#which i'd like to see him fully commit to

[arcadianmoonshadowjedi]

Hey so. I'm not up to date, still watching. Didn't see any fandom reactions so far. What do we think about Callum choosing Rayla over Ezran?

Right now, I'm torn. Part of me is super happy that Callum and Rayla pledged themselves to one another, for it to then immediately be tried, tested, and won. (I'm happy that their relationship won.) I love that the situation has them suddenly face a loyalty conflict that they didn't think they'd have to solve. I'm happy that it comes unexpected, catches them off guard, and that they have to decide on the spot. It's messy, puts them on edge, and I love it.

Callum also seems to initially give a really smart answer by differentiating between his role as High Mage and his role as a brother. However, depriving Katolis of its High Mage in a time of great need such as the one they're in?? really is a special kind of treason, and the King's brother abandoning the King NEVER looks good either, especially in that time of need! The show treats it like a private conflict, but Callum has a function in the royal court. He just signaled to all of Katolis that the King's family quit supporting Ezran. So although Ezran isn't in a good personal place in that episode, if he chose to interpret Callum's actions as high treason, I'd be with him.

I think the scene lacked certain tensions of unspoken things though. It still happened all too quickly. Ezran didn't know that Rayllum swore to never get separated again. Callum should have forced a different kind of magical time-out than the ice thingy (which directly attacked Ezran and his personal bodyguards), he should have played for time to explain. I'd have made him send Rayla and Runaan away, stay behind to explain to Ezran, then catch back up with the elves.

Then, if there was still some hurt between the brothers, at least Ezran would know the full story and would know where to place his priorities. The brothers could work to at least stay out of each other's way, instead of clashing again like when Callum sent the letter to suggest imprisoning Aaravos again. That wasn't Callum's place, he was out of touch with Ezran's warfare strategy by this point, and he was endangering his little bro's kingship by messing with his authority.

I wouldn't say it was out of character, but it certainly was more messy than necessary and lacked one of Callum's better ideas to resolve it.

I'm at the third-to-last episode rn, Ezran and Callum haven't yet met again, but Ezran did receive Callum's letter. No spoilers pls, but I'd love to hear your genuine reaction!

Hey so I personally think this situation was a lot more complicated than Callum just choosing Rayla over Ezran for loves sake. The way I saw it, Callum was torn between two people he loves. On one hand he was trying to tell Rayla to be patient and kept trying to tell her Ezran will eventually come around, to which Rayla after clashing with Ezran at the council meeting, she no longer felt she can wait. On the other hand, he did try to talk to Ezran esp about how he shouldn’t keep blaming Runaan for the kingdom being destroyed and how he’s playing into the cycle of violence he pledges to stop. While Ezran’s hurt and anger towards Runaan were completely justified, I felt like his actions came more from a place of vengeance rather than being right. Callum even called out Ezran for forgiving Zubeia who was the one who sent the assassins in the first place.

Callum only fully took Rayla’s side once Ezran showed up with an entire army to confront Rayla and Runaan which then resulted in Callum taking action against them to prevent Rayla and Runaan from being harmed. He did end up leaving with them not only because he ended up committing treason but also because he felt like Ezran was too vengeful and angry to listen even after trying to talk to him earlier.

As for the letter, unlike Ezran, Callum knew that Aaravos couldn’t be permanently killed which was why he was proposing the prison plan, which could’ve been a more permanent solution if no one were to find the prison again. The problem with Ezran was that he was falling into Aaravos’s trap not knowing that using the novablade to kill him would bring him back the next time the stars align and even potentially kill everyone around them.

While I do think that arc 2 shows some complications between the two brothers esp because both Callum is the older brother but Ezran is the king, which does cause a power imbalance between them, at the end of the day they’re still brothers first and foremost. I won’t spoil the last few eps, but I will tell you I loved and was very satisfied by how things went, including with Callum and Ezran. 😍😊

Hope this answered your question 🙌🏽

[larrylimericks]

12Jul24

Three hundred and fifty-six days Since last we saw Harry on stage, But tonight a duet! For Ms. Nicks’ Hyde Park set, And a Songbird who’s now flown away.

[astral-herald]

arcane's depiction vs. endorsement and why it flopped

~ i think i'm finally ready to complain ~

My general opinion of season 2 is potential squandered. My recent post about Viktor's storyline as an intentional tragedy lets ya'll know that I did, for the most part, enjoy his arc (hot take, I know, and I know lots of people disagree with me, and I fully understand). If he'd gotten the screen time necessary to pull it off, it would have been legendary in my book. But the lack of screen time, even in the case of the season's eventual BBEG, speaks to my greatest issue with Arcane: no commitment.

(Critical) Discussion of Jinx, Ekko, Sevika, Vi, and Viktor below!

Arcane, as a tragedy (I've said this word too many times to count smh), asks the plot, "what is the worst thing that could possibly happen to this character?" and answers in kind. This is why we get Viktor's lost agency until the very end (and like I've said in the past, I completely understand and hold space for those who dislike this route).

If we ask this same question of the following characters, the scope of loss and despair innate to Arcane's final narrative is made very clear:

Sevika: a revolutionary forever devoted to the cause, not the individual, is nominated as an individual to represent the masses in a governmental body that has no interest in her class-conscious ideal.

Ekko: the people's hero in every sense of the word who never sees the fruits of his labor/sacrifice and who goes without the acknowledgement he deserves (more than any other Arcane character).

Vi: the ultimate victim of Piltover police brutality coerced, through grief, trauma, and loss, into working for the system that oppressed her. Even Caitlyn, for all her good intentions, seems incapable of ever understanding this.

Viktor: a genius hellbent on ending the same suffering he endured at the hands of Piltover's oppression has his agency revoked, driving him to inflict the same choicelessness he endured on Zaunite innocents.

On paper, these arcs are devastatingly sensical. And we don't always need happy endings in our stories (I'd sure like them, more often than not, of course). We can and should witness the harsh realities of class oppression if we don't experience them ourselves. The writing team painstakingly crafted and foreshadowed these worst-case scenarios throughout season 1. For example, in 1x07, Ekko being immediately shot at by Marcus at the bridge confirms our suspicions that Piltover Enforcers are a lost cause, not just full of bad apples but internally broken beyond repair. It felt that, despite all the hope, this struggle was doomed, and we were careening toward something dark - "In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good."

Had these arcs been successful, audiences would be confronted with the systemic issues we see today that implicate the physical and mental health of downtrodden individuals on account of lazy, prejudiced leadership. This actively happens. It is actively happening, sans the fantasy of it all. This is where Arcane should have shined: they depict the tragedy of these characters, but DO NOT endorse it.

But Arcane chickens out and the entire thing fails. Here are the Flop Era Spark Notes:

Maddie is the egregious bad apple stereotype that absolves all other agents of the regime. She clearly is not a stand-in for Enforcers at large because, all of a sudden, they're capable of coordinated artillery strikes that are necessary to the defense of Piltover, which the viewer must suddenly and abundantly care about. So glad she died. Also, Arcane, you cannot introduce abject warfare in the last 30 minutes of your show successfully.

Jinx's "revolutionary" plot was a red herring, and Sevika humbly vying for the spot was never delivered upon. They pay lip service to the Undercity organizing, but the scene is interrupted for larger (messier) plot concerns almost immediately. No commitment. No depiction to even refrain from endorsing.

Ekko and the Firelight Tree. Clearly this was set up as a means of showing how Piltover's mistakes were physically seeping into the only sanctuary left in Zaun. Yet this is just...never resolved? If someone has some insights into this, please let me know. No depiction. No discussion about endorsement.

What could Vi specifically gain by aligning with the Enforcers/Piltover? Human connection with Cait, sure, but why return to them in 2x06? Vi's character begged all season for development, but she kept returning to her nonsensical error of her ways (looking backwards) until the very end, and this is basically what "kills" Jinx. This is a nod to her lonesomeness post 1x03, sure, but to what end? Again, why the Enforcers?!? Oh, because now that Cait has been redeemed and Sevika is in Piltover to save the day, there are no systemic issues left to fix? Sure, Riot.

WHY DEVELOP VIKTOR'S ENTIRE HEXCORE ARC OFF SCREEN?I'M ADMITTEDLY BIASED ABOUT THIS, BUT THE AMOUNT OF DISCUSSIONS I'VE HAD WITH VIKTOR NATION ABOUT THE DEGREE TO WHICH HE WAS INFLUENCED/MANIPULATED BY THE HEXCORE (now that we know Sky was a manifestation of his humanity, not her Actual Self) IS DESPICABLE. HIS COMPROMISED AGENCY NEEDS TO BE FRONT AND CENTER AND OBVIOUS, OR ELSE IT SURE SEEMS LIKE RIOT IS ENDORSING THE LACK OF AGENCY IN VIKTOR'S STORY. I shouldn't have to make 1k word posts to explain this. I'll do it because I love him with my whole heart, but still.

I begged and pleaded for months for BBEG Viktor (I'm really proud of my predictions from October), but by introducing a villain/conflict beyond the Piltover/Zaun dichotomy, Riot severed all threads of class conflict that were so rife and exciting in season 1. The proletariat and the bourgeoise will never coalesce like they did by the end of 2x09 without systemic revolution. Sevika is just one individual. Ekko's people need him. Jinx and Viktor are gone. Vi is downtrodden, and we have SO LITTLE to show for it.

In summary, we just didn't get enough explicit explanation of any character development to make Arcane-As-Tragedy successful. They did not stick the landing. The finale leaves us all with various bad tastes in our mouth. Instead of lamenting the harsh reality of oppression, I'm confused about what Riot prioritizes and agrees with, what they aim to criticize, and what they condemn.

I'll die on the hill that revoking Viktor's agency has the potential to be one of the greatest tragic hero storylines I've ever seen, but it's a lonely hill because I'm fighting against the writing team's consistent flops. At least Balayage Viktor was so gorgeous.

shameless self plug for my earlier discussion about the innate political clashes in season 1 that were abandoned for flashy fantasy fights in season 2:

[mecachrome]

pre-mclaren oscar piastri primer (ft. maxf, landoscar)

0. introduction

for a few months now i've been wanting to make both an oscar primer and a timeline of pre-mclaren landoscar moments, but i couldn't figure out which one to prioritize… then after some deliberation i finally realized i could just combine the two things together! so. here is an oscar-centric timeline that is mainly about his racing background, moving to the uk, and how he became acquainted with other members of the rfm pack—aka lando, maxf, and logan. i don't know whether any of this information is useful or even vaguely interesting, but i mostly just wrote it for myself and thought i'd share what i had in case anyone else wanted to check it out. please feel free to comment or shoot me an ask if anything here is egregiously incorrect; i've checked and linked as many sources as i could but it's of course possible that some errors remain :)

1. background, rc racing, early karting days (2007-2015)

oscar piastri was born on april 6, 2001 in brighton east, a suburb of melbourne not far from albert park circuit, as the son of chris and nicole and to-be oldest brother to 3 younger sisters. a love for all things automotive ran deep in the piastri family: both of his grandfathers were mechanics and his father had also co-founded his own vehicle diagnostics software company, hp tuners, aka oscar's sponsor throughout his racing career. thanks to his father's business, oscar's family was objectively well-off and managed to contribute a fairly substantial amount of support toward his junior career, but they also weren't swimming in cash by multi-millionaire motorsport standards either.

(L-R) edie, mae, hattie, and oscar, from nicole's twitter — each sibling is ~2 years apart (source)

while most drivers on the current grid were introduced to motorsport through go-karting, usually at or before the age of 7, oscar's path to single-seaters differed slightly. he first developed an interest in racing via remote-controlled cars at the age of 6, when his father brought him a monster truck as a souvenir back from a business trip in america. oscar began racing them that same year, eventually moving to safer electric track vehicles and even winning the second class of the national titles in 2010, at the age of 9. he was so small then that he often needed to stand on a milk crate to see the cars on track, and the next-youngest competitor at the time was twice his age. (source)

oscar on the podium at age 8 (nov 16, 2009)

oscar with his father chris, who often competed alongside him in a separate class (dec 21, 2010)

by 2011, oscar and his father were seriously considering his potential of pursuing rc racing as a viable career path, but things changed when he was introduced to karting via a friend's daughter in the rc community and his aspirations slowly shifted toward racing from inside a car. oscar was an unsurprisingly sporty and competitive child growing up; he'd played some cricket and aussie rules football and knew that all he wanted to do was race professionally, full-stop, at the time thinking along the lines of australian racing categories like v8 supercars. he was still competing in remote car racing as late as 2013, but he began karting seriously within australia in 2014, placing respectably in the junior categories of several regional karting series against relatively senior and more-experienced racers, and even going to france for a one-off event where he finished on the podium of the iame international junior x30 final. this outing affirmed his potential to his father and motivated the two of them to split time between australia and europe in 2015 as they juggled his karting future; plans for two more european events that year fell through, including the cik-fia world championship at the kfj level (which logan sargeant would go on to win), but at this point they were officially looking to take his career to the next level and commit fully to european karting in 2016.

this is when ricky flynn (and the hypothetical idea of lando norris!!!) comes in. before we get into rfm and karting professionally in europe, it's important to note that the defining aspect of landoscar's junior careers is that their pathways never once intersected. in fact, they don't even seem to have met properly before oscar entered the f1 grid as alpine reserve, although they'd spoken over social media and oscar was familiar with several people around lando's life—for example, maxf, logan, guanyu, and even lando's older brother oliver, who had also raced for rfm.

in short, you could say that landoscar's biggest hindrance was their parallel excellence. oscar was good enough to catch up and even surpass everyone else at lando's level, but lando remained untouchable throughout the years. oscar is only 1.5 years younger than him, but their f1 careers are offset by 4 years (2019 vs. 2023 debut) because of exactly two things: oscar's 2022 gap year in alpine and his two attempts at formula renault eurocup. on the other hand, lando sped through all of his junior categories in blistering fashion, falling short of the championship only once: the year he placed 2nd in f2 behind george russell. this is significant because many talk about the clinical nature of oscar's rapid single-seater ascension and three b2b2b victories (still very impressive, especially given his limited karting career!), but all of that speaks equally to the illustrious nature of lando's junior success and the sheer magnitude of faith placed in him as mclaren's "golden boy" coming up the ranks. to put things into further perspective, lando was teammates with maxf and jehan daruvala at rfm until 2014, jehan competing in the same class and max one below, yet by the time oscar was racing max and jehan—in f3 in 2020 and f2 in 2021, respectively—lando was already into his 2nd and 3rd years of f1. here's a chart that hopefully makes a bit more sense:

majorly simplified timeline showing lando, guanyu, maxf, logan, and oscar's junior careers + the karting classes they primarily competed in each calendar year. maxf did not complete his 2nd f3 season and many of them contested multiple/different formula renault series, but this is just a rough overview of their feeder series experience. 

2. moving to europe, rfm, regional formulae (2016-2019)

back in australia, oscar was a member of the oakleigh go-kart racing club and being actively mentored by james sera, a multi-time australian karting champion and fa kart dealer who worked with young karting talents alongside his cousin david. in late-2015, he presumably helped oscar and his father reach out to ricky flynn, who ran ricky flynn motorsport (rfm) and whose team was at the time enjoying exorbitant success in the karting scene; lando had won the world championship at the kf level the year prior, and logan would soon clinch the kfj title in 2015, results which further drew oscar's interest toward the team. ricky flynn agreed to take oscar on and have him and his dad move out to europe, and by november 2015 oscar announced on social media that he would be joining rfm the next year. in january of 2016, he and his father moved to hertford, uk, so that oscar could begin a 100-day karting program and travel extensively around europe to attend races. this is where he met logan sargeant, who was in his final year on the team but competing a class above, now at the ok (previously kf) level. oscar himself was only competing in the okj class.

not oscar-related, but as you can see guanyu, logan, and maxf were already acquainted before oscar and logan met, since the three of them and lando had been in rfm together as of 2014 — (may 11, 2014) & (feb 6, 2015)

oscar and logan in 2016

in an interview published on june 7, 2023, oscar reflected on leaving australia and committing to his racing dream, saying:

"i think if there was a turning point, it was probably when i started finishing towards the front in australia, and i started winning a couple of races here and there and finishing in the top three of championships and stuff, and then went to europe and fully committed to going down that route. [...] there's obviously a very big commitment at that point when you move halfway across the world without family and stuff. so i knew at that point that i really wanted to become a professional because, firstly, that's what i want to do anyway, but, secondly, now i'm sacrificing seeing my family, and stuff like that to be able to do this — which was a sacrifice i was more than willing to make."

like the majority of oscar's karting career, his time with ricky flynn can primarily be summarized as decent. none of his performances were particularly stellar, and in november 2016 he placed 6th in the fia world championship final behind the likes of victor martins and théo pourchaire (he mainly competed against guys like them, dennis hauger, caio collet, etc… once again logan was a class above and lando/maxf had already graduated to single-seaters), but he showed promising racing foundations and a great capacity for improvement, especially given that he'd moved to europe the same year and was still adjusting to life and racing on the opposite hemisphere. about 6 months into his new karting venture, oscar had settled in reasonably well and his father decided he would return to australia to continue on with his life, so they made the joint decision that oscar was to begin boarding at haileybury's uk campus and continue racing in europe entirely on his own. uk and australian school years are misaligned, so my personal understanding is he moved to europe after finishing year 9 in australia, attempted online school/took a few months off (he says he did online coursework here, but mentioned here that he was out of school, so it sounds like it must have been a very half-hearted effort…), came back to australia over the uk summer to do some more karting, then began boarding in september 2016 as a year 10 student. he spent ~4 years there and eventually received his a-levels in 2020, except his final year was disrupted by covid and he never sat his exams. (blog post mentioning his a-levels + btg transcript excerpt about his exams; his website says he attended haileybury from 2016-19, but i think this mainly encapsulates his boarding period, as he was still doing remote work in april 2020.)

oscar in f4 with his gcse revision guide, 📸 sebastiaan rozendaal (may 20, 2018)

2016 is also when oscar began his well-documented super-liking of several of lando's social media profiles. i think understanding oscar's time in rfm and his extremely british single-seater origins helps better paint his history with lando and maxf; my personal understanding of pre-mclaren landoscar is that while oscar never formally met lando or maxf during his karting days, he knew of them quite well through rfm and thus followed them on instagram/twitter after moving to the uk. of course, oscar has a fairly active social media presence in general, so young oscar quietly liked instagram posts and tweets from many different people, but i do feel compelled to note that in the early days he liked lando, maxf, and logan's posts with seriously impressive frequency compared to anyone else on the grid (or anyone in general, really); after creating his twitter account in may 2016, some of the very first tweets oscar liked were from maxf, and he also liked a multitude of mundane lando tweets from 2016 until… today, while on the other hand he didn't start liking george's tweets—another similarly-aged young british talent—until late 2017. (he does have some fun george-admiring moments though, but that can wait for another time!) outside of rfm, other people oscar was familiar with during his early racing years were british f4 teammate ayrton simmons, to-be series champion jamie caroline, and old australian karting friend christian pancione, who appears to still be one of his best mates (if not his best) as of today. fun fact is that christian raced for the carrera cup as a support event to the australian gp in 2023; here's oscar allegedly checking the quali live timing at lunch during his own media day. 

so, to conclude, oscar's early lando focus basically traces back to the motorsport path he took at the behest and guidance of his early rfm connections in the uk. the thing is that despite growing up in australia and vaguely admiring several aussie drivers in f1 as a child (read: mark webber and eventually daniel ricciardo), oscar has never had a specific driver he consistently mentions when pressed for his racing "idol," likely since his personality inherently resists idolatry and he instead views successful people more as actionable benchmarks or reference points for self-improvement rather than as unattainable paragons of accomplishment. as a kid forced to grow up almost entirely on his own, the majority of his racing aspirations were molded independently in the uk—he completed his karting career in the uk, boarded at haileybury for 4 years (fun fact: other drivers to attend include jehan, callum ilott, and clément novalak; callum was a few years above oscar and finished school in 2017, but the two would later become quite talkative over social media anyway), raced in british f4, became a brdc member, contested eurocup under a british license and therefore had the british flag raised and british national anthem played during his wins, stayed in the uk even at alpine since the factory is based in enstone, etc. oscar basically moved to the uk from australia without having really met anyone significant in the racing scene (other than jack doohan, or more importantly jack's father mick, but jack is younger and did an extra year of karting) and pretty much didn't have anyone specific to "look up to" at the time. oscar's first acknowledgement of lando's online existence was in december 2015, when he liked one of lando's instagram posts prior to moving to england, so it can be assumed that lando basically functioned as his most accessible reference point in the junior ladder as a 14 year old dipping his toes into the european racing scene for the first time. that is my highly subjective analysis of the situation!

select quotes re: oscar's inconsistent responses to his motorsport "hero" (or his favorite driver / a driver he looks up to in general):

(f1fs; mar 9, 2022) "i started watching f1 in… 2009 was the first season i properly watched. so when brawn came in, obviously mark was the only aussie on the grid at that point, so i was kind of naturally going for him. then joined by daniel, so obviously going to support the aussies, but i think watching lewis has been nothing short of spectacular, and a very good role model. [...] i think when i was first watching, i supported mark, but, you know, and i hope he takes no offense to this—vettel was winning everything at that point. so i was supporting mark, but vettel was doing most of the winning. i think now that i understand more about racing though, i would say [the driver i look up to the most is] lewis, mainly. the way he goes about things on and off the track is quite exceptional."

(mcl youtube; mar 29, 2023) sporting idols mentioned: ayrton senna, alain prost, michael jordan (see also ultimate athletes list)

(p1; aug 10, 2023) "i would say i never had like one specific idol. when i was growing up watching mark webber was at red bull, and obviously being australian, red bull being very quick at the time, i kind of naturally followed him. i mean—even like some of the guys in the junior ranks above me. like lando was always kind of two, three years above me, winning… most things on his way up. so i guess kind of him in some ways?"

(eff won; dec 4, 2023) "i don’t really have like one specific [idol]. i think what lewis has been able to do in terms of getting to seven world championships was incredibly impressive. i think what max is doing now is also very impressive…" 

the first lando post oscar liked on instagram (dec 21, 2015)

the first maxf posts oscar liked; instagram (feb 26, 2016) & twitter (may 9, 2016)

anyway, back to british f4! despite his initially unconventional foray into motorsport, oscar's journey progressed in a much more orderly fashion once he stepped up to single-seaters. his actual debut was in f4 uae, which he ran 3 rounds of between 2016 and 2017 (another fun fact: this is where he briefly acquainted himself with mclaren indycar driver david malukas, who would later recall him being very intelligent and whom zak brown allegedly spoke to oscar about before appointing to their indy team). after cutting his teeth on actual car-racing for the first time, oscar decided against moving up to the ok class as he felt confident in his ability to be competitive in single-seaters. his first full season was therefore the 2017 british f4 championship, during which oscar signed with arden while logan went to reigning champions carlin (lando had won with them in 2015, then maxf in 2016). oscar made his way to the top step 6 times in the season and placed just barely above logan for 2nd in the championship, finishing behind the considerably more experienced jamie caroline. arden was also founded and is currently owned by red bull team principal christian horner, so it was during oscar's time there that christian took note of and interest in his talent; oscar reportedly did a few runs in the red bull simulator but was passed over for joining the academy, which christian later voiced regret on. (source)

maxf, logan (center), and oscar (to max's right) on a day maxf was visiting the 2017 british f4 grid (april 11, 2017)

linus lundqvist, oscar, and logan on the podium at snetterton (jul 30, 2017)

jamie and oscar, who were… er, mathematically in the main championship fight. for some reason they made them take these photos (sep 30, 2017)

after a successful f4 outing with arden, oscar returned to the team for his first season of formula renault eurocup in 2018, a renault series that ran in its specific configuration until 2020 before merging with the parallel regional series frec to become what is today known as freca. this season proved to be less competitive for oscar, as arden was relatively inexperienced in this series and oscar's three teammates were afflicted with what can colloquially be referred to as a "skill issue," making it difficult to collectively develop the car throughout the season. (blog interview) the series was thus returning driver maxf's to lose, who at the time was racing for reigning champs r-ace with teammates that included oscar's fellow rookies logan and victor martins.

despite the unideal environment, oscar managed to prove his worth by placing a respectable 8th in the series, scoring 110 points as a rookie driver and capping the season off with 3 podiums and a top-finish of 2nd place—a jarring contrast to his teammates' joint total of 12 points. this result attracted the attention of r-ace and granted him a seat with them for the 2019 season, at which point maxf and logan both graduated to f3. thankfully that wasn't too much of a concern for oscar since he'd always intended to do two seasons of eurocup, and now he finally had a chance to win the first serious championship of his racing career with an established racing outfit.

oscar, max, and yifei ye on the hockenheim r2 podium (sep 23, 2018) [full gifset]

oscar's second season of eurocup is when he truly started proving himself as a driver, or at least to the people whose names, money, and opinions mattered around the paddock. his main competition in 2019 was again victor, who was now racing for mp and had been made a member of the renault sport academy back in 2018 after a strong performance in french f4. despite a close title fight, oscar managed to hold him off for the championship in the final race of the season, kicking off what would soon become an impressive string of consecutive single-seater series titles. even sweeter was the fact that all eurocup champions were awarded a renault sport academy spot that could be left or taken as they pleased, and of course—while the finances weren't nearly as impressive as alpine would later proclaim in their baseless smear campaign—oscar's connections in the racing world were limited as an australian driver almost exclusively managed by his father, so he gladly accepted the offer for the many venues of support renault presented to him.

see also: bby oscar briefly mentioning lando after winning eurocup in 2019 (@ 1:10)

oscar being lifted by his team (r-ace) after placing 4th in the abu dhabi finale and winning the title by 7.5 points

3. renault sport academy, lockdown, f3 (2020)

many things happened in 2020. one: oscar became an official member of the renault sport academy, joining the likes of max (who'd been picked up on merit after winning british f4 in 2017), guanyu, christian lundgaard, caio collett, and fellow new recruit hadrien david (victor had been strategically demoted after oscar's win because renault is a notoriously unserious organization, but again this is not the post). two: by the time oscar was ready for f3, moving up the ladder proved to be exorbitantly expensive, and he realized he needed better funds and managerial support to sort his career out. he'd been offered a spot in prema's f3 team by team-owner rené rosin at the end of his eurocup season, who'd named him for the post-season test before the championship was over and stressed that the spot was his no matter where he finished. (source) prema is unquestionably one of the top—if not frequently the top—teams one can drive for in most junior series (though there is also somewhat of a self-selection bias; if you ask oscar he is not a significant beneficiary of prematax!), having absolutely demolished the f3 competition that same year and achieved a clean sweep of the drivers' standings with rob shwartzman, marcus armstrong, and jehan at 1-2-3 consecutively. oscar completed post-season testing with them in spain alongside to-be teammates logan and fred vesti in october (source), before confirming on jan 26, 2020 that he would be joining them for the f3 season as a renault junior.

so, where does mark webber come in here? apparently mark's trainer from red bull and wec had also been oscar's trainer since 2016 (i'm pretty sure this is australian physiologist simon sostaric), and it was through their joint connection that oscar was introduced to mark. according to mclaren's 2023 season preview, "the pair hit it off, and webber took his countryman under his wing," signing oscar to jam sports management, aka the management agency he runs with his wife ann. mark's support would become a major factor in helping oscar progress through the feeder ranks and establish himself in f1, mainly because he had actual connections and could help oscar network with sponsors and negotiate his way during future signings. of course, more on this later.

as an aside, here are a few things mark has said about oscar:

"he’s got that white line fever when he puts his helmet on and turns into a different character, which is sensational." (mar 1, 2020)

"one of oscar’s biggest strengths by a mile, compared to everyone he is competing against — and this will be a huge string to his bow when he makes it to f1 — is his composure. he has immense levels of composure. [...] if you are weak mentally you won’t make it. he was on his own from an early age. he did brilliantly with his studies. but the racing disease would not go away, he wants it very much." (sydney morning herald; dec 11, 2021)

"he’s a prost, mate. he’s such a thinker and so calm. at first i thought i needed to inject a bit of urgency in him, but actually no, he’s got his own frequency. that’s just where he is." (the race; oct 7, 2023)

estimates provided by chris piastri on the cost of oscar's junior career, stressing the million-dollar commitments of running a single season of f3 or f2 (source)

anyway, back to the chaotic events of 2020. i think something that's good to keep in mind when discussing oscar's time in the renault sport academy is that he was actually a relatively new recruit, as in he only participated in a single training camp with the other juniors in 2020 and most of them (max, christian, guanyu, the temporary ghost of victor) already knew each other before. oscar essentially met with renault's factory team in early 2020, filmed promotional material with other juniors in january before attending the season opener together in february and then heading to winter training camp later that month, after which he and max left early for f3 pre-season testing in bahrain on march 1—a blessing in disguise, seeing as caio, hadrien, and christian remained behind and would soon be stuck quaranting in a hotel in tenerife—then briefly spent a week at school before returning home for what was meant to be a quick pit stop at the australian gp, which at the time had yet to be canceled.

then, of course, lockdown happened.

simplified breakdown of renault junior stints, notably showcasing the academy's struggles to meaningfully promote any of its juniors

oscar at the 2020 renault season opener alongside then-academy director mia sharizman, then-tp cyril abiteboul, alain prost, f1 drivers esteban ocon and daniel ricciardo, and the other academy juniors: fewtrell, lundgaard, zhou, david (feb 12, 2020)

oscar and maxf behind the scenes of the same event (feb 12, 2020)

stuck in australia for three months, oscar would end up participating in two fia virtual races, one for f2 and another for f1 (jun 7, 2020). a fun landoscar tidbit is that he finished 5th in the virtual gp right behind lando, so they technically had raced each other before 2023, depending on... well, whether you count a 2020 sim race wherein george russell and alex albon lead the pack as a real race. nevertheless, this was a time when drivers were becoming much more active online, seeing as streaming was the best way to keep their images relevant and connect with fans, and despite oscar expressing little interest in streaming on twitch he would still experience a considerable uptick in his online activity and twitter reach that year.

racing resumed on july 4 at the red bull ring in austria; oscar had been granted an exemption to travel to the uk and complete a 2-week quarantine back on may 27, a reassuring indicator to the motorsport world that the f3 season would run after all. now that he no longer had to attend school, having received 2 b's and 1 c for his maths, physics, and computer science a-levels, oscar relocated from hertford to oxford in june to be near the renault facilities, which he visited nearly every day to train at, and began living independently (as in in a flat) for the first time since 2016, rooming with fellow renault junior caio collet.

as i said before, this season is when oscar's online presence and "memeability" began to really conceptualize, enabled primarily by the fact that he was a) finally living outside of a school dormitory, and b) now, of course, signed at prema, a team notorious for its social media visibility, literal family atmosphere, and frequent youtube pandering. according to this f3 article, his twitter followers jumped from 795 at the start of the season to 11.6k by the time he won the championship, an audience built significantly off the self-deprecating string of jokes he used to tweet regarding drs and general reliability issues faced throughout the season.

what i guess i want to touch on here is how oscar's online presence has always been concentrated around the bare fundamentals of his personality: dry humor, candid words, sparing emojis, a few humorous photos detailing the mundane reality of his everyday routines, and at most the occasional inopportune meme or reaction gif (#thepiastri 🤷‍♂️, f2 in baku, jetpack guy, so on). he's bantered frequently with callum on twitter and near-obsessively liked memes, videos, and other updates lando shares with his audience, but he also has seemingly little interest in building up his own "brand" the way lando so smartly has with ln4 and quadrant, and quite frankly seems viscerally incapable of wanting to engage one-to-one with fans or otherwise leveraging the popularity of his material image. basically what i like to say is that oscar enjoys being adjacent to "lad humor" and will happily enable it, but he really has no interest in being the one to initiate it himself!

"there's some things you want to share, some things you don’t. in today's age and sort of having the profile that us drivers do, we kind of just have everything shared,” piastri said. “but (social media) can be used for good, certainly within the profiles that we have. but in some ways, it can be negative, and there's always going to be people out there that don't like you for being you.” piastri tries to write as many of his posts as possible, and he checks those written by his team to be sure they sound authentically him. (the athletic; jun 29, 2023)

along these lines, oscar does enjoy the spotlight, only he seems to prefer it concentrated in a specific lens toward a specific productive end. he's endlessly capable of seeing the objective upside of a situation, joking after he was made a meme in baku following his f2 sr1 collision that he was all for it if it got him popularity. after his eurocup championship he also said: "i think everyone loves a bit of spotlight on them. i think that's just human nature, so a bit of attention's always nice." which is interesting to me!

but back to racing. this season would unexpectedly become two things: maxf's last competitive season in motorsport—especially disappointing considering that he'd gone into the championship expecting to put on a second-season title charge, instead failing to gel with the hitech team to the point that each increasingly poor weekend made him spiral mentally—as well as oscar and logan's last season racing against each other before f1, since logan would later encounter financial difficulties that left him stranded in f3 as oscar catapulted himself to f2 victory. 2020 was obviously a weird season in general because of covid and the gap from pre-season testing, so it also meant that oscar had gone into the season fairly rusty; he managed to win the first race of the season, but on top of his drs rollercoaster he did struggle with middling results in qualifying and was met step-by-step throughout the championship by logan.

maxf's last race in f3 was the barcelona sprint race on august 16, with three rounds left to the end of the season. he dnfed in an unfortunate first-lap incident mere moments after oscar charged his way up from 5th on the grid to the front of the pack, where he would eventually breeze his way to victory and pull himself near-level with logan for the championship lead. i recognize that this is an oscar post and not a maxf post, but i think their time in f3 during an extremely isolated and covid-affected period speaks to both an interesting dynamic between them (the little kid who always lagged a series behind you suddenly beating you on merit) and their respective temperaments toward racing. while at renault, max reportedly lived with jack aitken during the week but would return to his family home on weekends, so it makes sense that he struggled to adapt when covid hit and drivers were collectively forced into very regimented sporting bubbles. mark webber, who worked for channel 4 as a commentator and had access to the f1 paddock, basically couldn't see oscar in person and instead spoke to him over the phone every day on race weekends. maxf said of his decision to quit:

"normally [...] i’m able to stay calm under pressure and i don’t let many things get to me but when you have a bad qualifying result and you see guys up there that you know you’re capable of beating, it definitely takes a dig at you inside and it’s been a lot to process throughout the year." (source)

while then-academy director mia sharizman, who worked closely with the renault juniors, spoke of oscar's inherent propensity for independence and how he adapted well to the pressures of living on his own:

"if you look at oscar piastri, he has been living on his own, [away] from his family who are in melbourne for the past five to six years. because he has been living on his own in boarding school, he learns how to live on his own, and he thrives in that. we have to force him... 'have you spoken to your father?!' it's just things like that, but he thrives in that. that's why he thrived in those weekends racing. he loves being on his own without anybody. on the other hand, we had max fewtrell, for example, who can't – he couldn't survive the 11 weekends racing, because he always needed his family to be around him. so those are the things that suddenly you see and, i think that that we see now, after a few years a driver who is quick, a driver who has the talent, and then the driver who is stable." (source)

2020 is also when lando and oscar spoke to each other on twitter for the first time. yay! after lando went semi-viral for having a meltdown over a hornet on three separate social media platforms, oscar first joked with him about it on august 24 (this was incidentally also the day maxf announced his functional retirement, which oscar liked as well 😭), before referencing the incident again a few weeks later in september.

(aug 24, 2020) / (sep 10, 2020)

outside of drs tweets and trying desperately to banter with lando norris, oscar's popular tweets at the time included several food-related mishaps and home appliance tragedies. while this isn't actually a lando moment, he was also slandered by the LN4 twitter account a month later on october 17 for reasons that remain a mystery, resulting in this set of interactions:

(oct 17, 2020) / (oct 19, 2020)

bonus: maxf's tweets @ oscar (when you aren't close enough to just text him.......)

but back to f3. similarly to his second season of eurocup, oscar would go on to clinch the title in only the final race of the year, this time even more stressfully—he never got pole that season and won arguably off of consistency, benefiting from errors and unfortunate collisions involving his primary competitors. after a hectic qualifying and string of contentious grid penalties set for the before-last round in monza, he began the feature race 15th on the grid but put on an impressive performance to finish on the podium, buffing his points lead after logan was tapped by clément and put out of the points. he, logan, and fred all dnfed in race 2 (read: the novalak pendulum swung away from oscar's favor to maintain stringent cosmic equilibrium, while logan and fred threw away a points opportunity with a teammate4teammate love tap), and oscar went into mugello with only an 8-point lead over logan and a 24-point lead over pourchaire. this weekend proved equally hectic, as is frequently the case with f3 racing standards, but in short oscar and logan entered the final sprint race level on points, with théo approaching terrifyingly near in their rearview mirrors. logan was unceremoniously taken out of contention on the first lap after contact with zendeli, and oscar managed to squeak his way to 164 points in the championship by placing 7th in the race; théo finished 3rd, with 161 points, two positions away from claiming both the race and the championship title.

a succinct summary of an eventful season! (posted jun 30, 2021)

despite winning the f3 championship in far-from-dominant fashion, oscar's career was now steadily on an upward trend. on october 30 he was rewarded with a private test in the r.s.18 at bahrain alongside christian and guanyu, and a month later confirmed that he would be racing for prema again in f2 (december 1, 2020). as a rookie f3 champion there was a moderate amount of interest in him, but no one really expected him to carry home the f2 title on his first try and so one of the main favorites going into the next season was his second-year teammate and 2019 f3 champion rob shwartzman.

4. f2, alpine reserve duties, #piastrigate (2021-2022)

at the start of 2021, fernando officially took daniel's place at renault and the team rebranded itself as alpine, parting ways with team principal cyril abiteboul and functionally replacing him with new ceo laurent rossi—part of a no-tp management structure, frankly a self-evident infrastructural faux-pas from a million miles away. the renault sport academy was then also renamed to alpine academy; again i know that this is an oscar post so i won't get too into the details of Alpine Being Alpine, but understanding how the academy functioned does help better contextualize the inevitable unfurling of piastrigate.

the main issue, really, would always be laurent rossi, or at least the values laurent rossi had been hired to represent and which he willingly peddled during his controversial tenure at alpine. after rossi's appointment it was reported that "the renamed alpine academy was now being tugged in two directions between director mia sharizman's ideal as a creator of future f1 drivers and alpine's chief executive officer laurent rossi's commercially-led preferences." (source) mia directed the academy from january 2016 until may 2022, and had been the one to restructure its recruitment process by demanding better funding and robust testing programs to cyril:

"when we first restarted the team in 2016, it was, we didn't even have a two-year-old car program at that time. we had to use a 2012 program using the [lotus] e20. [...] then in 2018, i went through it, and i said to cyril abiteboul, "look, let's try and do this." we needed financial resources. i needed a head start with financial resources to kick start the program whereby you entice drivers, and you offer [a place] to the academy drivers. it was more to see how they are... it was more of an evaluation process... that was what the first idea was. then we developed the program to develop the drivers to suit their formual 2 program." (source)

(note: mia also believed that 2020 was a disappointing year for all of his juniors save for oscar's performance in f3, which is a whole other thing. but rossi's greatest shortcoming was that he had singular, insulated vision, and he resisted any external input to the detriment of reactionary business decisions, a fact that alienated alain prost and soon led to his exit from the outfit in 2022. not a good look!!! prost would later call rossi "the best example of the dunning-kruger effect, that of an incapable leader who thinks himself able to overcome his incompetence with his arrogance and lack of humanity toward his troops." 🤌)

so basically, the cracks of mind-boggling incompetence within the team's leadership structure were long evident. on a brighter note, oscar's 2021 f2 season would quickly become his strongest single-seater contest ever (f1 youtube has a good summarizing video of his season, if interested); because of covid, f2 was experimenting with a three-race format this year in which quali set the reverse grid for sr1 and sr1 results then set the reverse grid for sr2, which essentially meant high qualifiers were rewarded for simply maintaining composure in the first sprint and running cleanly in the top 10 in order to secure a favorable grid spot in sr2. oscar adapted well to this format, building off his reputation of smooth, consistent driving on top of slowly improving his qualifying results over the course of the season, finally breaking through with his first feature-race win in monza. 

oscar with mia sharizman

this is also around the time when lando mentioned oscar in official f1 media for the first time, reading off a question about him to daniel in an interview posted in october:

"this one's not even about formula one. it's about oscar piastri. oscar pias-tree! [...] he's been on it this year." — (full video) (oct 1, 2021)

of his own f2 campaign, oscar said:

"i thought that i could challenge for race wins, but i probably wasn't expecting to be so consistently at the front. consistency is something that i’ve had as a trait throughout my career, and i was expecting to be consistent in my results this year — but maybe a bit lower down!" (source)

not only did he end up being consistently at the front, he became virtually unstoppable in the second half of the season. on december 11, oscar clinched the title in abu dhabi with two races to spare, ending the season with 5 consecutive poles and 4 consecutive feature wins, 60.5 points above his previously-favored teammate in the standings. #notbadforashitqualifier!

by now oscar was a hot commodity in the paddock; the only problem was that alpine didn't really care, mainly because rossi had enthusiastically re-signed ocon to a three-year deal in 2021 and held zero intention of actually promoting any of its juniors to one of the race seats, plus the one open spot at alfa romeo had instead gone to guanyu and his considerable financial package (though oscar has always been vocally defensive of guanyu's appointment to his detractors). instead of moving to another series, such as indycar or super formula, oscar recognized that he'd proven everything he needed to prove within the feeder system and opted to remain on the grid as alpine's reserve driver, mainly so that he could embed himself in an f1 team environment and—most crucially—avoid being left "out of sight, out of mind," because once you go to america you usually don't come back.

i'll keep the rest of this post brief since i feel like everyone already knows What Went Down, but a quick highlight for fellow landoscar enjoyers was the 2022 australian gp on april 10, during which oscar accompanied rosanna tennant for the post-race show and awkwardly participated in a chaotic lando & alex interview. as far as i know, this was landoscar's first time interacting on-camera!

o: "i haven't raced either of them, no." l: "not yet!" o: "not yet. hopefully soon." — (full video) (apr 10, 2022)

then silly season started, and everything was thrown into disarray when sebastian vettel announced his imminent retirement and fernando subsequently took his place at aston martin; alpine scrambled to recover from this blindsided move and prematurely promoted oscar to an f1 seat, to which oscar eventually posted The Tweet—claiming he'd never signed a contract with alpine and would not be racing for them in 2023, thus kicking off #piastrigate. or the piasco, or whatever you prefer to call it.

here's a good article that properly summarizes the crb ruling, but tl;dr: mclaren and alpine had come to an agreement back in march to loan oscar to mclaren's stable of reserve drivers after daniel contracted covid; mark webber, who was close to andreas seidl from their time at porsche in wec, quietly negotiated a contract with mclaren for 2023 that oscar would then sign on july 4, which was reportedly initially a reserve deal with an upgrade clause to a full-time drive given a dr buyout; alpine's legal team turned out to be essentially one overworked legal director who mishandled the situation thanks to a lack of organizational support, while a concrete williams deal never actually existed no matter what people continuously allege, and any proprietary right to oscar's services that alpine purported to have for the 2023 season would soon be voided by crb rule on september 2. in other words, they dun goofed.

because tumblr dies when i try to include it in this post, here's a link to a condensed chronological timeline version of this post.

that's it for now. i'm sure you know how the rest goes!!!

[brucewaynehater101]

Fuck yeah! I just love it when Tim makes a name for himself and his own place to help people using his resources instead of Bruce's resources. It's just something so dear to my heart.

Also it would be really funny if Tim wasn't only hiring other people goons. Like yeah, he's stealing all of Lex's workers, but he's also taking Joker's and Bane's and Penguin's and Two Face's. He put up a policy that said, "we hire (most) all felons. Crimes do not matter, unless certain scenarios such as crimes of a sexual nature." Which means most of the Henchmen who are only that because they can't get a legal job? They *flock* to Tim.

Tim also hires villians as well. He offers Ivy a job studying plants and green solutions to make the company better. He offers Harley a job as a nurse. He even goes to other cities to offer jobs to other heroes rouges such as giving Chershire a job trying to find holes in his security so he can patch them, Captian Cold works as a security guard, and Metallo works in some of the research labs working with chemicals that humans can't touch or testing new cybernetics that allow him to actually feel.

I am fully under the belief that a lot of DC rogues/villains/criminals would pursue an "honest" line of work if they had that choice/ability. This is why fics or AUs of one of the Bats (I am more partial to Tim, but I'd also so be down for Barbara) figuring out how to incorporate better social programs and supports to cut down crime.

There will be people who commit atrocities for the hell of it (fuck you Joker), but most of DC's villains have a just reason for their actions (even though the execution is poor).

Now, Tim cutting down crime through social programs and hiring people more so than the JL lowered crime since its founding? That would be fucking hilarious.

I would love to see more fics of different rogues getting their needs met and having options outside of the path DC made for them. Your examples are great, and I'd love more

[thewertsearch]

Anonymous asked: hussies commentary actually implies that eridan was already planning on destroying the matriorb: ‘ Eridan says he has to "help Kanaya out with this thing" but doesn't actually say what he means by that. There are a bunch of little ambiguities like this leading up to what happens next, disguising his sinister intent. Or maybe hinting at it, if you have keen senses. We are merely pages away from Eridan fully embracing his role as the incel murderboy he was always meant to be.’ @lipstickchainsaw asked: I always interpreted Eridan offering to 'help' with the Matriorb to be this, honestly. @krixwell asked: Eridan didn't exactly commit to helping with the Matriorb, did he? I believe his words were "I demand to be invvolvved." He certainly invvolvved himself. Anonymous asked: Consider that Kanaya’s Chastity Modus only allowed her to find the key to withdraw the matriorb… in time for Eridan to decide to destroy it. Combine that with Eridan offering help because the task sounded “hopeful”, and that he subsequently declared to the others that there was “no hope left” before literally “Hopesplode”-ing the matriorb, maybe he intended to destroy it all along to fulfill his old genocidal ambitions. And that it was DESTINED to be destroyed, of all things…

It's true that his prior statements can be interpreted in this manner - but if this was his plan all along, it's still idiotic. He wanted to kill the lowbloods, but destroying the orb ensures that all trolls will go extinct, his caste included.

I'm not sure I buy Hussie's assertion that this twist was foreshadowed, either. Sure, his lines were ambiguous in retrospect, but you certainly couldn't have predicted his next move from them. He certainly did have murderboy vibes, but his decision to destroy the Matriorb, specifically, still feels like it came out of the blue.

Like, what was the point? Why end your whole race on a whim? Did you want to wipe out the highbloods? If so, why?

Anonymous asked: HOPESPLODE! what a sound effect. for a guy who's supposed to be all about hope he certainly seems to have taken a pretty intense stand Against hope, broadly, going so far as to actively destroy the Hope of a future for trolls as a species. i think eridan spending the whole session killing all the angels on his planet goes along with this, if you think about the angels as the decidedly Hopey part of his land title. he was killing hope then and he's killing hope now. actively refusing his aspect. @gamblingenderman asked: In response to you seeing Eridan being very stupid, I'd like to know what your theories are on his role as Prince of Hope.

Well, he's a Prince, which implies that he's supposed to command or control his Aspect in some way. Maybe his instincts were telling him that Kanaya's mission of hope was his birthright, and he needed to commandeer it for himself.

If any Class would feel a particularly strong sense of 'ownership' over their Aspect, it would be the Prince. Maybe he just didn't think Kanaya's hope for the Matriorb was one he would approve of, so he needed to stop it at any cost.

[the-music-maniac]

You know what confuses me about Crisis Core.

So, we learn when Zack is dispatched with Tseng to Banora that Genesis murdered most of the townfolk, his own parents, a bunch of Shinra soldiers, and then started bombing the place with the arsenal he took. I mean, he fails because of Zack and then Shinra like. Sends an airstrike anyways to destroy evidence of company involvement, rendering that attempt moot. Then he like. Sends another summon after Zack.

In the course of the entirety of Genesis' rampage, it's implied that he killed probably a shit ton more people in cold blood and for his own ends, he turns a bunch of them into Genesis copies for crying out loud, which is quite horrific.

When Genesis is doing his rambling thing in front of the damn statue at the end of the game, Zack tells him he's here to help Genesis. And when he goes to contact the statue, Zack yells, "Don't let it take over, you're not a monster, you're one of us." Keep in mind Zack is aware of the atrocities Genesis committed of his own volition, even if he wasn't necessarily sound of mind because of the degeneration.

In contrast, during the Nibelheim incident, after Sephiroth locked himself inside the library for like a week without eating or sleeping, joined Jenova and then burned down the village, Zack finds him and demands answers. Sephiroth is clearly...not himself. His speech patterns are entirely different (creepy), he can't take his eyes off the containment unit, he ignores Zack's demands. Zack realizes Sephiroth isn't being himself, I recognize that, but it confuses me, that he didn't attempt to get through to Sephiroth harder, when he at least showed signs of doing so with Genesis and Angeal. Angeal I get, that was his mentor. Genesis though? Like even while Zack and Sephiroth were fighting, I expected at least some dialogue of Zack attempting to reason with him.

We know as players that Sephiroth goes on to do more heinous shit, but until then, his crimes are about the same as all those that Genesis committed. Genesis destroyed an entire village. Sephiroth destroyed an entire village. Genesis destroyed more than a village, so I'd argue the shit (outside of Shinra's orders of course) he did was worse.

Was it because Zack was too angry at the time? Nibelheim was still burning, Tifa was hurt, while the atrocities Genesis committed were distanced - Zack didn't see a majority of them. Maybe the whole "take over the planet" thing? Was it because Sephiroth was attacking him, and so Zack had to concentrate on surviving? Why was Genesis given grace, when Sephiroth wasn't? Yes, I understand Cloud and Tifa watched their parents get murdered in cold blood, so they're understandably furious, but what of all those families Genesis had destroyed? Even while Zack was at Shinra, he still intended to get Genesis back alive.

The entire theme of the game had been posing a question - are the SOLDIERS monsters. Zack had been adamant that they aren't at the beginning, while the three that were affected, Angeal, Sephiroth and Genesis hadn't been sure. Sephiroth was the only one who hadn't received any sort of contradiction to his own beliefs. Angeal did. Genesis did. And Zack fully WITNESSED the breakdown Sephiroth had in the reactor. I can't be certain if he witnessed the awful shit that Genesis had said to Seph, I know he was knocked down - but was he unconscious? Even if he didn't hear it all, he had to have heard the "no such luck, you are a monster." because Genesis said it BEFORE Zack was knocked over. Did he not see the pattern? I don't understand how it could be possible that he didn't see it.

And I get that Zack himself was starting to lose conviction on the idea that SOLDIERS aren't monsters, but if you knew what Angeal and Genesis had been feeling - their bitterness over being turned into monsters coinciding with Sephiroth's own breakdown and questioning of his humanity - then why did Zack let Sephiroth go through that mental breakdown on his own? Yeah, so he told him to leave him be - Zack thought Angeal had killed his own mother in cold blood and yet he still went after him. Zack said Sephiroth was like a man possessed, so he KNEW this was unusual behaviour too. Also, isn't it weird to just be stuck somewhere for seven days with no further orders? Did Zack try to get through to him repeatedly and fail? The game didn't show that to be the case, Sephiroth was alone the entire time he was reading in that library.

Or did he assume that the Silver General could've handled it on his own, once again holding Sephiroth to a different standard than everyone else?

I don't know, I just find it hypocritical. I know the Final Fantasy games are a series that only really shows you glimpses of the main villain, in an attempt to get a player to question what it means to be a hero - they did it well, the entire thing reaps of hypocrisy.

Shinra does what it wants, sends airstrikes to cover up their tracks, maintains the image it wants to via control of the news, holds a monopoly on everything, destroys a different lands for resources, and while Zack begins to question what he's doing because of Angeal and Genesis, the questioning has nothing to do with Shinra as an entity, only the soldiers within. Why didn't he question Shinra, for inflicting this onto Angeal, Genesis and Sephiroth? Why didn't he question that apparently Shinra has fucking cloning technology that can be used on the SOLDIERS? He picks up Angeal's blade while he was talking to Cloud, and is reminded of his SOLDIER honour. What honour? How did Angeal and Zack go for so long in Shinra while being "good people" without being disillusioned sooner by everything else they were doing? I understand the general population being fooled, but Angeal was one of the freaking firsts. They didn't question anything until Angeal and Genesis began to degrade? They weren't quite like Sephiroth, I'm assuming they weren't physically unable to leave if they wanted to be discharged. None of them were raised in a place where this was all they've ever known. None of them were raised to be disillusioned with death, to believe any empathy and compassion was weakness. Unlike Sephiroth, they had options.

And Sephiroth STILL had the mind to not only be compassionate with his own soldiers, but to want to defect. Because that was the only way he could've ever left Shinra.

I'm more convinced now then ever that Sephiroth was done dirty.

[fractualized]

Could you give me any Batman comic(/series) recommendations? Or Joker ones?

(You can pretend I’ve never read any Batman comics)

Man, this got me thinking about (1) the number of extended storylines I still haven't fully read myself and (2) of the ones I have, would I recommend that people read them?? Tough question! Thinking about it in terms of a Batman newbie changes things too... 🤔

Ultimately, my list is mostly one-offs apart from the mainline series, but there's a few multi-issue mainline stories in there. From oldest to newest:

Batman (1940) #1, "The Joker" and "The Joker Returns" — Early comics can feel inaccessible because of their age, but I would still recommend checking out the start of Batman and Joker's relationship for a sense of the longevity and evolution of these characters (You could also read Batman's first appearance in Detective Comics [1937] #27.)

Batman (1940) #251, "The Joker's Five-Way Revenge" — Jumping ahead thirty years! After a 4-year absence from comics, Joker returns, and I just love how his dynamic with Batman picks up where they left off like it was yesterday.

Detective Comics (1937) #475, "The Laughing Fish" — The infamous story in which Joker's mad scheme is to… copyright fish.

The Dark Knight Returns #1-4 — TBH, I'm not a fan of TDKR for various reasons. However, it had a huge influence on Batman and you should read it at least once.

Batman (1940) #404-407, "Batman: Year One" — More required reading (but I do enjoy it more than TDKR). Frank Miller's problematique is more acknowledged today, but as I said, modern Batman stems from his work.

The Killing Joke — Controversial-ish recommendation nowadays, considering the much-maligned choice to fridge Barbara Gordon, but I still enjoy the nuance it gives Joker and the meta element of the ending, with Bruce and Joker trapped in their cycle by choices that are informed by the needs of the franchise. Alan Moore may no longer care for it, but I do! (Also, I'd say read it with the original coloring.)

Batman (1940) #426-429, "A Death in the Family" — Another big event in Batman lore: the death of Jason Todd. It's one of those moments that gets flattened in various ways today, so I think it's important to see how everything actually played out. In particular, it's striking to see that Joker is initially nervous about Batman finding out what he did, and just how Bruce struggles with his no-kill principle.

Batman #450-451, "Wildcard!" and "Judgements!" — Joker's big return after Jason's murder, in which we see he's still not all that giddy about it.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #65-68, "Going Sane" — This story takes place earlier in Batman's career, before Robin. When Joker seemingly kills Batman, he tries to start a new life without his instability breaking through. Meanwhile, Bruce recovers from his near-death in a little town in the middle of nowhere and thinks he might actually stay there… but he's plagued by restlessness too.

Joker: Devil's Advocate — Joker winds up on death row, but for a crime he didn't commit! Bruce is set on proving Joker's innocence despite the clown's other sins, and Joker is too captivated by all the media attention to help save his own hide.

Deathstroke (1991) #58, "Bad Blood" — A story in which Joker causes plenty of chaos, but in service of doing something… nice?

Batman: Ego — As Bruce contemplates giving up his crusade, he falls into an argument with… Batman.

Batman (1940) #648-650, "All They Do Is Watch Us Kill" — Part of Under the Red Hood. Jason Todd's reappearance in Gotham City comes to a head when he kidnaps Joker and draws Batman in for a dire confrontation.

Detective Comics (1937) #826, "Slayride" — Paul Dini is one of the writers who consistently remembers Joker has a personality and makes him funny, and this Christmas-time story featuring Tim Drake is a great example.

Batman Confidential #7-12, "Lovers and Madmen" — An alternative origin for Joker. Bruce has been fighting crime for about a year when he encounters a bloody crime scene that he can't make sense of. Meanwhile, the culprit, Jack, is growing bored with his criminal life, until he comes face to face with a vigilante bat.

Batman 80-Page Giant 2010 (Volume 2), "Reality Check" — Is Joker really crazy? Does Joker himself even know?

Batman (2011) #13-17, "Death of the Family" — Not to be confused with "A Death in the Family." Joker tries to convince Batman that all his sidekicks make him weak.

Batman (2011) #23.1, "Time to Monkey Shine" — Joker infamously adopts a gorilla. (It ends badly.)

Batman (2011) #35-40, "Endgame" — After Joker's failure in DOTF, he decides to bring his conflict with Batman to a close.

The Joker Presents: A Puzzlebox #1-7 — The Riddler is dead, but what really happened? A heist story in which the point of view is passed around multiple rogues, but Joker is the ringleader.

Catwoman: Lonely City #1-4 — Alright, this one does revolve around Selina, but the story is deeply tied to her relationship with Bruce and what she comes to understand about him in the end. (And Joker plays a brief but key part!)

Batman & The Joker: The Deadly Duo #1-7 — A recent team-up that calls back to everything I've personally enjoyed about Batman and Joker's dynamic.

Batman: City of Madness #1-3 — Beneath Gotham lies Gotham Below, from which a monstrous mirror of Batman escapes in search of a Robin. In his pursuit, Bruce confronts not only alternative versions of his rogues but his personal demons.

[epicbuddieficrecs]

Throwback Rec!

Helloooooooo!

I've mentioned this when I first started the blog, but unlike with my previous rec blogs, there was quite a long period of time between the time when I started reading buddie fics and when I started this blog (live, five-ish months). Consequently, there's a lot of fics I've read during that period that I've never recced! So I thought I'd try to do a "Throwback" rec once in a while to rec these fics. Enjoy!

this must be the place by euadnes/ @kananjarus (Canon Divergent, Post-Shooting | 75K | Teen): Every life altering event is often led up to with a series of other important events. In this case, there were at least three: An unstoppable fire. An afternoon spent underneath a blanket of California blue sky. But firstly, and maybe the most important of all: There was the impeccable aiming of an ex-sharpshooter. *** Or, the Buck is also shot by the sniper AU that no one asked for.

🔥 Benign Fatality by EtoileGarden/ @etoilegarden (Time Loop AU, Season 2-4 | 23K | Teen): Buck repeats days until he doesn't die in them, has an underdeveloped sense of self worth, and Eddie is the one who wants to step in with him.

must be some kind of twist, I could get used to this by soyxunxperdedor/ @messyhairdiaz (Post-S4, Accidental Marriage | 38K | Explicit): He doesn’t remember much from last night, even less after the fourth or fifth tequila shot. So he certainly doesn’t remember bringing someone back to his room. He steels himself for the lancing pain and cracks his eyes open. Oh. Oh no. This is either really bad or… Well, not really good, but just. Not really bad, and that’s probably all Buck can ask for it to be. Because Eddie is in his bed, Eddie’s arm is wrapped around his waist, Eddie’s legs are tangled with his. And he has no idea why.

🔥 in the night we trust by glorious_spoon/ @glorious-spoon (Canon Divergent, Pre-S4 | 29K | Explicit): Eddie and Buck start sleeping together when they're all stuck at Buck's place during lockdown. It still takes them almost three years to notice that they're in love.

🔥 Didn't think you meant it by EtoileGarden/ @etoilegarden (Friends to Fiancés to Lovers, Post-S5 | 33K | Explicit): “I want - I want to get to - to have some sort of - of promise that I’m… loved. And. And worthy. And that I get to always go to bed knowing I’m - I’m fully, like, mentally, physically, legally committed to this person who - who’ll always have my back, who’ll always - always be there when I need them. But I guess,” Buck shook his head. “I guess I’m starting to really - really believe that maybe I’m not actually built for that. For - for someone actually wanting to commit to me, to marry me. So I - I think seeing the wedding today just kinda cemented in my brain that no one would want to marry me.”  “I’d marry you,” Eddie said, patted his knee. 

🔥 standing on the brink of emptiness by woodchoc_magnum/ @woodchoc-magnum (Post-Shooting | 71K | Mature): In which Eddie is struggling in the aftermath of being shot, learning how to take care of himself and realising he's in love with Buck; and Buck is dating Taylor, taking care of Eddie and Christopher and trying to figure out why he's so goddamn confused about everything.

🔥 Muscle Memory by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (Amnesia AU | 40K | Teen): After a disappointment in his personal life, Buck wakes up one morning to find everyone he loves has forgotten him completely. No memories. No recognition. Almost like he was never really there.

oh, my dream (never quite as it seems) by woodchoc_magnum/ @woodchoc-magnum (S6, Friends with Benefits | 44K | Explicit): In which Buck and Eddie are trying out a friends-with-benefits thing (that's rapidly turning into more) when the world comes crashing down on them. As Buck hovers somewhere between life and death, Eddie has to deal with their friends, family and the Buckley parents.

It’s Not the Roaring Dream, It’s the Silent Lightning by giselleslash (Coma AU | 15K | Mature): Buck gets struck by lightning and wakes up in another life where he has everything he’s ever wanted, but soon that life starts to crumble around him and the painful pull back into reality nearly breaks his heart. (or the one where Buck is married to Eddie in a coma dream and he doesn’t want to let the dream go.)

found a park bench for a throne by withoutthetiger / @rewritetheending (Post-S6 | 23K | Teen): Set in S7, when Buck goes back to therapy and Eddie is there to comfort him after each session, much like Buck did for him in 5x14. They're friends, of course, but Eddie can only soothe Buck for so long before it becomes impossible to deny that they're also so much more.

I love the way you spoil me, baby by rosebuddiekin/ @giddyupbuck (Sugar Daddy Buck AU | 33K | Explicit): Buck is a sugar daddy who wants to spoil Eddie rotten and take care of everything for him. Eddie has never had that sort of relationship but is willing to give it a try. There is plenty of adventure along the way.

🔥 In the Gray You are Golden by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels (Zombie Apocalypse AU | 26K | Explicit): When the world fell apart, Eddie did his best to keep his son safe. But now winter's coming on, their supplies are dwindling, and Christopher needs medical attention, so Eddie takes the chance to move them across the country to the west coast, where the rumored 118 Safezone takes in all survivors. Buck's proud to be a member of the 118's search and rescue teams, but he can't shake the conviction that his lost sister is still alive in the wasteland. When he sneaks out to find her, he runs into Eddie and Chris instead, and vows to get them to the 118 safely. But the wasteland has many ways of tearing people apart, and the undead are just one trick up its sleeve...

🔥 you and me by woodchoc_magnum/ @woodchoc-magnum (S6 Fix-It | 55K | Mature): An alternate ending to Season 6, where Buck realises that what he's been searching for has been right in front of him the whole time.

🔥 The Education of Eddie Diaz by mansikka (Pre-S4, Friends With Benefits | 32K | Explicit): Eddie doesn't really know how it happened. One moment the 118 are drunk in a bar after a hard shift, confessions slipping from his mouth as he playfully kisses Buck on the cheek. The next he is on Buck's couch, taking up Buck's offer of an education that could be asking for trouble. But it's just sex, and they're just friends; it doesn't mean anything to either of them. So why is his time alone with Buck the highlight of his week?

🔥 i see you in my sheets (i see you in my sleep) by elless (Post-S6A, Friends with Benefits | 25K | Explicit): Buck and Eddie are FWB, act like boyfriends, and are suuuuper dumb and oblivious about everything.

🔥 a bleeding sun on a silver screen by rarakiplin (gmontys)/ @hoediaz (Actors AU, Friends With Benefits | 130K | Mature): One day, Buck will tell an interviewer that he would be happy to make movies with Eddie Diaz until the day he dies. But first, years before that, he sees Eddie for the first time on the set of Chimney’s fifth movie.

handle me with care by woodchoc_magnum/ @woodchoc-magnum (Canon to S6E9, Getting Together | 42K | Mature): In which Eddie tries dating again, and slowly comes to terms with his feelings for Buck.

Your Kiss Might Kill Me (So Won't You Kill Me) by morganofthefairies (PWP, BDSM | 9K | Explicit): Buck hadn’t been a virgin by the time he’d hit Peru – not even close. He still considered Peru a critical point in his sexual history, though, because Peru had brought him Fiona, and he was pretty sure he could credit her with like 80% of his sexual knowledge. None of that was the point, though. The point was that, six years later, when Eddie called for the jaws to get to a woman pinned in her car while responding to an 8-car pileup, and absentmindedly called him a good boy as Buck handed them over, he had a totally normal reaction to it.

[extensionallydefined]

It's time for a sequel! My last essay post was about the thematic relationship between standard Persona 5 and the added Royal content, and there I said that I'd do another little writeup on individuality in that context. I'm going to assess it especially regarding the Royal Trio. So here it is! As always, spoilers, you've been warned.

(This is post-finishing-the-writeup extensionallydefined here - this one's a long one, get ready! It gets into character study territory, yay!)

So, I wanna approach this topic from the lens of the characters of Akechi and Sumire. They're two characters whose individuality and autonomy are heavily put into question in Maruki's desired reality. But before we discuss them.

In Maruki's reality: 1. Your suffering is eliminated. 2. Your wishes are granted.

These are its two basic precepts. In the case of people like Akechi and Joker, it's stated that reality has been rewritten in such a way that they didn't commit any crimes. If we follow Morgana's logic of the world being a product of cognition only, then we can assume that this was done by altering everyone's memory to remember a world where the mental shutdowns and changes of heart never happened.

This means that people's prior actions and lives can be altered via perception, and we can see that this can happen to the individual themselves too - It follows that if Futaba fully believes her mother to be alive, she does not remember anything that happened during, at the very least, her Palace arc during the game - including the choices she made during it.

This means that Maruki's reality fundamentally alters people's perception of their own identity. It's no secret that people's memories are one of if not the most constitutive part of their identities, so if Maruki can change someone's memories, he can change their identity itself.

I wonder, if Maruki deems that someone's identity causes them too much pain and suffering in relation to their desires, is he willing to change it? And if someone desires their identity to be overwritten, will he do it? The answer is yes to both: Akechi is the first case, and Sumire corresponds to the second question. Oh hey! It's like the Royal Trio have very relevant thematic connections!

Let's do Akechi first, since my posts here are thinly-veiled Akechi propaganda in the end. Akechi's whole "thing" is that he's been under others' control his whole life, and he's been putting on different kinds of masks to achieve his goals. Personally, I believe both "Detective Prince Akechi" and "Black Mask Akechi" are not "the real Akechi".

Detective Prince Akechi corresponds to his public persona - the Ace Detective, the celebrity. He goes on talk shows and acts nice, he's a hero of justice, and his sole purpose is uncovering the truth.

This is a mask, of course - He doesn't have that much regard for the truth, and although he does seek his justice in a way, it is not the one he preaches online. His Detective Prince mask is the one that, as he says himself, he uses so that someone will want him around.

On the other hand, we have the Black Mask persona (Holy shit Persona reference?) he utilizes. This one is definitely more genuine than the regular Akechi, but I think his ruthlessness when acting as Black Mask, especially before 3rd semester, is forced as well. I think too many people forget what Ryuji says before his fight:

I actually agree with Ryuji's theory here. I think Akechi needed to force himself to go psychotic to fight the Phantom Thieves after losing the first time. His Black Mask persona is one where he lets himself be controlled by his anger and his thirst for revenge, it's his mask of *Spite*. It's the one that pretends to hate Joker (which is partly why Morgana telling him that he doesn't hate Joker is one of the things that prompts him to use Loki on the PTs). Maybe I'll write more about this if I ever do a deep dive on him, but for now, know this: Akechi's Black Mask is what it says on the tin, a Mask.

The real Akechi is somewhere in between, and somewhere else entirely at the same time. I think the fully genuine Akechi is the one we see in Joker and Akechi's interactions during the Third Semester. He's more than just Robin Hood and Loki. He's the Akechi that can awaken to Hereward.

The thing is - the real Akechi is the way he is because of what led him to develop those masks. Even if they are his "personas", they're still parts of him, born of his pain and suffering and his struggle to get what he thinks he wants.

And that's the thing, isn't it? Maruki denies him that. He takes away his crimes - So he at least takes away Black Mask Akechi. During 3rd Sem, Akechi is aware of this, but in the "accept Maruki's reality ending", the PTs and Akechi are totally chill, described as friends - like nothing bad ever happened.

That's not our Akechi.

That's a sanitized, perfect little version of Akechi that Maruki thinks is the best one for Akechi. But in a way, he's taking away the life and identity that Akechi built for himself - He doesn't think that the flawed Akechi deserves to live. And if you, Joker, decide to take Maruki's reality? That's the ultimate betrayal. You tell Akechi to his face that you prefer the perfect version of him. You're just like the foolish masses that rally behind the Detective Prince - you want the version of him that's happy all the time and can do no wrong. Choosing Maruki's reality is an affront to Akechi's agency, that much is obvious - but it's also a betrayal of his wishes and a violent attack against his very sense of identity.

It's ironic, isn't it? Even if Maruki presents his reality as the one where Akechi lives, that's not our Akechi... So he dies either way. Except if we fight Maruki, he maintains his autonomy til the end, and if you ranked him up to rank 10... his death is still ambiguous.

(And if you're a Shuake enjoyer like me, be it for their platonic, romantic or whatever-they-got-going-on-over-there dynamic... This is just perfect angst material. Chef's kiss.)

After this whole Akechi rant (Goodness me this is turning out Really long I hope I can keep people's attention sksks), let's take a look at Sumire.

Sumire is someone who wants her personality to be overwritten. She does not want to live as someone who led her own sister to die. She wants to be the vessel through which Kasumi's goals are fulfilled. She wants to be Kasumi.

But what does it mean for Sumire to be Kasumi? If we follow our logic, it means that Sumire has to die. She disappears. Her self-perception has to be altered to such an extent that she will not exist anymore, but rather an amalgamation of what Sumire thinks Kasumi is like, what Maruki thinks Sumire wants and Sumire would be born out of the actualization of her wishes. In a way, what Sumire is saying is... she wishes she was the one who died that day instead of her sister. But she still wants to help her sister fulfill her wish. So, instead of just telling Maruki "I want my life exchanged for my sister's" she says she wants to become Kasumi altogether. Kasumi can live through her, bringing the sisters together.

Sumire wants to lose her individuality. Akechi does not. This makes them clash directly. But in the end, Sumire accepts that 1. Her sister was more flawed than how she saw her. 2. She should carry on her sister's wish because it was their collective wish. 3. She should do it as herself, because she has as much worth as Kasumi. So, she ends up carrying on Kasumi's wish, but without losing her identity and creating the "Kasumire" that we meet during the base game. "Beauty in devotion", as they say.

So, in conclusion, what does Maruki's reality do for individuality? It prioritizes the reduction of suffering and the fulfillment of wishes above the subject's self-perception. In the end, Maruki's actualization works through changing cognition - And if cognition is a part of ourselves, well... In a way, we could say that the person whose wishes Maruki grants disappears in favour of a version of themselves whose wishes have been granted. Autonomy-wise, even if Maruki grants people's conscious wishes, it's not like he asked: "Hey, would you wanna live in a new reality with all these philosophical implications?" I think he realizes this to an extent, which is why he allows the Phantom Thieves and Akechi to challenge him.

First, he prioritizes dialogue, but he knows conflict may be unavoidable. "May the strongest will decide our fate" - something like that.

Maybe my point of view is very anti-Maruki, and I'm not trying to hide it. I was against Maruki from day 1, just like Akechi. (To be clear, I don't hate the guy, I love him as a character, but we have vastly different worldviews). I highly value individuality and autonomy and I don't subscribe to Maruki's brand of utilitarianism/hedonism. But I think these rough kinds of trains of thought are the ones that P5R demands from us, and I love it for that. I think my next essay will be about Maruki and death, relating P5 to P3 and Maruki's utilitarianism to Nietzschean ideas of life-denying slave-morality. Yeah, we're going deep into the philosophy sauce in the next one. I hope you'll stick with me for that!

(Btw I added images by popular demand - I hope they help with reading!)

[hyog-blog]

Fangs of Fortune (ep. 13 - ep. 17)

I had to binge quite a few episodes, otherwise I'd be dreaming of demons and lots of beautiful people crying in the snow (which, I probably will anyway D:)

We went from a relatively happy family outing slightly tainted with betrayal and misunderstandings to the depths of psychological hell and eternal self-loathing. The level of inner and outer torment has reached critical levels and I'm guessing it will only peak in the upcoming episodes, now that the secret is out and everyone knows why exactly Zhu Yan was and still is so intent on dying from Zhuo Yichen's hands (well, and dying in general). What kind of sins he had unwillingly committed.

This is ingenious, really. Ethically complex. Psychologically distorted. Heavily PTSD'ed on all sides. It seems the recipe for making everyone suffer unimaginable sufferings is to put the Big Bad Murderous Darkness into the most caring, attentive, gorgeous demon being, let him lose control over the aforementioned Murderous Darkness once in a while, then make him fall into the abyss of self-blaming and self-loathing, and then make him try to end his life by the hands of the people he has wronged and cares about. I mean wow-wow-wow, just writing it down conceptually is heavy, the way everyone played their roles was BEYOND, just beyond. Totally and fully believable.

It's like the worst case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but on a grander metaphysical scale. And it can't be solved just by one Great Demon dying - because such is the order of things that another being like that will be born, to bear the same fate. It's an interesting concept to put as one of the main motifs of the whole drama - the evil of the world and all the people that just exists by itself as a force, and one single person/vessel that has to curb it and sometimes channel it, without having any choice whatsoever. Or maybe there is? Now I'm wondering if Zhu Yan's idea about stopping the cycle of such vessels being born again and again is doable at all. In that kind of world where fate rules everything and everyone, and the options are quite limited, actually.

But I love how it's also always about the choice. It was Qing Geng's choice to stay with Fei willingly and get sealed together. And then, later, it was once again her free choice to stay in a dream and never leave the place. A-Heng didn't have a choice but to kill when he became a puppet, and Pei Sijing seemingly didn't have a choice when she killed him (but that still WAS her choice). Zhu Yan didn't have a choice when he lost control over the malicious energy, but he did have it afterward - what to do, how to live, or not live. How to punish himself severely inside out. So much of it is fate, destiny, guilt, unimaginable suffering. But even Zhuo Yichen makes his choice - despite his own pain and loss, he chooses not to kill Zhu Yan because that won't really solve anything or make anyone happy (while alive he could still do some good for the people who suffered because of him). I love how the show explores this topic of free will despite everything happening around the characters that's out of their control.

We still don't know what those Chongwu guys want, but Li Lun seems to be bearing quite a grudge towards his ex former bff. I mean, he was so emo before Zhu Yan took him out to see the mortal world and didn't want anything to do with it at first. I wonder what happened between the two of them. Well, he later wanted to get free (which is understandable), but merging the mortal and demon worlds is never a good idea, nope, so I see why the Goddess would imprison him.

I'm wondering how Zhao Yuanzhou is functioning at all with that level of grief he's carrying around. Like getting up, walking, talking, even smiling sometimes. Those must be some hardcore demonic superpowers, because someone else would have been crushed completely and totally by the amount of pain (but then again, he approached Zhuo Yichen and the rest of them only to make his deathwish come true, so that could have been his fuel before).

And after everything, the show managed to joke about cutting sleeves XD nearly making Yinglei quite literally cut his sleeve for baby Bai Jiu. That the show would even go there is risky enough, but this - my jaw slightly dropped))) And between two sweetest brotherly brothers, ahah)))

It's been quite a trip, I will need to digest this whole sequence of events. I still can't get over the scenes and dialogues when Zhu Yan was prepping Zhuo Yichen to kill or subdue him. And what about that ability to be immune to his demonic word spells? I wonder how it works and what he had to do for it to work. Also, the scene with the scars on Zhu Yan's back... Heartbreak all over, everyone is crying, hating but not fully totally, probably loving as well, but not forgiving. It's COMPLEX, uh.

[a-not-so-clean-blog]

Eiden x top FTM reader ♠️

The foxes toys. 1800 words

Reader keeps shirt on. Magic dildo.

Being with Eiden has been an absolute rollercoaster. You had met only a few months ago when he just came to this world, lost and almost out of his element. Despite being in a whole new world his charm and charisma was electric.

You were well aware of his growing clan, and how he stabilizes their essence. While physically you have an open relationship there is no doubt that you are the only one who has his heart. The clan members are also fully aware of you. Some are definitely more welcoming than others, but all in all you get along with them fairly well.

“Hey Eiden, I'd like to try something different tonight.” You ask as you sit next to him on the bed. He instantly perked up hearing that chime in your voice that he knows is going to lead to a fun night.

“I'm always down to try something new!” The spark of interest and excitement in his eyes shone like stars. The look only got brighter as you opened a bag filled to the brim with different shaped sex toys. “Where did you get all of these?!” He was surprised but his voice quivered in excitement as he picked up one of the toys and it started vibrating in his palm.

“I may have asked the fox to let me borrow them…” You blush a little when his eyes snap to meet yours, instantly suspicious.

He let out a low hum. “He never does anything without it benefitting him as well. What exactly did borrowing these cost you?” He asked slowly and rightfully cautious. Thankfully one look down at his pants and anyone could see he hadn't lost any of his excitement, maybe he even got a little more turned on.

You shrug. “He just wants to know which one gets the ‘best reactions’ from you.” Eiden gives a slight laugh at the air quotes. Any stress you had melted away at the sweet sound.

“That sounds pretty cheap for him, but I won't complain!” Eiden gives a toothy grin. “I don't want to waste any more time.” He takes your hand and guides it to his thigh. You chuckle softly at his eagerness. Cute and earnest, if a little demanding.

You gently push him back on the bed and take your time unbuttoning his pants. His breath hitched when you pulled his pants and boxers down around his knees. His cock sprung up and slapped himself in the stomach, letting out the sweetest whimper when you pulled away.

“What are you doing?” Eiden shut his mouth when you started to strip off your pants. His heart raced when he saw how erect your little dick was too. No matter how many times he gets to see your body he always thinks it was something glorious. He would easily worship you if you'd let him.

Taking out a blue dildo you turned it over a few times in your hand before looking at Eiden. It had a few straps attached to it and Eiden knew exactly what it was for.

“Kuya said I have to wait to use this, but said I should wear it for a while first.” You gasped softly when you put the base of the dildo to your tip and the soft material seemed to mold around your shape. You secured the straps around your waist and hips. It felt similar to wearing a jockstrap.

Eidens mouth was already watering at the sight of your new big blue dick but he only got more restless as you pulled out a few more toys, two small vibrators and a long tapered plug. He almost looked like a puppy trying to sit still while you dangle treats in front of him. You pushed him back down on the bed and took his pants all the way off discarding them in a heap on the floor, his shirt soon joining the mass of fabric.

There he laid completely bare for you, even spreading his legs to give better access to his cock and ass.

“Trying to make yourself more enticing for me?” You asked in a clearly teasing tone. Eidens smile just grew as he responded.

“Is it working?” You both already knew the answer but you also knew he got off on banter. He wanted to be a brat but was far too eager to commit.

“Yes.” You picked up one of the vibrators and settled yourself between his open legs. After turning it on to a low setting you gently pressed it against his tip. He flinched and moaned softly as you slowly slid it down his shaft and let it rest at the base for a moment before playing with his balls. Once you were satisfied with the sounds he was making you dropped the vibrator lower and pressed it against his tight sphincter. The vibrations slowly loosen the muscle until you could press the toy into his ass.

Eiden started squirming as it slipped in completely and started massaging his insides. It wasn't until after he stopped squirming did you put the plug into his ass. Slowly driving the vibrator deeper into him as well.

“Mmmnhh~” He moaned loudly as the plug popped into place securing itself and the other toy deep inside of him. You kissed up his neck and groped his chest as the toys worked their magic. He was already singing like a canary but you wanted more. Grabbing the last vibrator you turned it on and started pumping his cock with the vibrator snugly pressed between your palm and his twitching member.

His moans became louder as he struggled not to cum. He looked so hot that you couldn't help grinding your crotch into the bed. It felt so good that you wanted to melt but then again Eidens voice always made you feel euphoric.

Eiden reached up and grabbed your shirt by the collar pulling you towards him. He looked so needy, so desperate for you. It was exhilarating. You gave him exactly what he wanted in the form of a sloppy kiss that would make an incubus blush. When you pulled away Eiden had coated himself in a thin layer of his own cum.

“Awww, couldn't wait for me first~” He blushed as you teased him. He could barely think right now but still knew what he wanted, what he needed.

“I can't help that you know all my weak spots. Now hurry up and fuck me before I cum again.” He whined, shaking his hips up and down waiting for you to pull out the still humming vibrator and plug. The plug slipped out easily and the vibrator followed with a satisfying pop. Before he had a chance to complain about the emptiness you lined up your new cock to his ass.

Your knees almost gave out as you pushed the tip of the strap through his clenching ring of muscle. It felt like pleasure was injected straight into your nervous system making your whole body light up at once. The dildo was clearly enhanced because as you pressed the tip against Eidens hole you could feel the heat as if it was against your own skin.

“F-fuck, is this what your dick feels like? Gods I'm jealous.” You bit your lip to hold back your moans and you slid all the way in. Eidens face contorted into a starstruck pleasure. You had to stop though as small tears pricked at the corners of his eyes.

“Eiden? I'm sorry, did I hurt you?” You gently cupped his face as you started to pull out. Immediately his legs wrapped around your waist holding you in place. He shook his head softly as he nuzzled into your touch.

“I'm just happy that I get to be fucked by my boyfriend. I'm so happy-” You cut him off with another deep kiss. Your heart felt light as your tongues danced in each other's mouths. His mouth was sweet but his moans and whimpers were even sweeter.

When you started moving again his sounds only tasted better on your lips. As Eidens legs locked tighter around your hips it became troublesome to do long strokes, so instead your thrusts became harder and shallower. Eiden was loving every moment of it. One of his hands tangled itself into your hair while his other hand clenched around your shirt. Your arms caging Eiden beneath you as you pounded harder into his ass.

It felt amazing, feeling all his sweet spots from the inside. Every time you hit a spot he liked you could feel him clench around you. You could feel how hot his insides were and how smooth it felt on your cock. Your cock, YOUR cock. Yes, your cock finally piercing your wonderful boyfriend, truly it was a dream come true.

You kept going even after you could feel yourself coming to the edge. Your head felt fuzzy and your skin sweaty, but that just added to your pleasure. Eiden was getting close too, his hard cock bouncing against his stomach every time you thrust deep inside him.

You could feel your own orgasm beginning to overflow. You wanted to cum, you wanted nothing more than to cum and fill Eidens ass with your cum. You are so close, just a little more and-

“Nnnnh~” You let out a low moan as you cum hard, like something snapped inside your gut. A lewd warmth spread between your legs as you enjoyed the feeling. For a moment you felt Eiden clench around your dick as he came as well.

Eidens eyes went wide as he stared at you in shock and amazement. “What?”

“Did you just cum inside me?”

“.... WHAT?!” You both looked down and sure enough a thick liquid was dripping from Eidens spent hole. A thick blue liquid. When you came you didn't realize that the dildo also reacted and melted inside of Eiden, acting as artificial cum. “Well that explains why Kuya gave me like seven of these.” You started to finger Eidens ass and more of the blue goo leaked onto the bed. Eiden let out a tired moan as you fingered him and you let out a small laugh.

Pulling him close you kissed him on his temple and whispered in his ear. “Let's get you cleaned up. Knowing the fox I have a feeling this ooze has some extra properties, so unless you want to find out what he has planned…”

“I'll take a bath.” Eiden smiled tiredly. “I think I've cum enough for today.”

“I'll get it ready for you.” With another chase kiss you left to go draw him a warm bath. This turned out much better than you could have ever hoped. Unfortunately now you feel like you owe that old fox. That was probably why he didn't ask for much in the first place now that you think about it.

[venbetta]

I'm not sure if anyone's ever thought about this or has made a post about it, but I figured I'd add my own two cents if someone did talk about this.

// Ruin spoilers ahead

mostly about Freddy

So, seeing that headless Freddy has prototype written on the bottom of his foot, it's suggested or even theorized that our Freddy (the one we're with in SB) was a prototype this entire time.

Of course, like many others, I was very skeptical and in denial about the idea because why the hell would that be a thing? How is he a prototype? It wasn't there on his foot in the base game, so why this sudden change?

I kinda hated it, and as a way to cope, I theorized that maybe it wasn't the same Freddy and FazEnt just replaced him with another copy and then abandoned him... don't ask me how that particular Freddy became headless either. Also I was wobbling between the "True Ending" being the Canon one, I was back and forth and just trying to figure out what would've made sense.

My logic for the True Ending being canon was, maybe Freddy and Gregory both got out (alongside Vanessa) with glamdaddy intact, and they're just living life. Meanwhile, Faz Ent just made a new Freddy while fixing the plex but gave up and left everything to rot. Of course I know now that makes no sense or explains why/how the 2nd Freddy lost his head, but it's what I came up with. The PQ Ending is technically canon... so that was a waste of a braincell, hah...

Since fnaf has the tendency to rewrite/add things to the story, I think our Glamrock Freddy being a prototype is something I've accepted. Now, there are a few things I thought of that might add to the idea of him being a prototype (not confirmed but more speculative).

He's a high-tech, sentient AI robot, he can clearly experience human emotion (like the other glamrocks) and has decent mobility. What most likely seperates him from the other glams is the fact that he experiences existentialism. I know we don't see much from the other glams, what they think of their current situation (not even from Roxy in Ruin), they aren't fully aware of what they are or what they're doing (as far as we know). Their programming is focused on being entertainers and birthdays.

I'm not gonna say that the other glams aren't able to express deeper thoughts, but I think this is where I might be stretching this idea just a bit.

If you're going to make AI bots who can adapt and be flexible with their environment, there's gotta be some kind of limit of what they can say/think/do. Freddy is the prime example of not having that limitation since we see/hear him express concern about not being the only Glamrock Freddy that's walking around:

"Have I always been a Freddy? Am I Monty with a different shell? What if I am not the first Glamrock Freddy? ... Do we all feel the same? Am I special? If I am mass-produced, am I still art?" (Endo Warehouse)

This motherfucker literally commits arson:

"You sure collected a lot of toys! Perhaps we can do something to stop whatever is going on here." (Fire escape Ending)

When he goes to the basement and encounters the blob, he goes on this monologue:

"I know what this is. I have been here before. She brought me here. I found myself for the first time when I cleared the path. I did not want to, but I had no choice. Now I have a choice. I have changed. My friends are here. They are so angry, confused. But I can protect you. I am not me." (True Ending)

He ultimately goes against some of his programming to help a child in need-- even lie to a security guard-- which if he were set to do as he's told, he would've sent Gregory straight to Vanessa, even with Gregory adamantly telling him not to.

If he were programmed to be strict and not break any protocols, he'd would've gotten Gregory killed immediately.

I'm saying this because if we're being realistic (realistic in terms of how we usually program robots and things), there are barriers in what a robot/ai can really say/do that doesn't break its programming. If he's a prototype, Freddy wouldn't have those barriers to stop him from saying/doing most of the things he did in SB. I know there's another factor to him behaving kindly to Gregory and that's him being in safe mode, but even still... you would think he would follow the rules and not let Gregory do certain things and perhaps unintentionally get the boy killed.

I'm going back to the existential crisis Freddy has, because for something that's meant to be an animatronic mascot for kids, you wouldn't want him to make the children around him question the meaning of being alive and sentient. There would have to be some sort of guard against having those kind of thoughts and ideas. It makes Freddy more interesting, especially if he could've been easily replaced with a finalized version of him that did what he was suppose to.

Also, I know it's probably more widely accepted that either Vanny or Gregory hacked into Freddy, causing his collapse during the opening. With him being a prototype, maybe his systems couldn't handle that type of an advanced hack, unlike the other glams, making him unable to be properly hacked into in the beginning.

Not only that, there are some issues he has with performing, who knows, maybe he's had collapses before. We don't know.

Him being unable to enter the West Arcade:

"When I step onto the West Arcade dance floor I cannot stop myself! It is a programming bug." (West Arcade)

I'm aware him being in safe mode meant he's disconnected from the main network as well keeps him docile. While the "Afton" fight isn't technically canon, with the other upgrades on Freddy, those parts might have made him more susceptible to the virus attack. There's not much evidence pointing to the other glams not being prototypes but seeing how they each have upgrades while Freddy doesn't, that might hint that the others were mostly finalized, meaning their systems were properly functioning (aside from the virus of course).

Sorry if this was super long, but it's something I thought about and I had to put it in words. Nothing about Glamrock Freddy is normal, like he's not possessed (I use to believe in the glammike theory but I don't anymore eh...), but he's a prototype! He's gonna act all funky because he's not polished yet... and I think that's very interesting and endearing (in an odd way).

[starlightshadowsworld]

Percy Jackson except Jason and Thalia were the first children born after the Big 3 vow.

Long before the events of the story.

Thalia still ends up and tree, but no one really knew what happened to Jason.

Until Sea of Monsters where instead of Tantalus showing up, Jason does.

Because if there's one thing Zeus/Jupiter's gonna do, it's punish his sons.

And just... Imagine everyone expecting some grised old being who's committed the worse crimes on earth.

But it's a kid.

It's a kid a few years older them wearing a tattered purple top.

He'd look like any other camper but there's chains on his wrists and ankles that drag behind him.

Scars covering his body and a tattoo no ones able to fully see.

His eyes mirror the sky before them and hold so much sadness that a person could drown in them.

Chiron is suprised to see him, a mix of greif and relief in his eyes as he greets him.

"It's good to see you, child."

"And you too, sir."

"None of that now, you are among friends."

Jason visibly relaxes at that, his smile goes from polite and practiced to genuine.

"Right... It's good to see you, old man."

His humour is so dry that's it's hard to tell when he's joking or not. And yet he's gotten some laughs.

It feels like a reward in itself when someone makes him laugh. His whole face lights up and for a second the sadness in him fades.

Jason's less off a new camp director as he is a glorified babysitter. And yet he takes it all in stride.

He's not a pushover and steps in to mediate, but for the most part let's everyone carry on as they wish.

If he's not around, Jason can be found sitting by his sisters tree. He talks in a hushed whisper, catching her up.

If anyone notices him crying, no one says a word.

Jason proves himself as a formidable fighter, having stopped a camper struggling with a sword technique and demonstrating it to them patiently.

Clarisse immediately challenges Jason.

He's clearly holding back but Jason does give her a fair fight. His fighting style is a lot more polished.

And yet, there's something wild about it.

He does smile at one point, when Maimer strikes him.

"I'm afraid, that little trick won't work on me."

It was a short fight but the Ares cabin definitely gained some respect for him.

Clarisse asks why he didn't use the electricity against her, and he says he can't.

Shaking his chains like that explained everything.

It's easy to forget Jason's parentage. Especially after seeing him gush over architecture with Annabeth.

Hell all he needs is grey eyes and he'd fit right in to the Athena cabin.

And yet, at the same time there's no one else who fits as Jason's parent than Zeus (well Jupiter but they don't know that.)

Jason's a natural leader, he's a great diplomat and can defuse even the most chaotic situations.

There's power in his words, authority and yet he doesn't abuse it. There's a weight that's always on his shoulders.

He's a mystery.

He doesn't sleep in the Zeus Cabin, he has a blanket and curls up on the ground. Apparently he's used too it.

Tho there's been times he has been persuaded to sleep in the Hermes cabin, it's rare he accepts.

Not that he sleeps much. People have heard the screams from his nightmares.

More often than not Jason's awake, talking to the Naids and Nymphs as he patrols camp grounds late at night.

Surprisingly none try and attack him, in fact they all treat him with respect.

Grover says that Jason's blessed by the wild by an ancient being, not that he knows who.

Jason doesn't talk a lot about himself, he will talk at length about his sister though. And old friends with a sad smile.

The past is a hard subject for him, he says bits and pieces but not much.

The camps magical food doesn't work for him. Jason goes out of camp borders and goes hunting.

He eats alone, outside and Hestia makes a fire for him. He always sacrifices some food to her.

But also to Hera, which was surprising.

"But your a son of Zeus... Does she accept offerings from you?"

"I'd hope so, I am her champion."

It takes a while for anyone to realise but Jason's chains are heavy.

In fact there are days where Jason simply can't move. Because lugging them around tires him out.

And sometimes the camps borders simply don't let him leave.

On those days some campers have hunted for him.

Jason's always suprised and thankful. He'll share and tell them not to out themselves in danger for him.

But they do so anyway.

Camp Half blood decided a long while back Jason was one of them.

He's like everyone's stressed out, tired, nerdy older brother.

Jason has no knowledge of pop culture and apparently that's a crime.

But since no tech is allowed at camp, which means a lot of reinactments of memes

He's still confused but very entertained.

They've seen him fight monsters and it's so different to how he's fought in spars.

Jason fights to survive, he doesn't have a weapon other than his own chains.

He growls, he rips monsters apart with his bare hands and teeth.

Only stopping when they've all been defeated.

It was awesome.

Tho he did almost get hit by lighting from above and had to rush back into camp.

"Can I ask, what are you being punished for?"

"Let's just say, me and my dad had a disagreement."

Zeus: He's a monster, he's nothing but trouble and a mistake.

Camp Half blood: If monster, why friend shaped?

[averageartistamber]

My Thoughts on the possibilities for Splatoon 4

Alright, with the Grand Festival currently going on, I thought I'd chip in with my thoughts on what the next entry in the franchise. So prepare for a decently long yap session.

So, first of all, we have that point made in the Nintendo Direct about 3 being "the finale of this Splat-tastic Saga". What I believe is meant by this is that 3 is the last game with the Squids Vs Octopus conflict as the throughline for the story. Splatoon 4 is going to shift it's focus on a different part of the lore/world and have a very different main conflict in its story mode.

A lot of people were saying its the end of Splatoon as a whole, but I find that unlikely given how successful the franchise is. I also see folks saying that the next game won't have any of the old characters, which I also think is unlikely. I feel like we'll definitely still see the Idols again, they will just be more in the background (ie. You won't have Callie and Marie as your Mission Control in Hero mode...But you might get the new idols doing that.). They could drop the New Squidbeak Splatoon (ie. the Agents), but I think they'll be refenced somewhere.

They're not gonna get rid of all the old characters. We'll probably still have Sheldon running the next hub area's Ammo Knights, for example.

I do hope they do more with Deep Cut at some point, and it would be nice to see Agent 4 again, since all of these characters were underutilised in 3 in my (and many others) opinion.

Second point, the Splatfest itself: Past v Present V Future. Since Splatoon's "present day" occurs in real time, I don't think we're gonna have a huge time skip backwards or forwards in Splatoon 4. I think like with 3, the winning team is going to determine the setting and "vibes" of the next game.

If past wins, the hub area will be a historic, traditional town, maybe it'll be set in Calamari County, from the Squid Sister's backstory? We could them see what Craig Cuttlefish gets up to in his retirement (and if he's still stuck in Squid Mode).

If present wins, I think Splatoon 4 might be set in Inkopolis or Splatsville again, but maybe for the latter things have improved a bit thanks to Deep Cut's adventures? (the story mode could play into this and give them some much needed focus).

Another possibly for present could see one of the Octarian domes as the setting if present wins, and the story is about helping the people out and making the place liveable again. This could form a very nice conclusion to DJ Octavio's character, if they want to fully commit to him being redeemed and improving things for his people.

If future wins, we might arrive in a high tech, maybe very wealthy city. This location would very likely be completely new, maybe even in a completely different part of the world. So who knows what'll happen here.

Third point: Plot foreshadowing that is in the games.

Okay, so we know that Lil Judd is likely going to be a Big Bad at some point, highly likely the next game. It's heavily implied that he's the new owner of GrizzCo Industries, taking over in Mr.Grizz's absence. I wonder how he could use the company...They did say they'd "find good use" for the 1.5 Billion Golden Eggs we stole collected during the Grand Festival Big Run.

Which you'd think is disconnected from his plans to overthrow Judd, but I'm sure Nintendo can cook up something. Even if it makes no friggin' sense for the character (side eyeing RoTM), it's at least be cool.

The Octarians seem to have made peace, Kamabo Co. dissolved with Tartar's destruction, and Mr.Grizz the Capitalist Space Bear is...Probably chilling on the moon now (although there is potential for GrizzCo to get involved, see above.). Overlorder and the Jelletons are contained to a VR game, and the former seems to be slowly rehabbed by Agent 8 kicking their ass over and over again.

The Salmonids on the other hand...

We also know that the Salmonids have been given much more importance in Splatoon 3, with Big Run and all that jazz. Our beloved Gremlin Fish are also the only big "villain" faction that still exists as of Splatoon 3. (Well, until Nintendo makes another new one.) They have, like, organisation, and ramping up their war efforts and have Full On Goddang Kaiju in their ranks. Plus the numbers done on them in the Big Runs.

Just saying, I'd be pissed too if my population was decimated because some Boneless Teenagers care more about seeing some celebrities sing songs in a desert than respecting another race of people that are different from them.

Something very Fishy will likely be going down in Splatoon 4.

Of course, at this point I also think there's a very good chance that the next Splatoon game will be a spin-off. Pretty much anything goes. A lot of people want a game about the Great Turf War. Maybe Squid Beats will become its own dedicated game (very likely a phone game.). Pretty much anything could go here.

Anyways, I might not play the game that much (and even then exclusively Salmon Run), but I'm invested enough in the world and characters to be excited about what happens next.

What do you guys think?

[salemssimblr]

Happy Father's Day Here's a younger Alice with her dad, Russell Madson, at stage during Nuclear Pattern's 2012 tour.

(Featuring a baby Alice before she fully committed to the blue hair!)

Some sappy ramblings under the cut~ (tw death)

I've been having a blast with the A+tM project, don't get me wrong, but I've also been wondering why I'm so hyper-fixated on it and it finally hit me the other night...

It's something of a love letter to my late dad, and definitely dedicated to him.

My dad was a member of several heavy metal bands before I was born, and there's an unconfirmed rumor that he was offered a spot in Pantera but turned it down becuase my mom was pregnant.

All throughout my life he and I bonded heavily over music, and I'm very proudly essentially his little clone haha. My favorite bands growing up were Disturbed (still #1), Linkin Park, Evanescence, Trapt, Tool, Soundgarden, etc, and it was all because of my bond with my dad.

We went to see Disturbed live in 2009 and had an absolute blast. In 2016 I won tickets to Coachella and invited my parents, and while it wasn't my dad's usual genre of music, he diligently studied the playlist I made him and was pleasantly surprised by how much of the music he loved, and broadened his music horizons from then on. (: (He loved Joywave, Major Lazer, Silversun Pickups, Of Monsters & Men, & Ellie Goulding from that trip). He passed suddenly and unexpectedly last October (9 days before my wedding...), but not long before that I'd turned him on to Sleep Token, and for weeks before he passed it was all he talked about, to me and anyone else who would listen. So last month my husband and I took a trip to Sonic Temple fest in Columbus, to get the best bang for our buck and see not only Sleep Token and Disturbed, but a lot of the other bands dad and I bonded over. It was extremely difficult to be in those crowds and not have him with me, or at the very least not be able to send him pics and video of his favorite songs. But it was rewarding in its own way, to know that I do know which songs were his favorite, and that he was so willing to share that part of himself with me.

Today is extremely difficult, but I know he's with me.

Here's some pics of me and my dear old dad

And you can't tell me these aren't the same picture

They're the same picture.

If you've made it this far, I'll share a little trivia with you~

While Russell looks nothing like my dad, I did give Alice his birthdate.

Thanks for reading my rambles. ❤️