#sorry to keep posting about this lol

[blu-engineer]

favorite stan twins characterization is that they're both equally insane. stanley just gets more air time to show it off. loosely inspired by a post i read earlier but here's some absolutely insane things both of them have done

stanley:

drugged a person and turned them into an exhibit in the mystery shack

had a vegas wedding to a prospector-themed novelty dispenser

gave mabel a grappling hook

failed to steal an animatronic badger

chewed his way out of the trunk of a car

punched at least three bald eagles

is multiply divorced, possibly even with the novelty dispenser

committed premeditated murder on a llama

faked a heart attack to get on Wheel of Fortune

took his clothes off in front of a live studio audience on Wheel of Fortune

has a rivalry with a fifth grader, a grandmother, and a man who exclusively dresses like a corn cob

stanford:

pulled a gun on a bus driver when he wouldn't let a pig on board

directly assisted in mind-controlling ronald reagan during his election in 1980

gave mabel a crossbow

got bitten by a vampire bat and subsequently began sampling human blood

owns contraband outlawed in 9000 dimensions; keeps it in an extremely flimsy plastic case

"accidentally" set a hawk on fire

has exes ranging from as normal as his old college buddy to as weird as a triangle and an alien with 7 eyes who put a metal plate in his head

wears turtlenecks because he's hiding multiple tattoos he regrets, including one themed around "all star" by smash mouth

is an Extremely wanted criminal across hundreds of dimensions; was completely kicked out of one for card counting

is, bizarrely, super into the band Eurythmics

can see shrimp colors

[hotdogmchiggin]

Company Mandated Fancy Fits on the Tulpar 😏

Also had to include the REAL star of the show (and a bonus)

Based off of this and this. Thank you very much joetastic for being inspirational 👍

The REAL reason this is late

[emberglowfox]

he did get those braids after all

[mohntilyet]

illario + lucanis growing up together means a lot for obvious reasons ofc like the fact they did not have to go through the dellamorte villa torment nexus alone really helps. immediately from the moment they are taken to that house, lucanis has had something to protect and love. the snark and jokes that they share in wigmaker job finally having a chance to shine outside of the only person lucanis is socialised with and he learns that wow, he's actually likable. because up until this point everyone around him calls him a demon and is freaked out by him but ofc the veilguard only know him as lucanis "he banished harding from the kitchen" dellamorte. sure he's a big bad crow assassin but his reputation simply does not carry that much weight with people who are just equally deranged (maybe a de riva rook but that's also a little different) . and then he's able to share and extend that love with his new friends, and able to try being something that he's not had the chance to before, and his goodness is actively encouraged rather than being an unfortunate sidequest that is tolerated. and i fondly think also of how much of that humor is copied and mirrored off illario ("shoulders....... feeling tight...... need a ..... MASSAGE!") and it's his best experiences with illario that turned him into the man he is. wish the game explored this just a little more because the betrayal would have been made a lot more intense if they had just bothered to show any of illario's redeeming qualities. he has them!!!!! nobody is just born a traitor. you have to love someone before they can become that.

[mellowthorn]

Family cuddle

[blanketfortz]

like looking in a mirror

[shakingparadigm]

modern college au where model ivan comes home late after photoshoots and listens to till's demos for hours on repeat to wallow in his agony (the songs are always for mizi)

[babacontainsmultitudes]

🤔 Admittedly I was a little disappointed by the reveal (but certainly not surprised the foreshadowing was heavy in this episode lol), but not actually against how Beth (and Will) seem to be playing with it thus far- which is to say that I do think it has a lot of potential, and I suspect there's more to what we're seeing).

;) Big ol' ramble below

Mostly the theory has turned me off until now (at least insofar as I've witnessed it transpire in the fandom at large) because it struck me as so painfully ironic to see Trudy, a 1950s housewife, struggle to exist under the system that she's in, fail to fit the mold assigned to her, and be denied her personhood very literally for it (this being ironic insofar as how it mimics how she would have been treated back then). This and because frankly I just think she's a lot less interesting if she's fully a robot LOL, but I'll hopefully get to that in a bit.

Not that the hints at her mechanical nature and the relevance of Tucker's background were lost on me; I can appreciate why those would contribute to a plausible, fun and I think still mostly harmless theory (now fact). However, minus one or two specific posts I've seen on the matter (namely a recent one suggesting that if Trudy is a robot Beth is probably taking inspiration from The Stepford Wives, :( sorry person who made that post I couldn't find it I wanted to credit yoouuu), I've seen the theory just about exclusively presented in a manner that, rather than explore the metaphorical and political significance of Trudy being partially or fully mechanical, at best disregards the parts of her narrative that are at their core about sexism (among other related things), and at worst negates them entirely (i.e. Trudy only thinking and acting how she does because she's a robot malfunctioning and not because the world itself is causing harm and she rightfully wants something more than the role she was forced into, Trudy not even having any real thoughts and feelings of her own, etc.). I just think it kind of sucks to shove all those important things about her aside and say "actually, there's no person suffering here, she's just a robot" and perhaps worse yet to imply that she does have thoughts and feelings but because they result in Weird™ behavior it must be a problem with her code and not at all relate to what women were subjugated to during this point in American history.

CONVERSELY I don't think Trudy being a robot (or at least partially one) at least from what Beth and Will have presented us thus far, inherently suffers from any of these issues? First and foremost because Trudy definitely appears to possess sentience, thoughts, and emotions of her own, matters which immediately complicate her degree of personhood and don't inherently box her behavior in as a bug in her programming rather than an issue with the world she's been put in, quite the opposite in fact! I think they have a very solid groundwork laid out here to make a strong statement with Trudy's narrative (and perhaps ask the question of what is really malfunctioning here), all the more so since [I pull out a Rebecca Swallows-style conspiracy board] I don't think she's entirely robotic in nature? Actually you should just read Mack's tags in this post cause he has great thoughts on the matter (of which those are just some of them), but if I can direct your attention to one thing in particular, it would be Beth's fact (I *believe* from episode 2) about Trudy never graduating high school because of her essay where she suggested that "perhaps women could one day domesticate themselves", a statement that could of course be interpreted a number of ways but ultimately threatened the patriarchal status quo enough (in suggesting women's independence) to cost Trudy her diploma. Taken on its own this fact appears to contradict the theory that Trudy has always been robotic in nature, because it doesn't really make sense that Trudy would have been set up to go through high school (or school at all really) when Tucker's intention was/is for her to be the perfect housewife. You may then suggest that Trudy's memories of this are fabricated and not actually her lived experiences, in which case firstly perhaps you should reread my earlier point on the robot theory being used to actively negate and otherwise disregard the portions of Trudy's narrative that pertain to sexism and feminism, and secondly it really doesn't make any sense to me that Tucker would implant those kind of memories into Trudy's brain? To be completely honest if she's been a robot from the very beginning (rather than someone who became a cyborg, which is what I'm trying to suggest here), then I don't see why Tucker would program her with actual sentience in the first place (suspending my disbelief here with regards to the possibility of programming sentience to begin with). It seems much more likely to me then that Trudy was not always a robot, and instead altered by Tucker to force her into a role of subordination and remedy her """imperfections""". This option is significantly more interesting to me one, because it implies that Trudy has actually lived a life up until the present, full of its own complexities and strife (and dreams, and real actual memories worth exploring, etc.), and hence is not by any means "just a robot", and second because it amplifies the hypothetical statement being made on the lives of the real living women of the era and how they were treated and seen as being "in need of fixing" for not conforming to gender roles or otherwise acting "out of line" with what was expected of them.

OKAY THIS GOT OUT OF HAND SO I'M CUTTING MYSELF OFF HERE but I wanted to my share my current thoughts what with this ending and where I'm at so hopefully that was at least interesting to whoever has chosen to read through this one okay thank you byyyyyyyyye~

[puddingandp1]

perpetually unfinished ref of my unnamed flamingo looney tunes oc i guess. she's mean

her and wigglez would probably get along tho. they have a lot in common it seems. down to having to deal with the wackiness of their friend/boyfriend (caine to wigglez, and yoyo dodo to the flamingo girl, tho in the latter case they're just friends and it's not really a self ship thing like with the former)

[deoidesign]

Y'know something I really love about Tumblr is that it's one of the few sites I can actually SHOW my art.

Everywhere else restricts you to squares or specific rectangles and it's so frustrating. So much art is in all sorts of unique aspect ratios and shapes that most social media is extremely hostile to or straight up won't even allow!

[ask-the-colony-tree-siblings]

dead blog

I’m sorry.

The lack of enthusiasm was making it hard to keep putting in all the effort I did at the start when I got interaction other than likes on my posts. It didn’t seem like people were interested anymore.

With my new hyperfixation, I get tons of people being excited and sharing ideas and writing things in the notes of my posts. It’s so much more fun than posting on here had become.

I’ve tried to not think about this blog too much, just because of the amount of guilt I feel for not posting here anymore has been weighing me down quite a bit lol. Having a 440 follower ask blog for an au you wrote for a fandom you’re no longer hyperfixated on is… yeah.

I’m praying that my stupid brain will suddenly become interested in working on this ask blog again, because I really hate knowing that I’m letting you guys down. I will try to answer a few asks when I get the time to, but in the meantime, I’m sorry again.

[lesbianwyllravengard]

I love how whenever I see people discuss wyllstarion, in the context of "justifying" why one ships it, there's always that of why Astarion would love Wyll, extensively; bringing up that Astarion said he used to dream of marrying men like Wyll, or that Astarion said wants to feed off of Wyll, or that Astarion would want someone chivalrous and kind who would put his needs first and who would respect his boundaries and his past. Astarion is the fave white boy and so he's shipped with many different people, and this is how people who ship wyllstarion express why he'd choose Wyll. But I almost never see extensive explanation of why Wyll would love Astarion, because of course he would. Of course he'd love Astarion.

[sainteclectic]

and btw since I'm posting a lot of wholesoul content (intended as platonic but still), i do want to make it clear: my analysis of whole as a character is purely within the narrative of the story! while i am aware that behind the metaphors is whole is cj himself, that's never what i'm writing whole as in my work. basically I'm using the internal logic of the fiction (whole as viewed by the characters in the album) rather than the reason for the fiction existing (as a fictionalized version of chonny's mental state), just like i do with all the other characters. it's important to make that distinction when you're dealing with a piece of fiction so heavily based on the creator i think. I'll never use cj as a basis for how I write whole because I find that a little off putting tbh ^^;

basically I'm playing with touys. ok? play touys with me

[eventidebrine]

A fact that i think gets lost in a lot of Alice in Wonderland adaptations (ESPECIALLY ones where Alice is a teenager or young adult) is that the reason Alice is treated the way she is throughout the story is because she is a child.

In real life, children are almost never granted an explanation for anything. Any question they have is either given a nonanswer, brushed off and ignored, or met with anger. Children are often believed to be too young to understand things, and so people never try to explain anything to them. Children are also expected to follow any command given to them without complaint, and usually any questioning from a child about a task is seen as being insubordinate.

This is exactly how Alice is treated in Wonderland. No one ever explains anything to her even when she expresses confusion. She is expected to follow every order given even without an explanation as to how or why. This treatment isn't inherent to Wonderland; it's just the average experience of a child.

I personally feel like most adaptaions, in trying to make Wonderland seem stranger or creepier than it is in the original story, often miss this theme. But of course, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, as adaptations are their own stories and should be allowed to omit themes present in the original versions in favor of presenting new ideas. I just think it'd be fun to see more Alice in Wonderland adaptations that highlight the absurdity of our society's treatment and expectations of children.

[sysig]

An eye for a life, unquestionably worth it (Patreon)

[backmarkerr]

please....can u speak on the conspiracy

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

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

.

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

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

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

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

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

[x] what on earth...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So why did they do this?

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

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

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

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

[from the book The Unknown Kimi Raikkonen]

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

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

[x]

[x]

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

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

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

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

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

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