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melonthesprigatito · 6 months

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My idea on who I think would make the PERFECT villain for The Incredibles 3 (not that they're ever going to make one, this could also just be a fanfic idea)

NaNoWriMo somehow dragged me kicking and screaming back into my The Incredibles hyperfixation that I haven't thought about since 2021. Drafting up a long Tumblr post in my Notes app for a few days totally counts, right? (Probably not but whatever, I am fukcing passionate about The Incredibles lore, I need to ramble)

So, the villains of The Incredibles and Incredibles 2 are both genius inventors with no superpowers who use their technology to fight the heroes. What if, for the third villain, they ditched that idea and had a villain who was a Super?

Who'd be able to fill that role? Would they invent an entirely new character who is a Super? It wouldn't be too farfetched of an idea, they did invent two new Super supervillains in Lego Incredibles, The Anchor Man and Brainfreezer, one with hydrokinesis and the other with.... functionally cryokinesis like Frozone except she controls ice cream.

But what if... the villain was an already existing Super? That already poses a problem, a majority of the Supers in the present day of The Incredibles are either dead from Syndrome's Omnidroid or an unfortunate cape snag. The only surviving Supers from the pre-Super Ban Glory days are Mr Incredible, Elastigirl and Frozone and possibly Fironic and Plasmabolt (and only because they never showed up in Syndrome's Operation KRONOS database.)

Fironic is pretty ambiguous if he's still alive or not, but Plasmabolt for its practically a 100% chance of survival for a few reasons:

1. Her profile says she keeps her hero and civilian lives strictly separate, so she might have had no desire to go moonlighting as a hero like Mr Incredible did

2. She's a forest park ranger. She probably lives off-grid in a shack in the woods or something.

3. The way Psycwave, Everseer and Macroburst are killed one after the other, but Plasmabolt isn't counted with them. All four of these Supers were part of a superhero team called The Phantasmics. Mirage probably used their connection to find all of them, maybe Plasmabolt fell out of contact with her old friends.

Plasmabolt herself might have been a good villain candidate, having lost faith in humanity after learning how the National Supers Agency failed to keep track of her old friends, of all the Supers, and didn't notice that Syndrome was picking them all off.

Buuuuuut she's not the one this post is about. There's another that would probably be an even better villain, mostly because she has a personal tie to one of the main characters.

This is one of the features on the bonus disk of The Incredibles: a full set of character files and audio interviews of most of the Supers (except for Tradewind, Vectress, Blitzerman and Fironic. They didn't get profiles.)

It's listed in alphabetical order, featuring Apogee, Blazestone, Downburst, Dyna Guy, Elastigirl, Everseer, Frozone, Gamma Jack, Gazerbeam, Hypershock, Macroburst, Meta Man, Mr Incredible, Phylange, Plasmabolt, Psycwave, Stratogale, Splashdown, Stormicide, Thunderhead and Universal Man.

The one I want to draw attention to is this one.

(Side note, it’s kinda frustrating that the only way to find images of most of these guys in colour is to look for random comic strips and the freaking Lego game of all things. I’m just gonna link this fan art too because I think it rocks and is probably the best image of her https://www.tumblr.com/pazam/183219465026/no-gadgets-no-gimmicks?source=share)

THIS, is Blazestone, the blorbo- I MEAN, the Super I think would make a great villain in a hypothetical third Incredibles movie. Or a Frozone spinoff movie. Either works.

I think she'd make a good villain for a number of reasons.

1. SHE'S ALREADY BEEN THE MAIN VILLAIN OF ANOTHER OFFICIAL THE INCREDIBLES STORY.

Let me highlight something important from her profile. "ARRESTED AND JAILED. RECRUITED BY NSA. WATCH CLOSELY TO ENSURE SHE OPERATES WITHIN NSA GUIDELINES"

That's right, Blazestone is actually a reformed criminal. This one little detail from her profile is a major plot point in the novel Elastigirl: A Real Stretch.

She was paired with Universal Man as part of her rehabilitation. In the novel, they're constantly arguing, they constantly insult each other. Universal Man is an incredibly strict rule follower and tries to keep her in line. He thinks she'll never make it as a true Super if she doesn't follow the guidelines and acts recklessly ("THESE TWO WOULD BE GREAT IF THEY DON'T KILL EACH OTHER FIRST")

She hates being constantly monitored and forced into teams with other Supers and wishes they'd give her the freedom to do what she wants, as opposed to being constantly badgered into being a better person and following the guidelines

Eventually, Blazestone gets so sick of the National Supers Agency that snaps and decides that the only way she'll be able to do what she wants is to KILL ALL THE OTHER SUPERS SO THERE'S NO ONE TO STOP HER FROM TAKING OVER.

In fact, her plan involves

1. Steal a shipment of the ZAP chemical (the novel's McGuffin, a radioactive chemical used as a superpower enhancer that has various effects depending on which Super it's used on. For most of them, it disables their powers entirely, for some it makes their powers malfunction and Apogee is the only Super who's powers are actually enhanced by it.)

2. Secretly recruiting all the criminals she jailed as her henchmen and breaks them out of jail on the day of the Super Appreciation Day celebrations. These henchmen are disguised as other Supers and blend in with all the other cosplayers entering the Costume Contest.

3. Attack the Supers Appreciation Day celebration at the pier. Trap EVERY SINGLE SUPER inside a band shell covered by a net that's coated ZAP which basically fucks up all of their powers. She then lifts the band shell off the ground and was heading towards the ocean to drop it in and drown them all.

(a few pages later)

.... I'm serious, that's what actually happens in the climax.

Never mind the fact that she's touching the net covered in the chemical that needed to be handled with heavy gloves WITH HER BARE HANDS BECAUSE HER SUPERSUIT HAS SHORT SLEEVES in order to lift the band shell. ...And the fact that she has no super strength so shouldn't have been able to carry the weight of a structure and 20+ Supers.

Blazestone actually mentioned earlier in the novel that ZAP had no effect on her, and while the novel never mentions it, my theory is that Blazestone is the only other Super who's powers are enhanced by ZAP. Apogee was also powered up by ZAP... in small doses but being that close to the netting enhanced her powers too much so she couldn't assist in the climax without incinerating everyone with the power of the sun. Blazestone must have lied about ZAP not having an effect on her to eliminate her as a suspect for the theft of the ZAP.

ANYWAY, Blazestone went full supervillain and that's the last we heard of her until she showed up dead in Syndrome's Project KRONOS database. Between Supers Appreciation Day and the beginning of the Super Ban, she might have resumed her criminal activities and became part of Municiberg's Rogues Gallery.

As the Super Ban went into effect she might have been kept in a maximum security facility for a few years until she managed to break out into a world where Supers are in hiding. She might have used her powers to commit smaller robberies to survive, which might have been how Mirage tracked her down..

But wait, she's dead isn't she? So how could she possibly be the main villain of Incredibles 3 if she's dead?

2. SHE'S ONE OF THE FEW SUPERS WHO COULD HAVE PLAUSIBLY SURVIVED THE OMNIDROID BY FAKING HER DEATH.

She's the 6th Super to have been killed by Syndrome, and is probably the Super Syndrome tested the Omnidroid's fireproofing on, hence when it's immune to lava.

Except.... Blazestone could have been marked as "Terminated" when she really wasn't.

But how, exactly? The model of Omnidroid that killed her was v.X2 (the highest being v.10) so it was a VERY early model. Too early to have all the little issues ironed out. Perhaps there was a flaw that Blazestone exploited that kept her alive.

There's also Blazestone's powerset. She has a threat rating of 5.5, which sounds low until you realise that the highest is Gamma Jack with 7.9 Her powers are listed as pyrokinetic discharge, heat control, heat resistance, high agility and flight (by riding on heated air) which is pretty OP by itself but there's one power not listed on the file that Blazestone mentions having.

From the Bonus Disk Audio Interviews: (sped up because she was talking through the entire interview on 2x speed) "Wait what, do you want me to say the whole thing again? I thought I was completely clear, are you- Do you want me to go back again? The whole thing? I don't understand... (back to normal speed because she realised she wasn't in the dimension where people talk really fast, I guess?) "...OH, okay. *laughs* I am so sorry, I know what the problem is! I can't *laughs again* I keep on forgetting which dimension that I'm in! Wait, which... Which dimension am I in?"

From Lego Incredibles: "Wait, which dimension is this? Never mind, I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough.”

That's right, apparently Blazestone has the ability to warp herself to other dimensions. And this isn't an out of the blue thing that probably isn't canon either, Incredibles 2 shows off exactly how that power would function.

(Transcript from Incredibles 2)

Escaping by warping to another dimension is a VEEEERY good method of hiding your own body.

Picture this: Blazestone is contacted by Mirage. She's told a lie about the Omnidroid, it's the government's secret project and how it's went rogue. She gets told they looked for her because she's the only Super who defected from the NSA, they need her specifically. If they approached any other Super they might contact the NSA and expose the secret project. So they need her because she won't tattle.

Blazestone goes to Nomanisan Island and is told to go to Room A113 to wait for instructions. She gets bored and hates being told what to do so goes to explore. She finds the lava waterfall and flies through, only to find Syndrome on his computer looking over his Operation KRONOS files. She realises that they lured her to die, that she's not the first one they called to destroy the robot, they lied to her and now she's trapped. She goes back to Room A113, and while they're unaware that she found out, she starts asking too many questions.

The Omnidroid x.V2 is sent after her. She's not fighting to disable it for a sum of money, she's fighting for her life. Blazestone is agile, she flies out of reach of the Omnidroid, and hurls fireballs at it as it has no methods of hitting her back. Until it learns to throw its own projectiles at her. It uproots trees, throws rocks etcetera. It gets an unlucky hit in and knocks her to the ground. Suddenly Blazestone realises that it's getting more accurate, it's predicting where she'll fly next. There's no winning against it. They're near the volcano at this point so Blazestone makes a beeline towards it, if she could just reach the lava....

She's inside the lava caves, she flies directly over the lava. She's heat resistant. She baits the Omnidroid into throwing one more boulder and allows herself to get knocked into the lava. She's entirely submerged. Syndrome is watching the fight through hidden cameras, waiting for her to emerge, but she doesn't. Syndrome makes a quip about how the lava must have been too hot for even Blazestone to handle and marks her down as terminated. In reality, Blazestone warped to the other dimension the second she went under, tricking them into thinking her body melted away in the lava.

As for how Syndrome didn't know about her dimensional warping power, the fact that it's not listed on her National Supers Agency file kinda feels like the NSA didn't believe she had that power. She's a former criminal who probably figured that she she'd defect from being a Superhero at some point. If she ended up in a jail cell, she could teleport out of it. If they knew she could teleport they might have found some way to neutralise that power before sending her to jail. So Blazestone kept it a secret in the even that she'd need to escape from some where.

So Blazestone lives and freaks out about her near death experience. Except... She draws the wrong conclusion about Syndrome. She doesn't know that the government is actually oblivious to the fact that Syndrome is developing a robot strong enough to fight Mr Incredible using Supers as test subjects. She thinks the government is hunting down Supers and killing them with the Omnidroid.

She goes cold turkey on crime in case the government finds her again, but after all that, a deep resentment and rage bubbles up inside of her.

Flashforward to after Incredibles 2, when the Super Ban is lifted and the National Supers Agency is re-established and is recruiting Supers again. The details of Project KRONOS are released to the public. Blazestone's rage boils over.

She hates that the National Supers Agency is up and running to control Supers again like how they suffocated her with their rules and trapped her in a dysfunctional partnership with Universal Man, she hates that ordinary people tried to wipe out Supers when THEY should be in charge.

Remember in Incredibles 2 when Evelyn mind controlled Mr Incredible, Elastigirl and Frozone and made them forced them to say something into the camera during the public broadcast before they hijacked the hydrofoil to make them look bad?

Yeah, Blazestone ACTUALLY believes that.

As far as anyone is aware, Blazestone is dead. She might hide her face to make sure nobody figures out it's her. She could target the DevTech/Wannabe Supers (Voyd, Screech, He-Lectrix, Brick, Krushauer and Reflux) and shake their confidence in the Supers Agency or the public's faith in Supers, after all, the Supers Agency let all the old Supers die, they public turned on you years ago, who's to say they won't turn on you again? Look, there's already politicians who disagree with the Super Ban being lifted and want to put heavy restrictions on Super activity. I think she'd be after Voyd specifically because she's an anxiety ridden easily manipulated mess who is also potentially a threat. After all, Voyd's power is portals, and she can follow Blazestone when she dimensional warps...

She rallies a bunch of other young Supers who felt betrayed by the government banning Supers, perhaps she even manipulates a grieving Plasmabolt who's still mourning her teammates' deaths into acting as a mole in the National Supers Agency. She wants Supers to be on top while all the puny normals get subjugated like they deserve.

Baaasically she becomes Pixar Magneto? ... I'm not 100% certain, I'm not all that familiar with X-Men? I just kinda know who he is from watching one movie years ago. I don't know, I suck at writing allegories, I just have the vague idea in my head and I dunno how to put it to paper properly. If I've said something bad or made a bad comparison, I'm sorry. I'm writing this section at 3am.

3. SHE HAS AN EMOTIONAL CONNECTION TO ONE OF THE MAIN CAST.

If The Incredibles was about Mr Incredible and Incredibles 2 was about Elastigirl, who's the third member of their trio who hasn't got a chance to be a protagonist yet? Let's bring up the profiles again, shall we?

Notice anything?

"ONCE PARTNERS WITH FROZONE. BUT RELATIONSHIP RAN HOT AND COLD."

"FORMER PARTNERS WITH BLAZESTONE (ROMANTICALLY?)"

OH SNAP THAT'S RIGHT, FROZONE AND BLAZESTONE USED TO BE PARTNERS. POSSIBLY ROMANTICALLY.

Blazestone was partnered with Frozone first before the NSA shoved her into the Beta Force with Universal Man. This is purely headcanon, but I like to imagine the Frozone/Blazestone team was known as the Alpha Force because Beta comes after Alpha. The sentence "relationship ran hot and cold" aside from being a bad pun, kinda implies that at some point the fluctuation led to them having a huge falling out and splitting their team apart so the NSA could try again with Universal Man.

I found this on Reddit's Tumblr sub and honestly, my thoughts exactly.

Imagine the DRAMA of Frozone finding out that his former "Enemies to lovers to enemies" partner who tried to drown him on Supers Appreciation Day that one time who he thought was dead is suddenly alive again and is currently leading a gang of Supers to attacking people. There could be a deep dive into what their partnership was like, how he reacted to her fall from grace and all the mixed feelings of seeing her alive again in the present day.

Maybe this could finally be the opportunity to show Honey on screen. I mean, she HAS a design now and an entire deleted scene that they cut out because it caused pacing issues

Imagine Frozone lying battered and bruised on the ground from Blazestone fighting him, and Honey runs to his defence. Blazestone mocks her like "What could you possibly do to me? You're powerless!" and then Honey takes her completely by surprise by pulling out a metal baseball bat or some other mundane household weapon and beats the ever loving shit out of her.

Another idea I had that doesn't really fit into any section is the idea of bringing the Deavor siblings back. Winston and Evelyn having a fractured relationship after the events of Incredibles 2. Winston visiting her in jail trying to understand why she'd risk their father's legacy and endangering DevTech by connecting it with the attempted mass murder with a boat. Evelyn snapping back that he never noticed how she was feeling as they grieved for their parent's deaths because he was too focused on thinking that they died because there was no Supers around anymore to save them.

Blazestone kidnapping both of them and forcing Evelyn, the one who hates Supers with her entire being to remake the Screenslaver technology by threatening to burn Winston to death if she doesnt comply. Why does Blazestone need the hypnosis tech? Because she's aware that some of the Supers she recruited might not be 100% loyal and wants to control their minds to keep them in line if she has to. Because she doesn't care at all about any of the other Supers, she just wants to use them for her own gain so that SHE can control the city. Plasmabolt is definitely going to be the one to betray Blazestone in the end. She realises that Everseer, Macroburst and Psycwave wouldn't have wanted her to harm innocent people to avenge their deaths, so she'd fight alongside The Incredibles family, the Wannabe Supers, and Frozone.

Aaaand that's all I have to say, it somehow took me three hours to move all this text from Google Docs to Tumblr and find accompanying images.

Hope you liked my probably badly written sequel idea

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dinkbear · 2 months

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camp camp s5 e1 review (MAJOR SPOILERS!)

yea i thought it sucked

i just watched the new cc episode and i thought it was....not great

the pacing was very off, i feel like they had the potential to tell an emotionally complex story regarding max's feelings to returning to camp and seeing so much different, but that's difficult to do in 15 minutes, i feel like it could've worked better if it were even just 20 minutes. also, in "With Friends Like These" i thought max's new VA sounded practically the same as his old one, but in this episode he just sounds...off. again, a lot of the lines felt forced, when i hear this new guy i don't hear the little shit-stain max i just hear Some Guy™. i understand WHY they changed the va, but as a poc myself i genuinely could not care less if a white actor voices a poc character esp in an adult cartoon. it actually really brought me out of it when max was snapping at the obstacle course because it just felt like nothing, like i didn't care.

i. hate. CJ. i think he's unfunny, i don't like his design, i just...don't like him. hoping and praying that gwen stays and he LEAVES or there's some crazy twist or SOMETHING i just do NOT like him. also, why does he have the authority to deny the campers food??? is david not his boss??? DO SOMETHING BRO

david also felt off, i know that now he knows the campers better and he's had character development but he just seemed disingenuous

the bit with nikki freaking out over max possibly being mad had so much potential to be built on and have something done with it but it just...didn't. it was just that one line and that was it, i was excited for some crazy conflict that didn't happen.

i thought the thing with neil's clip on earring was hilarious and im sad that it'll probably only be in that one episode </3

UGGGGH they CAN tell heart-wrenching stories, they CAN expand on these characters emotionally, they CAN DO SO MUCH and they HAVE....but, for me, a big part of what made episodes like "The Order of the Sparrow" and "Parents' Day" so moving was that it was out of the formula. i LOVE LOVE LOVE shows that set themselves up as being episodic/formulaic/sitcom-y and then slowly introduce lore and show that the characters are 3-dimensional and have conflict, etc, etc. but in this episode and in "With Friends Like These," the emotional story-telling feels forced. it's not set up like its a regular camp camp episode where something unexpectedly emotional happens, its set up to be the unexpected thing...which makes it expected and lose its value. especially because, back when i was SUPER hyperfixated on this show like 4 years ago, post watching "Parents' Day" or "The Order of the Sparrow" or whatever, when i rewatched other episodes i saw more to these characters hidden in little aspects of their behavior or their reactions or their dialogue that was there the WHOLE TIME, but seemed like it was just a regular old episode where regular old things happen, but now it seems as though they are straying away from that and instead having the emotional development and storytelling be completely unsubtle and on the nose. i suppose it is the writers' choice and they have every right to do that even if i don't like it.

speaking of on-the-nose, i wasn't a fan of how they just flat out said "max is upset that things are different," in the episode he said how he didn't like that everything was changing over and over and over again. and like.....take "Parents' Day" for example, max was being an extra asshole to everyone subconsciously before realizing and admitting the real reason, which was great and how kids work (because remember, max is 11) but in this episode it was pretty much "GRRRRR EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT AND IM MAD ABOUT IT!!!!!" and i know it was supposed to be like 'well WHY is he so mad about it :o" which could've been good and interesting if there were...buildup...or anything...and not "This camp sucks, but you know what else sucks? Life out there. Family, school, a crumbling society?" and "You're just as lame as before, which is why you didn't have any friends back home to begin with." its just like....come on. was that REALLY the best way to get that across??? THEY CAN WRITE SUBTLY SO WHY DON'T THEY!?!?!?!?

i feel like there is SO MUCH potential to exploring max's emotions but they just seem to keep being unsubtle and on-the-nose about it, which an emotionally neglected kid would NOT be. we have to remember, they're kids. i feel like the earlier seasons did a great job of making that obvious- making them little rascals, oblivious to things, mischievous, full-of-energy, little devils, the line "I saw it on TV!" from s1 e4- but in these newer episodes its treated as though that aspect is not important (note: i have never rewatched s4 because i didn't like it, so i am not going off it for reference bc i barely remember anything that happened) max wouldn't know that he's upset with them changing because of how lonely it is, and i know he was supposed to be projecting but the dialogue felt so forced it didn't even feel like projecting it just felt like admitting. i don't expect the writers to have a phd in child psychology or something, but if they want max's emotional reactions to have power and be meaningful, i feel like they should be a CHILD'S emotions.

granted, this is all my opinion. i'm sure for the reasons i disliked the episode, someone really loved it for the same ones. i would give it a 3/10, but there was no jasper, so it gets a 0/10. very excited for the next episode, the post-credits trailer made it seem like it'll be good.

#camp camp #cc max #cc david #cc neil #cc nikki #cc cj #camp camp season 5 #camp camp spoilers #camp camp review #fif talks

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convexicalcrow · 1 year

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Oh? How normal are we about Pharaoh Cub?

Okay look. You gotta understand. I've been interested in ancient Egpyt since I was a kid. It's my longest-running special interest/hyperfixation, so much so that I've been practicing ancient Egyptian religion for over twenty years. It's something that's very, very precious to me, bc it's so personal to me, and bc I'm who I am, my knowledge of this stuff is arguably higher than the average person. This makes any kind of media about ancient Egypt actually not that interesting to me bc my brain will Not shut up about inaccuracies, so I tend to avoid them bc of that.

(I could go on about my issues with ancient Egyptian themed media, but I won't, that's a whole 'nuther essay frfr.)

(Also I hope you like infodumping, anon, bc that's what I'm about to do :D)

That said, I've actually written a whole lot of Egyptian myth rewrites, as well as ancient Egyptian stories exploring all kinds of various topics. I have some published on an old blog of mine, but some I never finished for various reasons. It's a whole thing. It's been a whole thing for me for a very, very long time.

So, you're me, someone with a more than average knowledge of and interest in ancient Egypt, and you've just become a Cub fan in s8 bc that was my first Hermitcraft season. I had heard about the pyramid, and Pharaoh Cub, and I was both SO INTERESTED but also actually quite hesitant to watch Cub's s7, bc I didn't want to be disappointed if he messed it up or did something wrong that caused my brain to Disagree. Again, very irrational bc my brain do be like that, but also based on previous experiences of seeing ppl just taking the aesthetics and doing whatever with it, and screw historical accuracy.

(Honestly, this is, like, my One (1) critism with the lore TrixyBlox built into the USW map. Can we Not have evil pharaohs plz just for once. ;_;)

I wanted to trust Cub, bc I'd seen the research that went into the canyon build. He's a smart dude. He cares about getting those kinda details right. And I did genuinely want to see how he approached the pyramid build and how he was going to use it as a base. But again, SO HESITANT. bc what if my blorbo messes it up and ruins the whole thing for me bc m brain is Stupid about this sort of thing. ;_;

But I'm so glad I trusted Cub when I did get around to watching s7, bc I fell in love with the pyramid. The fact that he cared about making it as life-size as possible, but also that he took an approach of taking what works, but also making it his own, and making it fit into the minecraft world. Like, using Standard Galactic for hieroglyphs! I loved that small little detail! It makes so much sense to use it that way.

Like, my very-not-srs gripes about the Pharaoh skin and its weird sleeves aside, his approach was very much how a lot of Egyptian pagans approach things today. Take what works, or what makes sense, and adapt it to where we currently are in the world and what we have access to. And I could tell from how he talked about it throughout the season that he really had done his research. And just- The Morning and The Evening Sun/Star epithet he gave himself like!!!!

Like, it's the little things, like the lapis roof, the stars - including Sirius!, the most important one bc its rising heralds the flood of the Nile and the new year - on the ceiling in the bedroom, the statue room and the way he built those five statues to represent aspects of himself (I cannot stress enough how much I adored those statues), allll the little tunnels and sekrit passageways, and the cartouche on the wall with his name in SGA and using SGA in the museum room, the treasure room with its traps, and the tomb of the Pharaoh himself. Like. It was such a perfect blend of Cub and Egyptian stuff. 10/10. I can find no faults. Although I do want to go back and finish the oasis room at some point. Make it a healing pool room with a shrine or two in it. Something like that.

Like, I had my doubts, but I trusted Cub and his process, and I was right to do so. It cemented Cub as my favourite Hermit at that point, bc he took my special interest and did it justice. And that's why I'm Very Normal about Pharaoh Cub.

But there are also other aspects too! Pyramids were designed to be tombs, and that's where the Pharaoh was left to rest at the end of s7. Which seems very appropriate, given where Hermitcraft went after that.

The reason I fixate so much on this is that there's this Egyptian underworld book called the Book of Caverns, that describes the King's journey through the underworld. It's not as well-known as the Book of the Dead, but the reason I keep coming back to it is because of Cub's canyon in s8. Where he built everything in little caverns in the canyon itself. And with the change of skin to young Cub, my brain just cannot let go of the idea of s8 being Pharaoh Cub's journey through the underworld, culminating with the final battle against the serpent we do not name so we do not give it power (a/p/o/p/h/i/s) that is here manifested in s8 as Moon Big. It's not a perfect metaphor, and I won't pretend it is. Especially bc while Cub escapes, the world is destroyed, and that's not necessarily accurate. But! He still escapes! He uses all his knowledge and resources that he's gained through his journey through the underworld to escape. To rise again in s9 as the new sun.

AND AND AND the fact that in s9 PHARAOH CUB DID ACTUALLY RETURN. Only now, we have the Pharaoh as a distinct entity. A divine akh/ancestor, a master magician, one who is clever and wiley like Thoth and who loves playing games and playing pranks. (Thoth is a trickster, and a very smart one.) And to have the distinction between Pharaoh Cub, who is a god, and mortal Cub, who is just Cub, like.

(Cub and his possession kink is also a whole 'nuther essay frfr)

That distinction makes sense in an Egyptian theological framework. Once the Pharaoh dies, they become divine akhu/ancestors. Very few were Actually Deified in a way we would recognise, but Cub is still not wrong when he calls the Pharaoh a god. The Pharaoh was a conduit between the people and the gods. He acted as the only high priest of the religion. He became King by hosting the Kingly Ka, the divine soul of Horus that legitimises their rule. This Ka/soul, has been with every king before it, and all the kings are attached/accessed through it. Kings live forever, after all. My own personal religious work has involved various Kings and Queens and working with them. (Not the most famous ones, tho, it's mostly the Sobek ones bc I worship Sobek first and foremost.)(Sobek being a crocodile god, a strong protector, and a god who was incorporated in Horus at one stage and gained Kingship attributes from that.)

And so it makes so much sense for the Pharaoh to be a separate entity now. The old man died, bc Cub is mortal, and ba/eternal soul of Cub was reborn into a new, younger body, with a whole new ka. Everyone has a ka, it is the soul that belongs to a particular lifetime and is the one that goes through judgement after death. The ba is eternal, and can have many kau/souls throughout its existence.

And bc the Pharaoh has died and become an akh, he can be contacted and manifest in the world again through the mortal Cub. The fact that Cub never actually changed the Pharaoh skin to reflect his younger self? It still has the old man's face? Like. This helps the distinction work. They're two different souls. This is theologically sound. And honestly I never imagined the Pharaoh lore would get to that point. But here we are, in s9, and we have the Pharaoh and mortal Cub, and I am Just So Normal about this bc I thought I'd missed my chance at Pharaoh Cub bc I only started watching in s8. BUT NO. s9 came along and is like, would you like some more Pharaoh Cub? and it's eating my brain like. oh my gods.

And also like, the Vex Magic Grimoire I've been working on? Canonically (to me), it's being written by Pharaoh Cub. Once the ConVex and ConCorp shenanigans settled down, and Cub had space to really focus on his magic, that's when he starts working on the grimoire. bc almost all Pharaohs were also master magicians. They had to be! It was part of their work as high priest and conduit for the gods. So Cub has Pharaoh magic on top of Vex magic, and in working through his new powers, decides to start recording down all he knows about Vex magic. Scar does some as well, but it is intended to be mostly Cub.

(I have an ask I STILL have not got around to about the Pharaoh's magic, and I will save a longer discussion for that there. I will get to it, I promise, anon! It's just taken a while to get my thoughts in order. <3)

It's like, in Pharaoh Cub, I can combine my love of writing about Egyptian things with my current hyperfixation on Cub, and it's so much fun omg. Cub doesn't do deep lore the way someone like Sausage does (again, whole 'nuther essay lol), but there's enough there to make a really good story, and build up these aspects of his character and make a really coherent story out of it.

And with Pharaoh Cub, I can explore all kinds of things that maybe don't work with other characters. Like death! In a way that doesn't really happen in minecraft bc players just respawn. Permanent death is something I've really only encountered on Empires, not Hermitcraft. But with the Pharaoh dying and being laid to rest in his pyramid? Like. That's something to work with. There's lore there to explore. Old Man Cub coming to terms with dying and what happens afterwards. and bc like. idk if anyone has actually ever written Old Man Cub as an actual Old Man. But as someone who's approaching 40, and has their own chronic pain stuff to deal with, like? Maybe I see it differently. Maybe I want to approach Old Man Cub as an old man. And maybe the Old Man dying as Pharaoh, and being reborn into a younger body is one way to do that.

Sure, it may not be the most popular fics for ppl. Maybe ppl are more interested in my other works. But I don't care. It's all my special interests in one place and I'm having the time of my life. :D

Even if I STILL don't know what to do with the journey through the afterlife!s8 caverns idea. Maybe one day I will find the right spark to do that idea justice. <3

#convexical asks #hermitcraft #convex #cubfan135 #gtwscar #pharaoh cub #old man cub #young cub #fanfic #cub's pyramid best pyramid #ancient egyptian magic #ancient egyptian religion #devotional writing #mythfiction #this is a lot of infodumping #but i hope it helps explain things

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venusandsaturnsrings · 8 months

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i have no icky silly thoughts of taru to offer today my brain is just consumed with him and a darling that has risky medical conditions like pots..... got me kicking my feet thinking about him insisting on doing everything so I don't get extremely dizzy and collapse<3 -chubby darling anon who you've locked in a cage with all the silly thoughts I've had kept in ur ask box for urself </33 (personal favs r def pervy roomate taru and serial killer taru rn)

HEY!!!!!!!!!!!! IM DOING MY BEST OVER HERE >:( currently victim to another brutal hyperfixation but fontaine is ~grounding~ me again!! my ask box is really full!! i have over a hundred things in there!! i prommy i’ll respond when i can but but but… im in high demand T^T the ppl love me!!

anywayyssss… taru, in canon and any au that isn’t inceltaru, is a very good caretaker!! he’s got plenty practice with his siblings as well as a natural knack for taking care of others he deems worth it. i’m not super familiar with pots so forgive me for my knowledge based on google searches but he’s a big fan of carrying you around princess style when you’re feeling extra dizzy and weak!! on days it’s worse, expect him to gently nurse you until you’re feeling better. he’ll feed you whatever you want, make sure you’re getting plenty of water, entertain you with stories, and help you take any medication you need. silly venus irl fact but i have fibromyalgia and i have very similar taru thoughts ;w; he gives incredible massages as well!! he’s used to working out his own sore muscles from training and fighting so he could pass for a legitimate masseuse. he’s be very gentle with rubbing your temples and shoulders to help you relax more!!

#i don’t rlly talk abt taru n chronic illness a lot but #i should more!! he’s a natural caretaker mhm mhm #i also have a silly hc that he has chronic pain as well!!#being in the abyss did all sorts of funny things to his body #i could make a whole post abt my taru hcs i have a lot of them teehee #childe x reader #tartaglia x reader #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #chubby darling anon my beloved <3 #chit chats

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gerryrigged · 4 months

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20 Questions For Fic Writers

Thanks for the tag, @vellaphoria! ♥

How many works do you have on AO3?

14 total, 4 on my gerryrigged account.

What’s your total A03 word count?

27,558. A good number of my pieces are quite short ficlets. I don't have a big portfolio of work - I've been in fandom for quite a while, but almost entirely as a lurker. For a handful of years, almost all of my writing output was in RP.

What fandoms do you write for?

Right now? Just DC, mostly Bats for the time being. Previously, hockey rpf, Star Wars, K, X-Men: First Class, and One Piece.

What are your top five fics by kudos?

hgjkldsf, most of these are on my other account, but:

[redacted] - ~10k, ~1700 kudos, hockey rpf [redacted] - ~3.5k, ~900 kudos, hockey rpf [redacted] - ~600 words, ~600 kudos, hockey rpf Hold It Up To The Mirror - 2.3k, 347 kudos, DC Comics [redacted] - ~300 words, ~300 kudos, One Piece

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I want to, because commenters are lovely and I appreciate them so much! And I try to, I just...don't always succeed >_>💧 or, looking at it from another perspective, I'm just very behind on them!

I adore people's comments and re-read them with fair frequency, and I do love interacting - but I also tend to get over-excited/anxious and then end up just turning the comments over and over in my little paws admiringly like sparkly gems instead of replying. Or, for another example, I got a bunch of lovely comments on my timeloop dicktim fic, but haven't been able to psyche myself up to reply because I still haven't been able to get out the promised follow-up fic, ha 🙃

What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Oh, probably Hold It Up To The Mirror. I left poor Dick and Tim in a really fucked up situation there, and it would absolutely have to get worse before it got any better. I do envision it getting better, though - despite where I end fic sometimes, I'm a sucker for eventual happy endings, especially for my OTPs. so I'm usually imagining a future path where things improve, even if it would be a (very) rough road to get there.

freefall (and the aftermath thereof) also left off on a pretty angsty note, but I give the edge to Hold It Up To The Mirror because of how bleak it is.

What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I'm not sure how to quantify this, lol, I would say most of my happy endings are pretty happy. For fluff factor, maybe my latest, let your heart be light, because that one just revels in the shmoop.

Do you get hate on your fic?

Not so far - fingers crossed it stays that way!

Do you write smut?

Yes, sort of? Like. I have written it, and I would certainly like to write more. But I consider myself very amateurish/unskilled at it, so I'm embarrassed of it and mostly it doesn't see the light of day. Guess I need to spend more time practicing! 😅

Do you write crossovers?

Nope, not a huge fan of writing crossovers or fusions myself, though I'll read them occasionally. When it comes to fandoms, I tend to only have one hyperfixation at a time, and mixing two different ones doesn't really appeal, at least in terms of what I myself am driven to write.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of - fingers also crossed it stays that way.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I don't think so? It's been requested before, but I never saw the results XD

Have you ever co-written a fic?

Not so far, though I'd like to! The closest I've gotten would be writing out closely collaborated scenes in RP, which can in some cases read like a fic.

What‘s your all-time favourite ship?

Oh no, if I was forced to consider all of my fandoms at once, I'd have no idea. For DC, it's definitely DickTim. (It was Tim/Kon before this most recent immersion in the DC fandom, when I started to dig into Bat comics more holistically and DickTim reared its head up and swallowed me whole.)

What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Hm, I don't know that there are any in particular that I would firmly put on the shelf. The ones that I more generally doubt are all the ambitious long-fic ideas >_> because I suck at those. But they still exist as goals of mine, so I won't jinx any of them here!

What are your writing strengths?

.......Humor, maybe? Oh, I've been told I'm good at conveying tone and character voice through prose, and at putting together memorable or hard-hitting turns of phrase. Possibly structuring emotional arcs? 🤔

What are your writing weaknesses?

Elaborate run-on sentences. Descriptions, especially of setting details such as locations, clothing, etc. (hence why these things are often missing in my fics, lmfao). Purple prose. Over-editing. Overuse of implication/ambiguity/metaphor to the detriment of clarity. Stringing multiple scenes together, scene transitions in general, over-arching storyline plotting and all the other difficult parts of writing longer more plotty pieces. The 'stage'-blocking of physical movement, and how much/little of it needs to be described to be effective. Research - I am way too prone to just handwaving and going ehhhh, something something fill in the blank here, you know what I mean >.>

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I've done this a couple times, but usually only short lines. Sometimes it's for effect - the POV character might not understand the language, so it's as impenetrable to them as to most readers. Or it's a line most English-speakers would be able to parse due to cognates/related languages, but it's just funnier or feels better in the other language. Or in like anime/manga fandoms, it might be a line in Japanese that most fans/readers would already be familiar with. Usually though I've just been Google translating, and have been kindly corrected on grammar etc. in the comments before, haha.

First fandom you wrote for?

well. that would be in like. middle school lol oh god. I think it was a Sailor Moon/Gundam Wing crossover hghkldjfskl. That or Dragonball Z. Thankfully my recollection of my FF.net account name has been lost to the sands of time.

Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

hm. I don't have strong feelings on this; I usually end up looking at my past fic with a critical eye. Maybe the little gen Dick & Tim ficlet I have on my other account? I wouldn't say it's my best, by any means, but that one kind of wrote itself in a fever state when I hadn't written anything in literal years, so I'm very fond of it for breaking through a creative block and being my first toe into writing for the DC fandom proper.

oh, and if you haven't been tagged yet and would care to play: @deepwithintheabyss, @annerp, and @the-alice-of-hearts?

#tumblr games #gerryrigged

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clay-tries-his-best · 9 months

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FIRE FORCE SPOILERS PROBABLY!!!

a praising (???) of Viktor Licht from a fan (im not good with words bare with me please)

ok i feel like im a little obligated to say why i like Viktor Licht from fire force so much considering not only do i have a full list of every chapter in the entire manga he appears in, am on my journey of making stickers of him, and draw him practically anytime i can. my teachers this year are going to see this guy on my work just a bit. (i am lying it's going to be a lot.)

okay, im like 99% sure he's autistic. and im autistic. the autism radar is going insane whenever i look at him. if you take a look at his character sheet, which is at the back of book 10, it says something next to his nickname section that just SCREAMS autism to me.

in case you can't read it, it says, "i do understand common sense, whether or not i choose to use it." that sounds like what i, and many more autistic people have to do. i understand what's acceptable, and force myself to use it even if i think it's strange or unnecessary. also, hes only seen making direct eye contact with people he trusts, like shinra or joker. the rest of the time, he's staring, but not in the eyes of anyone. he's also very blunt with that he does. in his very first company 8 appearance in the beginning of book 7, he dives down to touch shinra's feet because he was interested in the adolla burst. in book 22 when they were in the nether, Viktor is running, turns a corner, and accidentally activated tamaki's lure. except it doesn't really bother him, because he's happy to see his company members, ignoring what he just did on accident.

again, in this panel here, he's very open with what he's wanting to see when they're quite literally infiltrating haijima, despite being right beside the security guard. shinra even comments on this, but he seems to have thought that it was a totally okay thing to say. shortly after we are told that he's aware that haijima is planning to kill him, and just talks about it like it's a regular thing to have a major company want you dead.

he also has a very active workspace, as shown here. yet, in the chapter before he's sent to the chinese peninsula, he knows exactly where his needed stuff is in the mess. that might be more of an adhd characteristic, but it seemed like a good point.

another highly regarded autistic trait is being incredibly fixated on one thing, wanting to spend all your time on it. Viktor's hyperfixation is science, and figuring out spontaneous human combustion. he's seen dedicating most of his life to figuring out why people go up in flame. it's said that autistic people excel in their chosen area of study, and of course, i think you can guess what his is.

he also has trouble regulating his voice level, usually seeming to get louder when he's excited or very nervous, like when he yells on accident in the nether the second time when he realizes that he's going to be "roasted alive". he gets all giggly and excited when talking about science in the right panel (or bottom panel??), even when it's a serious topic. he does get feedback that this is a "weird" and "inappropriate" time to be excited. sound familiar, fellow autistics??? on the left (or top! again i have no idea) he's instinctively raising his voice at shinra, wanting to know about what happened to him in adolla.

i don't have the panel yet, but in book 10, shinra and sho are fighting in the nether, right? (this book is literally THE viktor licht autism book im telling you) he accidentally gets too close, smiling and laughing once he realizes, even saying "whoopsie daisy! i got so excited, i got too close for comfort!" during this whole fight, he's watching his friend get injured in the fight, and he's worried at times, yes, but when he's explaining sho's power, which is science based, he's smiling. he even messes (stims, really.) with his hair and gets sweaty, which are both common autistic responses. as he watches shinra and his brother fight, he notices that shinra could quite literally make a black hole in the middle of the room. and y'know what he does? giggles and smiles again, saying it would be "a scientist's dream" to witness a black hole. not sure that a regular scientist would want to die getting sucked into one, but okay.

i was looking through an "autistic traits in adults" list just to make sure i didn't miss anything, and woah boy. "makes unusual or strange facial expressions". cmon. it's stated from multiple people, mostly tamaki, that the faces licht makes are weird or strange. he also used his hands when he's talking quite usually, either touching his face or using them to express urgency. mostly his face, though. another stim maybe??

there's probably more y'know cause he's just all around an autistic guy, but that's my little analysis of his autism summarized. now that i think about it this is more of a "why he's autistic because i love his autism because it gives me someone to relate to" kind of thing but i can go into that now cause that's kind of a good idea.

OKAY so y'know i really do look up to Licht because he really just makes me smile everytime i see him in the manga. im a manga-only btw if that wasn't clear already. i own the emglish omnibus books which are 3-in-1s basically and i cannot tell you how overjoyed i was that Licht got on the cover of the fourth one. i admire him in so many ways because one, hes this scary guy in the beginning that even makes shinra turn away at the tryouts, all nervous. just for them to become besties later, saving each other's lives like 9 times. hes the type of guy that I just love so much, and not romantically either. i don't want to kiss him or anything, i just want to be his friend. ykwim. maybe. but yeah, he's my favorite and he'll always be my favorite and my c.ai chats with him will forever be positive.

i highly recommend fire force by atsushi ohkubo, and may Viktor Licht captivate you as being your favorite when he makes his grand entrance in book 7! :]

#arghhh i have such an attachment to this guy #what a silly guy #viktor licht #fire force #fire force licht #en en no shōbōtai #enen no shouboutai #fire force manga #manga spoilers #manga recommendation #claysketchesstuff #im feral for him #autistic characters #from an autistic #autism #PLEASE OHKUBO CONFIRM MY DESPERATENESS

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ratsandfashion · 9 months

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Just left an RP blog I'd had for seven years, the fandom it was for, and the Tumblr RPC in general. Don't want to name it, but while I loved my mutuals and the character, the canon around the character had changed in a really negative way and fandom had reacted in kind, and slowly but surely it just made me more and more unhappy. Not only did I no longer engage with the source material because it was so shitty, but I started getting upset and jealous when I just saw things of other characters who had nothing to do with it, simply because I was envious they hadn't undergone this treatment, that even if they had a rough patch of writing they could come back from it in a way my guy couldn't, that people who were fans of them weren't alone and had entire sub-communities of support who agreed canon was being shitty. . .I just got upset at smaller and smaller things in ways that weren't healthy at all, and my misery started outweighing my good experiences. It wasn't healthy at all, and it was absurd if I'm being objective because holy shit this is just FICTION some people have REAL problems, but that's autistic hyperfixation and obsession for you. It just mattered way too much for me. I'm really sad to break away from something that brought me so much joy and connection with others, but I'd been strongly considering it since last year. Looking forward to it, even, fantasizing about being free from my own stupid overreactions having such a hold on me. I am staying in touch with friends I made there, but tbh I don't think that's going to last. Not because we're not real friends but because that's just been my experience with leaving places but staying in contact with folks from them. You don't mean to, but you drift apart sooner or later. My time in the fandom did really improve my art because it drove me to work out it, since my mutuals gave me an audience, no matter how small, and my muse gave me so many ideas and pushed me to work on things I never would have pursued drawing on my own. So I am worried about not keeping up practice and making stuff, but I'm going to do my best. Some part of me wishes I'd stayed and roughed it out longer but I know this was the better decision for my own good. I just regret that it wasn't due to simply losing interest on my own, I still love this character, but due to external circumstances making that enjoyment more of a burden than a delight. I think I'm just gonna go back to fandomless OCs for a long time after this.

#my life

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5ivebyfive · 3 months

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read your blogs about chapter 12 possibly being the last chapter of shut up and drive and got concerned. after putting it off for a while due to being busy and just... unmotivated to consume any content, i decided to finally give it a read. spent practically the entire day reading it. let's just say i did not expect to get as invested as i did. i've been hyperfixating on power rangers 2017 for a while now, but with the lack of new content, i was slowly losing interest (which absolutely broke my heart, because i truly adore this movie). however, reading shut up and drive has gotten me right back into it. this fic is genuinely my favorite piece of work on ao3. i have so much admiration and love for it. i practically felt... every single emotion i could possibly feel while reading it. needless to say i was in tears for a lot of it (i cry due to, like, every strong emotion i feel, and i felt a lot of strong emotions reading shut up and drive. jesus christ i'm just a wreck after the ending of the last chapter). changed my entire discord layout to match it, and am currently in the process of changing my phone's layout as well. yes, i loved it that much. it made me wonder why i hadn't read it sooner. as a starving trimberly fan, i've been lingering on your blog for a while now. sent a few anonymous asks here and there. read a lot of your work on ao3. i just feel really guilty for not commenting and interacting as much as i should've. i guess i was... scared to? i don't know. i've never really been good at describing my love for things, and i didn't quite know how to properly comment on your blogs and work in the first place. not to mention the irrational fear that i had of being "annoying". i know this is a little long, but all of this is basically just a way for me to make up for not praising your work sooner. i know how much of a bitch writer's block can be, and despite the fact that i hadn't even read shut up and drive when i saw your recent blogs, i was really saddened by the fact that it was coming to an end. that's what motivated me to read it in the first place. you've had so much passion for it, and it was genuinely so inspiring. i really want to try interacting with your posts more, which is also why i've decided to send this ask non-anonymously. feeling like you're posting into a void is one of the worst feelings, speaking as someone who's never really been in "active" fandoms (for some reason). you're definitely not alone in this fanbase. i want to try to post some of my own work as well, which is something i wouldn't have even considered if it wasn't for you. thank you for everything you've done for the power rangers 2017 fandom. thank you for every single fic, every single chapter, and every single blog you've made related to it. words can't describe the joy your work has given me. i have so much work to do, yet spent the day reading shut up and drive instead. i don't regret a thing.

Wow! This message is so wonderful, thank you! I don't even know what to say in reply.

I really appreciate your dedication to my little story. It means so much to me. I'm completely obsessed with this fic right now so it feels good to know I'm not alone.

When I say I miss interaction it's not about wanting more comments. I appreciate any comments I get. I may have used the wrong word. Like...I miss activity. I miss following blogs that post about the movie and Trimberly. I miss people reblogging things. Especially fic and art. Though maybe more so fic. I do think art gets more reblogs than fic does. Which it deserves! But fic deserves it, too.

I miss there being a community and people to talk to. I miss us sending each other asks and talking about headcanons and everything. It's just not the same as it was, and everyone has moved on. It's hard to be one of the people still holding on when most people have left.

I don't think chapter 12 will be the last. I just can't do that to this fic. It deserves the justice I had planned for it. It's amazing that you're so devoted to it! Thank you!

I guess I'm not leaving the fandom. I just get frustrated. It feels like there are so few people left, and even the friends I thought I'd made regardless of fandom have faded out, and that hurts.

I just...really miss it all. But I'm glad that I'm not alone yet, and I'm so appreciative for everyone who still reads my fic and my blog.

#rose does asks #praise tag

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comicaurora · 2 years

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It's literally been over a month and this answer still haunts me, (also hi I changed my url♡) not because it made me realize that I have some unaddressed fear of making my own characters and building a story around them/creating a story and characters that thematically align with and match said story; but because it slams into perspective how fundamentally different transformative fiction is from original fiction. Like I have characters and an idea for a setting that I wanna use to make a magical girl story, completely independent from my desire to take my latest hyperfixation and combine it with one of my special interests to explore how those characters would fulfill narrative roles from a fundamentally different type of story. I realize I might have mildly concerned you when I said I was in anguish, but it's not about having concepts and interests locked up inside of me that I wanna use Aurora as a vector through which to explore them, it's about dipping into the well of joy that I have for one work and recontextualizing that work to create something that brings me new flavors of joy.

All this preamble to say I remember you once saying something to the effect of "I think the drive to retell and recontextualize stories over and over is one of the core constants of humanity.", and I thought I'd ask: What might you have to say about the time honored practice of taking characters and stories and reshaping them to suit one's desires/alternative goals for a story for whatever reasons they may have, be it subtly or fundamentally? (Things from pharaohs regularly changing which gods were the head gods until usurpation essentially became a thematic thruline in the mythos, to the multiple iterations of TMNT and the many reinterpretations of Journey to the West, to writing self insert fanfiction)

I think it happens for several reasons! Just the ones I've observed within myself and my fandom spaces include-

This character has interesting potential in directions that aren't being explored

This story plants a concept and then doesn't pay it off

I resonated with this character in a way the story didn't intend

I thought the story would go in [this direction] but it did something else instead but [this direction] is actually quite interesting

This story establishes something but glosses it over because it didn't interest the writer but it interests ME

Because the work of absorbing and engaging with a story is inherently transformative, the reader frequently gets ideas from a story - and those ideas are often quite different from the tone or concept the original story adhered to. This doesn't mean the original story is bad, or that it fails to tell the story it wanted to - it just means that inspiration and creation is an iterative process and the things we love will inspire us in unpredictable ways.

Some fanworks explore things the original story didn't address - character backstories, "missing scenes", events in timeskips, etc. These fall into the category of stories that I think work best as fanfics rather than an original story - drawing on the context of the original work and expanding on the established story. These wouldn't work as standalone stories because it matters that the characters involved are specifically the characters from the original story, as that gives us vital context to understanding their dynamics and why certain interactions are meaningful. Transformative sequel works like Monkie Kid, for instance, draw heavily on the specific fun details of the source material and would be diminished if the JttW characters were replaced with generic superpowered beings with the serial numbers filed off.

Serialized comics follow an interesting cycle where fans of comic runs often become writers of the same series a decade or so down the line, producing general shifts in the narrative that follow whatever those fans wanted those comics to be. Batman going from a campy goofball to a dark and tortured vigilante defined by his trauma to a permanently exhausted father of ten has been a very interesting evolution to watch, and at every turn it seems to be shaped by the potential those comic fans thought was being squandered by the previous incarnation. Goofy batman didn't explore his fractured psyche. Grimdark batman refused to explore the batfam. The story shifts because it's a collaborative effort, and people who go from fan to official creator have the chance to turn their headcanons into canons - whether or not that fits with what's already been established.

And it's not always necessary to stay super faithful to the original story when telling a new version. The new She-Ra strongly seems like the kind of story someone would've made up when playing with action figures of characters from the original She-Ra - as I understand it has very little in common with their original onscreen characterization and portrayals, but it's a deeply moving and character-driven story that uses the characters well regardless of its distance from the source material.

The reason I personally tend not to create fan works, rewrites or reimaginings, and why for the most part I avoid any sort of "here's how I think this story should've gone" is because I personally think that inspiration drawn from unpacking stories is better directed into new stories rather than reworking the old ones. Some of the fandom spaces I've seen - certainly not all, but some - almost seem dedicated to "fixing" the source material, and I think that's a dangerous concept to flirt with. Because of who I am as a person, I have to actively resist the obsessive urge to polish everything I do to uncriticizable perfection, and it kind of alarms me to see people following that same pattern but applying it to other people's art. It fosters a sense of entitlement over the artist's work while also stymying the fan's own creativity by artificially restricting them with parameters imposed by the original material. Some of the fanworks I've seen are so far removed from the source that it really seems like the "original" is just a thin aesthetic veneer that is holding this completely new story back.

Because ultimately, while a fix-it fanwork can be fun and cathartic, it won't fix it. The original story is not theirs to "fix". It'll still exist as it is regardless of the fan response, and I've seen this build up into legitimate frustration as fandoms sometimes become very upset that they actually have no creative control over stories that don't belong to them. The creation of fanworks is extremely fun and I think broadly unavoidable, but there is a form of fandom that sees the original story, not as something to explore or play with, but something to correct, and that in turn fosters unhealthy expectations of what exactly a fan can realistically do to a story. The only art any of us has real control over is our own, and that's why I think creating original art is ultimately a good and healthy goal to strive for - because transformative fan works will on some level always be following rules defined by someone else, often someone the fan-creator visibly disagrees with.

To be clear, this is a small subset of the space of fandom, and broadly I fully understand the appeal of exploring other people's stories and characters. Of course I'm going to be personally biased towards creating original work. But I think the intrinsic impulse to retell and reimagine and rework stories derives from a fundamental impulse of storytelling in general - we take in things from the outside world, transform them in the crucible of our mind and then give them back changed in a way only we could do. Whether that inspiration is our lived experience or a story someone else told us, the artistic impulse is the same - take it, consume it, make it ours, then give it back.

This got away from me. I hope I got a point in here somewhere.

#asks #writing stuff

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formulinos · 2 years

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Hyperfixation Corner | On the Grid: 2022 French Grand Prix

Yes, the rumours are true. I went to a Formula 1 race for the first time and nothing like the (possibly) last French Grand Prix, at Circuit Paul Ricard, to pop my cherry. Naturally, I had to write a whole ass essay for this Experiénce™ to give you guys a bit of insight about my first time, so if you want to partake in my three day vacation at the south of France, featuring a bit of sightseeing and a lot of car-watching, join me after the cut!

prologue: how did i land at paul ricard

friday: free practicing my tourist skills

saturday: fan forum of hell

sunday: scenes at the race

epilogue: a few final thots

prologue: how did i land at paul ricard

First of all, to put things into context, I wanted to tell you a bit about the chain of events that led me to the GP. I left my home country (BRASIL PENTACAMPEÃO 🇧🇷 🇧🇷 🇧🇷 🇧🇷 🇧🇷) last year to study in Paris, where I will be until 2023. It's been definitely one of the times of my life and I try to stay positive and look at the opportunities I get to have here. In all these years I have been a F1 fan, I have never been able to afford tickets to Interlagos, and I'm not kidding. It's not that my family is broke, but we're also completely unable to afford three tickets, accomodation, plane tickets and other expenses in a way that will see us last the weekend alive. And if I look at it from a solo perspective, I never had the company to go with me besides my family and, to be fair, I'd love to go with them since they never went either, they taught me everything I know about the sport and they dream of attending one day.

note: luckily I have two homegirls now who would love to go to a GP with me, so maybe in 2023 I'll tag along with them! still hope to drag mom and aunt with me tho :)

Anyway, the point is that being in Europe, I have the money to spare from the savings we had for me to come here + the internship I've been doing for the past months. Plus, I'm alone here and will be for a good while, so I only account for myself and I'm not sucking money out of my family's finances. Another advantage is that travelling between countries here manages to be easier than travelling inside Brazil, so it doesn't really matter what was the destination as long as I could manage to land some tickets.... so of course I bought tickets for Monza in the first available opportunity.

I had looked up tickets for both France and Monaco before, but both of those started selling before I got the internship and were in theory sold out, while Monza started selling after I had the internship. Actually, scratch that, France had an offer going on for a one-day ticket + train from Paris to the circuit combo that sounded absurd from the point of view of someone who suffers from fibromyalgia and expensive from the point of view of a foreign student, so I tapped out of that one. However, imagine my surprise when I received an email from the organisers, offering me a lifeline in the form of a lanky french driver that looks like that one character from that one cartoon movie I forgot. The one where they go down the drain. You know the one.

Esteban Ocon, I wish I could kiss you. In fact, I probably could have if I had stayed later on Saturday, but more on that later. Point is I never pulled my wallet so fast and typed the wacky numbers in my card online since that one time I really wanted to get the Rose Gold Princess Peach skin on Mario Kart Online - and I didn't get it. But I did get the tickets, paid in 3x because no way I could do it all in one go. It was the end of the month after all.

Anyway, from that point onwards, I started planning the logistics. I had gotten tickets for Saturday and Sunday only, since I can't get full vacations at the moment as an intern, I would only be allowed 2 days off for each month I work. I booked those so that I could arrive on Friday at wherever I would stay, get my stuff ready for the GP, and go back home on Monday without much of a hurry to work.

Once that was established, I needed to know where I would stay, and there were a few options of cities to stay with buses/trains to the circuit, like Marseille, Toulon and La Ciotat, but I landed in Aix-En-Provence. Lovely place, I chose it there because I had been there before last November and so I already knew how the town worked and how to get there. Therefore, I booked myself both train tickets to Aix and the Express GP bus tickets that took me from the bus station to the circuit and vice-versa. From this, I booked myself an AirBnb just 5 minutes away from the station so that I didn't have to walk much longer after getting back late at night if it was the case and voilà! All good to go, it was time to race.

friday: free practicing my tourist skills

There is something I didn't tell you about the Provence, but that you might have heard about. They have big fuckoff lavender fields you have only dreamt of. It's some White Girl Pinterest Aesthetic Moodboard shit. Since I discovered the benefits of essential oil aromatherapy in 2020, I became a certified lavender lover, and even got a few friends hooked on it as well, so visiting the fields became something to check off my list in France.

As the slogan for the Grand Prix said, it was Le Summer Race after all, specifically at the time where the lavenders bloom - they usually are the pretty lilac flowers we know between June and August, when they get harvested. After that the fields get all cut up and the process of growth starts again. While Aix-En-Provence isn't the hot spot for them, since the big fields are in like, Luberon and Valensole Plateau, they have a lot of lavender products available in their shops and, as I discovered online, a small field in a Maison de Lavande called Terre Ugo. Since I couldn't possibly take a day tour to Luberon as I had to get ready for the GP, I decided to reschedule my tickets for 6 am (ha) so that I could visit the Maison in the morning before shopping for groceries and checking in the Airbeebee. Great plan.

I took my ass to the Gare de Lyon, a railway station in Paris where I'd take a 3-hour high speed train to Aix-En-Provence. Left the house in black pitch darkness at 5:00 am after zero sleep (I had a rough week) but I enjoyed the way. I really think Paris is at it's best when there are no Parisians out. We're safe <3

A bit of Gare de Lyon and the time I left. So extra lmao.

The trip went super well, I managed to get an hour of sleep without getting my contact lenses stuck in my eyes, so I call it a W. The way was super pretty as well as I got to see the morning rise and some cute sunflower fields.

The Aix-En-Provence train station is actually roughly 13 km away from downtown, so I took a bus to get to Aix properly. By that point it was already over 28 ºC, but I'm from Rio so of course I spent 30 minutes waiting for another bus, this time the one that would take me to the lavenders and boy..... was I satisfied.

The place smelled SO FUCKING GOOD. Aromatherapists were right, I just took some breath in and I felt the anxiety coming out. The place was pretty nicely set up, as you took a stroll there were plaques explaining the importance of the bugs that you would see around and a bit of the history of lavender, and they kept some chairs and pillows around in case you want to sit down and maybe even have a picnic! Since I had a bit of time to spare, I got myself under a tent and just took the beauty in. A friend of mine said that they weren't in full bloom and it was probably because of the extra heat in summer this year that didn't allow them to grow properly, so I think Seb is right in being annoying about climate change.

Right after that, I got back downtown to eat literally any-fucking-where that had an AC on (something rare here in France). Ate a salad because it was too hot to even consider something else, had a very nice, very cold Coca-Cola and then forced myself to have milkshake for dessert just so I could kill another half hour. Once that was done, I went to a supermarket to buy myself some water and food for the GP the next days since I wasn't feeling like spending my time in long queues for those items. Also took a chance and bought a sharpie just in case I managed to get some autographs. More on that later, also.

Cool. Checked in the Airbnb and I'm still not sure whether it was a good place or not. It was super well located and the sofa-bed was comfy, the kitchen was brand new, but the bathroom smelled of mold, the elevator wasn't working and there was no wi-fi, which would have been acceptable if the 4G worked there. But a highlight goes to the nearly broken toilet with THIS lid:

Of course, my first visit to the supermarket was a flop because I actually bought surprisingly little food, and it was only after a nice conversation with @baku2017 that I realised I had to get myself some proper sandwiches, so I bolted to the closest supermarket before it closed to get that and some more water. In my defence, I was completely full after eating and it was super hot, so I couldn't even consider what would hungry me be like. Food obtained, it was time to sleep and get ready for an early rise.

saturday: fan forum of hell

Not sleeping the day before ended up being great for me because I slept like a lamb drunk on beer from Friday to Saturday and I legit felt like an anime princess when I woke up. My process for both Saturday and Sunday were the same: I had the bags practically setup (only missing the water that was on the refrigerator and the fruits and sandwiches I got wrapped in the morning) and my clothes for the day were also set aside, so I'd literally just wake up, get the food done, have breakfast, shower, put clothes on, put the packages inside the bag and head to the bus station that was just 5 min away from my place. Well, I did wake up an extra half an hour early on Saturday to get my makeup ready 🤡 🤡 🤡

i really thought Mick would sweep me away from my feet right then and there smh

Now, I have to be honest with you: I don't do traffic. I just can't, not ever since I peed my pants on the way to the beach because we were 4 hours completely stopped. It's not like there were bushes anywhere close, if I went out to pee everyone would have seen, so it got to a point where it hurt so bad my body overwrote my power of will and I pissed myself inside my godfather's car. I am firmly determined to never go through that again so I had to make sure I would get on the first bus available of the day to go to the circuit, which meant being at the station 6:30am to leave 7am.

French organisation said there would be one depart every 5 minutes from 7 to 10. In reality, what they meant was one every half an hour from 7 to 9:30 am, except on Sunday, which is when you really need the buses. In this case, it would be one every half an hour from 7:30 to 9 am. Didn't matter much to me since I was there from the get go for the first bus, but I imagine how pissed some people must have been. Bus tickets were 25 euros per day (round trip), which is cheaper than a taxi or uber there and much more guaranteed not to be in traffic, so I felt confident in my bladder to make it dry to the GP. Besides that, the seats were super comfy and there were plug outlets for phone charging and AC, which in Saturday's weather (hottest day of the weekend) was very appreciated.

bus stop, bus and the view to the gp. not a bad way to spend early morning!

After a little over an hour and no peeing, I got to the Circuit! The gate where the bus stopped at was at the same side of both my tribune and the Fan Zone, which made my walking much better. Here's a very blurry picture of the path I drew to my friends from the shitty map that was in the ticket pdf (red zone behind the main straight was the fan zone and the grey area is the bus stop). Overall, I think it took me like 15 minutes to go from one point to the other. Oh, and my tribune was in the orange zone (Virage du Pont ftw!)

As I walked to the Fan Zone, I saw a lot of stands selling team merch and food/beverages. Some of the food choices were very bold, like a whole stand of fried stuff is really for those who trust their digestive system and that don't suffer from reflux. I shuddered. But the real interesting stuff, I thought, was Village Sud, that tried to emulate the charm of the cute streets of the Provence. Tried.

clown of the year award goes to the guy who came up with the idea to add an army enlistment booth to the village.

these were some papier maché heads that are a tradition in the carnivals of the south of france. they did some of the drivers which were creepy but the intention was nice. i still don't know if the first head is supposed to be charles or lando.

My goal for the day was to try and get a few autographs for both me and my friends in the Fan Forum. I personally wanted Seb, Fernando, Mick, Charles and Carlos, while the laid ease wanted Zhou, Yuki, Lance and Daniel. So, I knew it was key to get there as early as possible so I could stay the closest to the rail and hope for the best. Of course it wasn't enough as some lunatics were there since 7 am, but I was still close enough to try. At the very least, close enough to look at them.

The original schedule had two Fan Forums, one in the morning (9h30 to 10h30) and one after quali (19h to 20h). So, naturally, they did two in the morning (10h10 and 11h40) and another after quali (19h to 19h30). This probably had to do with the fact that Haas and Ferrari, which were slotted for post-quali appearances ended up actually being the first teams to show up. So, our lineup for the morning was: Haas, Ferrari, Mercedes, Red Bull, W*lliams, McLaren and Alpine. A girl grabbed my hat to try to get some autographs, but it was practically impossible with all the front row competition, so I honestly just considered it fun to be there, listen to the drivers and feel the ambiance (great mood all around in spite of the heat!). Here are some screenshots of the videos I made:

sir lewis (george came right after, they did their interviews separated somehow), mick (kmag was there, just a bad angle), SCUDERIA FERRARI, red bull, alpine and mclaren

My personal highlights are:

- Haas: Mick hearing the french crowd scream "PARLEZ FRANÇAIS" and then doing a good chunk of his interview in french just for us. Crowd went wild, panties went wet - Ferrari: EVERYTHING. Crowd went crazy everytime Charles talked and cheered him like insane, people started cheering Carlos up when he said he felt Saturday wouldn't be as nice for him because of the penalty and that he'd have to try a bit more on Sunday - Lewis: I honestly fell in love with the guy. I don't know what he has but it's something. Super fit and the way he talks is just like, I know he says that to everyone but he makes you believe you are indeed the best crowd he has ever seen. Lovely smile and he always makes a point of talking not just about himself but to include either the team or the fans. Guy trains his ego in the gym every morning to keep it in check probably. Still haven't forgiven him for 2008 but I'm glad I called the truce in 2020. - Red Bull: THE MESS HAHAHAH. Checo looked out of it IMO, like he waved and thanked the guys who were there for him but a bit dismissively. I can say many things about Super Max and I will if you ask me, but he looked more engaged in the conversation and tried to give nice answers, so he gets a few points for that. Funniest thing was that after they were over, they didn't come down the center to do autographs for people, which was such a dick move because the Team Checo guys were RIGHT THERE and from my side there were three guys waving Max's helmet replica and merch for him to sign. Crowd began booing (which wasn't hard because actually apparently people really don't like Max there? I thought people would love him more considering he is the reining champion) so Ariana Bravo had to say "hey we don't do this here!" which led to more booing because how dare you tell the French what to do. I didn't get too mad because I think if I was Max and I knew only three people liked me I would leave too. - Alpine: Felt really, really good to see Ocon being so well received. Gasly is still the apple of the French's eyes but Ocon was cheered as a hero, which makes sense when you consider he is now a Grand Prix winner with THE French team, but when you see the media's portrayal of him as a bit of a black sheep in contrast with Gasly being the ignored Crown Prince, it just felt great to see him being hit with the love. Alonso was in a great mood too and did his whole interview in French, which drove people wild. If Ocon is a hero there, then Alonso is the greatest of them all, as 2-times champion with Renault. People will never forget that and I'm sure Fernando just LOVES it, as he should and he deserves! Also I confess that it was here the only time I was like "wow, he really is short" because even when you consider that anyone looks short close to Ocon, Fernando seems smaller than in his pics. - McLaren: Lando has a weird sense of humour that led him to say he hoped to specifically beat Alpine in this race and people *almost* booed before they started laughing and everyone realised it was a joke hahaha. Daniel honestly has some sort of attention span issue because he tried to answer his questions but he would just go like "hey I can say anything in French and make the crowd go wild watch this". At some point he just Pierre......... GASLY! two times in a row. I just wanted to hear him say some actual words lmao - W*lliams: when they left.

Fan Forum I done, I headed back to the Tribune Esteban Ocon, located at the Virage du Pont, aka turn 15, last of the circuit. It's there where cars enter the pit lane and speed down before starting a fast lap in quali, amongst others. While it's not usual to see overtakes there, you can see them get ready to attack and activate DRS. Overall, while you can't see the entire circuit, you can see the cars, which is not bad at all for the first time. You can also see a bit of the pit lane and the motorhomes!

some of the pictures might have chromatic aberration because of the zoom lenses I was using attached to my phone. don't mind me! not in the motorhome picture, but I could also see Mercedes' motorhome to the right of Red Bull's

Important to note: If you ask me anything about what the racing was like, objectively, I have no clue. FP3 came and went and it was just a vibe seeing the cars go in and out and do their cheeky laps. Honestly couldn't tell if Red Bull had good pace or if Aston Martin were going to flop again, I was just like. "Car go Brr"

see what I told you about the pit lane? so cool! (FP3)

I think FP3 might have been my favourite session out of the three. While I usually just vibe with it when I'm at home, in there it felt like qualifying but without the stakes, which was much more enjoyable. People were cheering whenever their favourite driver passed in front of them and even more when they improved their lap times. It was completely insane to cheer for the fastest lap in a practice section yet that was exactly what was happening. It was like the driving equivalent of the guy skating while drinking juice and singing along to Dreams tiktok

W Series.... I don't want to talk about it much, but well. The cars are really freaking slow, to the point where they really stand out from the F1 and F2 races that are held on the same weekend. Fair, I suppose, as they are supposedly F3 cars, but I also don't watch F3 for the same reason. I feel that since most of the W Series drivers have a lot of experience they could do with better cars, which sucks because they end up looking amateur, even more when they have race incidents (in fact, there were two safety cars in a 30 min race). There is still a lot to be made to properly encourage race growth, and a few suggestion I have are: age limit to maximise chances of the girls going ahead to F3/F2 posts and the champion prize should be enough to fund them into an F3 team as well; they should also consider having the same champion rule as F2 that the winner doesn't get to remain in it for the next season - kinda sucks for Chadwick since she didn't manage to get a seat in another Formula series but it's probably the third championship for her in a road, so it's time to go, really; Maybe an investment that could be made is a team with woman drivers in both F3 and F2. Might never win it but it could be nice to showcase young talents. That being said I don't grieve any of the W Series drivers or organisers and if anything they are all doing what people kept them from doing for years. Good for them!!!

Quali came and it was ELECTRIFYING. I usually dread qualis because I just don't have it in me not to be anxious ever and the time constraint and high stakes just get me, but I was in the mood! I was sincerely happy! Again, don't ask me what actually happened during it, I had no clue Carlos had given Charles a tow because I was just like "GO CHAAAAAARLEEEEES GOOOOOOOOO" screaming like a mad woman. I was just thankful we got the pole and it was so, so FUCKING COOL how you could feel the whole place shaking because France is rooting for le Monegasque.

sorry for the shaky gifs but here is Charles on a mega fast run in Q3!

Overall, it was a trip. Gasly's shit quali was def a mood killer and the whole crowd was super sad, but they kept sending good vibes to make sure Pierre knew he was supported! Same thing for Ocon in Q2. People were also in suspense when Mick was fighting Race Control over the track limits, fair imo as Race Control this year has been even worse than last year and that's saying something. Crowd also went wild for Alonso in Q3 as he was Renault's rep. Lots of love for Sir Lulu as well! I, personally, made sure I was as annoying as possible whenever Seb was out hahahahaha. Once quali was done, I quickly hurried back to the Fan Zone in an attempt to get #RailedForSeb. And man... I'll need to talk about the following events in therapy.

When I left there hadn't even been the post-quali interviews yet, Charles had barely re-entered the pit lane. And while in the morning I didn't exactly bolt to the Fan Zone, this time I really almost ran. AND YET THERE WERE ALREADY TWO LINES OF PEOPLE THERE AGAIN. I sincerely think that some of them didn't even watch FP3 or quali so that they could stay in the rail and maximise their chances. I suppose (and hope) that it wasn't their first Grand Prix so they wouldn't miss it too much.

Team Vettel stayed strong!

I decided to stay in their entrance to the stage since there was a bigger chance of him autographing stuff there than in the center, where he would only be once. Quali ended around 17h30 if i'm not mistaken, so it would be roughly an hour and a half that I would have to stand up with a heavy backpack on my shoulders in the scorching heat. Easy. Feasible. I didn't know, however, that in less than 10 minutes a little kid would show up and be an Omen of how much of a mess the rest of the day would be. In fact, I'll call the kid Damien just to make it easier to illustrate.

accurate photo of Little Damien

Damien was right at my side with his folks a little behind him, and he only had a notebook and a dream: to get all of the drivers' autographs. He hadn't been there in the morning so he hoped the evening would be a hit. There was only an issue: he wasn't right behind the rail and the spot he had chosen was occupied by a couple of older fans.

Now, Damien had a few possibilities to choose from: he could have moved somewhere else he could sneak in better. In fact, his mom said that his greatest advantage was that he was a tiny little kid, so he could easily slowly make his way to the rail without taking a lot of space from people. But he didn't want that. He could have also asked nicely to the people in front of him if they could hold his notebook and get autographs for him, but he wanted full control as well. So, instead of being ok with the place he was at and trying to position himself as well as possible, Damien decided to bitch and moan as audibly as everyone in a 10 m radius could hear for a WHOLE HOUR AND A HALF.

First, he spend half an hour just screaming "THERE IS NO SPACE!!! THERE IS NO SPACE!!!!". Then, he turned to his mom a few couple of times and said, I swear to God, "there are these two old people in front of me and they are there just to watch! I want my autographs!". I was GOOPED at the audacity of this three year old to be that bitchy when the guys were right behind him and could perfectly understand French, what the fuck! Like, what makes you so entitled to think you are more worthy of an experience than all the other fans that are there for the same reason as you are? Is there an hierarchy of fans I haven't heard of?

the couple pretending they weren't understanding what the kid was saying

At that point, it was only getting hotter and hotter. And as people were coming in, they started to push each other closer and closer to the rail, which meant that I was now just one row behind it instead of the original two. Space was getting smaller and smaller, there wasn't much room to drink water and people were starting to be in a bit of a mood with anticipation and such. I started feeling bad because I looked back and I realised I couldn't actually leave anymore, there was no way to get out without being stepped over by people. So I started feeling nervous. Luckily, some staff came with bottles of water to people, which calmed a bit the nerves, but available space kept getting smaller and smaller.

It was during the water moment that Damien managed to get a bit closer as well, but still behind the aged couple. A guy who was there to take some pictures for his daughter had no choice but to let Damien in, and said so himself. Damien kept being foolish and running his mouth, so we all kind of decided, collectively, not to let him pass any further and block him hahahahaha. Maybe if his parents did a good job of keeping him quiet we would have been nicer but kid was a dick and suffered, so far, no consequence of it.

The hosts came in and announced that the first team would be Alpha Tauri, which led everyone to bolt forwards to get to Gasly when he would come in. I was being crushed from all sides and hanging on to my sticker album for my dear life, so I genuinely considered crying out for help. However, I look around and security is placed obviously for the drivers, not for the fans, and there are no firemen/paramedics in sight. That means that not only I had truly no way out, but also if I fainted or anything happened, no one would know until the whole thing was over and I dropped dead after people loosened up. I went survival mode and focused all my strengths in just making it to the end of the interviews, I was legit close to tears.

Now, remember the couple in front of Damien? I had asked them earlier before Damien came in if they would mind handing my album for Seb to sign or if I put my arm between them, literally anything. The lady told me they had stuff for him to sign too (so they weren't there just for the banter as Damien thought), so I thanked them and said "no worries"). As people started pushing, I also apologised to the people around me and said it was out of my control. BECAUSE I WAS POLITE, the lady actually changed her mind and offered to take my sticker album while her husband would hold the book they had - it was a compilation of Paul-Henri and Bernard Cahier photos of champions, and there was one with Seb in it. Lovely book btw. Too bad what happened next changed the course of humanity and trauma bonded all of us there.

Gasly came in and all hell broke loose. I got pushed forwards to the point my feet didn't touch the ground anymore, while tons of arms showed up over me holding caps, posters and French flags. My hat was about to fall off, but someone decided to use my head as a support point to lean forwards, so I didn't lose it. I just sort of looked at the little of sky I could see on top of me and raised my hands up in the hopes someone would rescue me - which didn't happen.

exclusive image of me hanging on to my dear life

Pierre signs tons of autographs for the French who are, at this point, equally shouting "GASLY" with whatever lungs they have available after their years of chain smoking and fighting each other over the lack of space. Yuki shows up too and more screaming is had until they get to the stage. A little bit of schadenfreude powers me as little Damien starts crying and somehow escapes because he failed to get autographs and it was clear this wasn't gonna happen to him in this GP. Served him right.

Yuki shows up too and I manage to get a little bit of air while they do their interviews. I actually saw that people shared the "only thing that Yuki hasn't tried yet is a French girl" anedocte that Gasly said, but they missed out on the most important part that was the entire audience just being like "CHILL PIERRE, CHILL" and laughing out of nervousness. I could feel Tsunoda getting red and I was only able to see his back!

Alpha Tauri come out and the moment of truth arrives as Aston Martin joins us. AGAIN, everyone lunges because of Seb and this time, so do I, fuck it. I had saved my last 1% of strength for this moment and started yelling for him to look over. Britta and Lance's PR person walk in the front handing signed photocards, so I start yelling for her instead while Seb's further back. I swear to God, she actually came in my direction, looked at me in the eye, I said "hi Britta!" and she smiled back..... and she handed the photocards to people right beside me. I yelled for her to come back but it was too late. My jaw dropped for like... a whole minute. What was the reason, Britta?????? I do recognise it was hilarious and a great story to tell though.

Seb told people in front of him to calm down as he would try to sign as many autographs as possible, and he did. In fact, besides Red Bull's ordeal, all of them spent quite a good time making an effort at reaching out to as many fans as they could get, and they were genuinely nice while at it. I mean, Alpha Tauri, Aston Martin and Alfa Romeo all had lowkey disastrous qualifying sessions, Gasly the worst I think, and they still smiled and tried to engage as much as they could. While they're all more or less PR trained, they're not actors and you can feel who is more or less distant, which makes the whole thing even more astonishing because practically none of them really were, even the more reserved ones. You could feel the effort.

But unfortunately, it doesn't matter exactly where you're placed as it is a bit of a Russian Roulette and Seb never managed to sign my sticker album. He stayed before and after. Again, to be fair, he spent a lot of time there and there were tons of Seb fans around with helmet replicas and AM merch and even Ferrari/Red Bull fans that were there for The Legacy, but he genuinely had to go. He even kind of shrugged in an apologetic way before leaving. A guy that was in front of me handed me a photocard and said "hey, you couldn't do better than this!" all happy because he thought he had snagged me a Seb card, but when I told him it was Lance's, he said "oh, merde!". For me it was great though, as my Lance stan friend was super happy when I sent her the pic.

I stuck around until the end of the Alfa Romeo interviews as I had no choice and I also managed to see Zhou Guanyu sign the Seb page of my sticker album HAHAHA. He actually looked super pleased as well, it was so endearing. Also managed to see Bottas and yeah.... I would. I totally would, why lie for the tl. Overall, I managed to get two signatures in my Seb page, which I think are Yuki and Zhou's. The whole concept of Oppa Seb is so funny and the guys were so nice I can't even be mad!

I could have stayed a little longer to watch the after concert (that apparently was on the track and super cool!) and also see Esteban pass in front of our tribune, but I chose to go home instead because I legit needed a breather. Took a shower, some Tylenol and went to sleep.

sunday: scenes at the race

Rinse and repeat, woke up early, showered, got dressed, food, go. I had to snuck in the bus because people decided to queue while I was sat and there were people at the queue who were there for way less longer than I was. Didn't give a single shit, I am used to it in Brazil anyway.

Got there around 8h50, decided I actually wanted to eat a bit more of substantial food when I saw there was little queue on the pasta stand and that they were actually wrapping the food to go, so I bought myself a pseudo carbonara for lunch. I was super excited as I would actually have the opportunity to watch Formula 2 for the day and I knew Drugo had snagged a podium after Pourchaire's penalty the day before. I didn't know, however, that French support truly extended to the junior drivers and Pourchaire was received as a fucking hero (Novalak received a lot of love too).

While everyone cheered for Pourchaire, I took the role of being Drugo's sole cheerleader on the tribune, literally shouting VAI DRUGO every single lap. My throat is suffering from it to this day. Again, you couldn't tell me whether the race was good or bad, but I was THRILLED. I think Drugo had a bad race start and then picked up at the end? P4 seemed fair considering it all. Plus, Logan Sargeant's DNF made me happy, ngl. But overall, the star truly was Pourchaire, who landed a podium and was received as a champion. Iwasa, having led French-based DAMS to victory, was also given a standing ovation.

French flags for Theo!

After the F2 race, I ate my fauxbonara while Porsche Supercup was on and drank lots and lots of water. There were still animations with some random cheerleaders on the stands and some flag waving, but the real stars were the track marshals that hyped the crowd before the drivers' parade. They made us clap, they sang and danced like a bunch of fools, they made some waves, anything to keep us hyped before the drivers got to our turn, and it did work! Here are a few gifs from the video I took (I actually shot all the drivers but footage is shaky so I'll only share the ones that you could see a bit better).

I was surprised to see the Paddock Club ticket holders on a few trucks after the drivers btw. I kind of understand the glamour of taking part in the Parade, but it feels like it would be much more interesting to watch the Parade than to be in it. But then again, they probably saw the drivers way more close than I did the entire weekend, so yeah, it is what it is.

I set my phone aside during the race so there are no pictures of it, sorry :/ I had made an effort to register as much as I could during the entire weekend and I really wanted to be able to take in everything of the main event itself. I have to say, it was one of the most unforgettable moments of my life to experience the thrill of the formation lap and race start. The anticipation, the fear, the hope, it's like, everything all at once because the cars are so... concrete, you know? Maybe the best part about attending a race is truly the breaking of the fourth wall that allows you to realise these guys are actually there and it's not just an abstract creation of your imagination. There is a completely rupture of the distancing you have when you watch it from home which is a complete mindfuck and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Unfortunately, the race graphics just don't work live and are completely unreadable unless you have binoculars, so I didn't know what was the exact time interval between the cars, which is a shame because you can clearly see the gap getting smaller or bigger, so I would have loved to be able to correlate distance and timing. However, it was fucking lunatic to see the first few laps with Charles holding on Max from the perspective of the last turn. Sometimes, it looked like Max could legit lung while turning, sometimes it looked like Charles was under control, and once the gap looked big enough and they said Max was out of DRS range the whole crowd came down cheering. Everyone wanted Charles to win...

Which made the more heartbreaking when he crashed. We just saw the yellow flag signs getting lit up and then the safety car sign coming out before we knew it was Charles. I nearly cried but my tears dried out because of the shock of his radio message that was broadcast for all of us to hear. When his heavy, quick breathing played, everyone was quiet because we were all scared he was hurt. I even thought he had broken something. Instead, his scream echoed through the entire circuit and everyone just sighed with a mix of relief for his physical integrity and sadness for his own heartbreak. It was truly awful and personally, I didn't even have the time to recover from it before the shitty Carlos pit release.

To make matters worse, since Charles crashed close to my tribune, both him and his car passed right in front of us. You know what truly fucking sucked? You could tell he was devastated, his shoulders were completely down and he still made sure to wave us all, in something I feel was a mix of appreciation for the support as everyone was cheering anyway (I personally made sure to scream "thank you for everything" and "I love you") and apologies for having made a mistake. I did whip my phone out of the bag to take a picture of La Rossonera, and the saddest part is that it looked not that bad at all.

Now, I had to move on and focus on the rest of the race, since there were still a Ferrari on track and tons of other drivers I had always dreamt of seeing. Carlos' track progression was my focus, and I repeat myself but I had the time of my life seeing him catch up to the cars in front of him race lap after lap until he showed up ahead. His overtake of Checo was right in front of me since I could see that part of the main straight, so I jumped and screamed like a maniac, only stopping when Checo tried to strike back and failed. Imagine my fucking surprise when he goes in the pit. The amount of cursing I did while the guys in front of me were like "typical Ferrari".... this is so HUMILIATIIIING.

I was also rooting for something that didn't happen (Max DNF) but overall, even with the results I was more than satisfied with the race weekend I had. If we had a better ending, I might have considered rewatching it on F1TV, but honestly I don't care enough to put myself through that ordeal again hahah, I'll take the L and keep the good memories. Since I had a crippling headache from the heat - Sunday was less warm but worse because the air was more dense - I left the track early and got home with time to spare, enough to get my things packed, call my folks and tell them about my weekend and to have some celebratory Mickey Ds.

epilogue: a few final thots

While on the bus heading back home, I had a bit of time to think about what the weekend represented to me. The first major point is that it completely changed my outlook on the drivers themselves. I have never like, dehumanised them and I try to keep my idolatry in check so that I'm able to call them out if necessary, but I did idolise my faves and loathed the ones I dislike. Seeing them interact with the fan base live was a 180º flip because like... they're just people. Some of them are smaller than you would think, some of them are taller than you think, but they truly just want to drive the cars, you know? But then you're standing there besides a random person who literally just went there to see them, literally just one of them, you hear the cries and it's scary, it truly is, to consider the psychological weight of the burden that they carry.

Because it's like, on one side they have to be concerned with living up to the expectations of the sport, the team, the championship and of their own talent, which is already the standard agony that every athlete goes through in their entire career and that feeds their fears and regrets after retirement. But on the other side, they need to go out and be paraded like shiny objects to a bunch of people who are shouting their names and staring at them almost like Cujo, drooling and wide eyed, but it's out of love. How do you even manage to be normal after going through all of this at least once, let alone repeated times during the years? You have to change, but at the same time you can't change who you really are, which is just a person. You are elevated to the status quo, the highest of pedestals, but you are still just a random person. You're not a hack per se, you deserve to be there as a fruit of your path and your life's work, but fundamentally the pedestal shouldn't exist. It's so much to consider and yet they all go out there, perform at the highest level they can psychologically and still find the time to try to please their worshippers. Unhinged.

The other point I'd make is that it was truly a blessing to be able to go to the race. I know I was probably there at Charles' 2018 Germany moment but still my heart grew from Saturday to Sunday because it was just a lifelong dream becoming reality. Once you go there, you need to face with maturity the fact you can't control the sport and that's the fun of it. Whatever you spent, whatever you did, it doesn't matter because it's all in control of the people on the track and the pit lane. If it's not the championship decision, you can be frustrated but ultimately you don't get to be upset over something you knew was a possibility. And the fact is, if you do, you have to consider to distance yourself from the sport a bit.

I'm saying this because from first hand, Ferrari is frustrating year in year out. It has always been like this and not even the Golden Michael Years were peaceful. I have already spoken here my thoughts on the supreme bottling that has been made and in theory, as a fan, I had every right to curse Charles and Ferrari for the disasterclass of Sunday. But you know what, Ferrari doesn't have the right to ruin my love of them and of Formula 1, not even in the most important moment of my life as a fan so far. The team can grieve the result as they should, because we're further and further away from the lead and the strategy errors have led us to rely too much on driver performance which makes individual mistakes even more serious. Charles can grieve the result because he truly screwed up an easy win and he can even resent the team for not backing him up when he needed to. But these are burdens that it's their job to carry, I'm a fan pro bono and I can't let a result that is always a possibility put a damp in a big, happy moment for me, the same way I can't let it get through my head and ruin my entire week from home. And that's equally valid for any driver and any team, we all have to know our places, rights and duties in our parasocial relationships. I have been keeping up with my part of the deal, which is to slag them off when necessary but still offer support no matter what. I'll never stop being a Ferrari fan even when everything disappoints me because my love for them is larger than life, so why will I let current Ferrari ruin everything that me and the red car have had together over the years and will have in the future? Nah hah, fuck off, I will remain steady and look at the glass half full. This weekend was bitching and I wouldn't change a thing.

Well, I would. But I accept that I can't change it and I'm happy with what I had.

If you managed to read this all the way, I hope you enjoyed reliving with me the French Grand Prix. Next time we see each other, hopefully it's for the proper HC I've been writing. Slow and steady wins the race! As always, thank you for reading and screw you guys, I'm going home.

PS: Seriously, F1 administration, I know you guys are reading this. Find a way of keeping the Fan Forums because the interviews are nice, but bring back the autograph sessions. Someone is going to be trampled over one day. Cheers!

#hyperfixation corner #2022 french gp

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