#or at least doing history *well*

[navree]

"rhaenys could have ended the war by dracarysing all the greens right there" yes because a distant relation to the throne deciding to barbecue an anointed and publicly positively hailed king and his entire family who is well loved within the city and in multiple other parts of the country for the sake of the succession of a far-away princess no one was ever on board with who hasn't been seen by the populace in literal years, her psycho husband, her three obvious bastards, and two toddlers from the psycho husband would go over super well with westeros and especially in king's landing where scores of the still-cheering population were killed for no reason by that same dragon who would do the barbecuing, because when targaryens act unilaterally without thinking of how the people would react there's never any problem, which is why the storming of the dragonpit and robert's rebellion were actually just collective delusions dreamed up by readers who hate rhaenyra and not key parts of the story and house targaryen's history that directly contributed to their demise and are intrinsic to the plot

truly team black stans are made up of only the most genius and media literate amongst us

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

I'm so sorry I'm pretty sure your bard au is supposed to be serious but oh my god I couldn't help but get strong Men In Tights and Monty Python and the Holy Grail vibes

Especially bc of Barnaby I would not put it past him to make a "your mom's a hamster" reference

no no it Is very silly. how can it not be when you've got the neighbors as the characters? silly central. ALSO YOU'RE SO RIGHT VERY STRONG MP&HG VIBES I FUCKING LOVE THAT MOVIE HERE'S SOME REFERENCES

but it is also real. when it's silly its silly and when it's serious!

it's serious.

[skitskatdacat63]

Fernando Alonso & His Relationship With Cards

I'm sure we're all familar with the cards on the back of Fernando's Vegas GP helmet by now, but did you know his relationship with cards goes a lot deeper?

I. Magic Tricks

You've probably seen or heard someone at least mention Fernando's propensity for card tricks. As far as I can tell he was doing them(publically) as far back as 2003 all the way to as recently as 2018. Even once performing a card trick, with a condom and a teddy bear(!??!?!??!!), in front of Valentino Rossi who said "How was that possible?"(x)

But how did this start? According to James Allen, "Fernando admits to having been heavily influenced by his grandfather, a mercurial figure, who taught him magic and card tricks, still one of his passions away from the race track."(x) And I'm not sure the validity of this one, because I couldn't find an actual source, but apparently he once said: "My parents are responsible for the two things I like doing most - driving and magic tricks. They bought me my first go-kart and a magician's kit."

In several interviews he described it as his hobby off track, and that he loved learning new tricks and surprising others in the garage with them! So clearly cards are pretty important to him both as a hobby but also to who he is as a person since they've been with him just as long as racing has.

II. Card Symbolism in His Helmets

This is the reason I originally made this post, but I thought I should also explain the origins of his card fascination first. As I said, we probably all remember the cards on the back of his helmet in Vegas, but did you know that wasn't the first time he had cards on the back of his helmet?

From 2008-2013, he used to have a pair of cards on the back of his helmets. The symbolisms of the cards themselves as well as the evolution of their design is really fascinating to me! Even more so with the recent development of the card choice in 2023.

Fernando said he wanted to reference his two titles in some way on the back of his helmet and after his friend sent him several ideas, he decided on having two cards(an ace of clubs and an ace of hearts, sometimes pictured with 05 and 06 on them as well), saying: "I picked the cloverleaf [the ace of clubs - Ed] to give me luck, but the only pity is that it doesn't have four leaves!"(X)

2008.

Here's the very first appearance of the cards! They're displayed flat, with the 05 and 06 clearly visible

2009.

Very similar to 2008, but with a slightly different design, and they're maybe a bit more straight with less shadow?

2010.

This is the first major change! I was sad they didn't have the years on them anymore, but then I realized they're sparkly to match with his signature lightning bolts on the top of the helmet!!

2011.

Honestly I'm still somewhat unsure if this is the actual 2011 helmet? It's pretty difficult to find clear photos of the back of helmets from older seasons. It's easiest to find them on replica sites or auction sites so I'm not 100%? But anyways, I like that this has the championship years on the underside of the cards

2012.

This is when I started getting weirdly emotional about the helmets. Do you see how they've progressed from being a centerpoint to being curled up and sad at the bottom of the helmet? Not listing the year anymore??

2013.

Same thoughts as 2012. And after this season, they cease to exist (just like his ferrari chair in the garage, WOAH CALLBACK), until cards make a reeappearance in his Vegas helmet, albeit in a different form

2013 Monaco(Honorable Mention):

For some reason 2013 helmets were easier to find proper pictures of, so I happened to witness this absolute beauty. The creativity of this helmet genuinely blows me away??? Wanting to keep the card motif, but making sure to incorporate it into the rest of the puzzle piece design?? Mwah! There was another special 2013 helmet but they didn't change the cards at all so I really applaud this one

2023 Las Vegas(The Return of The King):

The magnificent return! But look! The cards are different cards! Instead of being two aces, it's now an ace of hearts, a four of hearts(his driver number of course!) and, the, now iconic, representation of himself as a Joker. I literally could not believe my eyes when this helmet was released and I saw the Joker card, what a fucking silly old man....I really wonder if he felt nostalgic having cards on his helmet again or if he didn't think about it all and was just like, "ah cards because Vegas!!!"

III. Why Does This Matter?

*The rest of the post was factual, this is moreso my personal thoughts on the symbolism of the cards/designs

This post spawned from me recently watching the 2010 Bahrain gp and noticing "hey wait a minute...are those CARDS ON THE BACK OF HIS HELMET!?" It's a really tiny detail that's unfortunately covered up by the HANS device pretty much whenever he's wearing the helmet, so it's really difficult to spot! But I became fascinated with the fact that he had cards on his helmet before that recent helmet, and now here we are!

There's something to me about how the design of the cards evolves over the course of six seasons from the cards being front and center to being smaller, more folded up and closer to the bottom of the helmet. As I said, the 2012-2013 ones genuinely made me depressed because it feels, symbolically, like his hopes for getting another Ace are becoming more and more unlikely and falling away until they eventually fall falt and fade away entirely after 2013 and disappear for basically a decade.

But when they return? They're not the same cards! Instead of representing Fernando's championships, they now represent him as a person, displaying his driver number and his persona of being a Joker!! Though I do think it's interesting he happened to keep the Ace of Hearts, even though he talked more about the Ace of Clubs before. I'm not sure it's actually this deep in reality, but I like to think that it's him not letting his championships(and the lack thereof) define him, but rather letting who he is as a person shine and be the centerpoint instead! But on a sadder note, as @suzuki-ecstar said to me, maybe the Aces aren't there anymore because he's lost all hope for a chance at a third Ace entirely :(

[tokutaiseichan]

i really like how chapter 23 is titled in Japanese. in English, it's simply "Stargazing with A Free Spirit" but in Japanese, it's called "満天を頂に叶えるは空の願い".

i'm struggling to translate and word it beautifully in English but it's roughly around the line of: What Grants [You] a Sky [Full of Stars] at the Summit was A Wish Upon the Sky or Wish Upon the Sky Blessing You with A Sky [Full of Stars] at the Summit

(i know it's kind of a mouthful / repetitive 😅 sorry, i still have a lot to learn)

why i like it? because of how they made it into a wordplay of Towa's name. Towa's given name is written as 叶空 in Japanese and as you can see here, it's incorporated in the title. i just think it's neat! especially when it's a chapter focusing on him. c:

funfact: Towa's name is written as 叶空 (叶 = to grant / fulfill, 空 = sky) but "towa" is also another way to read the word 永遠 (eternity / everlasting / forever, etc)!

[qqueenofhades]

Alice Albinia's The Britannias is a fascinating book on many levels but also the prime reason why writing about history, especially premodern history, double-especially premodern women's history, is not so easy as just quoting some writers utterly without context/critical scaffolding/enquiry/rigorous methodology and doesn't actually prove what you want it to prove, even if the point is one to which we might otherwise be sympathetic.

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

On the topic tho of like. The archons switching up domains, what do you think could be other interesting changes? Like. Zhongli and Eternity vs Erosion, or how contracts could be subsumed by Justice. Similarly- I think Nahida, with her domain of dreams- could honestly be really fun to play with a Freedom domain, considering the irony of a caged god of freedom to parallel Ventis current story. Alternatively- Freedom in the nation of hydro, where they’re cursed because of the flouting of the rules, and Furina is trapped in a centuries long gilded cage- like. There’s interesting things you can do!! -☁️ (hi it’s me again, I forgot to tag the previous backreading one)

oh yeah absolutely, honestly since the game is about solving problems and dealing with Situations, you could reasonable slap freedom onto any nation and find an interesting outcome. like- freedom from the shogun's dicatorial rule, freedom for ei from her own fears and isolation, freedom for nahida from her prison, freedom of knowledge in sumeru, freedom for furina in how she wants to live life, freedom as it is seen by the people of meropide choosing to remain underwater, freedom for the people of fontaine to finally be people as their ancestors wished without celestia dictating what they can and cannot do, freedom for zhongli to retire and live life at his leisure, freedom for the humans of liyue to carve their own path forward on their own two feet (i admit that's the weakest one); and now natlan will probably be freedom to coexist or freedom from violence or freedom from natlan itself since it's closed. snezhnaya, too, could be about freedom: freedom from celestia's rule, freedom from the heavenly principles (or whatever the fatui are doing); same thing for khaenri'ah and the abyss sibling. freedom from fate and to be able to decide your own destiny. at the end of the day any plot with any conflict can include freedom as a motif, so like- yeah, freedom would be the easier to switch around.

as for the others, that would be the more interesting part i think. like you said, contracts and justice, eternity vs erosion (which is already ei's plot so zhongli wouldn't be all that new honestly), wisdom for zhongli too with the whole witnessing history thing. eternity for nahida in the way wisdom perseveres through time but also in the irony of knowledge is beholden to irminsul and knowledge in irminsul is apparently subject to erasure. stuff like that

we'll have to see how we can play around with natlan and snezhnaya. if snezhnaya is about love that could also be really interesting, as you could also feasibly slap it most of everywhere, too.

[rogdona]

Can you draw all the OC witches you have in the same room for drama!

JAHDHSHS theyre an interesting bunch for sure.... mago and asa will carry the conversation then probably end up making some sort of mess that the rest will have to fix😭😭 lila is reconsidering her path to be a witch

[crimeronan]

probably the most accurate way for AU hunter to react to finding out he's a grimwalker would be like

[longest sigh in the world] hOkay.

luz.

i get why you didn't tell me. i 100% understand that you were scared and didn't want to worry me or to make me feel differently about myself. i'm not mad at you about that that's Fine. but also.

luz.

my fuckign MEDICAL HISTORY,

[oceandiagonale]

breaking news: historians have theorized that this friendly neighborhood merchant and this mysterious stranger were Very Good Friends 

[lord-squiggletits]

I need to reread the comics again to have specific arguments/evidence for this, but like

I feel a bit like I could've been sympathetic to the way other Cybertronian colonies view Cybertron, if it weren't for the fact that at least several of them (as in, ones that get notable dialogue/screen time) are so low-key self-righteous?

Like, idk... there's a lot of criticism of Cybertronians because they're so "warlike" and how their obsession with violence and vengeance is just dragging the whole galaxy down with them, but uh. The Autobot-Decepticon war was basically a product of societal ills bubbling over for like 6 million years beforehand and then finally boiling over into a 4 million year war that lasted as long as it did because the people involved had immense social/psychological trauma from being "raised" in an oppressive society.

So when the colonists come in being all 'omg you people are so violent and uncivilized why don't you just like, stop fighting' it kind of pissed me off a little bit as a reader/person like. Idk the colonists really came into this society of people full of massive amounts of trauma where even before the war society was super oppressive and no one has any experience of living "normal" lives unaffected by violence and bigotry. And the colonists were like "ummm wow why don't you guys just??? stop fighting???." Like idk it wasn't EVERY SINGLE MOMENT, in fact I think that when it was played for laughs it's quite a funny "fridge horror" type element. It was just annoying because like.... IDK???? It's just really annoying to watch a bunch of people who lived relatively sheltered lives on their own planets come to a different planet full of traumatized people and be like "omg why are you people so fucked up" IDK BRO MAYBE BECAUSE THEIR SOCIETY WAS OPPRESSIVE AND THEY LIVED THROUGH A LIFELONG WAR???

It also doesn't help that the colonies were literally founded based on imperialism and conquest so like, it's fucking rich to hear colonists scolding Cybertronians for their violence ruining the whole galaxy while literally sitting on planets that their Primes colonized from others. The hypocrisy of this is briefly mentioned in Unicron (literally the FINAL STORY OF THE SERIES) but like, that's basically the only time Cybertronian characters are given a reprieve of sympathy from other characters in universe and it's so tiresome.

I've talked to other people who didn't like the colonists and thought they basically (narratively speaking) existed just to shit on the existing characters, and it's actually really easy for me to sympathize with/outright agree with that assessment of the story considering how much of exRID/OP seems to be preoccupied with "Cybertron/the Primes/Optimus sucks" with very few reprieves for anything positive happening and even fewer chances for characters to get to explain themselves and experience a little bit of justice? Like, as the audience, it's just very frustrating to see the characters you spent hundreds of issues keeping up with get shit on by a bunch of "literally-who"s and then not really get a chance to ever defend themselves, either by literally defending themselves in conversation or having some sort of narrative thing happening that vindicates them at least symbolically

[rotzaprachim]

*breathes in and out through mouth* everyone is scared and grieving and still waiting for news of their families everyone is scared and grieving everyone is scared and grieving*

[theflyingfeeling]

yes it's just me whining about the same thing for the billionth time, pls just scroll past nothing new to see here 👋

[bbreaddog]

42 for literally anything 💜

Ha. Well.

But now, Bobby is slowly sliding his palm up between Luke’s shoulder blades, applying a good amount of pressure that has Luke biting back a groan.

“That’s it,” Bobby breathes. “You’re being so good for me.”

Fuck. How is he gonna survive?

Send me a word count of up to 150, and I���ll write that much for my wips and post what I’ve written

[skitskatdacat63]

@lesharl-eclair here is the vettonso timeline I mentioned at some point!! I was gonna make a more refined version but ah, the original is fine so I'm posting it for you <3

Its written so its as if their careers began at the same time. There's obviously some parts where they deviate from each other(I blame Fernando), but they're pretty similar, no??

Here's some notes I have:

They both started at technically the same team(if you ignore that Seb raced one race for Sauber): Minardi/STR. And they spent 3 seasons either racing for that team or testing(Fernando for Renault, Seb for BMW teams), before being promoted to the team where they won their respective WDCS.

They both spent six seasons with their WDC team. And both won their WDCs using Renault engines. Both were pretty much the golden boys of their teams, beloved by their team principal and team in general. Unfortunately both aren't consecutive because Fernando tried out McLaren lol.

They spent a similar amount of years at Ferrari(five and six respectively.) Neither could win a WDC with Ferrai(😔) And both joined Ferrari in a very similar way. When Fernando joined, he ousted Kimi and it was very uncertain where Kimi was going. I think the commentators in 2009 predicted McLaren? (But he ended up taking a sabbatical obv.) But pretty messy, right? The literal same exact thing happened with Fernando and Seb in 2014-2015. They finally announced at the end of the season, even though it was pretty obvious, that Seb would be replacing Fernando. And where did Fernando go? McLaren! The history book on the shelf is always repeating itself. I guess I find it funny that Fernando replaced his former rival under somewhat messy circumstances, only for his other rival to do the exact same thing to him years later.

Okay McHonda and Alpine blah blah blah. Anyways they're probably going to have both end up competing their careers after two years with Aston Martin. This honestly is my favorite parallel. Because it's very sweet to me that Seb replaced Fernando, in an aforementioned messy way, only for Fernando to take Seb's seat in a very peaceful, almost "passing the torch" type exchange 🥰

[the-monkey-ruler]

I was reading The Monkey King's Daughter (you can read the whole book for an hour) and apparently the protagonist is also Guanyin's grandchild? Can Guanyin be shipped?

I mean I can’t say like what are like the moral implications of shipping GuanYin itself cause that is so not my place but I’m still going to answer this cause it kinda of interesting when it comes to modern media. First off saying that like I have never really seen romance done with GuanYin. At least in a serious way. But if I had to take a guess it can be seen as 'possible' as much as like shipping anyone in Chinese mythos, in that isn't really taken seriously at all. In a lot of modern fan spaces there are a variety of crack ships for more humorous or hypothetical situations like I have seen literally the Star of Venus shipped with Jade Emperor just cause. But I don't see much with buddhas or bodhisattvas in either post-modern media nor in fan spaces. At least that isn't Wukong or Sanzang since they are both Buddhas. And I have done a whole thing about how Wukong for decades wasn’t seen as a romantic figure until like there was a huge character reconstruction, but that isn’t usually the case for most characters.

I would say that the most mainstream instance I can think off the top of my head is The Lost Empire (2001) where it had the main character has a romantic plot with Gaunyin herself. Of course, that wasn't really a masterpiece within itself but this was considered like a 'bad choice' more so that it was just a very strange and awkward romance at that.

Funny enough I think I see more romantic for humor's sake on Guanyin in comic books or games as likes gags at most. Like in Westward comics (later a tv series) Guanyin has a celestial-turned-demon trying to pursue him that he always rejects. Another is more play for laughs but Guanyin in the Fei Ren Zai where people just don't know it's Guanyin and think she is so attractive.

I've seen some games that have Guanyin as like a pretty boy/girl but otherwise nothing even close to a romance plot. Those are more just for like aesthetics of making every character look overly attractive to sell it.

The best I can say is that is just kinda strange and a little strange personally but I can't say that it can be taken seriously. I mean Wukong is supposed to be a Buddha by the end of the novel, so if The Monkey King's Daughter has it that a buddha can have a daughter then there wouldn't be anything stopping the author from having a bodhisattva having kids.

[fagidarity]

it’s honestly kinda wild to me how obsessed with japan some people [in the west] are while seemingly also knowing very little about the actual culture and history there. like my knowledge base is one year of mandatory japanese in highschool that i didn’t really care for because i was 13 and hated everything + the like 5 anime i’ve watched chunks of so i’m not gonna claim to be an expert or anything but like. generally speaking you’d think if you were super into something you’d like. know stuff about it beyond a surface level. unless you think surface level is all there is