hellou-i-guess

[hellou-i-guess]

Listen, I like the found family trope, but sometimes I just want to read about siblings, like actual siblings.

There is something intimate about finding that person and finding it in yourself enough trust to love them and to open up to them.

BUT

There is something much more intimate about already having that person. They did not overcome your greatest walls because they were inside them. They were there while they were being built. They were there when you screamed and argued and vowed to never speak to them again, only to come back hours later with something unrelated and water has just taken all the harsh words with it. Never asking for forgivness because you know you have it and they know they have yours.

Just sitting in silence and ocasionally remembering something from early childhood only to realise that you don't remember meeting them. They were always there and will always be there even if you are miles apart.

They just know you and your emotions and thoughts and you have developed a way of comunication that seems normal to you but not to anybody else. They worry and they are proud of your achievements, just as you are of theirs.

You are each others biggest critics and fans.

Just loving someone and not remembering how or why it started, but you do and it doesn't need any explanation.

[hellou-i-guess]

writer brain is like “what if this story was a metaphor for grief”

no babes what if this story was finished first

[hellou-i-guess]

marie lu ya really gotta stop killing characters like Thomas NO THOMAS WHAT ARE YOU DOING THOMAS

KAEDE NO YOU SHOULD LIVE NO KAEDE

DANA ARE U FUCKING KIDDING ME....she kinda deserved it but still

NO ENZO NO NO NO NO NO WHAT WENT WRONG ENZOOOOOOO

ngl. like come on. stop scaring me.

[hellou-i-guess]

I've just remembered that i said I'll do analysis of Ash in 2 parts and never finished said part 2. It's been months, I-

[hellou-i-guess]

I've read Gone with the Wind and Little Women at roughly the same time and it kinda boggles me a bit that they are set in the same time period and the same country.

[hellou-i-guess]

Masterlist of Hellou's (mine) ramblings

A quick introduction - my name is Hellou and as a very opinionated entity with a big tendency to yap, I have put together a masterlist of my ramblings about books, trends and culture.

So, if you're interested - you are very welcome to check out what's under the cut.

quick note: episodes/rants are categorized by content not numbers because I have very weird organization, numbers just mean chronological order of posting. The ones with '?' are planned but not yet posted or fully written.

BOOKS

General YA/booktok book rants about characters/plot

EPISODE 1 - Character analysis of Daniel Batu Wing (Warcross)

EPISODE 3.1 - Character analysis of Asher Wing (Warcross)

EPISODE 3.2 - Character analysis of Asher Wing (Warcross)

Rants about fantasy books

EPISODE ? - Hogwarts houses sorting - nature vs nurture (Harry Potter)

EPISODE ? - A study on wealth of Great Houses of Westeros (ASoIaF)

EPISODE ? - Robb Stark's fate is always untimely demise (ASoIaF)

General rants about classics

EPISODE ? - Tradition v Progress - South v North (Gone with the Wind)

Rants about plot devices, tropes and writing

EPISODE 2 - Multiverse; meaning and misconceptions in today's marketing and fandom talk

THOUGHTS ON TRENDS AND CULTURE

EPISODE ? - Slavic Doll trend and continuous sexualization of Slavic women

MOTOSPORTS

Note: I do have a few rants here, but most of those thoughts have been moved to my other blog @hellou-partiedeux so feel free to check it out if you wish :D

Women in motosport marketing not being given credit for their role in winning

McLaren's business practices when it comes to prioritizing their drivers done after the 2025 Miami GP

[hellou-i-guess]

Forever haunted by Robb Stark as the perfect victim. His siblings see him as a brave, strong idol. His mother sees him as her baby boy, her first, and is plagued by memories of his as a newborn while watching him be proclaimed a king and lead an entire army at 16. And this is how the reader sees him, this is what we get from the fact he doesn’t have a pov, because we are supposed to solely see him from the eyes of others- the perfect victim. And then he dies, horrifically, forever martyred in the eyes of his siblings and followers. But Robb Stark was a martyr long before he ever died.

[hellou-i-guess]

Mad scientists I've come across in literature:

Victor Frankenstein (Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus; 1818)

Prof. Dr Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky (Heart of a Dog; 1925)

Dr Henry Jekyll (The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; 1886)

Do feel free to add, because I will as I read ":)

[hellou-i-guess]

I said I'll be a literary blog, but unfortunately cars going around in weird shapes very fast have a chokehold on me and I'm nothing if not opinionated so...

I fear all McLaren fans (Lando fans in particular) will suffer this season.

Tldr; It's a business and presently Oscar is winning therefore making them more money and why he is getting the preferential treatment.

- written after Miami gp-

As I talked earlier in my post about women behind the scenes in motorsport, all of the teams are businesses. This matters because businesses have one goal - profit. And so teams profit from winning.

In terms of McLaren - Lando will most likely be relegated to second driver. And this isn't anti him or a hate post, just an explanation from somebody who studied business and analysed way to many companies.

McLaren needs wins, Oscar is presently winning. Ergo, the most logical strategy is to support his chances. To fans this is going to seem unfair or Oscar biased - it's not. He was just in the right place at the right time with the right people.

But on human or fan terms essentialy not caring about the driver that was with you for a long time and giving preferential treatment is going to seem cruel.

On business terms thats just business. This season Oscar is outperforming Lando and therfore business puts their money on the safer bet. Nothing to do with mental health, disrespect or whatever. How things currently stand Oscar is more likely to make them more money. These things happen every day in workplace.

What would happen if team were to give Lando preferential treatment?

On this note. Every team looks at other teams and their decisions (long and short term) and tries to avoid them. In this case Ferrari's 2022 championship run is a cautionary tale so to say.

They had a driver leading the championship and who was comfortable with the car, then they decided to develop in other driver's direction to even them out as they said. The only result this yielded was barely a second and very solid fifth place in wdc and second in the wcc when they could have been first in both.

On the other hand Red Bull's 2023 championship run is also a cautionary tale - developing a car too much in one drivers direction causes the other driver to gradualy lose confidence over the season making him mistake prone resulting in a season like 2024.

What McLaren needs to do is find a middle between these to situations and most likely they are going to need to start (or they already have subtly or not) letting their drivers know of the dynamic change (Oscar over Lando, who is 1a and 1b how some of you refer them to), lest they start taking points from one another and Max gets his fifth/George his first like Kimi Raikkonen in 2007.

[hellou-i-guess]

Vampire is the only serbian word (vampir / вампир) that has made its way into other languages and this is funny because today we preceive vampires as this undead creatures coming from nobility and the first serbian vampire was Sava Savanovic, who was Just Some Guy™️, or the first and most documented case of vampirism that sparked mass hysteria - Petar Blagojevic (also serbian), who was also Just Some Guy™️.

[hellou-i-guess]

One thing I noticed a last year is how people, mostly men, treat women working in sports. This is particularly about McLaren winning the wcc and a few young women that work in McLaren, marketing mostly I think, posted a videos of the victory or their day at work etc. etc. And they used "WE won the wcc". A LOT of guys in the comments were like. "You didn't win ish, You didn't drive. You don't do anything meaningful to the team, just a seat filler"

First of all, that is absolutely disgusting.

Second of all, it lacks the basic understanding that all of the sports are businesses. FC Barcelona - business, LA Lakers - business, Yankees - business, McLaren racing - business. It isn't as obvious in basketball and football, well, most sports, because it's a club and isn't directly tied to a parent company, but in motorsports it is VERY CLEAR that this is business. There is a company standing behind the team.

Now that that we made that clear, these girls/women were very important to the team. In today's day and age marketing is everything and f1 is expensive.

A car is from 12 - 20 million dollars. ONE. Two are from 24-40 million and that is without damage done to the car through the season (which there is, like the only driver in 75 seasons of f1 that did no damage to the car due to driver's mistake is Gasly, but there was damage due to other issues), and that is without transport, employee pay, etc. How do teams get money? Parent companies and sponsors, because, paying for the team out of pocket isn't profitable. According to Forbes in 2018 Torro Rosso had 181.1 million dollars in expenses and net profit of about 1.8 million dollars (about 183.6 million dollars of revenue) and red bull payed them a bit under 83 million (calculated in aforementioned revenue). So if you want your team to be profitable you need sponsors.

Take Williams for example, they were struggling for finances and sponsors until this year. If you don't have money, you can't develop a competitive car; if you can't build a competitive car, sponsors won't be interested in you; if sponsors aren't interested, you are going to be short for money. It's an enchanted circle. But they have quite changed their marketing tactic - 'Team torque', more tiktoks, relatable brand etc. And they worked - Williams has a title sponsor (i cant find the exact numbers, just that this is the biggest sponsorship in teams history).

I think you can see how this relates to earlier point of treatment of women in marketing saying 'We won', because, that same marketing is the reason McLaren has a lot of its sponsorships. More visible the team, more visible the sponsors (HP is using its blue corporate use logo on Ferrari for a reason). Those women helped sponsors stay with the team, which means that the team has money, and back to the enchanted circle we go.

In conclusion, they are important part of the company/team and have absolutely every right to say that they won.

[hellou-i-guess]

I don't have enemies, not because I'm too friendly or peaceful, but because none of them will ever be able to match me in screwing over my life.

[hellou-i-guess]

writing (as a hobbyist or just-published-author) is basically just telling a story to yourself and hoping someone else cares enough to listen

[hellou-i-guess]

Hello, hello

Welcome to Hellou what the - or episode 3.1 of Analysis no one asked for

Today I present to you:

Somebody get Wing family a therapist ASAP

But, like seriously, none of these guys are ok. Like we saw Day and Eden being not ok. RIP John. Daniel Batu was referenced to have childhood trauma (I did a post) and now I break down Asher.

Originally this was supposed to one piece, but it was getting very long, so I split it in two parts. In the second part I'll discuss his personality and get into like one snippet of childhood we have.

I have three things to discuss in this part: the position of captain, Asher's age and his career.

The Captain position in the game

So, to summarize we know of the 5 positions in Warcross: Thief, Architect, Shield, Fighter and Captain.

It would make sense that in the beginning when you log into the game you can choose between four options - Thief, Architect, Shield and Fighter. All of which have been described including the uniform i.e. Thieves having a lot of pockets.

The Captains uniform is described as 'looking like the captain' which ??? Not sure what that means, but from the description of it, it seems more behind the scenes type of thing and game wise relies more on strategy.

Also, the position of Captain is never mentioned as one missing from the teams in the wardraft, meaning that the captain is individually chosen among the teammates.

One more interesting thing is that at no point is any of the professional teams described as having more people than the players. Like there are no PR or management. Which is a problem especially when it came to big drama like Emika and Hideo's relationship braking out to the public. Neither is there a coach.

Since there is no people behind the scenes, all of the responsibilities fall onto the shoulders of the Captain, meaning that at the same time the Captain is the manager, PR manager, coach and strategist while being the literal target of 5 people on the opposing team.

All in all, it makes sense that if teams were formed professionally or not that not some random person will be in charge of the team. But in a game with random people, yeah, the algorithm will choose one random player to be captain.

Like, in Ash's case in particular, we know that he wasn't in the first championship and I highly doubt that Riders, as a professional team, would take a random wildcard none of them know as a captain. So, most likely Ash became a captain later in the games and played some other position in the game.

Asher's age during the events of the book

So, I did say in the analysis of Daniel that at some point I would analyze Asher and how I got to what I assume are their years.

I may have explained this earlier, my personal headcanon is that there is like 3 year age difference between Daniel and Asher, mostly because that is the most common age difference between siblings.

Other clue we have about Ash's age is that Emika could tell how much time passed between Ash's current age and the memory we were shown in 'Wildcard' (about 8-9 years) which means that Ash was most likely 14-17 in the memory, placing him at 26 at the oldest at the games. Personally I lean towards the younger age in the memory (14/15, which would make him 23/24 during the events of the book).

For that I have no other reason besides the larger span of years Emika was able to tell, because it's easier to tell 9 year difference between 24 and 15 than it is between 26 and 17. If you were to look at your yearbook pictures from those ages or anyone really, you'll notice the baby fat maybe and not that much change in the face, but in the early teens and early twenties you can tell said difference at the first glance, because it's a difference between a child and an adult.

Of course Emika could have always seen Asher's pictures from his younger years and made a connection about time span there.

Another thing were my headcanon falls flat is that, during the most logical flow of Ash's career, he would be about 17 when he becomes captain, but then again Jena MacNeil is an established captain at 18 meaning that she would have also taken up the position at 17 at the latest.

Career

I'd say I wouldn't make this long but alas I could probably break that promise so step-by-step onto the actual analysis.

First I'd like to present the above mentioned career flow. I don't think Ash was in the first games. Hamilton makes a comment to Emika about being the first pick and how she didn't think they'll have an American first pick, so she'll have to stop teasing Asher.

Meaning that Asher was either a) the second pick b) the last pick c) he was the first pick, but isn't American. Option c) holds some merit, as Ash is the only side character that does not have his citizenship stated. Hamilton and Roshan have theirs stated in 'Wildcard' and Tremaine grew up in UK and still lives in UK, so there is no other option for him. Asher, however, is only stated that he represents Los Angeles (by himself) and almost 36% of L.A. population doesn't have American citizenship. Where this falls flat is low chances that Phoenix Riders would have first pick of the draft 3 times and there are 16 teams.

Citizenship wise, Daniel (his brother) has a middle name Batu, which is used in Mongolia from what I could find online (often not by itself, but it is a Mongolian name and Turkish as is Altan). Speaking of Altan - the other Daniel, Daniel's descendant Daniel, to us known as Day is stated in 'Legend' to be of predominantly Mongolian ethnicity. Do with this information as you will.

Back to drafts and first picks: 8th championship - Emika, 7th championship - Anna, 6th - Penn, 5th - Kento, that's as far as canon is concerned. Going off of the fact that it took Roshan 2 years to get to the draft it's safe to assume that he started some time after the first championship as that would be when it got more traction and had the highest possibility to distract him from Mario. So that would make Roshan the first pick in the 4th championship. Asher was already a captain by then.

Another interesting thing to note is Hamilton, who transferred from Titans to Riders (this will be relevant later) and who does not strike me as a person who would make comments or judge others after just having a horrible season or burnout. She probably got back on track and then made comments about Roshan, which would mean that Hamilton transferred to Riders between second and third championship. Again guess who she described as better captain? Asher.

Going off by this there are two possibilities: Captains are chosen as wildcards occasionally and Riders chose Asher or when he was chosen he played on a different position, proved himself in that season enough that they entrusted him the position of Captain (considering that Ash was playing warcross obsessively it could be very well that he was drafted in the first games and wildcards were always a feature and took two seasons to prove himself a capable captain).

Going off by the second option - what position did he play?

This is where we get into personality a bit. Asher is described as one of the most intuitive captains and from his gameplay we can see that he is observant (opening game - 'And there is no doubt, Asher noticed something before anyone else') and a pretty quick thinker (First game). Based on those traits I would say that he either played Thief or Architect.

Bringing up the Hamilton transfer again, teams most usually take other players when they are better than what they currently have or to fill position they lack. Hamilton is one of the best thieves in game currently and she was good enough to be chosen in draft or just straight up for the team when they formed and gets transferred to Riders. Considering the horrible season she had it wasn't very likely for her to be taken by another team if not in need. My theory goes that Ash was a Thief for Riders and when he got the position of Captain, he chose Hammie as his successor.

This is in character for what we know of Ash and his choices. They are described as odd. A burnt out thief, Tremaine (by Tremaine's admission), a DJ, and untested player. All choices that were fine in game and gameplay wise, and when they backfired it was due to personality issues.

What this tells us is that Asher is very good at recognizing people's skills for the game. (Emika notes that Ash does pay attention).

I'd finish this part here as other examples are more related to who Asher is as a person then they are to his career.

Apologies for a long read, but thanks for reading nonetheless,

Hellou :)

[hellou-i-guess]

Every single person is a poem. Some have yet to be sung. Some have nothing but the beautiful words wrapped around thornes. Some are cut too short, some are unbelievably long and continue to be written. Some bring tears, others laughter.

Every single person is a poem, but only some are poets. Only some know the songs that touch their heart and sing them loudly or keep them on the margins of their notebook, too afraid to show them.

Only some know how to sing songs of others as good as their own.

We are all poems, but only some are poets.

[hellou-i-guess]

I was thinking a lot about something that are not my WIPs while listening to book reviews, so new idea to this blog - rewriting popular stories as writing practice or canon divergent fanfic if you will.

First on the list - ACOTAR, probably. When? either soon or whenever I actually read the books. Could also be Divergent, but the question is if I'm willing to suffer through that again. Allegiant my detested

[hellou-i-guess]

At some point I'll see 0 or 1 on currently reading shelf on GoodReads. That won't be anytime soon, but it will come.