#that we didnt have because covid and then the war

[goatboard]

sorry for venting so much on this blog recently but im not gonna stop

[the-empress-7]

I vaguely remember the discussion but not the article itself. I remember us talking about how Harry is a toddler that when told he can't steal his brother's toy truck, forcibly grabs it and breaks it instead. The classic trope of If I can't have it, neither can you!

It was anon on Soap’s blog:

Don’t ask me how I know this, because then people will figure it out

But heres something:

1. Meghan &Harry attacked Anne when they said about the colour of baby thing. H&M wanted same titles for their children as Will and Kate's children. Which means: Two princess royals. When this topic came to Anne: She said u cant change the system. And its ridiculous.

2. Family didnt want Harry cut off. Kate phoned Harry as a last ditch effort for reconciliation. She literally begged Harry not to attack Monarchy in times of covid as tourism is hurt and also Brexit. She even reminded him of last Russian Tsar and said that fate could befall his nephews should racism allegations hold ground. To this Meghan took phone and called Kate a manipulator and said, "May be the Cambs are supposed to pay for the crimes of their ancestors" and cut the call.

3. H&M will lobby for republic next. He WILL attend Diana's statue unvieling.They want to build their brand aroundDiana's work.

4. Meghan thinks she's more loved and better than Diana.

Pd. I doubt it’s true tho, but it was sent after the Oprah interview. Also, I don’t know if you want to post this, since some Caroleans follow some of these blogs and they read everything with they can attack Catherine, if the read this, they will believe it and say that she wants reconciliation or else

Holy shit, how did I miss this? Do I believe any of this to be true? Not 100% of it, but I do think 90% is true.

It wasn't just about the titles for the kids. She wanted a Princess title of her own to be on the same footing as The Princess of Wales. But it never occurred to me that she would have wanted Lil D to be Princess Royal too! But fuck I can totally belleve it, cause Rachel is insane.

I do believe that Kate begged Harry to stop going down the war path many times. That all ended after the Oprah interview. That's the day Kate permanently wrote Harry off from her life, and the life of her husband for that matter.

This turned out to be true given the events of the past few years, They tried, but failed.

We know this one is true for a fact because of what Harry wrote in the Spare and even before that, because of what she briefed to Scooby for Finding Freedom.

PS: I am posting this because I am not afraid of Chuck's Stans. Time continues to proves the Waleses right about everything.

[necrocrunk]

thats it i AM going to post this draft:

can i be honest. the “americans dont give a shit about (insert whatever thing) until it affects them” is so stupid and specifically treats americans like we just dont have any problems and also hate everyone else. the individualistic vocal minority who are fucking batshit are disliked by Most People. they just are so aggressively disliked that algorithms prioritize showing their content for clicks and views. like,. you realize we also have problems

the wildfires are happening and people are worried about their lung health esp in a country where covid was genuinely not handled well and left people with lasting lung issues. the fact is we literally DO NOT KNOW these things are happening in most cases! but this is one that directly affects us so of course we’re speaking about it! why are you acting like it’s genuinely a move of weird nationalism that we “didnt care about the wildfires till now”??

additionally, the way that non-americans joke about america in making fun of things that americans have no grasp, bearing, or ability to change is so fucking infuriating. do you think we all like the lack of gun control? that protesting isn’t genuinely a risk of your life, being charged with a felony or considered a terrorist (and having a felony means you cant vote AND some jobs can deny you employment, meaning you cant support yourself or family or make any meaningful votes against the people who put those laws in place). the creators of the BLM movement were all found dead by things like fires in their cars and ruled suicides. you dont think it’s real odd that that shit happens and nothing is done? protesting is something people ARE doing right now and are brave enough to do, but even in the last few months protesters have been killed. it is necessary to protest but it has very very real danger behind it. its not a silly thing we do

americans do have a habit of being american based, and thats understandable! because its almost like the media in every country is focused on their country and what is happening within it. our country is huge, bigger than so so many, and there is a Lot going on. a lot to keep up with. additionally, just because you didn’t see some fucking guilt trippy post about it on tumblr or twitter yet does NOT mean people arent talking about it. trying going outside.

additionally, the way that people SPECIFICALLY seem to rag on things from the south and tear down the south, when the south has an incredibly high population of minorities that define anything from culture to the food common here? remember that british mf making of exclusively southern foods? that the shit im talking about. it’s this weird... xenophobia that especially europeans seem to level at americans as if we are too stupid and fat to function.

i understand that america sucks and america is terrible to other countries and i fully support tearing down the war crimes,etc america has committed for ex and overall complaining about your experience w americans. but throwing punches at the american people who literally have NO CHOICE but to just BE here (its VERY EXPENSIVE to emigrate !) is literally punching down. none of us like living in the middle of late stage capitalism man. it sucks. what do you win for making fun of us.

[caz-is-gay]

so. currently actually sobbing bc i made the horrible decision to look through techno’s channel. i saw the gravity mod vid he posted after the announcement that he had cancer. i remember being so happy. sbi content! god. i still haven’t watched the video. yknow the one. a year ago i tried to watch squids video on part of the potato war. i didnt get 3 mins in b4 i heard his voice (he was celebrating!! he was happy!) and started crying. maybe in a decade ill be able to watch it and smile. and ill be able to watch the new one, and old ones and laugh like i used to. i looked through the community posts. he really loved birds, didnt he? i feel so bad for his dad.

june 2022. worst month of my life i think. everything happened at once. on june 1st lizzy was over. i was so desperately in love with her. still in denial about the inevitable friend zone. we went to zydecos grad party! she left halfway through to call her ex. they got back together. the facade was broken. obviously she didn’t like me back and anything romantic with her is a pipe dream. (i mean who would ever love to be attracted to an ugly fat pig like me?) so lizzy is over. im trying to ignore the heartbreak. then i hear the news. techno died. my sister hears it from a friend and tells me. the ppl we have over dont get it. they dont get why it hits me so hard, and god i dont want to explain it. so i pretend im fine. keep hosting, keep being nice. every second is agony! i cry myself to sleep. that had stopped a few months ago. i wasnt suicidal anymore but god. 2 weeks later im starting to back to *normal* levels of summer break depression. my dad finds out. he loved techno. im gone again. my mom fonds out, she doesn’t know who he is., doesn’t know the other 3 ppl at the table have already been grieving. shes lost so many to cancer. “did you hear about that minecraft youtuber who died of cancer? he was only 23, its so sad” i didnt know what to say. “yes i watched him everyday for 4 years his videos were the only thing that could get me to sleep when i started having suicidal thoughts if not for him i wouldn’t be here and now he dead.” yeah.

i still didn’t get over lizzy for months. fantasizing about a life with her was my escape. it was unrealistic and i couldn’t think about her like that anymore. then my dad brought covid home from work. june 23rd, my mom almost dies. thats the worst day of my life. it was mcc day. i was watching it on my tv, because my dad went to see his parents and mom was sick. she had been in bed for days. she got sick a lot. she had bronchitis for 10 years at this point. i was taking care of her. she was obviously delirious. asking me to pour water on her because she was so hot. i didnt know what to do. i waited for so long. i couldn’t deal with this right now i needed to de stress not have more. it got too much, i called my dad and he said she must have high blood sugar. fuck. i looked at her insulin log, nothing written for 2 days. fuck fuck fuck. he told me, if she cant draw her own blood for a reading, call 911. so we did. she could have died. if i waited any longer she could have passed out and stopped breathing. she went to the hospital. medically induced coma, intubated. she had told us many times shed rather die than be on a ventilator. none of us mentioned it. she was in a coma for 2 weeks. woke up, had to be in vent for longer. she was finally extubated. she couldn’t talk but she managed to be sarcastic still. i had to hold back tears. best day of my life.

that month changed the course of my life forever. my disability was most likely caused by the mild covid infection i got b4 my mom got sick. my mom doesn’t have a fungal lung infection anymore. my parents are sleeping in the same room again, and going to therapy. my mom has a cgm and a cpap and is on top of her health.

i cant stand the sounds of artificial breathing after sitting next to her for so long. im more afraid of my future than ever. im still getting over my best friend (fuck being demiromantic man) and i am still crying over technoblade.

[15ktherapy]

just had a recollection of the best fic idea I ever had but I don’t have the writing chops for it which is just so so so sad. anyway.

NON FAMOUS AU! POST COVID! dnf never got famous but they still want to end up living together anyway bc theyre D N F. the us visa process is a pain in the ass. they can’t get mr beast to write a letter of recommendation… SOOOOO!!!!!!! they go. on a fucking game show. imagine 90day fiancé but better in everyway and also a competition. it’s for couples who want an extra boost on their visas, so they sign up on a competition show to like. prove how much they love each other and shit. im talking team building exercises, how much do they know about each other?, all that fun stupid shit.

the thing is for COUPLES. but because of a lot of the “do you know and trust each other?” bits Besties can do Very Well None The Less.

BRING IN THE SOCMED SHIT.

there’s like twenty people on this fandom twt tag for this show. the general consensus is that dnf are just besties doing the “nooo we’re totally dating” game hack. but there’s ike two truthers who KNOW. they’re like NO THEYRE GAY I FEEL IT IN MY SOUL. everyone’s like whatever! there’s like six people who have their suspicions but they’re not on that truther shit (boring!)

so a lot of the show goes on, dnf do Very Really Well, they clearly do love and really care for each other so even if the consensus is that they’re not actually dating they’re the fan faves and they should win.

UNTIL. UNTILLLLLL. we get some sneak shot BULLSHIT straight out of THE OFFICE of them clearly being romantic. the truthers go WIIIILD. “I KNEW IT I KNEW IT WHAT DID WE TELL YOU GUYS!!!! THEYRE GAY LOL.” the suspicion havers are like “I KNEW IT TOO I JUST DIDNT WANT TO SAY ANYTHING.” bring in a mini war. some shade. yada yada. there’s probably like seven people who were too dedicated to a “they’re just friends” argument earlier on in the season who go delulu all “THAT COULD BE PLATONIC THAT COULD BE PLATONIC” (it could not be platonic.) who just will not admit that they were wrong.

anyway dnf were dating the whole time they were just being private about it and it’s hilarious. maybe viewers even boost… Maybe the twt fandom size doubles…. oh my god game show dnfers…. it’s not dnf though it’s gay. the ship name is gay. everyone laughs forever.

anyway and then dnf win the show and live together happily ever after with a green card <3

[the1975attheirverybest]

the point about throwaway terms is very fucking valid like i am fucking sick of seeing stuff about intrusive thoughts when it is just impulsive like intrusive thoughts are like "what if i poured boiling water on my cat" (not a literal example but that kind of thing) and they fucking suck and you feel horrific not just being silly and goofy

but i think the thing about gen z not being able to define itself it interesting as well because with social media there is no one thing you sit down as a generation and watch or take part in. there isnt really a top of the pops or a similar culturally defining piece of media other than say tiktok. but its also very easy to look at tiktok and see it as the face of gen z when i find most of the time it represents a small demographic of rich americans as opposed to the majority of gen z. like as a British person social media is very clearly dominated by americans

i also think there is something to be said about criticising gen z for being critical of older generations but consuming the media when we as a generation have been constantly harped on for being shit, have dealt with social media and being conscious of every political happening all at once from the age of 12, the housing crisis, brexit, the shortcomings of the education system, covid, and i could probably go on but all before even leaving school? and yet we are the generation that gets the piss taken out of us? like yes we fucking suck but also like come on. im not trying to say look at us we have it so hard because we didnt deal with world war two or the cold war or the 2008 financial crisis or 9/11 but we were also like 14 and witness to war nearly being started because of twitter and laying in bed at 15 watching black people being violently murdered and 16 trying to sleep after being told on the internet that if we dont post about everything happening ever you are a bad person, but our problem is not being able to define ourselves culturally? or trying to find an alternative to the present by looking back to the past that has been glorified by previous generations? like i dont think i can explain how mentally damaging waking up to find out that a bill allowing oil drilling in the arctic which will destroy the earth has been passed but still having to get up, go to school and pretend that fucking a levels matter before having any sort of life achievements is

sorry if this comes off as preachy but im just a little tired of older generations being seeming incapable of empathy sometimes - 🐸

No, you’re right! I mean, it’s very easy for us older folks who have done most of our growing up already to look back and say “they should be doing X or y” when….if that were true then we wouldn’t have “failed” before y’all even came along, haha. I think when we criticize gen z, there are two types of criticism:

1) where it’s just old people being afraid of change. Like, espcially socio-politically. It’s clear that the systems we have no HAVE FAILED CATASTROPHICALLY otherwise there wouldn’t be a recession, so much fascism etc. and it’s time for something radically different and older people don’t get the urgency of that as much as younger people do. Which is a cheap kind of criticism. Like, if you won’t support the kids then get the fuck out of their way. Cuz they’re gonna change the future with or without you. You’re just making it slower/harder for them.

2) criticism that recognizes some gen z movements as overcompensation or over correction of something that we ourselves have tried to fix before. It’s no huge secret that every generation develops its beliefs, aesthetic preferences, political ideals, etc in response to what came before it. Not just gen z. We millennials did it, too. And so did gen X and boomers…I think all the way back to at least the Reagan administration, here in the US anyways, things have been…on the downhill HAHA. and each generation tries to do something about. Then the next one comes along and is like “alright they tried X and failed, what if we try Y?” And sometimes we recognize the younger generations mistakes cuz we have made them, too and we just wanna be like “bro, no, no. Trust me. That’s not gonna work. You’ll see it when you’re older and you’re looking back at the generation after you too.” Those criticisms, I think, are fair. And might even help future kids if they listen.

But, at least for me, and I won’t speak for my entire generation or for those before me, my criticism doesn’t mean I don’t empathize. One of my fav Notes tracks is “People” purely because of the “stop fucking with the kids.” Young people have always been the face of change. They are usually the demographic that votes one party in and the other out. Conservatives always win only when they oppress the youth and appeal to the fear of old people. They’re on the edge of fashion, art, pop culture. So, I know better than to be dismissive of young people! Never! It’s just, sometimes I see the mistakes happening and I’m like “ohhh noooo stop before it’s too late” haha.

[dear-ao3]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Stake F1 Team KICK Sauber (@stakef1team)

boy was it fucking ever. welcome back everyone to monaco. The Race on the calendar. today is june 2, 2024 and lets fucking go shall we

(yeah i know its a week late, what did you expect?)

first, before we can get into monaco, a few last updates from imola:

valtteri was actually at williams to get coffee and not have a meeting with james vowels because his coffee machine shorted a circuit that was also hooked up to max's sim racing rig for the weekend and he talked about it in a stream

max and valtteris senna shirts were aparently stolen, hence why they weren't wearing them in the photo

aparently i linked the wrong video in the imola update of max running with the pizza, i found that clip again and it is here. i still have a lot of questions about it and no answers.

and now your regularly scheduled programming. we started the week out strong, with an adoption.

as you might know, oscar has been playing mr worldwide, mr 305 in terms of finding reasons to make every race his home race. and well, this exchange happened on twitter at the beginning of the week:

i do not think that leo ever actually popped to mclaren actually, sadly.

oscars mom of course had a few questions:

but reguardless, he was seemingly adopted into the leclerc family and set about exploring his new homeland on instagram:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Oscar Piastri (@oscarpiastri)

his next post was him enjoying the view with the caption "Finding my Monégasque roots"

(as an aside, people also started changing charles's wikipedia page to reflect his new son, but the page was locked soon after, with lorenzo no longer being listed as his brother now. he was a casualty in the war.)

but this whole interaction was very funny for two reasons

it continues to provide evidence to the rumored fact that carlos and charles actually do not get along

it bring up once again the discussion of the Monaco Curse

its been long speculated that carlos and charles dont actually like eachother very much and the relationship they have on camera is for pr only (i think this was captained by one of their moms liking tweets about how the teammate was bad or something?? i dont remember, and lets not forget nico rosberg comparing them to 2016 nico rosberg and lewis hamilton and commenting on their "driving feud" in china, if anyone knows a teammate feud its him).

anyway. charles publicly "adopting" oscar, just a few days after he had his second battle of the season with carlos and ultimately cost carlos points and places in not one but two races was kind of a very hilarious fuck you to carlos by charles. like a "hey man i know you hate this guy but im about to do the funniest fucking thing"

and then we have the Curse.

the monaco curse.

which applies to pretty much charles only.

essentially, charles has never once ever had a good race in monaco. ever. at all. take a look at his stats:

2017: f2 race, DNF 2018: f1 race, DNF 2019: f1 race, DNF 2020: no monaco race due to covid 2021: f1 race, DNS (notably, he had qualified on pole position this year and monaco is a hard track to overtake on so qualifying is very important but he had a crash in qualifying after he set his pole lap and the car had to get fixed, but there were problems with it that they didnt realize because the gear box blew out on the formation lap of the race) 2022: monaco historic race, crash 2022: f1 race, p4 (from pole) 2023: f1 race, p6

and if charles has adopted oscar, does that mean that oscar is going to get the curse? whos to say.

what we Do know though is that the ferrari has upgrades that seem to work (at least by imola standards) and they are bringing a new rear wing to monaco that will get them a bit more downforce (make car go faster) which is Very Exciting for charles, this could be the year he finally defeats the curse!!

(though carlos did say that the new upgrade package that ferrari is running is "not optimized for monaco" because of the track layout. helmut marko though (one of the red bull higher ups in case you forgot, we havent mentioned him in a whole hot minute but hes making a valiant reappearance on this post) said about monaco "it will be one of the most difficult races for us, due to the bumps and the curbs. i expect a lot from ferrari, and especially from leclerc")

but before we get into the nitty gritty of monaco, the rest of the media day sillies. because believe it or not, charles is still not off the hook here.

so george russell. i dont think we've talked about him an abundant amount as of recently, aside from him being utterly unbothered about the whole Whos Getting A Mercedes Seat situation, but he is a total and absolute menace. legitimately.

first, i think ive said this before, george had a tumblr back in the day. its unclear if he still ever goes on it but he did definitely have one which is hilarious. also hes a power point king. aparently part of the reason he got signed to mercedes (?) (i think it was mercedes) was because he made a power point presentation for toto wolff explaining why he would be a good fit for the team. legitimately. he also made a powerpoint for alex and lando back in 2019 explaining why he should be rookie of the year (he didnt win rookie of the year, lando did, probably because lando was in a slightly better car). anyway. hes a menace. and like all good menaces, he has receipts.

at the press conference on thursday charles was talking about his favorite movies and was talking about harry potter and how well he knew the movies as a small child. george very politely waited his turn to say that one of the first videos he has on his phone is a video from 2012 when they were all still in karting where charles is pretending to be a wizard on a broomstick.

max (and the interviewer) expressed their desire to see the video and that george should post it. charles said "keep that video to yourself."

george did pull out the video and we got a little sneak peek of baby charles on a broom stick

yes, this is a very serious sport, why do you ask?

zhou posted ai photos of his cat sweet corn in the paddock with him. i cant find them right now, trust me that it happened.

mclaren were the only team running a special livery and no, it was not a historic one like their monaco merch would have suggested, but a teen and yellow one for ayrton senna, who dominated at monaco. the car itself was fine:

the suits looked like sprite cans

both lando and oscar ran special senna themed helmets and oscar ended up auctioning off one of his for the senna foundation.

and of course, we had our weekly game of Can You Guess What The Weather Is Based On What Lando And Oscar Wear To The Track? the answer was again, of course, like always, no!

also on the outfit game of course, as always was sir lewis hamilton. and he was back on his tit agenda. the general reaction was this:

tho he did have one outfit that was giving Oh No My Husband Just Died Of Mysterious Circumstances!

and, williams decided to put the duracell bunny on their car:

but now for the real news. what everyone wants. silly season.

i know i said last week silly season was properly sillying but now were seemingly in the full swing. no one is safe. so lets just run down the whole line and get a general refresher of what the hell is happening.

lando: signed with mclaren, through at least 2027

oscar: signed with mclaren, through 2026

charles: signed with ferrari through 2029

lewis: signed with ferrari through probably 2026

fernando: signed with aston for some period of time

nico: signed with stake (audi) through 2026 at least

lance: hasn't been officially announced but hes likely staying at aston cause his dad owns the team

alex: signed an extension with williams through 2026

george: signed with mercedes through 2025

and then shit really hits the fan

there are 11 remaining seats, no one has officially announced retirement and there is speculation that several rookies or ex drivers could be making a reappearance in 2025, meaning some people are going to end up without a seat. and its an absolute mess, but i will do my damn best to straighten it out

starting with max verstappen, who seems to be the person that everyone is waiting on. technically yes max has a red bull contract until 2028 but there has been speculation that he might leave following the whole Jos and Christian Fiasco post the Harassment Allegations. max has sort of kind of said he doesnt want to leave, but that hasn't stopped the rumors and also hasn't stopped red bull from keeping their options open should max decide that he wants to leave. lets also remember that adrian newey left the team and max won the imola race by .7 seconds. and im decently sure that if the red bull isn't a championship contending car, max can leave the team. where would he go? probably mercedes at least according to the rumors of toto wolff wanting to sign him and give him an insane amount of money, but none of that hasn't been confirmed and right now there mercedes is more shit than the red bull by an absolute long shot.

also in contention for the mercedes seat is kimi antonelli, current f2 driver. hes in his rookie f2 season but is generally regarded as the next max verstappen, as we know toto missed out on signing max several years ago to horner and isn't keen on repeating that mistake again. lewis hamilton also has said that he supports toto signing kimi and kimi seems to be the favored choice for the second mercedes seat, even over carlos sainz. arlos could also reported even go back rb and wait for a seat to open up at red bull, though again this seems unlikely.

reportedly toto and mercedes have lost interest in carlos and so has red bull, leaving his only option as stake/audi, which he doesnt seem to be too pleased about. aparently they also want an answer from carlos this weekend. there are some rumors though that carlos has been talking to williams as well, though james vowels kind of denied this during practice 1 this weekend when he was asked about it and said "carlos who?" logan sargeant is definitely at risk at williams and likely wont get re signed there.

and if carlos doesnt sign with stake/audi then they have to look for someone else, yuki tsunoda being one of the options.

and red bull are no longer interested in carlos because it seems like they are going to re sign checo perez as their second driver because he has been consistent all season so far (but usually checo is good at the beginning and then falls off) and reportedly they have offered him a one year contract, which he has also reportedly countered for a 2 year contract (interesting if this is true cause remember alex albon signed an extension with williams and red bull at one point wanted first refusal of him for 2026 so if they were only ever going to sign a one year with checo then why did alex extend at williams?? all questions we will not get answers to). aparently according to helmut marko, yuki tsunoda could be an option for red bull as well, given how well he has been doing at rb. daniel ricciardo seems an unlikely option for red bull, tho later in the week it was said that yuki was no longer an option but daniel was, though there are rumors that his contract says he is set to stay at rb or red bull, but given his recent performance he is unlikely to move up to red bull.

yuki tsunoda on the other hand has some options outside of rb, such as aston and haas. though for yuki to sign at aston would mean that lance stroll would be leaving the team which seems unlikely while his dad owns it. and lets not forget liam lawson who was also all but gaurenteed an rb seat for 2025 by helmut marko and remember that he did manage to knock max out of qualifying in singapore last year when he was subbing in for daniel.

haas though has several options for drivers. they have one confirmed open seat because nico went to stake/audi which is likely going to get filled by ollie bearman, currently in f2 (kimi's teammate) and the haas/ferrari reserve driver. he has 6 practice sessions with haas this year and has so far done one of them, hes also driven in an f1 race for carlos in saudi arabia and finished in the points. kevin magnussen does not seem like he is going to get re signed because of all the penalty points that he has accumulated so far this season (10) and if he doesnt get re signed at haas several drivers have reportedly been talking to haas, like zhou guanyu, esteban ocon, logan sargeant, yuki tsunoda, and valtteri bottas. it is unlikely that haas will sign two rookies as they have done this before and it hasn't worked out for them.

valtteri bottas has also reportedly had negotiations with williams (but most of this seems to stem from last weekend when he was in fact going to the williams hospitality to get coffee), and he could also be in talks with alpine. but alpine seem to be looking at mick schumacher as a potential driver for 2025 (mick was previously a hass driver from 2021-22 and is the mercedes reserve driver currently but has done a bunch of endurance testing at alpine, also mercedes had him do testing to compare his performance directly to kimis recently, or maybe its coming up??)

and of the two current alpine drivers, pierre gasly seems less likey to resign with the team because lets remember that when he signed with them two years ago they were fighting for fourth in the championship and now they are pretty much the slowest car on the grid. as for esteban ocon he seems to still view himself as a mercedes junior driver who could still be in contention for the second merc seat, its unclear if he will stay at alpine though it seems like he is getting favored over pierre there. or at least he was until the race this weekend...more on that later.

make sense? clear as mud? perfect!

certainly we are in the thick of everything here. and were heading into monaco, one of the techiest tracks on the calendar. could be a great opportunity to prove yourself.

what makes monaco so challenging? well it is a street circuit through the streets of monte carlo. its i think the oldest track on the calendar and i also think has been used pretty much every year of f1. all the greats have won in monaco.

since its a tight street circuit, passing is very hard. theres elevation changes, theres a tunnel, theres tight turns, theres the slowest turn on the calendar at this track. its a slow speed track, meaning that they are not pushing their cars to the limits. the top speed here is only about 192MPH (significantly slower than other tracks) and all bets are off if its raining. pierre once said in an episode of drive to survive that monaco in the rain is the level on the video game that everyone crashes during, and they get to do it in real life.

charles, as we already know has had absolutely shit ass luck here and after 2021 after his DNS he tweeted this:

checo has also had weird luck in monaco. he won monaco in 2022 (after crashing in q3 of qualifying and ending the session early, mainly meaning that he was going to be starting 5th and ahead of max who could not complete another qualifying lap in order to get pole, there was speculation that he did this on purpose). after he won he was given a contract extension at red bull (which is taking him through the end of this year) but! it has been heavily speculated that he also cheated on his wife after he won in monaco, because there was footage that circulated of him partying and dancing with several women very closely. he claimed that that was not true, but again that has never been distinctly proven to have been true in the first place. in 2023 he qualified 20th and ended 16th. would the bad luck for him continue? idk i guess we will find out!

one person who has managed to defeat their monaco curse though was daniel ricciardo back in 2018. this was when he was still racing for red bull. in 2016 he had been set to win but got fucked on his pit stop because they didn't have the tires ready for him and he came out of the pits too late. in 2018, which was during the peak red bull v rennault engine woes, his engine went and could pretty much only operate in 2 gears (not ideal for an f1 car) (and especially when the monaco track requires a good 40+ gear changes PER LAP) but he didnt retire the car because he was leading the race and managed to hold off sebastian vettel (in a ferrari!) and win. this is where we got the infamous pool dive pics:

and yes, i probably have told this story before, but i am telling it again because its my post and its a good story. of course after this he signed with renault and everything went downhill from there.

but enough about the past. lets get into the present. starting with. practice.

i only watched practice 1 because i was on a train and the internet connection was bad At Best, but i feel like i got all I really needed to know from that.

we had three people in the box: anthony davidson, natalie pinkham and eventually they were joined by jenson button. this was a good and actually very informative practice session because anthony and jenson were both formula drivers who had driven around monaco in the car before.

(as an aside, nico rosberg was in the paddock for the monaco race, on account of the fact that he lives there, but he was not in the box, he was there with his company (?) rosberg ventures, his wife, and his commitment to looking like he has just stepped off of a boat at all times:)

(people also claimed that nico and lewis spoke to eachother in the background of a sky sports germany streaming clip, but no one could find the footage)

now, the interesting thing about monaco, according to anthony and jenson, is that the drivers cant do a track walk before the race because its a street circuit and monaco is pretty much the race track, some casinos, and very little else. so they only close the street for the race. so practice is very very important.

monaco is also an outlier track on the calendar because of how slow and techy it is. so every team brought a Monaco Specific High Downforce Rear Wing (to make car go faster) but no matter how good your rear wing is, if you get stuck in traffic on your qualifying lap then youre royally fucked.

(well, nearly everyone had a monaco specific rear wing, it was much later revealed that logan was using a 2023 rear wing because williams is still short on parts. whos suprised? literally no one)

according to jenson button, one thing is key in monaco and that is bravery. there are not many options to overtake, and if you get the opportunity you do. you also have to nearly clip the walls to make sure you are going as fast as you can and getting the best line. but at the same time, "one tiny slip up can cost you 2 or 3 places." so it is very important that you are on the top of your game.

so. monaco is about qualifying. often, whoever gets pole usually wins the race. with some exceptions, but this is true for the most part. so again, practice is important. and its important that you get as much practice in as possible, something that pierre gasley could not do because his car had a power unit issue and spent most of the session taken apart in pieces in the garage. ferrari were clear favorites heading into the weekend with their most recent batch of upgrades, as were mclaren (who were taking all of the curbs well, as in they could handle driving over them whereas some of the other cars couldnt). red bull were not. max even said "the car is on a knifes edge mate." but lets remember that max often complains to hell and back during parctice and then manages to qualify on pole. so dont get your hopes up (yet)

by far, the most interesting part of practice 1 was when they talked to mr james vowels, who was on pit wall call duty this weekend. mr vowels as we know is the williams team principal. and he was very "cautiously optimistic" about the weekend because the car was "well suited here."

they asked him if he was in talks with carlos, and he had the audacity to say "carlos who?" which is an interesting tactic. especially when its kinda down to either stake or williams for carlos cause he rejected everywhere else. he also continued his icon behavior while talking about vcarb, saying "dont ask me what they're called. alpha tauri, visa cash app, buy one get one free." and weirdly, he was not the only person to shit on a team name this weekend because ted managed to call alpine renault. alpine has not been renault since 2020.

charles's monaco curse made a brief appearance in the form of running over a bit of zhou's front wing and damaging his car, redflagging the session for everyone. they used this time to have a very very long pan to mark webber.

and. most interestingly. jos verstappen was back. for the first time since bahrain. this is interesting cause hes usually in the paddock a bit more than this, but he and horner were feuding for awhile, so maybe this means that everything has settled? whos to say, it is formula 1 after all. anything is possible!

and the f1 official account took that literally, as this was how they displayed oscar's name on the official practice 1 time boards:

even oscar was shocked:

oscars mom was so shocked that she adopted yuki

i dont think that yuki ever actually responded to this, but it was still nevertheless hilarious.

charles, meanwhile, who ended the session with damage on his car from the debris incident was less pleased with the results but still played along with the bit:

charles then got his revenge by coming in first in practice 2 and 3. mercedes also, weirdly was near the top. perhaps they were done being shit. perhaps it was too early to tell. any way you spin it, it was time for qualifying.

and this boat was so excited about qualifying that it beached itself like a whale.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by SOFIA (@sofiasf1diary)

but anyway. qualifying.

and as christian horner said. "this race will be won in qualifying." because its hard to pass.

there was much at stake. such as if max verstappen were to get pole it would be his 9th consecutive pole position, which im pretty sure was either going to create a new record or tie with someone else's.

but first they had to get through q1. which was very hard to do, mostly because of traffic.

as we know. f1 cars want to go fast. monaco is tight, it is twisty, its relatively low speed and its a shorter track. and if everyone is trying to go as fast as humanly possible, it can be a bit tricky. the best they can get is a 3.6 second gap between each car, and that is if everyone was driving exactly equidistantly.

ted, down in the pit lane, came on the radio and said that when the broadcast was playing the intro (which he sang), everyone started pulling out of their garages and into the pit lane, then turned off their engines and sat in a "super market traffic jam queue" to reserve their spot to exit onto the track, so that they had as much time as possible.

and a short while later, our first batch of drivers were out: alonso, sargeant, perez, bottas, and zhou.

yes that is right, bit fernando alonso and checo perez were out in q1.

checo's radio about the ordeal was... interesting. "what a joke, fuck....ha." and personally i dont think that the red bull pit wall found any of it particularly hilarious, especially considering logan sargeant was able to go faster than him with LAST YEARS REAR WING.

they all lined up again for q2.

max and charles, notably, were on the same set of tires that they had been in in q1, so that they would have an extra set for q3, as the two of them would be battling it out for pole position.

aside from them, both of the alpines were in q2 as were both of the haas.

but all of that turned out be fruitless, except for pierre, who made it through to q3 and he was Thrilled. also through for the first time this season was alex albon, who was also Thrilled..

ocon, hulkenberg, ricciardo, stroll and magnussen were all out.

into q3.

max and charles were duking it out for pole position, but chasing them was none other than oscar piastri, also desperately trying to get his first career pole. and max was was still having problems. and red bull couldnt fix it. heading into the very last minute, the last lap, charles was in provisional pole, with oscar second, carlos third and lando fourth. max was on his last lap, flying around the track until his radio crackled to life with "ive hit the wall. man this car is slippery."

and so with max tapping the wall, he aborted his lap, putting him down in sixth spot. which meant we had a double lecerlc front row!!! a father son lockout !!!!

arthur and oscar continued the bit

they even shit on the joke in the press conference:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by FORMULA 1® (@f1)

oscar and carlos also seemingly ignored eachother in the immediate post interviews that they do on the track, but i cant find the clip so you'll just have to trust me

meanwhile, max was asked about his qualifying session and he said: "i would happily invite everyone in this paddock to drive that car and try to go faster than me"

and, when asked what he could do from p6, he said: "not much, we'll see. but I don't really care, haha!"

two people who Did care about qualifying were nico hulkenberg and kevin magnussen. who got disqualified from qualifying because their rear wings were slightly too wide.

surprisingly, the disgraced ex has team principal, gunther steiner, had something to say abut the incident:

so nico and kevin were both starting in the pit lane.

everyone else lined up for the race:

p1: charles p2: oscar p3: carlos p4: lando p5: george p6: max p7: lewis p8: yuki p9: alex p10: pierre p11: esteban p12: daniel p13: lance p14: fernando p15: logan p16: checo p17: valtteri p18: zhou

thankfully, everyone was able to survive the formation lap with no gearbox blowouts. lap one though, was a very different story.

first, carlos got a puncture. he and oscar had contact during the beginning of the lap and carlos fell back in the order, which is absolutely disastrous for monaco.

but then! a red flag was called! and it wasnt for carlos, it was for an incident between checo, kevin and nico. essentially, kevin tried to pass checo, but there was not enough space, so he ended up ramming into him, nico tried to get past them and instead got involved in the scuffle.

later, checo was adamant that he had not seen kevin, saying that: "if you saw my onboard, at no point do you see kevins car. not even close to being alongside me...there was just simply no room for both cars"

meanwhile kevin said: "he clears wasnt leaving space, i thought he would...my whole front wheel was ahead of his rear wheel...he just squeezed me into the wall."

nico, who was just collateral in the whole thing only said "ah damnit, that was unnecessary."

so it was a disappointing monaco race for both haas drivers, who found themselves out after also being DSQd from qualifying. and it seemed that checo was continuing his shitty monaco streak. perhaps this was the universe getting back at him for probably cheating on his wife.

anyway, everyone was wondering what the stewards were going to say about the ordeal because, as we know, kevin magnussen is only 2 penalty points away from missing a race. but the stewards elected to not pursue the incident further and no one received any penalties for the accident.

the marshals though decided to pose with checo's wrecked red bull:

the wrecked red bull in question:

but there was still one more lap one incident! and that was esteban ocon playing bumper cars with pierre gasley:

(that is esteban's alpine in the air)

pierre was rightfully pissed off, especially considering that he had gotten his highest start of the whole season, saying over the radio: "what did he do! what did he do! why did he try to attack me? oh my gosh! the whole car is damaged now"

later, pierre told the press:

“I’m just disappointed, you know. I’m just disappointed with Esteban, and it should not happen. And for the team, we’ve got 1200 people working for us. And we can’t afford to have this sort of behaviour. We had clear instructions before the race, and this hasn’t been respected. You should never take that much risk, take both cars out with your teammate. I’m sure it will be discussed, and we can’t afford to have a similar situation in the future.”

fortunately for pierre, they were able to fix his car during the red flag. unfortunately for esteban, they were not able to fix his and he had to retire from the race.

Esteban totally owned up to this as his own mistake on twitter, saying "today's incident was my fault, the gap was too small in the end and i apologize to the team on this one"

alpine team principal bruno famin was later quoted as saying the following about the incident (and i am pretty decently sure that this was a translation from french)":

“it’s exactly what we didn’t want to see. Esteban’s attack was totally out of circumstances. We will draw the consequences, we will decide straight away. If we were fighting for a podium finish at the end of the race, why not, and still… But there, on the first lap, at Le Portier, frankly, it wasn’t the place to make an attack, leaving zero room for his teammate.”

everyone took this to mean that esteban could be benched for Canada, the next race. there was mass speculation whether or not it was going to be mick schumacher or jack doohan subbing in for him at the Canadian gp, and aparently people got really mean to esteban about it because later in the week he came out with this statement. and because we live in a world where i cant update this post on time to save my life, i will include it here:

"much has been said in the aftermath of the monaco gp. while i have received many messages of support, i have been deeply saddened by the amount of abuse and negativity that i have received online regarding my character, my driving, and my career. thanks to the bard work, support and sacrifices of many people, ive raced in over 140 gps so far since my debut in 2016. i have always been a tough competitor, and, like most drivers, ive had my share of incidents. i have been lucy to race alongside talented and experienced teammates, including race winners daniel, checo and pierre and a double champion in fernando. as teammates, we would often start races very close to eachother which in some cases meant some tough battles on track, and sometimes contact. of course, i have made honest mistakes. we are not robots; we are athletes pushing ourselves to the limit every day to achieve our dreams of winning races. f1 is a sport where emotions run high, and passions run deep. i see and feel this every weekend at the track and on social media... the good and the bad. but the misinformed statements and gross distortions that i have seen online in recent days about my ability to work with a team have been inaccurate, hurtful and damaging. since my first laps in motorsport, i have approached this sport with humility, professionalism, and respect. these values were instilled in me from a very young age. while each driver chases individual glory, this will always be a team sport first and foremost. i have always followed to instructions i have been given and raced to achieve the maximum for and with my team. i took responsibility for the incident on lap 1 last Sunday an, despite my DNF, i am glad the team added a point to the tally in what has been a difficult start to the season for all of us. I respect pierre as a teammate and as a competitor. we have always worked collaboratively and professionally inside the team, and this will continue to be the case. there is no reward without risk in formula one - and race starts are intense, even more so in monaco where the opening lap can dictate your finishing result. in the end, we are all competitors and hard, fair racing throughout the field is what makes our sport so great and the main reason why i love this sport so much. im looking froward to committing in Montreal, in front of the fantastic canadian fans, and to the exciting opportunity the future holds."

esteban got a 10 second penalty for causing an incident, which he didnt serve because he didnt continue the race. and he has a 5 place grid penalty for canada.

but anyway! back to the red flag!

aston martin were once again serving during a red flag, as they had done last time:

people even compared fernando alonso to the woman with the pearl earring picture.

aside from that, the hot topic of discussion was Tire Strategy

without getting too far into the weeds here, everyone has to run at least two different tires each race, the options are soft medium and hard. which tire works best depends on the track, the temperature, and a million other factors. softer the tire the faster it will go, but it will also wear out faster. softs and generally used for qualifying and mediums and hards are the race tires.

now Technically, everyone had already run one kind of tire in the first start of the race. so they could change to a different tire, as long as it was a different compound tire, and not have to stop again for the entire race. only problem was that that was 70 long laps. and the tires might not last that long. but you lose 30 seconds on a pit stop and if not everyone is going to pit AND its monaco so its very hard to pass, would you be shooting yourself in the foot? probably.

so most people made the decision to run a different tire compound for the restart and see if they could make it to the end of the race without pitting. notably, the front half of the grid did this.

and finally, race control announced the restart order. this was going to make or break many people's races because some people had managed to pass a few cars on the original opening lap, but not everyone had gone through a time detention point when the red flag was called, so they were back at the original start order. meaning carlos sainz was back starting in third, despite his puncture that had caused him to drop back down the order.

take two! they all lined up:

p1: charles p2: oscar p3: carlos p4: lando p5: george p6: max p7: lewis p8: yuki p9: alex p10: pierre p11: daniel p12: lance p13: fernando p14: logan p15: valtteri p16: zhou

and away they went. everyone survived the first lap this time. everyone survived the next several laps, actually. no one passed anyone, though george did get pretty close to lando for a bit before he was told to back off to preserve his tires. he started to create a large gap to lando. max shit on him on his radio for being slow.

charles, oscar and carlos all traded fastest lap back and forth for awhile, but no one made eforts to pass eachother. oscar had lost a bit of downforce in the damage he had taken from his contact with carlos, but was otherwise fine.

many people started creating gaps to the cars in front of them, especially those in the points. george, yuki and fernando. the reason for this was to preserve their position on track and help keep their tires alive. so by f1 standards, it was a very slow race.

ted was not pleased with this. "hes trapped in a mercedes jail cell right now," he said about max. he wanted him to "have a bit of fun!"

max did not have any fun.

but, there was speculation among the top 4 that someone would pit and that someone might be lando. there was a 16 second gap to george behind him so he could pit and retain his position and have a shot at overtaking carlos who was on pretty dead hard tires for a podium spot. charles was even told to "drive even slower" to stop the gap between george and lando from increasing so that lando couldnt pit. charles thought this was utterly pointless cause his tires were already getting cold. and meanwhile oscar thought that charles had an issue because of how fast he was going.

"first lap was interesting. next 38 have not been as interesting" crofty said.

the only real interesting things were the team radios:

george: "i recommend about 3 seconds in the pocket here. just pootling around at the moment"

max: "fuck me this is boring. i should have brought my pillow."

charles, upon being told that his team want to hear about his tire margin because they didnt want that information to be known to other teams" "that's rude."

ultimately none of the top 4 ended up pitting. lance stroll pitted though, on lap 43, and he was able to retain his 11th position because fernando had slowed to create a gap for lance.

not even a whole lap later, lance managed to get a puncture and had to box again and got shoved back to the back of the grid, completely destroying all of the work that fernando had done for him. the tire ended up flying off of his car, but it landed right outside the pit lane and didnt cause a safety car, much to the general upsettment of lando who would have gotten a free stop.

still, a few other people pitted, including hamilton and verstappen, who retained their positions due to the gaps they had made.

hamilton got mad that he was not told to "hammer time" (go as fast as possible) when max was pitting, but despite this he was still able to take fastest lap.

still, mad max was back, jammed in the middle of the mercedes sandwich, and he was gaining on george, 2 seconds per lap. but no one had been watching max's battery, which was very low on power. so he had to back off a bit. still, by lap 62 he was able to get within 1.2 seconds of george. and george, somehow, had been able to save just enough juice in his tires to fend off max for the last 15 laps.

meanwhile, charles was still leading. 8 seconds ahead of oscar.

"i'll just bring it home" he told his engineer. and he did.

and now i'll toss it to alex jaques, who was announcing the race for the sky sports broadcast, to take us through the last lap:

"in 2017, charles leclerc lost his father. in his final days, he told his father a white lie. that he'd made it to formula one, that he'd signed the contract. it wasn't true, but his driving has made it true now. and look what he's done with the opportunity. the grandstands he saw built as a kid growing up now rise for him. and for the first time in 93 years, this fabled race is won by one of their own. charles leclerc wins the monaco grand prix, to achieve his dream!"

HE DID IT! HE DEFEATED THE CURSE!! HE HAD WON!!!!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by FORMULA 1® (@f1)

and pretty much everyone was happy for him. jenson was doing the post race interviews and charles made pretty much everyone emotional with what he said:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by FORMULA 1® (@f1)

the podium was filled with relief and joy and lots and lots of champagne. someone even gave the prince of monaco champagne. and fred vasseur, ferrari team principal, sprayed the prince of monaco with champage. hopefully he wouldn't get arrested for that!

everyone was so busy celebrating charles that they made him late to the post race press conference, so when it opened carlos and oscar were just sprawled out on the couches, chilling:

which was Astounding to everyone because these two seemingly hate eachother

oscar was so unbothered he even started stretching

carlos even addressed the situation between him and oscar, saying that:

"for some reason, oscar and i, we seem to have a magnet recently between each other for some reason that I don't understand, because we get on well and everything is okay, but we seem to always find each other on track"

charles did eventually show up, and most of the questions ended up getting geared towards him, naturally. he told everyone that he ate pizza for dinner the night before and that there was a period of the race near the end where he couldnt actually see because he had started tearing up, realizing that he was probably going to win.

and then, of course, like anyone would, charles went for a little dive in the harbor, after shoving fred in

aside from that. we had alex albon get points, yuki tsunoda get points AND pierre gasley get points. now the only team without points is stake. and lewis hamilton got the fastest lap, he now holds the record for most fastest laps with a single team, which is 54.

also, Kevin magnussens daughter told him to sign a fans book

it was also max's first non podium finish of the season. he found the race boring. not charles win boring, just the race. "no workout whatsoever, its just really really boring." and he and george said they were going to go for a run afterwards to get some exercise, because they didnt get any during the race.

he did congratulate charles on his win though! as did pretty much everyone else! and the italians were all beside themselves as well:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by F1Trine 🇳🇴🏁 (@nutsaboutf1)

as for oscar, he proudly proclaimed on social media that he should make every race his home race.

charles rode his bicycle home, and then got ready for an absolutely insane night out. which pretty much just consisted of him hiding under a monegasque flag (ghost moding) and clinging to his girlfriends hand for the whole night, looking positively lost in the sauce, along with everyone else who went (literally i think the whole country was partying)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by F1 Memes And Jokes (@formula.jokes)

so! we have now had four different race winners in the first 8 races of the season. and tbh, as i have said. we could very well have a title fight on our hands here. lets take a look at the points:

max: 169 charles: 138 lando: 113 carlos: 108 checo: 107 oscar: 71 george: 54 lewis: 43 fernando: 33 yuki: 19 lance: 11 ollie: 6 nico: 6 daniel: 5 alex: 2 esteban: 1 kevin: 1 pierre: 1 zhou: 0 valtteri: 0 logan: 0

as charles said on that stream back in quarantine, "lando, we could be world champion i said"

(also. people were also quick to point out that max has not won at the three races that charles wrote songs about: monaco, miami and australia - mon, mia and aus)

everyone thinks that oscar could win canada. i say bring it on. see you next week!

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

[lexa-griffins]

random question but i was thinking about lexa’s iconic makeup and god it annoys me to freaking hell that the makeup department had no idea how to recreate the war paint. like either they had different artists doing that every time or smth because you can clearly tell the difference from S2 to S3. not that we saw it that much in S3, but i think it was still pretty good in 3x04 during lexa and roan’s fight. in S3 finale tho ahhhh what was that?? it was too dark?? and don’t let me start with S7 finale when she came back lol what on earth was that makeup? It was so different and literally made her look like someone else. In 4 years they completely forgot how her war paint ACTUALLY looked 💀 at first i thought they purposely wanted to make god!lexa look older, and i kinda still stand with that bc adc didn’t look mature AT ALL in feb/march 2020, we saw her taking pics and selfies until like 2021 and she still had her baby face so it’s almost like they wanted god!lexa to look mature/older to emphasize she was a goddess. Either that or as i said, they just tried to copy the makeup and faaaailed. it wasn’t even that much of time that had passed, 4 years is not that much. they were lazy. and same thing happened with her hair, idk if you noticed but it was braided differently, it was thicker. again, they put the minimum effort. thank god adc saved it all with her performance.

Consistency was never their forte, Lexa's arm tattoo has a whole new section added from season 2 to season 3, i think at some point they mess up which one of Raven's legs is injured and Emori's tattoo that before was massive shrinks with time. This is like, basic shit that the characters carry consistently with them because when it comes to the war paint you can somewhat excuse that well, Lexa is not gonna be able to repeat the same war paint opacity and format every damn time she needs to use it.

I do agree the war paint has scenes when it looks great and other times is looks just awful like they did it in a hurry. I hate the way it looks in s2 when Lexa and Clarke are informing the army of what is going to happen at mount weather and at the s3 finale too.

I do disagree that Alycia looked older because of the make up. In 2019/2020 Alycia was already looking much more grown up than she was when she was playing Lexa, I think just looking at selfies its harder to tell but when you put someone back in a characters costume she hasnt tried since she was 22 being 26 theres gonna be a difference, Alycia didnt look anything like the baby faced Lexa we saw first on the screen. I do think it was probably a rushed job because they probably only had for a couple of days and things were closing down due to covid.

The show already has so many sins, might as well include hair and makeup (and wardrobe, i have so many fights to pick with the damn wardrobe on this show).

[lifeinthegladhouse]

i feel like im disappearing into some unrecognizable version of myself in a way ive never quite felt before, and its terrifying. i hate california. i didnt think id hate it. i dont hate the weather or the beauty. i hate the lies, the backstabbers, the slum housing, the sociopath boss, the constant war mentality in my head to fight back against every thing trying to hurt me here. i feel horrible. even tho i dont regret transitioning now, i kinda do in a way because goddamnit, it feels unfair that i cant take care of myself, but i have to. that is one of the only things i have left to hold onto. i sacrificed everything to come here, to save myself. i sacrificed myself to myself (?) in a way, and i dont know i dont know what to do. ive fallen so low so many times. every year after year ive fought to stand up again. somehow i never thought this would be the thing to make me feel like i was drowning irreparably. we are trying to make mosaics now out of the broken glass of who we were. fuck it feels so goddamn futile. but i know in seattle it was worse. it was cold. i was heartbroken over him, i wanted to die for so long. this isnt like that. i have to remind myself. in the new place, it wont be this hard. it cant be. god i cant keep moving and being alone when so many horrible horrible selfish horrible abusive people always get what they want, friends, family, housing, money. god why am i always left with fucking nothing i forget the grief, the grief is compounded. i grieve so much about my life, my fucking body, my situation, covid, lost time, all the years i DID try so fucking hard, and lost everything i tried for to covid. i wish i could tell G. i wish my father loved me. there is no one else, just me and my wife, i feel like, against the entire goddamn fucking world. the only thing i have, transition, her, faith. i guess it could somehow be worse than that, in a way. i hold onto my gods, my rituals, my prayers. forgotten songs. dresses that no longer fit. names i hardly remember. faces ill never see again.

[anarchopuppy]

post/649466240800260096

hey um? do you really think we all should have voted for trump or something? the man that tried to have a coup? who tried to start actual wars via twitter boasting? who fought covid restrictions the entire time? who wanted to either cut massively or entirely disability benefits?

or do you just hate everyone who didnt throw their votes away to several different- but much better than either of those two- third party canidates instead of biden?

No, in fact, if you actually read the words that that post contains, you will notice that that isn’t actually what they are saying

Liberals feel so threatened by a Black man sharing clear numerical data that shows that Biden is militarizing the police at an even faster rate than Trump, so scared of their “at least he’s better than Trump!” thought-terminating cliche not being applicable in every single argument, so that they can no longer use that to silence anyone who asks that maybe cops should have fewer armored vehicles with which to kill people, that they have to invent some kind of fever dream where our goal is to convince people to go back in time and change their vote so that Trump wins the election. That’s our plan, we want to change the results of the 2020 election, and the only way to stop us is to defend Biden from any and all criticism

Please stop and think about why that post in particular makes you so fucking angry, when I share criticism of Biden multiple times a day on average - and why you messaged me for reblogging it rather than the OP - and why you hid behind an anonymous ask - and why you can’t just respond to the actual fucking point being made rather than concocting a hidden sinister agenda that conveniently lets you dismiss it outright. Because it sure looks like Black people fighting for their lives and liberation just makes you uncomfortable now that you can’t use it as a tool to help your favorite team win an election

[moon730]

mhm!!

See and the interesting thing is that you can be a good father and husband. and still be a shitty person.

But I have a hard time believing he was all that great of either.

I dunno, i feel he would be the fun parent who wants to have his son ride brooms, and take him to games, and be a yes man and leave lily to parent. why?

Because its as you said, he should have matured.

HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER IF HE CARED OH SO MUCH ABOUT HIS FAMILY.

but no. he had to go play with his friends during hiding. when he could sat his ass home and been preparing and working out with Lily how they were going to survive this no matter what and you know what that means? laying low. hating every bit of it, but knowing his son was worth it.

Its like You know your kid is high risk to die of covid, and you have no good reason to go out (they were well off, I’m sure fumbledor provided for them so they had food and things they needed), he has no good reason not to follow the safety measures put in place (keep mask on and try to stay home) maybe for him it was:

always stay alert and lay low... fumbledor  after finding out james didnt have his wand , “I didn't think i Had to tell him he should always have his wand on him... didn't we cover that in class at some point? how about in  auror academy... didnt he idk get that after fight in a war???”

what idiot faces the dark menace wandless? I think it was his arrogance and the fact that he had been sitting home restlessly.

how could he be wandless?

I completely understand if Lily didn't want to be friends with Severus anymore because of what he did. 

But i get so mad when people cant see what HE who owed her nothing did to help her, because he learnt she was in danger -- because she was his friend, and she meant something to him (It doesn't even have to be romantic love) . I get so mad when ppl feel like Severus should have cared about James and Harry. when James didn't even care enough to stay home.

I think it is pretty clear why Snape hated James Potter so much , he was a man who worked so hard to make sure that his friendship with lily went down the drain during school years , managed to marry her , and yet was to foolish, weak and arrogant to keep her and her boy safe , for somebody like Snape who basically sold his life and soul to dubledor, a man he hated at the time, just to give her family additional protection , and risking day after day of being discovered by the mind reading monster he had served and given a fate worse than death (regulus preferred death than the consequence of betrayal for a good damn reason and I'm sure many others were the same ), James Potter refusal to bend the knee even after lily got pregnant must have seemed unthinkable , and he may have heard from Dumbledor that the man was sneaking out so much, leaving lily and her child behind , the bloody leader of their army had to punish him like a child by taking away his "special cloak ". And add to this that it was Sirius black who sold them out ...just what do you expect from Snape ? Forgiveness and understanding ?would you be forgiving and understanding after all of this ? James Potter was young and foolish while Snape had to trick Voldemort on the daily just to stay alive , no one gave him the opportunity to be arrogant and immature because he would have been dead if he even tried ! All the times I have that if they lived James would have matured ...he had Snape same exact age !!

[merrysithmas]

so i texted the doctor i work with at 1 am because i had awful food poisoning last night (i am still sick now and was nauseous and exhausted all day bc i didnt sleep). my shift starts at 7AM, so if there is an issue with staffing obviously it's going to need to be reported at night as with most medical jobs just by nature of how early i have to start.

i couldnt get through to the manager or anyone else at the office (the manager and staff is having an immature pissing war with each other for the past 3 weeks so none of them have their phones on). so i had no choice but to text the doctor - who owns the practice and thus is responsible for staffing in the end.

he also hasnt hired any help in 6 months so we are VERY understaffed and have no coverage.

so mid throwing up 12 times he responds to my text by saying:

"it's 1am. there's nothing i can do right now. and i really need you to come in at 7."

1. you didnt hire coverage. so YOU go in if there is a problem

2. i texted you early so you could contact the manager to have her come in early in the morning and cover, OR have her cancel the early patients until someone else arrived

3. i am literally vomiting my guts out. how will i be okay to work in 5 hours?

can you fucking believe that? ive worked nonstop covid shit for him for 2 years with the only time i called off after i got my covid shot.

so mid throwing up i had to text EVERYONE, find my own cover, ignore his total disrespect and text back that i found someone with pure detachment otherwise i wouldve just been furious.

needless to say im giving my 2 weeks notice on friday.

Fuck. These. People.

[cilldaracailin]

Staycation Day 3...

So we went very touristy today (and I guess a warning in advance, religious too. I dont know if I need to give a 'warning' and I respect and understand everyone has a different faith but I visited somewhere very Catholic today so I felt, a 'warning' was somewhat needed just because...)

Anywhoo, first off this morning, King Johns Castle in Limerick. I learnt a lot and forgive my Irish bias here but my God the English were penisheads!!

Tiny Irish history lesson - King Henry the 2nd had a number of sons - one if which was Richard the Lionheart (I am sure we all know of him) and another John who came to Ireland on behalf of his father to basically further the English rule over Ireland. Although the castle is called King Johns, he never visited it and the castle was so called after he died. History lesson in short, John, Henry and a number of other English (and to be fair Irish people too), rebelled and warred and fought against each other to try and win Limerick and in the end the English won, taking over Irish chieftian lands, making it illegal to follow traditional Irish customs. There is a lot more to it then that with all the inbetweeny stuff but that was gist of it. England won but obviously that changed as history moved in.

There was an exhibtion first and then you could go under the castle and also climb up the top.

It was really interesting. Here are some photos...

Ok and here is the religiousy bit...

I left Limerick to head for Co Mayo and on the way towards my next stop, I saw a sign for a place called Knock.

If anyone is familiar with the story of Fatima in Portugal, it is the same religious apparition.

Knock is a tiny town and in 1879 it was teeny tiny. On August 21st 1879, in the evening, on a very wet evening, 15 witness's saw a heavenly vision surrounded by a white light in front of the church. Each one said it was the Virgin Mary dressed in white robes, her hands held together in prayer. On her right stood St Joseph and on her left, John the Evangelist. The 15 stood and prayed for two hours in front of the light until it faded away and although they were wet, none noticed any rain falling as they prayed.

All witness's were spoken too, all said the same thing and all were of sound mind, ranging from the ages of 16 to 70 plus.

Its a place I have never been too and as I was so close decided to visit.

I am not an overly religious person even though I grew up going to mass every week, have gone through all reglious practices of a Catholic person. Now I guess I pray and have faith in different ways, only going to mass twice a year now but it was so very strange kneeling in that shrine. I felt suddenly overly emotional and even got teary and I have no idea why at all. It's very hard to explain but I dont know what it was. Just wierd and I don't even know if I believe that Mary did appear to those people but being in that church was surreal. Though in saying that, I have always wanted to go and visit Fatima and the Vatican and when Pope Francis came to visit Ireland in 2018, I did go to the mass in the Phoneix Park in Dublin but being in a place that is so holy well I can't find the right words. Just strange.

Anyway, I took some photos outside, not inside because even I know something like this deserves to be respected.

The triangular glass building is where the appariation happened and you can just about see the point of the top of the orginial church on the left roof side of the triangle.

But yeah, for me it was great to go and see it and I am glad I did. Unfortunately because of COVID people are not allowed to touch what is called 'the gable'. It's a piece of the church where the appriation happened. There have been some incredible stories of sick people/people with disabilities touching the gable and being cured so who knows.

That little odd square piece is the gable. I would have liked to have been able to touch it and if it hadn't of been so busy, I would have sneaked a sneaky touch but didnt want to risk it.

I got some holy water and rosary beads instead.

Each to their own with their beliefs and faith but I just wanted to share my visit to Knock and experience and for me, I enjoyed it.

I am now at my next stop in Castlebar Co. Mayo. I've no pictures. Its not a capital city or anything. Just a town. Tomorrow I am going to visit another touristy town and am debating whether to do the Aran Islands. Cos I'm moving onto Co. Donegal for tomorrow evening, there's not a lot of time for island hopping so might just leave it and do the beaches instead.

Anyway, I am rambling

Oh more news... two of my fish died (Elton and Eggsy) and I just have Eddie left. My mam sent me this video today...

She got me 2 new fishy's!!! Haha! I laughed so much when I saw the video! She has called them Crystal and FireFly (Don't ask where she got the names from).

So Eddie has two new friends to play with! What a mad surprise! Also I laughed too 'cos in the video mam sent me (I edited that one above down), she let the bag fall over and the fish went splash! Hilarious!

Ok I am done now!

Suze xx

[sketching-fox]

soo gio... what are your thoughts on the finale?

Sorry... I´ve been away from my social medias, due to overwork here. And Tumblr wasn´t notifying my of messages, so I left you and a lot more people here, without an answer.

My thoughts? Well, I dont like it. It´s trash, simply like that. 

I could tell as a destiel shipper and as a fan who have Castiel as favorite character, I dont like because they made a desservice just trowing the love confession scene to trick fans to keep their audience until the end. And they simply removed one of the main characters from the end. But that wasn´t news to me. I was expecting that. At season 14 I was imagining that they would go bringing back all the past characters in the show, as a “lets remember what we live until now” and kill them all, keeping the tradition of the show. So I was expecting them to kill Bobby, Charlie, from the other reality. And the sheriff and all the girls. And even bring back some dead (like they did with Kevin and Eileen) just to kill them again. And kill Castiel around episode 17 or 18. I was right.

But they tricked everyone, Kevin stayed “alive”, not a good fate, as a ghost wandering, but he wasn´t destroyed - again. Rowena became queen and Eileen stayed. And Garth had a good end. Just tricks. At the very last minute, they did what I was expecting, and kept their tradition. 

So, I was expecting a bad finalle, but Im still WOW about how they tricked peole, how they feeded the fandom war around end of season 14 and all season 15 and how they managed to write such bads episodes.

And here, besides the expectations about my faves, everything was bad. Bad writing. Bad filmed. Bad execution. And dont bring the “covid issues”, it was bad. simple bad, and I dont believe hey had anything better than that planned. The storytelling was lost, and some decisions, so bad. Sam using the same hoodie he used in the pilot and that vampire from season 1... to show that this was their intention? Ending the show like nothing happenend since the pilot? Sorry, in storytelling you don´t deny all you build, developed and created along 15 years to just pretend nothing happened. The end was bad even for Sam and Dean. And who liked, liked it just because of the fandomwar / shipwar. “Those” fans wanted a ending where the brothers died together, in the blaze of glory, and went to Heaven to live together as sould mates. But the show made a desservice to them, too. They didnt die a glorious death in a hunting. It was a bad death scene and Sam lived alone and devastated for 40 years. And they were together in Heaven not because they were soulmates, but because that was a new heaven where everyone was together. So, it was a trick and joke even to “those” fans, but they just were happy they got a mishafree and destiel free ending and didnt noticed that.

As someone who studied scriptwriting, storytelling and character development, besides everything else, it was just BAD. SO BAD. But, again, nothing new here. That network is famous for ad writing. 

And LOTS of shows like to finish their stories giving fans a bad ending. So, the fans will be angry and the engagement, much more intense after the last sighs of the show. Think about Sherlock, Dexter, GoT... sometimes is almost unbelievable because, for Gods sake, those are people who went to expensive film schools and studied for years, graduated and worked as professionais in BIG companies/productions for years, how they can make something SO bad? Certainly, it´s not because they can´t deliver something better. They can. 

So, that´s the thing. It was bad. Bad writing and execution. And I was expecting eactly that, but still I feel bad more about how they were dirty, feed the war inside the fandom, tricked the fans! But, hey, we´re free now. 

[hohoz]

The future of Resident Evil and Valenfield (of course)

So It’s me again and I’m here to talk a little about what I think it’s going to happen with this series and my main ship - “Valenfield all the way, always”

First let’s talk about this game here...

Resident Evil 3 Remake

First of all, I’m really happy to see Jill again, the last time we got a chance to play using her was in Revelations 1 and that game was released in 2012 - that time she also got a different character model

What I liked about the game was the nostalgia, if we look at the graphics and gameplay it's the same engine so it hasn't changed much (not that this is bad). In this game we have the fact that Nemesis proves himself to be the most feared BOW so far in the franchise, all the persecutions and all the determination to eliminate JV, his ability to evolve and continue only with the goal of killing someone shows what Umbrella wants, to create life that is capable of changing the course of a war...But Umbrella made a stupid decision to make this creature go after Alpha’s team finest. (Spencer was trying to become a god - that’s why he used Umbrella)

Capcom had informed us that their idea was to launch RE2 and RE3 together, that is, the game model was almost ready that’s why it didnt take long to release RE3, if you played both you would not complain that the main campaign is short but playing only RE3 it feels like it is very short... Indeed that is, If you analyze the city map it is small and does not give you any freedom to explore, same thing with the other maps and this is very sad, especially for a fan who wants to explore every corner of RC.

ABOUT VALENFIELD

I had said in a post before that there would be a good number of people shipping Jill with Carlos (I was prepared for that), but what I didn’t expect is that she wouldn’t mention Chris in the game, we didn’t even get a chance to go into RPD as Jill to read the letter he had left.

BUT THERE IS MORE

WTF, SHE DIDN’T SAY A WORD about Chris probably dying, one thing that I miss a lot from old versions of RE games, is that we see what they are thinking about the object when they interact with it - when he actually moves to Europe he leaves a letter saying he’s okay so Claire wouldnt be worried (HE’S THE BEST BROTHER - dafuq)

BUT THERE IS MORE - HOW DO I UNLOCK HER DIARY ???

I wanted to see how Capcom would adapt this, but they didnt put this file in the game - Not that we know of (because her diary is a secret file in the original game)

AND FINALLY SOMETHING GOOD

In the old version of the game we had this epilogue, but I didn't think they were going to put it that way, because it was going to be kind of weird, so what they did was show Chris (Chris is highly associated with the color green) with the vaccine - that means - She found him in Europe / She is probably in the same apartment as him, because who the hell would rent a place if there is a possibility of sharing the rent

Since I’m really mad about the lack of Valenfield content let’s talk about the future of Resident evil games.

REMAKES or new stories ? Why not both ?

An insider at Capcom said that RE8 has been rebooted,this would mean that the game would be far from release but the beta testers of RE Revelations 3 had great reviews, so REV3 became Resident Evil 8.

But that doesnt mean that we wont get more Reworks in the meanwhile and there is two games that comes in my mind right now.

Resident Evil : Code Veronica

Whoever played this game knows how good it is, the protagonists are nothing less than the Redfield brothers and Stevie Burnside unraveling the mysteries of the Ashford family, and this game can easily be remade, because it has so much information about Resident Evil universe, about Wesker and Umbrella, let’s not forget about the horror, this is a survival horror game for sure, the files that we see in the camp are scary af.

Since RE has been getting a lot of new fans this would be appreciated by the new one and the old ones. Claire’s character model already showed a lot of interest to play her again in code Veronica - and to see a young Chris Redfield again it would be so cool.

But there is another option, that in my opnion wouldn’t even be considered a Remake, because i’m not talking about an actually a game.

I’m talking about RESIDENT EVIL:Umbrella Chronicles

Don't let the WII logo fool you Resident Evil Revelations was a Nintendo DS exclusive, when it became multiplatform it was very welcome and had great reviews, being the first of the most recent games to bring Survival horror back

Umbrella Chronicles is one of the most important in the history of Resident Evil because it’s the only one that shows how Chris and Jill set the end of Umbrella (this sound familiar, right ? ) that’s because you saw this in the ending

it should be after Code Veronica to follow chronological order

This game is really short, and it shows so many stuff about RE 0 and RE1, so if they decided to make a “Remake” version of Umbrella’s fall it would be so nice because they wouldnt be actually tied to the original game - (Like RE2 and RE3) - they could use the same history but have creativity freedom to do more things, more maps, more enemies, more dialogue PLEASE and keep the “No Ladies first this time?”

So this is it, thanks for reading (english is not my main language), let’s enjoy and play a lot of RE during these hard time (COVID-19)

If you have something to say about RE future or Valenfield I would like to read your opinion.

Thanks and see you later !

[the-ame-pumpkin]

Important!

So, i decided to make a post about the situation where i live, israel, since from the conversation i made with my friends from other countries yesterday, i understood that it is not talked about in the news, nor in school. So here i am. Now this is going to be a very long post, so if you're actually gonna read this, and please do, you better sit down.

So first, where exactly do i live?

Well in israel there is this thing called a "kibbutz", which exists only in israel so it doesn't have a translation, like a name. A kibbutz is like a village, but more... Developed? Idk if it's the right word. A kibbutz is like a really really really small city. A small civilization. We have a small market, a clothing shop, a play yard, and more. Basically everything the city has, but much much smaller. Now there is not only a one kibbutz, there a more. For example, i live in "kibbutz reim", and my best friend lives in "kibbutz be'eri". There is also kibbutz "nirim", "niram", "niroz", "sufa", "holit", "ein hashlosha", "ein habsor", and much more. And we're all really close to each other. Like, the driving from here (reim) to be'eri is literally five minutes. And, another thing, we're all in the south of israel. There are some kibbutzs there are in another places in Israel, but here is the "center" of it all.

So, why is it soo so dangerous, Amemi?

Well, remember i said we're in the south? I meant in the south. And guess what more is in the south? A place called Gaza. Now, we are in war with Gaza. Kinda. When they want, they're sending bombs called "qassams" in our direction (one bomb is a qassam). And because i live extremely close to Gaza, i get all the fire. But, dont think we dont have how to protect ourselves. Every house in every kibbutz has this thing called a "mamad" (again, all this stuff are happening only in israel, so it doesn't have a translation, like a name). The mamad is made from concrete and iron, and is the only thing that protects us from the qassams. And its not only in every house, there's a different type of a mamad called a "migunit", and there are a lot of migunits in every kibbutz. Now there has been death and suffer caused by the qassams, it's a bomb after all. This is why it's so dangerous. And it's not all. There is also this weapon called "cipat barzel" (iron dome, this has a translation :) ). The iron dome is detecting when a qassam is near and shooting it and exploding it in the air, before it's hitting the ground. We also use it to attack Gaza back when we need. Another thing, just so you understand the situation more clearly, there was this one time when we killed a really really important leader of one of the terror organisations in Gaza, and they were pissed. We received, 200 bombs, in two fucking days. Yeah, we couldn't get out of the mamad. It was rough.

So how do you know when a qassam is coming to your kibbutz? How do you know what to do? What do you do?

So when a qassam is coming near us, a siren is going off. The siren is called "tzeva adom" (color red, tzeva- color, adom- red). It's called like this because it literally says "tzeva adom, tzeva adom" (color red, color red). In the cities, however, its different. In the city it's literally just a siren. So from the moment the siren is going off, we have 15 seconds to run to the mamad, or a migunit if you're outside, no matter where you are or what you're doing (for example, there was this one time where i was in the shower, and the siren went off and i just ran outside of it to the mamad). Another thing is, and another example as well for how close i am to Gaza, i said we have 15 secs, right? Well in the city, they have a minute and a half to run to a safe place (its a lot). The closer you are to Gaza, the shorter the time you have. If you are not near a migunit, like... Your driving somewhere, so you have to get out of your car, ran away from the car (because if the qassam hits the car it'll cause an even bigger explosion, which will probably bring to your death pretty quick), lay on the ground flat, on your stomach, put your hands over your head, and wait like this for 10, whole, minutes.

So... Is there like, another weapon that Gaza are using against you?

There is this thing called "balon tavera" (Incendiary balloon, yay, this has a translation too:)). Its basically a baloon attached to a bomb. They send it to fly with the wind, and its pretty affective. It is meant to lure mostly children, but people in general too, to touch and explode it. If you see one, you stay away from it, and call the police immediately.

Are... Are you ok?

Yeah, im fine. I mean, its scary and all, but it's not a bad life. I love my life. I love my family and my friends, i have a good life. The thing is, and this is why i dont mind it that much, is because i know what to do in this situations. I am trained. I grew in this reality, of running away from bombs, hiding, and laying on the ground. My whole childhood is this. Now i know it sounds really sad, and it actually is, but it is a very important lesson too. I have reflexes that other people dont have, because i grew up like this. I have information and knowledge, because i grew up like this. I have, my personality and my friend, because i grew up like this. So dont worry. Let me give you an example for how ready i am. A couple of days ago (and i also made a small post about it, but still, its a really good example.) I was in the middle of a physics lesson, when suddenly, something that sounded like the siren, went off. I immediately stopped everything i did, I didn't listen to the teacher, i didnt listen to the rambling in the class, i just perked up, like a dog, got up from my chair, and opened the door of my room, ready to run. I did that so fast that my muscles hurt for about five seconds after i did all that. But then i realized it wasn't the siren. As i went out of my room, i saw my mum too, standing up (my mum works from home because of covid, so i and her are in the house all day long. My brother actually goes to school and my dad works in shifts (he actually goes to work).) I was in a state of eternal stress, my brain and muscles are ready to work, but i realized it wasn't it, so i just went back to the lesson, told my teacher what happened and that i apologize for leaving so suddenly, and just, sat there, trembled and shivered, because of all the stress. It took me a few good minutes to finally calm down. Also, i forgot to say, and its a good example too, we are so trained that even our dog knows that when the siren is going off he needs to run to the mamad. He usually gets there first ;)

So yeah, this is it basically. (Also, as im writing this i can hear fighter jets flying above me, so fun.)

If the situation will get worse i will tell you guys so dont worry about me. I wont leave you in the dark not knowing why this and why that. If you didn't understand something feel free to ask me, wether its on DM or on the ask box, i really really dont mind answering the questions. Actually, ill be glad if you'll ask something you didn't understand about it/ wants to know more or something. So yeah, it was really nice finally writing this in an organized way.

Feel free to ask anything you want!