#also it's so interesting to me that this is set in 2013
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Young adult coming-of-age novel
After a graduation party goes wrong, aspiring astronomer Aria is sent to spend the summer before college with her artist grandmother in the Bay Area
Aria starts to question her sexuality when she meets her grandmother’s gardener, Steph, and falls in with Steph’s crowd of queer friends
Character-focused slice-of-life story set in 2013, when gay marriage was legalized in California
Explores self-discovery, artistic processes, and bittersweet, messy first love
Includes some nods to Lo’s previous novel Last Night at the Telegraph Club
Biracial Chinese & white, bisexual main character, butch lesbian love interest
#i read this in one afternoon!#this was good and also liked mention of kath and lily from telegraph club#i would categorize this as coming-of-age over romance#like there is romance but it is MESSY and more of a vehicle for character growth#i really really enjoyed the stuff about astronomy and visual art#that was a cool aspect of the book#also it's so interesting to me that this is set in 2013#because that's close enough to feel contemporary in some ways but also something about the style of this book FELT more like hist fic#lulu reads a scatter of light#a scatter of light#2022 reads#books#lulu speaks#lulu reads
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Marc must have gotten some sign of defrosting from Vale istg because in his documentary he was fully prepared to go I don't give a fuck anymore. And he had full vontrol over his doc
But now in the dazn interview he goes like... well its up to him because the door of reconciliation is open
lobs a nuance grenade SORRY... so this IS kind of aligned with how he's acted/talked about valentino since the divorce with the notable exception of that doc (and misano 2019 lol) which is a setting where he had complete authorial control. like it makes sense to me that he's making an effort to avoid any potential negative soundbites to get slapped on headlines (and. well. consistently saying vale is the angry one DOES make vale seem more unreasonable here. marc's like IM not mad UR the one being crazy...), but i ALSO think he keeps it positive because rehashing it HURTS. like i think he will only let out how painful the whole thing was for him in a situation where no one can possibly ask him any follow up because it would literally feel like open heart surgery.
it is also notable to me is how vale and marc's strategies in avoiding those kinds of soundbites are SUPER different... like when he's asked about marc in interviews now, usually valentino always gives a vague compliment about marc's riding style and then immediately changes the subject. MARC on the other hand, has an entirely different game plan that tbqh i think kind of runs away from him sometimes. like he always starts with. 1. he was my hero and my idol and is so charismatic and i wanted to fuck him so bad. 2. EYE dont have any issues with him that's all in his brain. and then 3. valentino PLEASEEE call me back. and in THIS video he is NOTABLY effusive oh my god. jesus christ. like yeah keep it positive do all that PR stuff but marc my man you dontttt need to monologue for two whole minutes on how obsessed with him you are while holding a photo of you looking at him contemplating dick in silence. like whats wrong with you lol.... never has anyone begged more publicly for old man dick
#ALSO: that video vindicates my belief that marc looks back on 2013/14 as the absolute highlight of his life lol#its a thing were it IS pr speak but what is revealing is how they do it !#this is honestly why that podcast and marcs doc are so interesting to me its a setting completely controlled by them#delulu answer: they have been fucking since the end of year gala thats why vale was in portimao but they havent talked about it yet#and marc is simply excited. asking vale to call him so they can grab dinnerrrr#motogp#asks#rosquez#callie speaks
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pancakes (pt. 3)
AKA - the story of how the naive australian rookie befriended the gym junkie F1 hospitality worker with the shoe collection - and inadvertently broke the grid's most treasured and unspoken rule: you don't go for y/n.
series masterlist here :)
A/N: don't come for me. i love daniel. it's all for plot. (also, if the timeline seems odd it’s bc creative liberties have been taken 😌)
P3 - stairmaster endurance
As you walked down the steps to the Drivers Gala in your stunning red dress, you were unaware how one Ferrari driver couldn’t take his eyes off you. Looking at you smiling elegantly to one of the reps who greeted you, Charles realised just how much of a mistake he had made. Carlos was at his side, saying something that was back ground noise. All Charles could focus on was you. Your flowing hair, your eyes glinting in the light as you smiled your beautiful smile at whoever was talking to you. You always spoke with such passion. Charles always loved that about you. He would always love every little thing about you—
The alarm went off.
You blinked and stopped the timer notification that essentially shook you out of the deep rabbit hole of F1 fanfiction you had found yourself falling into. Closing the purple app, you wondered why you still remained on Tumblr even after the 2013 hype of it died and everyone shifted to Twitter. Let alone the fact that your Tumblr had become your closeted way to fangirl about the sport you had dedicated your life to.
Then again, what were you to expect? The algorithm clearly picked up on your interests. That or the government was listening in and knew that Formula 1 was your day-to-day. That would explain how, one day, you were simply scrolling through the random, niche memes and BAM! You were met with the completely random gif-set of Arthur Leclerc and Oscar Piastri sat in an interview for Prema.
It had caught you off guard, seeing that come up on your phone screen. It had also been a while since you had seen Arthur. For the whole duration of that single and endless moment, you didn't know how to react.
So your thumb double tapped the screen.
And maybe it was your fault for liking it, for encouraging the algorithm. But you could’t help but smile at the gif of Arthur confident and proud of his 18 hour screen time. That boy had no filter and never gave a fuck about the social norm. That and he often just didn’t read the room. Even after all these years, and his climb up the motorsport ladders, that youthful element about him had remained. It made you smile. You always liked that about him.
However, with that gif-set came more stuff. Innocent stuff. More F2 bits - you really missed those boys - and then everything else. Funny bits of Max at Red Bull. Carlos and Lando. All the Guenther Steiner moments. It was a little weird to be liking gifs of a team principal, you were well aware, but if anything it just made you feel proud of how far the German-Italian had come.
Back in the old Red Bull days, Guenther would always tell you about his dreams of directing his own team. It was nice to see him finally achieve that. It was also an endless source of amusement for you.
For example: the day Kevin had shattered the door.
When it happened, though, it was definitely not a laughing matter. You had been just finishing up the lunch service at the Haas motorhome - making sure to pack up some food for the drivers and mechanics who still were in a meeting - when you had heard the loud noise. Mack, the sous-chef, had stopped and looked at you with wide eyes.
You had both exited the kitchen to walk out to the main space of the motorhome and see other Haas employees equally as confused and whispering. Not getting a clear answer, you patted Mack on the shoulder and returned to the kitchen to finish plating up Kevin and Romain’s lunch for later.
Fifteen minutes later, however, and you had gotten your answer when Guenther stormed into the kitchen fuming. “He does not slam my fucking office door! What am I going to do? Call Gene and tell him his drivers are some fucking idiot babies?!”
You had simply stared at him, blinkingly.
Guenther had then spied a plate of food sitting on the bench. “That fucking driver doesn’t deserve any of your fucking food!” And he picked the plate and dumped plate with its contents in the bin.
“Guenther," you had began in a calm voice, "that was my lunch. Kevin’s plate is in the fridge.”
“Well eat his fucking food! Or—" Guenther reached into his pocket and pulled out a credit card and slammed it onto the table in front of you. “Go to a fucking five star hotel and have lunch there on that fucking idiot baby's pay.”
And the two of you had actually done so.
Even after he calmed down, Guenther had been adamant to take you to lunch which, admittedly, wasn't the most odd thing ever. Guenther was removed enough from all the driver drama and you had known him a for long time. You were the reason he had helped in the debut in 2016 anyway.
Still, no matter how Guenther Guenther was, Kevin was still a driver. You knew how it might look.
Said driver, however, had thankfully just dismissed it when you offered to pay him back. "Make me those mini pizzas next time you're with us and we're good."
And so when you clocked on this morning to see you were covering Haas, you immediately smiled and went to make good on your promise to K-Mag.
You always loved working in the Haas motorhome. If only half the stuff you saw Guenther did and said ended up in gif-sets on Tumblr.
Pushing yourself off the stool, you pocketed your phone and grabbed the oven mitts to pull out the mini pizzas. You had made extra for the engineers since there was an issue with Nico’s PU and knew they would be up late working on the engine. It wasn’t a secret that your pizzas were a coveted snack, being low-carb and high protein enough for even the drivers to consume. You were half expecting Fred Vasseur to pop in and steal some. He did love these pizzas. Any time you were stationed at Alfa Romeo, it was a guarantee you would be making them at his request.
Though, now Fred was moving to Ferrari. So you weren't sure if he was still going to be nice to you. Mattia Binotto had always treated you like the fucking plague.
"Ah, Y/N. For fuck's sake!" You heard the German accent and felt your mouth curve up into a smile as Guenther arrived on scene. He was dressed in the Haas gear for 2023, lanyard around his neck. "You still here running the coffee when you can beat any of these idiots in the car."
You gave him a fake two finger salute. "If I drove, no one would stand a chance."
"Well maybe you could help us score some fucking points." Guenther said. Immediately, he got down to business. "Harry Kane did well last night. Scored two fucking goals."
You snorted. One of the many reasons you and Guenther bonded so well was that you one of the few people amongst this Paddock that took football seriously. Almost as seriously as Formula 1. Almost.
"Didn't see it." You said, shaking your head. Bundesliga was lower on your list of priorities when it came to games. You only paid attention to the German league when it came to teams making it into Champions League. Besides, Guenther should’ve known what game you were watching last night. Still, you reminded him. "The Reds were playing."
He rolled his eyes, though unsurprised. "Of course you're going to watch English fucking football."
"Hey, only because of Salah.” You reminded him and hit your chest proudly, “I gotta represent."
"That much is fucking obvious." Guenther said. One of the many reasons you liked working in Haas so much was that it was by far the most relaxed garage out of them all. For example, you hadn't yet taken off the hoodie you wore which had, on top, the number 10 Liverpool jersey. It looked unprofessional, having a t-shirt over a jumper like that, especially mixed with the headscarf you had tied on your head like a durag, but Guenther couldn’t care less. If anything, he was probably just offended at your choice of EPL team.
“United is fucking Red.”
"Ah, Guenther. You know my heart really lies." You reminded him.
Your uncle, a Spanish man, had brought you up following the iconic Real Madrid. He literally visited the hospital with a teddy bear and Bernabeu membership, adamant he would get his newborn niece into the sport. No matter what.
From the moment he found out your number one team, Guenther was salty. “Los Blancos.” He scoffed. “The fucking villains of football." He came round to see the circular pieces of bread covered with sauce and an array of different toppings. Guenther picked one up - and immediately dropped it. "Fuck!"
"It's hot." You said, dryly. You took out another tray and set it down. You closed the oven door and turned it off. You flipped the towel over your shoulder as you watched Guenther now at the sink, running water over his burnt fingers.
"You don't fucking say." Guenther blowing on his fingers.
“Stop being a baby.” You laughed, bringing up your hands to your head to fix your headscarf.
Guenther ignored that comment. "Fred fucking loves these things. Don't tell him you made them. I don't want him in here stealing them."
You said nothing and turned around to pretend to busy yourself with the trays of mini pizzas. It was best to just remain quiet sometimes. Bahrain testing had kept everyone occupied and at that start of the season F1 Hospitality were usually running around after Stefano Domenicali and the FIA Co. for last minute set up. It was only into the race calendar that Hospitality were eventually went around to the teams.
So, no. You hadn't seen Fred. You hadn't seen anyone. You were just grateful that your first race of 2023 was in the safety of Haas. Nico and Kevin were older and, therefore, a little more out of it when it came to driver drama. If they knew anything, they were old enough to be mature about it.
Though, that couldn't be the same of others from their generation. You were already losing sleep from the feelings that arose from seeing Daniel in Red Bull gear. It didn't help that the last time you two had spoken, things hadn't exactly been civil.
-
You were on the stair-master. The clock on the machine read 37:48. The sweat was dripping off you.
Your grey jumper had darkened in shades, wet from the sweat. You kept your hands on your head as you stepped and stepped and stepped and stepped. Angsty rap music blasted into your ears. Tinnitus was likely to worsen, but you would take that over the shit storm that was currently breaking all over the Paddock.
I understand that, without my agreement, Alpine F1 have put out a press statement late this afternoon that I am driving for them next year. This is wrong and I have not signed a contract for Alpine for 2023. I will not be driving for Alpine next year.
Oscar hadn’t even yet joined Formula 1 and he was already stirring trouble. That was a problem. For you. You were supposed to lay low. The whole point of this was to lay low and not drawing any attention to yourself. The agreement was that you could still be there if only in the role of Hospitality.
And the idiot had tweeted that and then, ten minutes later, decided to follow you.
How he even found your Twitter was surprising? It wasn’t very personal - your profile picture was solid black - so no fans would be able to recognise you. But the Paddock? The FIA and your bosses? They were raising confused eyebrows that Oscar Piastri would drop that bomb and then follow you.
You could already imagine what Otmar was going to say. God, the 2023 season hadn’t fully started and you were already dreading walking into the Alpine home. And then Jos Verstappen was rumoured to be attending more races this year and who could forget about Daniel coming back to Red Bull? The universe apparently needed to give you some character development, it seemed.
Your legs ached, begging to stop. Your mind thought about pressing the red emergency button, to just end it. But you knew better. You knew this was all a mind game. Pain is an allusion. Keep going. Shit hurts but you push through. Keep going. Keep going. Keep fucking going. It's what you always told yourself. It's how you got yourself through everything. It's how you'll get through all of this. If you can push through the pain of the stairmaster, then you can push through the pain of anything. You had learned that pain was temporary and it was just a mind-game. You could always go longer than you thought possible. You just had to keep reminding yourself of that fact. So, right now, it was just practice. Each step you took right now was practicing the endurance of pain from this stairmaster fucking filling your legs. If you could get through this, you would be able to handle any drama in the future.
Unfortunately, drama walked through the door before you could make it through the current pain of said stairmaster.
Daniel Ricciardo stormed into the Driver’s Only Gym, knowing all too well that this was where you would be. He had been the one to tell you about this fucking place in the first place. Before everything, you had always loved working out and exercise was part of the reason you two ended up as you did. Now, you didn’t have the luxury you did before. You didn’t have the lanyard.
So, now, you had to workout in the shadows.
That didn't mean Daniel didn't see you. Didn't hear you. Didn't know what you were doing every single day of every weekend the both of you avoided each other at the Paddock. He knew you still wore your sneakers according to the race location. He knew you still wore headscarves when in the Middle East and covered your tattoos when in Japan. He knew you still avoided Charles just he like he knew you still avoided him. He knew you.
So Daniel knew you woke up at 4am every day to work out. And after Zak Brown told him the news, he spent the night dealing with his spiralling career through a bottle of Jack Daniels. Then he had the idea to come out from the four walls of his hotel room and see you.
Because Daniel knew you had made your pancakes for the rookie, that fucking Oscar Piastri. And Daniel was one of the few people who knew, who fully understood just what that meant to you.
Drunk and emotional, Daniel planted himself right in front of the stair master. He stared at you, caught like a deer in headlights and got right to it.
“You must be fucking happy.”
It was the first time he had directly spoken to you in five years.
So it took you a second to process what was happening.
Daniel Ricciardo was right here, in front of you, at 4:50 in the morning as you sweated your body weight out through the repeated steps you took on the machine.
Suddenly you were aware that you had rolled yourself out of bed with a little less motivation than the norm. You had been extra tired, hitting snooze more than twice. You hadn’t washed your face and you wondered if Daniel would be able to spot the stain of egg yolk on your hoodie. It had been some time since he had been this close to you and you were in bike shorts and currently on a bulk. Suddenly, you wished you were on a cut. Why did the one time he came this close to you had to be so big and puffy?
"Excuse me?" You found yourself saying, shifting one headphone off your ear. “Can I help you?”
"Did you know?" Daniel asked. He didn't give you a chance to respond. "Of course you fucking did."
Without even thinking, you pulled the red plug your mind had obsessed over and jumped down. The pain was already here so there was no point going through any more than necessary. You looked up at Daniel, panting. He, too, was exhaling a little heavier than normal. Too angry and, judging by the smell of his breath, drunk to be stable.
There was no point lying to him. Aside from the fact that Daniel was emotionally charged (and drunk - and he got super passionate when he was drunk) you knew he would immediately pick up on it. You don't spend three years with someone and not know them like the back of your hand. And, unlike him, you can safely say that you hadn't really changed since 2018. If you lied, he would know.
"I signed a NDA, Daniel." You said simply, walking to your gym bag sat on the red bench. You picked up your bottle to take a sip, your throat dry. You tried to keep yourself calm and not shaky. Do my legs look too big? God, Please don’t let me smell like BO. Your thoughts were still running rampant. Despite the extensive cardio, your body was buzzing from the anxiety of having Daniel so close.
Daniel. To think you had once been so deeply in love with the man stood before you.
"Fuck off." He spat. You recoiled. "No one gives a shit about that."
"I do." You said, trying to keep your voice from growing small. "Sorry I care about my job."
Daniel let out a sardonic laugh. You braced yourself, knowing what was to come. You had experienced this many times before during your fights. "What? Making coffee and fucking washing the dishes? Yeah, great job you got there, babe."
"Don't call me babe." You spat back. "And can you not be a dick for two fucking seconds, Daniel."
You said it. His name. When was the last time you had said it? It made you both take a second to process what was happening, to acknowledge how long it had been since the two of you had actually spoken to one another, how long since you had addressed the other as a human being that actually existed.
In that moment, Daniel finally seemed to lose a bit of anger and, instead, show a glimmer of vulnerability. "I lost my seat. I don't know what I'm going to do."
You looked down at your shoes at show of helplessness. New Balance 350s. Red and yellow. They had been on sale. You liked them for stable LISS circuits but hated the colour way. Now, they were the most interesting thing to look at.
Everyone knew that Daniel Ricciardo was always all smiles and that, no matter what, he was optimistic. Happy. He never showed any weakness.
Except, you had seen him when the smiles fell away and the laughter died. In the safety of your private hotel rooms and Daniel could just be, you saw him vulnerable, you saw him hurt, you saw him stress, worry, cry, swear and be open to how he was really feeling. Like right now.
“Daniel I—“
"You didn’t even think to fucking tell me."
You looked up at the change of tone and how he was frowning-- no, sneering at you. This made you change and any remorse, any pity, you felt for the man in front of you immediately vanished. You weren’t in a hotel room. You were in the gym. And it had been five fucking years.
"Are you fucking blaming me right now?"You snapped back. "What the fuck do I owe you, exactly?"
"I’m the reason you’re here!"
By now, your heart was racing. And not from the exercise. This, this was it. You finally had your moment to say it.
"Yes, exactly, Daniel. You’re the reason that I am, as you said, making coffee and fucking washing the dishes! If it weren’t for you, we both know where I would be right now. But you got fucking scared of Max and blamed me for it!"
This hit a nerve. "I was not scared of Max! I outperformed Max!"
"Yes, on the weeks I fucking trained you!"
"Fuck me,” Daniel was shooting straight daggers at you despite the wry grin on his face, “do you really think that was all you?"
You put your hands on your hips and squared up to meet his eyes, narrowing your own. "Considering how your teammate took me on as a trainer and then became the number 1 driver, yes, I will take some fucking credit for that." Daniel's face dropped when you said it. And you knew it was a low blow, but you couldn't help the words before they tumbled out from your mouth. "The world’s fucking moved on from Monaco 2018. Maybe you should too."
"Fuck you!" He shouted.
"Fuck you!" You shouted back. You grabbed your phone and found yourself tapping onto a recent chat and speedily composing a text. You hated how your fingers shook. You also hated how you were texting for help.
"Well, clearly you haven’t moved on from Monaco if you’re bringing it up." Daniel said, no longer shouting, but his tone still as icily. "You’re going to be mad about that until the end of time?"
You closed your eyes and willed your eyes not to think of the image of him with her, the pain you felt walking in and seeing that. Instead, you opened your eyes and stared him dead in the eye and spoke as calmly as possible.
"Jos Verstappen will be coming to the races more often this year. That means I won't be able to work in the Red Bull garage. If I'm at AlphaTauri, do not fucking come."
Daniel ignored this, undeterred. Instead, he kept grinning down at you thinking he found something. "You seriously aren't over it, are you?"
"No, the memory of you putting your dick into another woman still keeps me up at night." You rolled your eyes despite how it still did admittedly hurt. You pretended it didn’t and hoped he believed it. "Please stop thinking so highly of yourself. Remind yourself of why you're here, right now, talking to me."
Daniel's eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth to say something but the sound of the doors opening had him closing it. You grabbed your gym bag and finally made a move to turn around and escape the gym.
Ignoring the looks of one very confused Carlos Sainz as you breezed past him.
-
"I have to go deal with idiots who can’t tell me what’s wrong with the engine." Guenther said. You had brought forth two plates and slide two pizzas onto each.
"Here. For you and Nico." You said, knowing Nico would join the meeting about his car. "I'll bring a tray in a little bit for the rest of the engineers."
"Make me and Nico some coffee, please." Guenther said, taking the plates. "And pour in some fucking whiskey." You laughed and watched him disappear down the hallway of the offices set up. Haas' lack of financial support meant their motorhome was mediocre at best. Still, you loved being here more than anywhere else. It was the safest, really.
Wiping your hands on the towel, you went outside to where the coffee cart was situated. Another example of Haas' lack of funding was needing a Formula One coffee cart and not having an in house machine like everyone else did. You went about preparing the coffees like how you knew Nico and Guenther liked - as well as making yourself one while you were at it.
"No Real Madrid today?"
You found yourself jumping at the familiar Spanish lilt of the other Ferrari driver. Carlos Sainz was someone you never really paid any close attention to. He wasn't close enough to either Daniel or Charles' circles to ever have been on your radar. He had left Red Bull before you did and since he was Ferrari associated, it meant you never really had much to do with him.
Still, he was pleasant and nice. He always had been. He was one of those drivers that if word had spread to him - and it was very likely that it had - he didn't show it. Or care enough about it. Any time Carlos saw you around the Paddock, it was with a warm smile and a quick small-talk question about your thoughts on Real Madrid's latest match. But that was really ever it.
Until that time he had walked in at 5am to see you and Daniel Ricciardo screaming at each other.
"Uh, no. Liverpool was playing yesterday." You said, wondering if he knew you also cared about the Scouse team. Admittedly, you didn’t have the same love for them as you did for the Spanish legends, but you couldn’t have Egyptian heritage and not care about Mo Salah.
"You're Egyptian, no?" He asked. You focused on frothing the milk, unable to really look him in the eyes so soon after this morning.
"Yes." It was there in the mix, yes, but you really weren't up for explaining the complicated heritage of your ethnicity this morning. Looking at the milk circling in the silver jug, you realised your face was heating up. You were slightly surprised he even knew you were Egyptian in the first place. Unlike with Guenther or the splattering of other football fans in the Paddock, you and Carlos only ever had brief snapshots of Real Madrid small talk.
Still, this wasn't an odd conversation, you had to remind yourself. You were talking about the one thing you and him ever talked about. But, again, this was after Carlos had walked in to see you, a Hospitality worker, arguing with a driver.
"Please don't tell anyone about me being in the gym." You finally said, turning off the frother to gently tap the metal jar against the bench and settle the bubbles in the milk. "I could get into a lot of trouble since it's only for drivers."
Carlos waved a dismissive hand and shook his head. When it was clear he wasn't going to, you breathed a small sigh of relief. But then he leaned against the cart and you felt yourself starting to get anxious again. There was a quiet moment for a second as your poured the latte for Nico. Carlos' eyes followed your hands.
"I will say something if Ricciardo upset you." He said in a quieter voice.
You immediately shook your head and finally looked him in the eye. "Please don't. There's enough complication with... everything." You finished lamely.
"So I've heard." Carlos said.
You looked away. He knew.
"So then you'll know I don't need anymore complications." You said through gritted teeth, hating very much the confirmation that word had spread about what had happened.
"You haven't done anything wrong, though."
This caught you by surprise. It was the first time anyone - or, at least, a driver - had said those words to you. At the start, everyone had immediately pointed fingers at you. You were shunned and blamed. Some saw your position with the Formula One Group as part of Hospitality too light a punishment for what had happened. For the longest time, it was the confusion as to why everyone had reacted that way that did that hurt you. You hadn’t thought you had done anything wrong. Not really. You struggled to understand why no one else saw it that way. Least of all any of the drivers that knew what had happened.
Hearing Carlos say that really threw you for a short second. Carlos even caught it. He said your name and you finally looked up at him when you heard him say your name.
"Sorry it’s just - uh, Carlos, man.” You laughed a dry laugh. “You're probably the only driver who thinks so."
"I'm not." Carlos crossed his arms. "I might be the only one who has said so, but if I've understood correctly... then I'm not."
You looked down at metal jug in your hand with the extra milk you had frothed for yourself. Suddenly, you didn't feel like any caffeine. Your anxiety was already through the roof.
"Do you want a coffee?" You asked, sounding, again, very lame as that was your response to Carlos' comment.
The Spaniard looked back down at the spoon and jug in your hands. He nodded. "Have you had one already?" You asked. He shook his head and so you went about pulling down another paper cup to make his piccolo.
"You remembered." He said, laughing slightly.
"First coffee is a piccolo. Second and third are black." You recalled his order. Carlos smiled at you as you poured the milk. "I know everyone's coffee orders."
You didn’t catch how his smile lessened slightly at that.
You looked back at him and tried to ignore the thought of whether his kindness was exaggerated for your sake. A pity thing or something. Carlos accepted the coffee and then he actually offered a thank you in Arabic. You found your lips turning up hearing the marhaba on his Spanish tongue. “Es un placer.” You came back with his own native language.
You don’t work in Formula 1 without picking up a few things here and there.
Hence how you could recognise the German swears that sounded from within the motorhome as Guenther suddenly appeared.
“Where is that Y/N? Liverpool fucking tops the league and thinks she can take her time with— ah, you Ferrari fuckers!” Both you and Carlos looked to where he had come up behind the driver and slapped a friendly pat on his back. “Tell Fred he can’t have any pizza.”
“Pizza?” Carlos asked and looked down at you. “You made your pizza?”
You didn’t get a chance to respond before some Haas engineers appeared behind Guenther and called for you and him. Carlos took this as his sign - he was technically on Haas territory - and nodded at you and Guenther, holding up his piccolo in salute. Guenther had already taken the coffees you’d made for him and Nico and disappeared behind the sliding doors. You made a move to follow when Carlos called out.
"I want to try some famous Y/N pizza!” He said, turning on his heel as he walked backwards and called out to you.
You smiled and shook your head, walking back into the Haas home. You went back to the oven and set about plating up the pizzas to be a little more presentable to them. You also made sure to put some aside especially for Kevin. This was supposed to be for him.
You thought idly of saving some for Carlos when some Haas engineers you vaguely recognised walked past.
"Oh nice!" One engineer said, coming up and immediately reaching for one to stick it in his mouth. You watched him do the same blunder that Guenther did.
The other engineer, a woman with a thick Irish accent? was staring at you. Smug. "Damn, who got you smiling like that, missy?"
"What?" You asked, eyes going wide. You hadn't realised the wide smile on your face that was likely the direct result of one Carlo Sainz. Your face became hot again and it took every ounce of will to not seem affected by her words. “No one.”
"Mmm. If you say so.” She said in a sing song voice. “Well and me Mr Cool over here,” she gestured to the the other engineer trying to breathe through the hot pizza, “are heading to the garage now to see Kevin. Can we take them?"
"Yeah." You nodded. "Go ahead."
"Not saving some for anyone?"
"No." You shook your head firmly. "Take them all."
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PLEASE do the toontown online rant i want it so badly
this post kinda got away from me, and by "got away from me" i mean this 3000 word toontown rant is Part One. there will be a Part Two to this later in which i actually talk about the fanservers i wanted to talk about. anyway let's go
toontown online (tto) was a children's mostly-turn-based subscription MMO released in 2003. after a few years of obviously being on life support, disney gave a one-month notice that tto (and several other games) would be closing on september 19th, 2013. on the same day the game closed, the fan-run server toontown rewritten (ttr) was announced (with multiple other fanservers/fangames/reimaginings being established since), and is a few months away from outliving the original game
see, one thing about tto that allowed fanservers to crop up so quickly and easily was that it had, um, interesting choices. very interesting choices. like, "kids could use a code injector to turn their backyards into giant mashed-together nightmarescapes"-level choices
youtube
(loose video description: a rabbit toon running around a chaotic mismash of rooms, obstacles, and npcs that Should Not Be There. audio caption: Evanescence's "Bring Me To Life".)
but ok let's talk about the actual game first.
toontown online (tto)
the game starts with you creating your player character - you can pick from eventually-9 species, a couple body types, and 2 dozen preset colors. the gender code is a spaghetti nightmare but you won't learn this until the fanservers come about so don't worry about it. you're then taken to the Toontorial, which explains maybe 20% of the game's mechanics before setting you loose into the main game
the toontorial also gives you the basic "plot", such as it is: Toontown is suddenly* under attack by a bunch of boring businessrobots called the Cogs. their goal is to turn toontown into a dreary gray featureless corporate hell; their business activities are so boring that they're physically painful to be around. luckily, they can't take a joke, so the toons have figured out how to defeat them: by playing pranks on them until they laugh so hard they Explode
*originally, the game installer had a little animation giving a backstory for the Cogs' creation. this was never referenced in game, removed pretty quickly, and i think even the devs kinda forgot it existed
that's...pretty much the whole story! in that context, your toon progresses through all of toontown, helping some mostly-pretty-interchangeable shopkeepers, reclaiming buildings from the cogs, eating ice cream, etc. occasionally, the cogs would Come Up With New Tricks (read: major content update) and the toons would Find A Way To Fight Back (read: same major content update). that was the closest thing to Plot, unless you count "the devs scheduled a bunch of invasions of high-tier cogs right before the game's closure". but...i doubt most the kids really expected a Plot. mickey mouse was there
the gameplay:
the Free Account
there were two...pretty different approaches to playing toontown online. when the game launched, there was a 3-day free trial to the entire game, after which you got kicked entirely until you subscribed. at some point, this was changed so that the first area, Toontown Central (TTC), was Always Free - you could do all of that area's quests/"taskline" and limited activities, indefinitely, and in theory this would make you beg your parents for the rest of the game
i have no idea if this actually got more subscriptions or not. from what i can tell it just spawned more warrior cats
(source)
there were. a Lot of warrior cats. there were some other social activities, too, such as Fashion Shows (with your limited range of clothes) and Begging Subscribed Players To Summon Cog Buildings To TTC and Getting Chat Banned. ...however, as one of the subscription kids i didn't really interact with this side of the game, so i'm not the best person to talk about it
2. the Paid Account
mmm look at those crisp clear graphics. hell yes
a subscription account gave you access to this whole map, along with all these areas' tasklines. to progress through the game, you must complete a variety of "ToonTasks" for the Toon Resistance (it's called that. their catchphrase is "Toons of the World, Unite!". you were giving disney money for this). these reward you by increasing your max health (your "Laff Points"), slowly unlocking more combat options, and sending you to different, higher-difficulty areas of toontown
some of these tasks were...longer than others. generally, though, they all boiled down to: "just go fight some cogs"
combat:
(source)
toontown battles are turn-based: the players use their attacks ("gags") first, and then any surviving cogs attack you with, usually, office equipment and puns thereof (unless the cog is e.g. a Loan Shark, in which case they can just fucking bite you). if you defeat a cog, it explodes; if the cog defeats you, you "go sad" and are sent back to the safety of the playground, lose your gag inventory, and can't leave until you heal.
early on, most your battles are 1v1, but later on almost everything is a multiplayer 4-ish-v-4.
an...interesting feature here in the game's early days was that you could only Type Your Own Words to someone who shared their "friend code" with you IRL. otherwise, you had to use this thing:
(source)
you had a set list of phrases you could string together, which generally covered most the things you wanted to say. but it could get frustrating when you wanted to have a real conversation with your toontown friends! so...as the source above mentions, people obviously found ways around the system. turns out that if you let players move objects around their houses, they will use that to Draw Letters and pass their friend code along regardless
eventually - before the warrior cats, of course - disney presumably realized this system was pretty goofy (🥁) , so the game got a real chat, albeit one that functioned on a very strict whitelist. my favorite is that it didn't let you type numbers, however you could just say won too tree for hive etc. like. disney i really don't know what to tell you. anyway
(isn't he charming)
cogs come in levels 1-12, with levels displayed above their heads, and as you'd expect their damage output and HP increase with their level. however, the game doesn't...actually show you cog HP? instead they have a little colored light on their chest that fades from green to red until they explode. you see numbers on all the damage you do, and you see your own HP/laff, but never the cogs'. also lategame cogs are Too Tall For You To See Their Level once they line up for battle (which isn't actually that bad but it's funny). there's a formula for HP per level, but it's never mentioned in-game. i guess someone can teach it to you but then you have to watch them type "a level tin cog has won tree too health" and is that really worth it
(as you can tell i just…don't get this. "my kid is practicing arithmetic with toontown!" - marketing angle expressly denied by god. the stealth edutainment was right there)
anyway! in theory, you have seven base combat options ("gag tracks"), which combine in a variety of ways:
toon-up, which restores your teammates' health;
trap, which does guaranteed high damage but only if someone uses lure;
lure, which stuns the cogs for a few turns and is the only way to make trap work
sound, which does low damage to every cog;
throw, which does medium-high-ish damage to one cog; multiple throws combined give percentage combo damage, and hitting a lured cog will also add percentage "knockback damage";
squirt, which is exactly like throw but less damage;
and drop, which does high damage but cannot hit lured cogs, and has low accuracy unless you hit the cog with something else first
each gag track has 6 levels, which you unlock by using that gag track a bunch. you can't carry as many of the high levels with you - i mean, putting one piano in your backpack makes perfect sense, but two is just silly, right
a few years into the game's lifespan, level 7s were added - these were huge AOE that you could regain with every 500 track EXP. there was also something called "organic gags" to promote the please-log-in-every-day gardening system
every player starts with throw and squirt, and throughout the game you slowly unlock four more gag tracks. your choices are permanent: once you have your six tracks, you're locked out of the seventh forever.
in theory, all of this opens up a huge variety of combat options!
in practice, the battle strategy looks something like this:
use sound
as mentioned, almost all of lategame will be 4v4 battles, which means sound will almost always outdamage everything on earth. you don't even need four foghorns (the highest normal sound gag) to break 200 AOE damage, and the highest health a cog EVER has is 200*. and two of the boss battles can reward you with gag restocks and heals that you can use mid-battle with no consequences (other than having to grind for those rewards a bunch). and failing THAT, you can just...ration your foghorns and take 2 turns to clear a set of cogs, interspersed with healing.
(*okay there was something called "v2.0 cogs" but they were...strange, and we just used sound anyway)
sure, once level 7s were added you could use those occasionally. and you could fall back on lure+throw if you didn't want to use your sound restocks. but even then, for most of tto's existence there was something called the "knockback bug" which. well. just look at it
(link for transcript. it's tvtropes sorry)
if you are a target-audience eight-year-old this translates to "lure + throw will only do enough damage if the cogs Feel like it." like it's really just insult to injury at this point. this was the result of One misplaced variable and was not fixed until the game closed
in the tto era, if you didn't have sound, you were kinda doomed to be kicked out of every fight forever
(bonus fun fact: there were Four entire battle themes and they were 40-second midi loops. let me out)
the bosses:
each of the four cog departments has a Boss Cog. to face off against them, you have to assemble a cog disguise and collect enough merits/stock options/whatever to be allowed into the boss's office.
(pictured: your convincing disguise)
when you enter, your disguise pops off due to Reasons, and you have to fight through...a bunch of waves of normal cogs. it's basically a really long normal battle. once the minions are dealt with, you have to, inexplicably, do a live-action battle against the boss themself:
youtube
(loose video description: four toons defeating the CFO by using magnet cranes to hit him in the face with safes for 32 seconds.)
the live-action rounds aren't supposed to go this quickly, but it's still...kinda strange? certain reoccurring game areas require Parkour, but there are no battles like this outside of the Four bosses. the CFO's room is the only place you see these cranes and they have A Lot Going On. the other 3 bosses have their own unique weird mechanics. before the first boss was added we neither had nor needed the ability to Jump. it's just weird
once you've defeated the boss, you're given a reward of varying usefulness (the best/most unbalanced reward type is Unites, which are a free heal or gag restock you can do inside or outside of battle. essentially lategame toons can simply choose not to die. riv2u etc.)
and, um. then you get some more merits/stock options/whatever and do it again. and again. and again. and again. and agai
the grind:
so the thing is that tto was a subscription mmo. every addition to the game had to be measured, above all, in terms of "how can we best get kids to beg their parents to give us money." this especially shows in the suit grind:
(source/source)
you have to defeat each boss 78 times in order to get all their laff points - and as you proceed, you have to defeat an increasing amount of cogs to even be allowed into the boss (although once you max you get in for free).
by far the easiest way is to run through the designated HQ facilities - basically, cog fights interspersed with some platforming or minigames. you only collect your merits/whatever at the Very End of the facility. the only way to increase what a facility gives you is if your last battle ends during an "invasion" - a timed period where One Specific Cog replaces all street cogs, usually summoned with boss rewards.
the sellbot HQ grind isn't so bad. bossbot HQ - the endest-game HQ - frequently requires you to do an hour-long facility and on six separate occasions you have to do seven of them. if the invasion ends before your final battle, you have to sit around until someone summons another. if you lose your internet connection because it's 2008, or if your parents make you come to dinner, or if hacking or the game's general bugginess cause a server reset because you're probably in the busiest district for the invasion bonus, you have spent that Entire Hour On Nothing. the CEO (bossbot cog boss) probably also takes an hour because you and your fellow players are 10
this shit, combined with laff points locked behind gardening (time-gated), racing and golfing (multiplayer minigames with absurd requirements), and fishing (RNG-based with some fish being absurdly rare. i watched my mom fish for one every day for a month), meant that maxing a toon took Years, if you managed it ever.
it wasn't, um. it wasn't good
ok so what else is wrong with this game:
i had "aged out of the game" (lol) by the early '10s, so i'm not the best person to do a writeup of the hacking/scripting situation of those days. that said, what i'm going to do is give you a few examples, and i want you to just...look at them
(source)
(source). early '10s youtube was funny i'm trying to decide if i miss it
(source). fun thing to note here is that other players had collision, so a swarm of t-posing toons could just barricade the gag shop if they wanted to
youtube
(video description: toon who has Replaced His Head Model With An Anime Logo throwing thousands of jellybeans at everyone) (cw mild flashing just in case? and also the feather headband accessory)
i should note that the Bring Me To Life vid i started with was client-side, meaning only the player could see their technicolor hellscape. this guy's face was server-side. i do Not Think you should be able to do that
youtube
(video description: a player demonstrating use of a bot to get into the nutty river district, followed by other players using it to go to different game areas)
the above video was posted on august 17th, 2013. if you don't want to watch an Unregistered Hypercam 3 recording at about 5 frames per second, what's going on here is:
the player goes to a specific location and says a specific speedchat phrase.
a bot toon teleports to their location and provides some prompts on how to use it
the player tells the bot, via speedchat, to teleport to the (currently closed from the outside) busiest district so the player can follow
these "taxi toons" were server-sided, persisted across server resets, were made by a future fanserver dev, had younger kids referring to them as a "glitch" as if this were something that could Accidentally Happen, and stayed functional until the game closed
like...a lot of the "hacking" was just baby's first script download. this one - afaict also created by the laughing man head guy - is like...the fact that after years of no substantial game updates, someone effectively programmed their own "QOL feature" (note: not actually good for the poor mid-00s server being turned into a clown car) into a silly disney MMO and it just fucking sat there for a year is just. it's just.
i don't know what this is. this is not Playing The Game Toontown Online. this is nothing. this is everything. there are comments from 2013 on some of these videos saying stuff like "hackers killed toontown", but your game cannot have this happen if it is not already dying
and, like...it was. i'm not sure how many moderators there were by this point, but at the very end of tto, the number of active devs was One. the original devteam recently brought this up at the 20th anniversary celebration: devs just...slowly started getting pulled from the game, one at a time. there were a few updates after bossbot HQ - Field Offices, which i've basically never heard anything good about in their tto form ever; the Silly Meter, a yearly event...thing whose main function was to add unskippable dancing-inanimate-object cutscenes to your street battles; Parties, which...yknow parties were okay actually. i accept parties. but they weren't exactly a Major Game Update like the ones that had come before. in 2011 we gained the ability to Wear Hats. in 2012 the test server got some actual QOL updates that never made it to the main game; the final test server update was some maintenance in february, and then nothing for 18 months. disney was not providing enough resources to address the scripting because disney was not providing enough resources to address toontown. imagine being the last dev standing on an MMO that was older than some of its players, was losing its business model to mobile gaming, and spent most of its life falling apart at the seams. just imagine it, for a second
it couldn't have kept going, not like this.
on august 20, 2013, the closing announcement came: we had a month left of toontown online. the test server shut immediately; subscription refunds went out, and the game became actually F2P for the month; the part of the announcement that went like "we're shifting our focus to other games!" made a bunch of twelve-year-olds hate club penguin as if club penguin wouldn't also close in a few years; all the holiday events went off at once; and...
there wasn't a "thanks for playing!" popup. everyone online just got kicked, all at once. it was finally over
hey wait.
#toontown#toontown online#tto#tft talks#tft stuff#<- this goes in that tag i think#this was like. enrichment. thank you
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Another interesting article about the new Ghibli film Boy and the Heron with great insights into Miyazaki’s relationship with Joe Hisaishi and Toshio Suzuki making films over the years. Again it has a few spoilers
What’s it like to work with Hayao Miyazaki? Go behind the scenes.
News of Hayao Miyazaki’s retirement can’t ever be trusted.
The Japanese animation master’s repeated claims that he’ll give up filmmaking are a response to the strain that creating each of his largely hand-drawn universes entails. At least that’s what Toshio Suzuki, a founder of Studio Ghibli and Miyazaki’s right-hand man for the past 40 years, believes.
"Every time he finishes a film, he’s so exhausted he can’t think about the next project,” Suzuki explains. "He’s used up his energy physically and mentally. He needs some time to clear his mind. And to have a blank canvas to come up with new ideas.”
A decade after 2013’s "The Wind Rises” was heralded as Miyazaki’s final film, the 82-year-old auteur’s newest feature, "The Boy and the Heron,” is being released in the United States after major success in Japan over the summer, where it opened without any traditional publicity.
Though the director hasn’t given any interviews about "The Boy and the Heron,” Suzuki, 75, who is also a veteran producer, and Joe Hisaishi, 72, the longtime composer on Miyazaki’s movies, describe in separate video interviews the master’s working process and how their collaborations have evolved — or not — over the years.
Suzuki is casually dressed and speaking, via an interpreter, from Japan, where he sits next to a pillow emblazoned with Totoro, the bearlike troll that serves as the studio’s logo. He says the new fantasy film is Miyazaki’s most personal yet. Set in the final days of World War II, the tale follows 11-year-old Mahito, who, after losing his mother in a fire, moves to the countryside, where a magical realm beckons him.
"At the start of this project, Miyazaki came to me and asked me, ‘This is going to be about my story, is that going to be OK?’ I just nodded,” Suzuki recalls with the matter-of-factness of someone who’s learned it would be futile to stand in the way of the director.
For a long time, he says, Miyazaki worried that if he made a movie about a young male, inspiration would inevitably be drawn from his own childhood, which he felt might not make for an interesting narrative. Growing up, Miyazaki had trouble communicating with people and expressed himself instead by drawing pictures.
"I noticed that with this film, where he portrayed himself as a protagonist, he included a lot of humorous moments in order to cover up that the boy, based on himself, is very sensitive and pessimistic,” Suzuki says. "That was interesting to see.”
If Miyazaki is the boy, Suzuki adds, then he himself is the heron, a mischievous flying entity in the story that pushes the young hero to keep going. Director Isao Takahata, Studio Ghibli’s third foundational musketeer, who died in 2018, is represented onscreen by Granduncle, a wise but weathered figure who controls the fantastical world Mahito ventures into.
Suzuki first met Miyazaki in the late 1970s, when the animator was making his first feature, "Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro,” an amusing caper. Back then, Suzuki was a journalist hoping to interview him.
But Miyazaki, who was working on a storyboard, had no interest in talking and ignored him. "Out of kindness, I thought it was a good thing to introduce his works to my readers, and for him to be very cranky and disrespectful, I was very angry,” Suzuki remembers.
He stuck around the studio for two more days of silence. On the third, Miyazaki asked him if he knew a term for a car overtaking another during a chase. Suzuki’s reply, a specific Japanese expression for such action, finally broke the ice and kick-started their long-term relationship.
"Miyazaki still remembers that first meeting, too,” Suzuki says. "He thought that I was a person not to be trusted. And that’s why he was very cautious about talking to me.”
Over the years, Suzuki has become increasingly indispensable for Miyazaki. "He always tells me, ‘Suzuki-san, can you remember the important things for me?’ And then he feels that he can forget about all the important things not concerning his films. I have to remember them for him,” Suzuki says.
Best friends more than mere collaborators, Miyazaki and Suzuki talk every day, even if there’s nothing urgent to discuss, and make it a rule to meet in person on Mondays and Thursdays. "What we talk about is very trivial most times, I guess he feels lonely or misses me, but it’s always him who calls me. I never call him,” Suzuki says, adding with a laugh, "Sometimes he even calls me in the middle of the night, like at 3 a.m., and the first thing he says is, ‘Were you awake?’ And obviously I was not. I’m in bed!”
In contrast, Hisaishi, the composer who first worked with Miyazaki on the 1984 feature "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind,” has a strictly professional relationship with him.
"We don’t see each other in private,” Hisaishi, wearing an elegant sweater, says through a translator. "We don’t eat together. We don’t drink together. We only meet to discuss things for work.” That emotional distance, he adds, is what has made their partnership over 11 films so creatively fruitful.
"People think that if you really know a person’s full character then you can have a good working relationship, but that doesn’t necessarily hold true,” Hisaishi says. "What is most important to me is to compose music. The most important thing in life to Miyazaki is to draw pictures. We are both focused on those most important things in our lives.”
On "The Boy and the Heron,” Miyazaki didn’t provide Hisaishi with any instruction. The musician watched the film only when it was nearly completed but still with no sound or dialogue. At that point Miyazaki simply said to Hisaishi, "I just leave it up to you.”
"I feel he was just thinking that he could rely on me and expected me to come up with something,” Hisaishi says. "I feel like I was very much trusted to do this.”
For all of their previous collaborations, Miyazaki would bring on Hisaishi to discuss once three out of the four or five parts of the storyboard for a new film were ready. That the process changed this time was possible only because of their shared history.
"It’s as if we’ve been Olympic athletes making a film once every four years for 40 years,” Hisaishi says. "It’s been a long time of training and performing. When I look back I’m amazed that I could write music for these very different films.”
In his contemporary classical work, Hisaishi had been working on minimalist compositions with repeating patterns, and he took that approach to the new film.
While he maintains they are just colleagues, every January for the past 15 years, Hisaishi has composed a small tune, recorded it on a piano and sent it to Miyazaki as a birthday present. This tradition has now become the seasoned musician’s lucky charm.
"After about three times I thought, ‘This has probably run its course,’” Hisaishi recalls. "I didn’t send one the following year. That whole year I wasn’t able to work very well. It was sort of a jinx that I had not sent him something, so I started sending him the music again for his birthday,” he adds with a laugh.
Both Hisaishi and Suzuki say their interactions with Miyazaki have not changed much over the decades. On the contrary, the men have become staunch creatures of habit.
Asked why his profound connection with Miyazaki has endured so long, Suzuki says: "I don’t necessarily agree, but he once told me, ‘I’ve never met someone so similar to me. You are the last person that I will meet like that.’”
BY CARLOS AGUILAR
THE NEW YORK TIMES
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could you explain more about what you view as the before era and what you view as the after? i need to learn my herstory
I think this requires a more detailed and educated/researched answer than I can give after an exhausting workday and an after-hours work event, but I'm going to do my best and also open up the floor in reblogs for people to chip in their thoughts
foremost: a DISCLAIMER that this post does not aim to shit on writers from the "before" era. there are many classic fics that I love and enjoy, even if I consider their characterizations to be "less accurate"* than the ones we have in the after era.
*aside to say: accuracy is based only off of literal media accounts we have of these men; we do not know them, we should not claim to know them, and they have had different comfort levels with the media knowing selective truths about their lives [sid out of choice, geno out of media xenophobia] than they did when these early fics were being written.
"before" fics (which I tend to refer to as "classic" fics, and had their heyday in 2012-2013 but continued up until 2016ish) tended to have more regimented roles for sid and geno. sid was usually the protagonist; geno was the love interest.
this came with a cascading set of characteristics assigned to each guy. sid was poor-little-meow-meow'd. geno was the pursuer in the relationship. sid usually bottomed. sid had the whole spacetoaster moment (he was the inspiration for the term, haha). there wasn't much a/b/o fic but sid was, like, the omega-fied one and geno was alpha-ized.
something I've been thinking about more recently is how 2012-2013 era sidgeno displayed signs of Migratory Slash Fandom. I don't think of MSF as an inherently negative/condemning thing, but I think it's a phenomenon that deserves to be mentioned/analyzed, yeah?
MSF thrives on big character differences.... like, grumpy/sunshine, sarcastic/broody, genius/empath. it's all about emphasizing disparate archetypes to create natural tension in a story. this works really well in most romance novels! I love it!
the issues arise when people try to make characters fit into these preset dynamics. and, frankly, when sidgeno first got big, we straight-up didn't know as much about sid and geno. I mean that. despite sid being EXTENSIVELY covered by media from age, like, 14, he was really tight-lipped compared to what we have now.
and geno was.... there. I don't mean that as a diss—he was INCREDIBLE, but the media totally passed him over again and again. or they helped contribute to stereotypes of him being a dumb oaf who didn't know english.
aside: ironically I think that helped in creating sidgeno and not, like.... sidflower or sidtanger. geno was so "DIFFERENT" from sid (aka: russian, characterized by media as not knowing how to speak [in comparison to sid's highly curated media soundbites]) that it meant he was the best candidate for A Ship with sid.
a lot of the really big writers who got into sidgeno were fandom veterans with lots of experience in other big fandoms. to me, that means MSF had a hand in all this. and we should be grateful, because it led to the BOOM of hockey fic, and of sidgeno fic specifically. modern hrpf wouldn't exist without it.
that being said, those template ship dynamics, plus the media's attitude then towards sid and geno in its coverage, led to those characterizations of whiny soft sensitive boy sid who needed to be rescued even though he was the best hockey player EVER, and geno as the lumbering tall strong alpha not-that-bright Love Interest Man.
this isn't to say every fic was this way, or that this is BAD. I, uh, love poor-little-meow-meow-ing sid and omegafying the hell out of him. what I'm saying is that it was a near-ubiquitous characterization across the board.
that all changed in 2016-2018. I personally wholly credit sevenfists, though I imagine it's more nuanced than that, but: my blog, I make the rules here. I don't know if sevenfists was psychic or just highly observant and absolutely excellent at reading people (and that's basically the same thing, right?), but characterization shifts began taking place in fic....
and the coolest thing happened, in that those characterizations were seemingly reinforced by more media coverage. the back to back cups brought with them TONS of interviews with and media about the team, and sid and geno in particular. the coolest part of it was that sid had loosened up a LOT and geno had gotten more comfortable (and had gotten a reporter firmly on his side).
the interviews about sid post 2016 were just SO different. so much information started coming out, and a LOT of it conflicted with Ye Olde Characterizations. as it turned out, sid was deeply one of the boys. he was funny. everyone liked him. he loved hosting. he was insanely comfortable around almost everyone, including strangers, because he's a little freak who's kind to everyone. he can make smalltalk like no one's business. he's kind of gross. he likes to giggle and be in on jokes and get into the thick of it. he isn't some blushing virgin bride sold off of mario's doorstep, yeah?
and geno, too, was finally getting the coverage he deserved. and his personality was both fortified by age and better shown to us through media. as it turns out, he isn't some happy go lucky oaf. he's mercurial and intensely aware of what others think of him (and he CARES). he's sensitive and thoughtful but also can lash out at random times. he has a wicked sense of humor that he uses as a defense mechanism and as a surefire way to get people to like him, which matters to him. and, as everyone says, he is SMART.
if you had to boil it down, I'd say that post-2016, it became clear that SID is the confident one and GENO is the insecure one. and fic caught onto that with a miraculously fast pace. also: they're more alike than they are different, but I still think romance inherently feeds off of difference and tension, so we still exaggerate things to make the stories ✨WORK✨.
I'm not going to give examples of pre- and post- era fics, because I don't want to point any fingers and say someone was doing characterization "wrong." that's not the takeaway I want anyone to have here.
fandom attitudes have changed. it's been 10 years since that first wave of fics, and while I don't think that's very long, it's a hell of a long time on the internet, and in a niche internet community. what was once the standard for fics (and what was well-read, and what people gravitated towards) was different. not worse—different.
I think it's fair to say the "after" era of fics is more "accurate" to what we know of sid and geno. it's also fair to say that this is only the case because we have a WEALTH of information, character-revealing interviews and videos and anecdotes, that Ye Old Authors could only dream of getting.
I really love the story of how everything has changed, and it's a fabulous microcosm of fandom evolution and how approaches to fanworks have changed and grown with fandom, and I think it's all so so cool.
#additions welcome!#I also feel like I've made this post before lol#gather round children it's time for granny rimouskis to spin the tale of the sidgeno evolution once more
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I'm aware I'm not the only person to do this but here's a post that was just meant to be me tracking up the description of Gerry's hair to see what is actually going on on that front but this also turned into a few other things that are quite interesting to think about. And I started
I will put this under a cut as it's long, also spoilers
So we first meet Gerry in 004
And he's described as having 'artificially black' hair and he's unshaven, this statement is set in Winter 2012 and is from the period where Mary is haunting Gerry post her death, this also occurs after the events of 012 as the incident in 012 is dated as happening on December 23rd 2011
Then in 012
Yet again, dyed hair, this time he's clean shaven which implies either Gerry tends to shave or he probably at least shaved for the sake of blending in for this incident
(This is also when Gerry had all his tattoos)
, this is also in 2011 and it's when Mary is still around but I'm not sure if she like actually somehow appeared at the hospital since it's never really said like how far Mary could like project herself as a ghost but either way somehow they signed him off to her.
Also to note from 012
Gerry has an expired passport with him, he's traveled a lot this lines up with what Gerry himself says in 111 that he and Mary traveled a lot (Also I personally feel he likely had a feeling he wasn't coming back from this and had that on him for... reasons)
Then in 035 we encounter teenage Gerry in 2002
He's described as thin, his hair is apparently obviously dyed, it's also described as 'greasy'
Also to note, this is where the statement giver implies Gerry is somehow stronger than he looks
Gerry then shows up in 048
He's described as scrawny here, and also described as having 'long black hair' this episode is set in September 2009 which would likely be about a year after Mary's death which is said to have happened in 2008 and in 111 Gerry does say the following
Also in 004 it's stated that Gerry seemingly disappeared after being acquitted
Also apparently someone moved into Pinhole Books in 2014
Also to note 062 where Mary talks to Gertrude and gives her Eric's page is set on the 3rd July 2008 meaning that Mary's death was somewhere after this point (I am going to assume likely not that long after this)
Mary speaks to Eric in 154 which is dated to the 21st July 2008 and also this is where Eric does ask her to track down Gerry and Gertrude has been aware of Gerry's existence for a good while by this point.
Also it's implied that Eric and Gertrude know what Mary was going to do
Another side note 080 is where we have Jurgen's encounter with Gerry which probably would've happened in 2014
And Gerry thinks this was in fact not Leitner
So now we come to 102
This statement was taken in June 2014 and is the source of the 'poorly dyed' description of Gerry's hair, this is the only time where the condition of his hair is really remarked upon other than in 035 where it's described as greasy (Which I personally feel was just as a result of Gerry being a teenager at a time as having greasy hair as a teenager happens to most people) so that was likely a one off moment.
Other references to Gerry's hair being dyed imply it's obviously dyed and an artificial looking black so I have another feeling that his hair looking the way it apparently does here is probably a one off since Gerry has been.... going through it to put it mildly.
And its stated that Gerry passes away a few months after this and in 111 Gerry states and since he says Mary haunted him for five years Gertrude seemingly was the one to seek Gerry out This was likely some point in 2013 (Going off what was calculated by people writing the tma wiki)
Allegedly The Catalogue was burned, or at least Mary's pages were Gertrude however seems to have The Catalogue in 2015 when she is arrested for tresspassing
Gerry was also unaware he was ill until it was too late
In 012 we find out Gerry's death was sometime in late 2015
And Jon finds the following out in 107
From what we have in 107 it's likely Gerry and Gertrude were heading to The Usher Foundation from Chicago but only got as far as Pittsburgh, this is where Gerry passes, Gertrude narrowly avoids arrest for being caught when binding Gerry to the Catalogue of the Trapped Dead and Gertrude travels back to England.
And then The Catalogue falls into Julia and Trevor's hands about a year late 109
(And yes can confirm the Greyhound route referenced by Jon does exist)
So that's the post
Things to Summarise
Gerry is apparently stronger than he looks, he is also canonically pale and thin/scrawny
He's described as having stubble in 004 but not 012 I have a feeling he tends to stay clean shaven but in 004 it's implied he looks like hes not slept for a few days (Likely due to Mary) 004 happened post 012
Gerry has an expired passport with him in 012 likely for identification reasons (I personally feel he had a feeling he might not be coming back)
Gerry was released into Mary's care after the events of 012 but it's not clear if Mary was physically there or not
His hair is obviously dyed, and always described as long. His hair is described as Greasy in 035 when he's a teenager, and Poorly Dyed in 102, 102 is set not long before Gerry died so I have a feeling that's probably part of the reason his hair is like that he's been going through it (tm)
Gertrude very likely knew about Gerry's existence pre 2008, she was asked to find him in July 2008 by Eric, She also spoke to Eric a few weeks after Mary approached her in July 2008 but didn't intervene until 2013
Mary's death was likely some point in Summer 2008, probably in July
Someone moved into Pinhole Books in 2014
Gerry also beat up Jurgen Leitner in 2014
Mary's pages were burned in 2013 but it seems The Catalogue was still usable since Gerry was put into it
Gertrude and Gerry most likely heading to The Usher Foundation before his death They'd been in Chicago and were traveling via Pittsburgh, which is as far as they got before Gerry died, Gertrude never did show up at The Usher Foundation.
Gerry died some point in late 2015, the Catalogue of the Trapped Dead was left behind and eventually vanished from the evidence locker and somehow ended up with Julia and Trevor just under a year later
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out of curiosity, what's your issue with jace beleren? he's never really been my favorite but a lot of the criticisms i've seen have at the very least not been articulated well, so i'd be interested to hear your take (as someone who is good at articulating her opinions as well as supporting them)
essentially his status as magic's posterboy since like 2013 means that with time wotc has felt a progressing need to sand off every interesting thing about his character and replace it with marvel quips. so now he relentlessly eats up story airtime that could have gone to other, more interesting characters. this is not necessarily a fault of jace beleren in and of himself but it does make me mildly irritated whenever he shows up in a set. also him being around and all fleshy again is just anothr reminded of how consequence-free and boring the resolution to MOM was
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If it’s not too much to ask.. can we get a timeline for the lights out au?
(Not the full story, obviously. Just the bits of the timeline that have already been revealed. I just think it’d been nice to have a neat guide to it all)
oh for sure!
this is gonna be a little clumsy because I have a very bad grasp on time & also math. numbers suck and i hate them. but i Am trying to create a timeline, ill give you the Very basic, Very vague one
~~~~~
1972 / the show is cancelled, and the neighborhood is abandoned in the dark
1973 / Sally starts sleepwalking, Wally loses his eye
1975 / Wally starts exploring beyond the set
1980 / Barnaby loses his arm
1986 / The Divorce™️ happens
2007 / Frank wakes up
2013 / Poppy wakes up. Frank starts getting worse
2015 / Howdy wakes up. They barricade Sally in her house.
2016 / Eddie, Julie, and Barnaby wake up. Arc One ends.
~~~~~
aaaand not going into the other three arcs. the second is still nebulous, the third is soooo spoilery even though Does That Really Matter?, and the fourth is a mix of both.
sorry this isn't as in depth! aus aren't a high priority for me, so they're more like little side thinkings i tinker with when my main Interests start to get burnt out. keeps me fresh!
#but yeah thats the very basic timeline....#about. what was that. 43 years???#im purposefully making it shorter than the canon timeline to make the au feel a bit more... sensible#grounded? hm.#like in a 'the whrp is still a few years away so Its Sooo Realistic And Faithful Trust Me On This One Guys-' way#an alternate timeline events#< says the guy who doesn't know the timeline of events#thinking about this au wildly flip flops between#this is so fun!! im having a great time!!! yeehaw!!!#and banging my head against a wall a la what the Hell am i doing#but that goes for uh. pretty much everything i think about ever. so#rambles from the bog#wh lights out au
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The World in Deeper Inspection UPDATE Read: (Chapter 1: Pages 43 to 50)
About the comic
Grimsley negotiates with the Werewolf King.
The revamp for this set of pages is what I wouldn't consider ambitious, but most of the changes made to the layout and dialogue are entirely for pacing reasons.
Open the cut below to see my notes.
The most significant change is the Mayor’s dialogue with Grimsley and on Blackpool. It seems a bit silly to me now to emphasise the prey and predator aspect (it’s not relevant nor interesting??? What was 18 year old Me thinking??). I’ve had the Blackpool backstory in my head since the early days of Chapter 1, so this is an opportunity to finally include it. It’s vague admittedly, but yall will have to wait for that Chaplette for Grimsley to break the case wide open and solve it!
The left page of the spread is revamped to add kinetic energy and style to what’s happening over there. The right page of the spread is mostly changed for pacing. I also brought some of Grimsley’s inner thoughts forward – it seems more appropriate pacing-wise to have that here.
More panel variety in the revamp + a brand new panel that ties in with the revamped Blackpool dialogue earlier. What I like most about having redrawn this Chapter is seeing how much better I am now at expressiveness and character acting. The expressiveness doesn’t look out-of-place either; it feels like a natural evolution of the 2013 style.
Here’s where you can see why I pushed forward Grimsley’s inner dialogue: I wanted to give the Werewolves conversation closure and make the following scene silent.
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Netflix kept recommending me “Lockwood and Co.,” so I finally gave it a shot, and then had to look up when the books it’s based on we’re written, because holy SHIT is this ever a post-pandemic show. I’m interested now in reading them - published in 2013 - to see if this is specific to the show or if that vibe is there to begin with. The whole thing is so very on-the-nose as far as “fantasy as social commentary” I HAVE to think it’s deliberate.
the show is set approximately 50 years after ghosts started coming back and killing people, which people refer to simply as “the Problem,” and the kids at the center of the plot have never known a world without it. But they use the opening credits very cleverly to give a series of worldbuilding snapshots of “how we got here.” You see early headlines about The Problem, and then shots of a rapidly rising death toll. Headlines about the devastating effect it has on the economy, then more death statistics. A headline talking about what you can do to try to keep yourself safe (iron, salt, silver) and headlines about how a strict curfew has been implemented, and still the death toll rises. it’s very well done.
the ghosts kill with a touch, but they can also leave victims “ghost-locked,” a not-very-well-explained condition that seems to be like locked-in syndrome, but haunted. It has long-Covid vibes.
It’s from a YA-level series, so of course the main heroes are kids, but the in-universe explanation is that kids are the only ones who are ghost-sensitive enough to fight them. There are shots of memorials to “the youth who gave their lives” but everyone keeps going about their business with the understanding that more kids are going to keep dying and that’s just how it is now, calling to mind monuments to “essential workers.” Ghost-fighting is a critical component of the economy, now- but of course, the kids dying on the front lines aren’t the ones who get rich. We see a guy who made his fortune on iron, because it’s one of the only things that repels ghosts, and one character comments “isn’t it a little grim, that someone made this much money off The Problem?” Another notes that “you’d think there would be fewer parties,” what with the plague of ghosts, but no, apparently the wealthy keep on throwing lavish events, tucked safely behind iron and silvered glass. It calls up “masque of the red death” as much as it does the infamous Covid-lockdown parties held at Downing Street.
speculative fiction as a mirror for society’s anxieties is one of my favorite things to look into, and I think this is might be right up there with the “invasion of the bodysnatchers as metaphor for communism” and “cyberpunk as metaphor for consumerism” in the annals of spec fic with subtext so heavy it’s basically just text.
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Natural Citrine
Natural citrine has always been one of my favorite stones to work with in my practice, so I thought I’d compile some information in a post! Some general background about me: my name is Rebekka and I’ve been a witch for about 12 years, and I’ve owned my crystal & jewelry business for 10 years now.
Natural citrine is the yellow, naturally occurring variety of quartz. A lot of what is commonly called “citrine” that you see for sale, is actually heat treated amethyst, and, less often, lemon quartz which is irradiated quartz. I have a post that you can check out here that explains how you can tell the differences. It’s been considered acceptable for years to just call these other two crystals citrine, so for a long time many people just getting into crystals had no idea how valued and rare true natural citrine is.
I’d love to highlight some of my personal opinions and metaphysical properties I’ve learned to attribute to it from different books and sources over the years.
Metaphysical Properties:
Citrine is known as the “Merchant’s Stone”. It’s often associated with prosperity, creativity, abundance, business, sales, and luck. When first starting my business in 2013 I remember reading this, and deciding to always keep a citrine crystal with me when I did shows and fairs! I simply stick one in my money bag/box when doing events. And when I had my brick and mortar shop, I always kept a citrine in the cash register. It would be a perfect stone to keep in your wallet or purse as well.
Citrine is also said to be one of the crystals that is capable of not only blocking negative energy, but being able to transmute it to positive energy. Because of this, citrine doesn’t need to be cleansed or charged, and can even be used to charge other crystals.
I’ve also personally strongly associated citrine with being a stone of manifestation, ambition, and intention setting. I find it useful for setting and achieving goals and planning long term aspirations. In my opinion it’s a great stone to use when you’re writing in your planner or even setting New Year’s resolutions.
Citrine is definitely one of my most used crystals in my practice, and I’ve always had a fondness for it!
I hope you enjoyed this post, and please let me know if there’s any other crystals you’d like me to speak about! 🌸
If you’re interested in supporting my work:
Website | Crystal Instagram | Jewelry/Art Instagram | TikTok
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Why do you like Loki so much? Whats make him so special to ya?
Hey there, nonnie, what a good question you've got there. There is a lot to be said here, but I will try to keep it brief so as not to bore you. (This goes without saying, but I am obviously talking about 2011–2013.)
There is certainly more than one reason why he's so special to me, but I think the most obvious answer would be that he's a complex character with great depth, which is something I find exceptionally interesting. I love delving deeper into his psychology and analysing the different aspects of his story. He's not the antagonist, but he's certainly not without flaws, and I find that very compelling, comforting even. Also, he's got such an intriguing set of traits to his personality. He's intelligent and cares deeply about his people, whilst also being cunning and a skilled strategist, just to name a few. To paraphrase one of Tom's interviews for a bit here, Loki is the student, an artist, someone who was more sensitive and more delicate. Particularly in contrast to Thor, the archetypal warrior who was embraced by his family and the Asgardian society.
Of course, another contributing factor is that I got to see the first Thor movie when it came out, meaning I was very young and his character resonated with me like no other, so I fixated on him. As I got older, I found myself relating more and more, which further solidified my perception of him.
I think it's safe to say that the people who like him to this extent are not exactly the prime example of mental health (exceptions exist, of course), and that's understandable. There is something reassuring about loving and defending somebody you see yourself in, especially when you are unable to show said kindness and compassion to yourself. From my experience, many of his fans have been wronged and marginalised by the people around them and only realised this after understanding him.
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A Little Farewell
With about a week left to go we had our final OT4 weverse live today and it's safe to say, we were not prepared. But I'm very grateful that they did a live all together giving us a last dose of chaos, cuteness and giggles before we'll be left to fend for ourselves for 6 months before Jin returns to us in June 2024.
The live truly was a beautiful gift that kept on giving starting with Tae's new short haircut and JK hiding his now shaved head from us, Namjoon even claiming that JKs hair is shorter than his own (JK supposedly felt inspired to shave his head a little early after he met Usher, who has pretty short hair himself, and went for it), and Jimin practically getting offended by a comment saying they wanted to see him with a buzzcut. To be honest Tae's cute little haircut looks a little like he did it himself in the dead of the night but it also makes him look like we traveled back in time to 2013 or earlier. Adorable. After so long it was really nice to see them together again, and to generally have more than one Tannie in a live together.
Since the first leaks about their military service appeared a few days ago we've seen vminies talk among themselves, and not to mention the near constant fighting that's been going on between the two xkook camps, but seeing vmin being so cute together in this live, it felt reassuring. Whatever questions or worries we might've had, they were washed away. In a way it makes sense that Tae and Jimin didn't go together, even if we all would've loved to see them go together and make use of the buddy system, but that isn't the choice they made for themselves and that's okay. It's easy to see what vmin are doing more than just fine and that's all that matters. Admin 2 really hoped we'd get a vmin handshake or hand holding, and we got two! I mean, look at all this cuteness:
And then also Tae going home in five minutes flat and doing a small solo live which was basically just him being adorable and talking to Jimin, who was immediately in the comments, before leaving again. Love when we get to third wheel them, wow, I truly will miss that a lot.
At one point in the live JK mentioned that he'd wanted to go to the special forces as well, implying that for some reason he couldn't, which makes me wonder why. Was it because of his tattoos? Either way, it's nice that he'll instead get to go with Jimin and supposedly they'll be in the training camp where Seokjin is one of the trainers so that's cute.
Speaking of Seokjin, after so long it was adorable how often Namjoon brought up Seokjin in this live. Just Jin hyung this and Jin hyung that, very cute. And they also mentioned Hobi a bunch, how he's gotten cooler and more manly, which comes as a great reminder to basically all of us that the cute boys we've known until now, well, they'll probably fade away and get replaced by more mature versions of our beloved members in the next months and they'll return to us as a different set of Tannies. And that's okay. They're grown up men so it makes sense that eventually some of that aegyo cuteness will fade away and personally I'm very curious to see how things will turn out and what they'll be like in 2025.
And I'm very curious to see if idiots will respect Namjoon's and Tae's pleas for people not to show up for their entrance ceremonies. Especially since Namjoon asked for it in three languages to make sure everyone understood it. Unfortunately I have my doubts, since we know the maknae line have some of the most unhinged solos but here's hoping.
Now, what does this mean for us now? Well, it'll be quite a while until we'll see the members slowly returning one after the other so we'd like to take this time for a 'official' hiatus as well. Admin 2 is considering a temporary "rebrand" into a BL blog since they've gotten into Thai BLs in the last year, so that's something that might happen. Would any of you be interested in something like that?
But we'll still be ARMY, still love vmin and namjin, and once the guys will return, so will we, so don't worry, we're not leaving BTS any time soon.
Lastly, here's a blurry screenshot of a coconut headed JK running across the screen screaming THIS WAS BTS. A beautifully chaotic ending to this solo era. Let's see what the next months will bring us and what 2025 will be like when chapter 2 will come to a close and a new chapter of BTS and ARMY will open, eventually.
Thank you so much for reading!
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CPN: part of XZS video could have been inspired by scenes from “we are animals”
before we discuss this, i wanna disclaimer that i am not implying xzs plagiarized anything. in case certain people see this and get all worked up about it. it’s just them allegedly being inspired by something and was applied in a section of the birthday video. it is like the europe vlog having that bit of homage to “roman holiday”. okay?
now i saw some people on weibo talking about this but hesitated sharing cause a lot of the comments were telling the OP to be careful — it could get ZZ in trouble when shared by yxh.
the inspiration in question is a short film and the plot is as follows:
In this alternate history fable set in the 1980s AIDS Crisis, a closeted young man is thrust into the midst of an anti-government coup and finds that the animal within is stronger than the monsters that oppress.
youtube
from the short “synopsis” it’s easy to tell why turtles are going 👀 over it. not surprising that ZZ may have seen this at some point, knowing how far and wide his interest in film is. tho this was released in 2013, it may not be the exact year he watched it, and i’m seeing comments that it was available on bilibili before but was deleted.
more info about it from a short review here
so what are the scenes that appear to be similar, frame by frame with we are animals?
here is the side by side video but i took screenshots to share. I have to say that the whole bonfire shot and running through the field is similar — but then again, i would imagine this kind of “scene” is not the most unique. so eat this candy in moderation.🤍
This doesn’t come from nowhere. We have seen ZZ be “partial” to queer media in some of the things he shares, an example would be extraordinary attorney woo, the making of an ordinary woman 2 and farewell my concubine etc ( there are more but tumblr won’t let me find my other posts about it lol p1 and p2 below, i won’t explain any more, i think these are pretty easy cpns to recall )
we could be wrong about this, but ZZ is really someone who won’t spoon feed everything to you. He is an artist who hides meaning behind his work. As an audience, you are free to interpret. He is also inspired by the things he has seen and experienced. That’s all. <3
-END.
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The "reblog, don't like. Liking hurts creators" stuff has always gotten on my nerves, who are you to tell me what to put on my blog? But I jsut saw this post, which put it in a different light.
https://mayahawkse.tumblr.com/post/691239174316097536/heres-a-little-comparison-for-people-who-say
I' got on Tumblr in 2013, quit around the porn ban, and only came back pretty recently. I didn't realise that people had actually stopped reblogging things from each other.
I guess the "likes hurt creators" thing might have some validity after all. I still really don't like the tone of entitlement or the idea that expressing your appreciation to OP with a like is an insult instead of an expression of appreciation.
The comment section probably cuts into the reblog counts; people have conversations there instead of in reblog chains, and don't have to reblog an entire post just to point out one quick thing or make the same joke as everyone else, but I don't think that comments account for the ratios in that post, especially since the screenshots don't show posts with hefty comments.
So yeah, guys, likes don't hurt creators, but Tumblr is for passing posts around. If you see something you like, you can just reblog it to be all "look at this cool thing I found". You don't have to worry about adding anything meaningful in a reblog, and if you and all your mutuals reblog the same post twelve times in a row, well, that's just how Tumblr works; if someone gets anoyed they can block the post through xkit.
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Eh. I'd beware of anecdata like that.
I used to get like 2 notes a post and no asks ever. On the rare occasions that I reblogged heavily in a hot fandom of the moment for a month or two, I got a lot of engagement once people realized I was a place to go for that fandom, and I particularly got a lot of reblogs because people wanted that content on their own tumblrs.
Currently, I get a decent number of reblogs, but I get a lot more other interaction because things here tend to be discussions and debates and people don't necessarily want them on their own tumblrs.
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In my case, I don't like the framing that it hurts creators because that's assuming that a person would have reblogged if they hadn't liked. In reality, they probably just wouldn't have interacted.
People pass posts around all kinds of ways, including pasting links to mine into various discord channels for fandom drama or sending me links to others' posts via chat messages here.
I also don't like the framing that it hurts creators because this only makes sense if you mean that it hurts the ability of visual artists to earn money.
Am I not a creator of a kind? Do I not write copious meta even if a lot of the content here comes from others? My ~engagement numbers~ are not harmed by failing to reblog. My engagement numbers don't matter full stop.
Or maybe, maybe, it's not about money, but it's about clout-chasing nonsense. Boo hoo, my gifset doesn't do numbers because it's not 2012 and I'm not in superwholock fandom now. Oh well. Chase the crowds to another site or chase the megafandoms. That's the only way to get those numbers back.
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I do think that some time after 2012, people became increasingly afraid of harassment and may have pulled back on interactions, particularly contentful ones, because of that.
But mostly, tumblr has cleared out. Fewer people are using it, and fewer of the ones remaining are using it actively in a way where it makes sense to fill their own blog with content.
Maybe part of the change is that you can't become a BNF of tasteful curation so easily now, so there's no point in reblogging unless it's for yourself?
Maybe it's gifsets that are out of fashion? I don't know.
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I never had much interest in "look at this cool thing" sans commentary back then, and I have little now. I have my activity page set to hide all that.
The changing phases of a site can be interesting, but we need a bit more than one person's top couple of posts to reach any conclusions.
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