasn’t racially motivated - but you’d still have made them aware of a possible bias or of how they phrase something the wrong way ... the best that can happen is you figure out someone in your life is a racist and you can cut them out!

Third: in my opinion there are three factors at play when it comes to the media being more harsh on Alex: RBRs history, Pierre ... and racism!

1) RBRs history is easy enough to explain, they have a history of dropping drivers if they underperform (Pierre most recently) or if someone in Torro Rosso was performing better (Daniil) (Except how that argument never made sense here cause there wasn’t someone to be promoted in Alex’s place, sooo)

2) I should preface this by saying I like Pierre. I think he’s a great driver and his story and the way he seemingly rebuilt himself to be stronger both as a person and a driver is more than impressive and I am proud of him and happy for him, but, you know, sometimes it gets a bit much, sometimes people are ... I don’t wanna say they are complimenting him too much but Daniil has had similar results for a lot of the season and you don’t hear people constantly praise him, you know?

(Like Imola, yes, his P4 was impressive but people talked about him afterwards like he had lead the race and then DNFed in the last corner and just, nope, no hate to Pierre but we don’t know what he could have done in the race)

And that’s what I mean with the Pierre-factor cause on the one hand side we have Pierre doing so good in Alpha Tauri ... and on the other hand side we have Alex seemingly underperforming at RedBull, making people go: ohhh, Pierre is sooo amazing why did ya’ll replace him switch them back (- instead of saying: huh, maybe there is team fuckery happening ... but ya know 🙄)

I don’t wanna put ANY achievements Pierre has made down but it really annoys me the way people bring him doing well up so often while talking about Alex when that shouldn’t really be a factor cause they are not in fact in the same team and the same car (and maybe I am just doing the same thing I criticize in others, which I’m sorry for but it was to make a point)

3) and then we come to your factor and a factor that I have noticed as well which is: ✨racism✨

Now, I cannot talk about potential micro aggressions and I don’t notice everything cause I would be more of a Scarlett Johansson type of asian than you, I guess, and while I grew up with tolerent open minded NON RACIST people, the austrian-baverian border lands are not particularly multi-cultural and usually people aren’t aware of structures like racism if they benefit them, tbh, so that’s more of your part (I also don’t feel particularly comfortable commenting on this part cause, ya know, Scarlett here 🙈)

But the part that I did notice and the part that I do consider racism and the part that pisses me off to no end is: EVERYTIME SOMEONE SAYS THEY THINK ALEX WILL KEEP HIS SEAT THEY SHOEHORN IN A REFERENCE TO THE FACT THAT HIS MOTHER IS THAI AND REDBULL IS 51% THAI OWNED

Whew, sorry for screaming!

It’s just - the only OTHER PERSON they mention his sponsoring so much with is Lance Stroll who’s father LITTERALLY owns about half of Racing Point! (again, not meant against Lance)

Like, you don’t hear people say Seb only got the seat at Aston Martin cause his wife is part-british or Esteban only got the Renault seat cause he is french or hear people mention that Lando is both british and his dad bought into McLaren and that’s why he is at McLaren

But with Alex it’s constant! I don’t know about Sky UK or any other but there isn’t a single session at Sky Germany that doesn’t point this fact out at least once, cause, Idk, we don’t remember the last 15 times?

Yeah.

Okay, I’m gonna stop here cause this is super long already and I just realised I didn’t particularly go into what you mean, but I just wanna say: I agree. I think he is criticised more cause he isn’t white.

Anyways, apologize for the long ass post and I won’t reread it, so sorry for all mistakes, I’ll probably edit it like 5 times in the next hour though!

Thank you though, for coming to me to talk about this and I hope I didn’t say anything horrible!

(Reason #4 btw is that Alex being shy and awkward and nice means we don’t hear him complain as much or as dramatic as, well, his teammate which makes people think it isn’t that bad and also makes them miss that he just voiced something was wrong)

(Which is a really dumb thing but Sky Germany keeps pointing out how ... unenthusiastic and quiet Alex is on the radios so yeah)

Anyways: If your still reading have a fantastic night and do something that makes you happy!!!!

[youreamonocoque]

Uh oh I'm rambling about tennis. Idk how to summarise this here because it's a bit all over the place but the basic TLDR is number 1 and number 2 in the world were much closer in terms of tennis/performance in 2012 than they are this year.

I love reading comments under posts saying that Pablo's into the semi final because some of them are like 'oh damn!' and others are just a sad 'well now no one can stop Djokovic' like hello? Did you think if somehow Daniil had won today that he would've been able to beat Novak? 'But he's number 2 in the world' Novak has already qualified for the tour finals. He is 3k points ahead of Stefanos despite having played just over half the tournaments that Stef has.

The way Novak is playing, unless he has an off day I think he's winning the Gold no matter who is on the other side of the net. I think he'll face a challenge in Zverev but nobody can touch Novak, he's playing so well.

I get that they're going 'oh but Daniil is number 2 he could at least challenge Novak' as if the 3 guys left can't.

Zverev took a set off of Novak at the Australian Open this year.

Khachanov has not beaten Novak since 2018 but he still has a win over Novak.

In their previous meeting Pablo took a set off of Novak. In the meeting before that Pablo broke Djokovic and was about to serve for the first set, Novak got defaulted. (It counts as a win soooo)

The 3 left aren't shit. Daniil isn't shit. It's just that Novak is that good. It's not like when the top of the rankings were dominated by Roger, Rafa and Novak where they were basically unbeatable except to each other.

Let's go back to 2012 say. Imagine that the Olympics that year are the same as they are this year in terms of rankings.

Novak(1+), Rafa(2*), Tsonga(5), Almagro(11), Cilic(25), Bennetau (28), Lacko(58) and Dodig(69).

If we match them up like the 2020 last 8 was then you've got

Novak against Dodig Tsonga against Lacko Cilic against Benneteau Rafa against Almagro

Rafa would not be beaten by Almagro. Cilic would beat Benneteau. Tsonga would beat Lacko and Novak would beat Dodig. Which gives us semi finals of

Novak against Tsonga Rafa against Cilic

Every meeting in 2012 against Tsonga, Novak won (even beat him at the Olympics). Rafa would beat Cilic. This gives you a final of Novak against Rafa, who wins?

Compare that to this year where you've got a last 8 of

Novak(1), Daniil(2), Zverev(5),Pablo(11), Khachanov(25), Humbert(28), Chardy(58) and Nishikori(69)

Novak is not being troubled by any of those. If you got a final of Novak against Daniil with the form Novak is in you're not really guessing? You're going "Well maybe Daniil has a chance???"

My point is that in 2012 you would not be seeing Rafa be beaten by the world number 11. Rafa was too good. (Fun fact want to know where Almagro's last title was before he retired? Estoril. Who did he beat in the final? Pablo)

1 and 2 in the world in 2012 is not the same as 1 and 2 in 2021. This year the gap in terms of tennis is way larger, Novak is just on another level. In 2012 both Rafa and Novak were on that level.

(Obviously ranking doesn't mean everything as in 2012 we didn't get a final of world number 1 against number 2 but when people are saying Daniil had the best chance of beating Novak because Daniil is number 2 in the world (and a very good tennis player idk if he's better than Tsitispas or Zverev, I'd say they're all very equal around 2 to 8?? whereas in 2012 there was a smaller gap between the top 3 (Andy was sort of on his own at number 4) and then there was a bigger gap to 5 from there. In 2012 Novak wasn't out on his own, whereas this year he is.). People saying that Daniil has the best chance because he's number 2 are ignoring the performance gap between Novak and him and also forgetting that rankings don't mean everything. E.g Thiem is currently at 6 in the world but missed Wimbledon and therefore a huge chunk of points due to injury and people have different amount of points to defend etc. Rankings don't mean everything. Daniil being world number 2 does not mean he has the best chance of beating Novak because there are other factors that need to be considered)

(Interestingly in 2012 the final 8 was world number 1 Novak, 3 Roger, 4 Andy, 5 Tsonga, 9 del Potro, 10 Isner, 11 Almagro and 18 Nishikori. - Way less range than this year. )

+(Note: Novak was world number 1 at the time of the Olympics but was not the number 1 seed. In this theoretical, seeding does not matter and the draw is done by ranking- No I have no idea how Roger was number 1 seed I imagine it's because it was at Wimbledon and until this year Wimbledon did it's seeding differently. For the purpose of this theoretical we're also ignoring the surface lmao (I should've used 2016....sigh....Welp i've written the post now and I'm too lazy to change it!)

*(Note: At the time of the Olympics Rafa was ranked number 2 in the world but did not compete. But he is still present in this theoretical)

(I have not proofread this lmao and there is no real conclusion because I am lazy :D)