Fernando 2012 Chair Lore (source: me)
So I've been thinking a lot about Fernando sitting in this particular chair in the Ferrari garage in 2012 for [redacted] reasons:
Originally I just wanted to find more pictures of it for reference, and then went down a rabbit hole of 2012 pictures, trying to figure out when exactly the chair came to be. There's so many pictures of him in it, and it's so funny to me to imagine them hauling this super villain chair all around the world for him. And so now I'm obsessed with the evolution of it:
Pre-Chair - Australia to Bahrain:
He just had this little stool, well I should say big because it somehow still manages makes him look small. Clearly not comfortable; to paraphrase @sweatyflytrap, it's not conducive to his inner Shakespeare villain monologues
The Chair Appears - Spain
He suddenly now has this, aforementioned, super villain chair. Several things, why is it like this. It looks like a sim chair almost ngl. And then the weird plexiglass support is confusing me, like where did they get that. It furthers my narrative they just had this chair that they couldn't put in a car so they put that clear bottom on it. Anyways yes good, now he has somewhere to brood
The Chair Evolves - Silverstone
Look!! They gave him a booster seat!!!
The Chair is Now Here to Stay :)
I downloaded a truly horrible amount of pics him in this chair, so now you all must also look at them >:)
*he still had the chair in 2013, but I think they took it away from him in 2014 :( Is nothing sacred in this world??? I hope he got to take it home hahaha
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Just finished The Santaroga Barrier by Frank Herbert (my dad likes to play audiobooks in the car on trips) and I didn't like it much (and there's quite a bit of Yikes in it, because frank herbert and the 1960s in general,) but the aspect I found most interesting was the concept of like. A world's subconscious desire to kill The Other.
In the book an investigator visits a small cultish town in order to investigate it for a market study after a few other researchers mysteriously died. he gets into a frightening number of "accidents" while he's there (like the former investigators) and starts believing that there was a conspiracy among the townsfolk and all of them were intentionally trying to murder him.
tl;dr, it turns out it actually was a subconscious yet intense phobia/hatred they had of The Outside they had as part of their personal traumas, childhood indoctrination into their local cult, and the LSD-like drug they were constantly on. They didn't mean the investigator any harm, if anything they were extremely welcoming, kind, well-meaning people, but this background radiation of fear and rage kept making them accidentally do things to kill him - mixing up insecticide and spices in his food, gas fumes being pumped in his hotel room after a botched maintenance job, a torn carpet tripping him off the railing of the balcony, and Many Other subtle attempts on his life that he just happened to avoid by sheer chance.
But all the townsfolk don't really think anything of it - the town doctor, especially skeptical, "diagnoses" him as "accident-prone" until the investigator begs and pleads with him for days after several brutal accidents in a row, and only then does the doctor start believing him but even then only comes up with the theory that all of this supposed malice towards the investigator is "subconscious" - later shown to likely be correct when the investigator himself, after overdosing on their special drug, "accidentally" shoves his colleague off a roof, killing him, but the investigator physically cannot see it as anything but an accident anymore. it simply doesn't reach his mind that he killed a former friend of his. it was just an accident. he just fell, all on his own.
the idea of A Town That Wants To Kill You, But It's Nothing Personal resonated with me from the perspective of being a disabled person, especially one in a generally welcoming, accepting environment. when you're disabled, not a lot of people will come to you bearing their ableism between their teeth. They'll be nice, insensitive maybe, but nice, and are often outwardly willing to accomodate you. But they also stick out their leg as you're walking along to trip you. They'll apologize, and you'll maybe even believe it, even though to you, from your perspective, it was obviously an attempt to harm you. You excuse it once, maybe twice, but after a point, you realize that this world, this community you have entered, is actively hostile towards you and everyone like you. so you start screaming it to the rooftops. you tell authorities that the world wants to hurt you, but they begin affixing labels to you like "paranoid" or "anxious". they know no one actually has it out for you, personally, after all. that would be ridiculous.
but you still keep getting tripped down the stairs. the rat poison and the sugar at your favorite coffee shop still keep getting mixed up, but only when it's your order. in the hospital, recovering from your previous "accidents", a nurse will still accidentally pump you full of saline instead of medicine.
after a point, doesn't the fact that all of these are "accidents", and that no one WANTS to kill you, just... stop mattering a little bit? Yeah, no one wants to hurt you, but they just keep doing it. They keep making stupid little mistakes. They know everyone like you who has visited their community has died or been seriously injured under suspicious circumstances, but the idea that they, themselves, could be a little bit at fault just doesn't even register to them. they don't even consider that they might have to change their ways in order to protect people like you. After all, you can't prepare for every "freak accident". Even when the solution could be as simple as "stop putting rat poison next to the sugar", every time it happens to you, or a person like you, it's just an "accident", that no one "meant" any harm, and "nothing could be done".
it doesn't cross their mind that a string of unfortunate accidents ceases to be accidents, but serious negligence. it can't cross their mind, because they're not the victims here. they only even begin to acknowledge something might be wrong when the victims are screaming in their face, day after day. even then, they come to the conclusion that even if you're right, and the community does want to kill you because you are Other, they won't immediately see anything wrong with that. To Them, the answer is clear as day: just become one of Them, and you'll be safe. They take care of their own.
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Ab Initio (WIP - Blood Falcon centric, bg Black Shadow)
~
He gains awareness suspended in a tube of green liquid, with a large dark figure occupying most of his sight.
That figure, he soon learns, is called Black Shadow. His creator, and his master.
There’s another man he owes his creation to, Black Shadow tells him once their hierarchy is made clear. Captain Falcon is who he was molded from, and from whom he derived his name. The one he must surpass if his existence is to mean anything. He’s not the only copy, after all.
His brain may be newly developed, but it’s still that of an adult man. He learns in leaps and bounds, far more advanced than a human infant despite his scant amount of lived time. Eating. Speaking. Answering to Black Shadow’s every whim. Walking, running, leaping on top of things. Getting his hands on every new thing before him.
Everything Falcon can do, he’s told. Do it better. Falcon this, Falcon that. Falcon, Falcon, Falcon.
Blood Falcon has no opinions about the name he’s been given, for all that he doesn’t have much of anything resembling opinions yet. It’s simply a fact of life, just like his purpose. Learn, grow, become strong enough to become the superior Falcon.
In between learning to use his limbs to cause maximum damage and learning that knives can be used for eating and not just fighting, Black Shadow has him run through a driving simulator. Whether it’s nature or nurture that allows him to catch on so quickly doesn’t matter—all that matters is that his master has told him to win at any cost, and demonstrated for him by ramming the other racers right off the virtual track. He does the same once he gets the hang of driving, and emerges from the simulation to the sight of Black Shadow’s unimpressed look.
“Again,” he says, closing the lid of the mock cockpit.
So he goes again. And again, and again, until he’s reached first place, legs prickling and arms aching from the outstretched position they’ve been made to hold.
The cockpit pops open once more to the sight of Black Shadow, whose expression has now morphed into a self-satisfied smirk. He stalks forward to grip Blood Falcon’s chin, hauling him forward. Holds him there painfully tight, inspecting his face, then laughs and moves his hand up to his head.
“Good,” says Black Shadow, running clawed fingers through his hair. The sharp points scrape against his scalp, nearly hard enough to draw blood, but he holds himself still beneath the contact.
Pain means he’s alive, after all. And Black Shadow does so love to remind him.
He’s not taught to have preferences, beyond Black Shadow impressing upon him his vocal hatred for Captain Falcon. It doesn’t matter if he wolfs down the food they provide on Thursdays quicker than what they serve any other day of the week, or if he has any opinion on the deep crimson of his clothes. It doesn’t matter that he squirms every time he has to sit still for the white-coated ones to prod at him, or that Black Shadow’s displays of acknowledgement are at times more painful than the needles he’s stuck with.
He’s a clone. He’s human. He’s property. He’s a test subject. He’s their latest and greatest weapon.
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