#after all. why the everliving FUCK would he give a shit about you when you're not a permanent threat to the timeline?

[randomsloredrops]

Random's Lore Drops - Sand Under Table (FR this time)

Alright, so basically, i hate my shitty sans lore drop so i'm making a real one. Ready? Because it's time for...

Cursive, Cursive the Skeleton. Wait what do you mean it's not Cursive? Oh, Sans? sorry. Sans, Sans the Skeleton.

Time to rant. Like, REALLY rant. So, Sans The Skeleton. You know him, you love him, or you hate him. I'm in the middle-ground. I don't give a fUCK about that twat. He's the face of Undertale (but most definitely not what defines it), as well as the first person you meet in Snowdin, excluding Mister Camera which people usually miss (it's in the bush right as you exit). He's a comedian skeleton who likes to play pranks, and also tells over half as many puns as Papyrus (wild ain't it?). His first introduction is not at the gate, but instead the walk to it, where you get to watch his shadow move around as you walk, and also watch as he snaps a stick with ease (don't ask how). As you might know, he's completely nihilistic, and refuses to fight you until you actually end up being a threat. That's right, first degree murder on everybody except those two Froggits you forgot about in the Ruins makes you not a threat, but a Genocide route does. Why? Well, it's simple. You become a threat to the timeline. Now, it's to note he DOESN'T remember resets, only being able to tell by Frisk's expression (which is not related to your input). He also doesn't have the deja vu that others have, instead noting down things during resets, like Frisk turning around before he tells them to, and them acting like they did everything before. He DOES, however, state that there are reports of timelines shifting left and right, which means he has some sort of machine to tell. It's pretty known, but the reason he doesn't kill you isn't out of laziness, but instead, having a promise. He outright tells you that he'd kill you in a paci/neutral route during the "date" with him. He is CANONICALLY only friends with Toriel, and even then, he never knows her name until the pacifist pre-ending cutscene, before Asriel. sans.™ literally could not give any less of a shit, but because he knew Toriel for a while, albeit due to the power of knock-knock jokes, he ended up accepting. He also states that he HATES making promises. His attitude really tells a lot, as, even in his boss fight in the Genocide route, he does not give a SHIT about it. He constantly looks like he's joking, and he does NOT act overly emotional in any situation, with the most emotional that he gets being to tell yourself to politely go fuck thyself by telling you to burn in hell, and calling you a dirty brother killer. He still CARES about people, he just rarely shows it. That "dirty brother killer" line really shows it. After all, how would YOU feel if broke into YOUR planet, into YOUR country, into YOUR town/city, and killed your only family member and then said I was above consequences for that. ...Ignore the "your planet" line. Trust me I come from Earth. It's also shown based by his room that he is NOT a clean person. His first stand stinks of condiments, he sells hotdogs at his own stand, and it's assumed that he LITERALLY has the exact same stand everywhere, based on the snow on the roof, which never disappears in any instance of his stand (stand, IS THAT A JOJO REFERENCE?!?!?). His only role, aside from comedic relief, is the final Genocide boss (which he is known as), and the guy to judge you before you go to Asgore, since that is his only role. Now, onto personal hate. People DON'T realize that he's not fucking FIGHTING you because you're a threat to the kingdom, but because you're going to ERASE the timeline, and when something's erased, it usually never comes back. It's because of the timeline possibly being erased forever, in which he fights you and tries to off you. He doesn't know about the "deal" that the Player makes with Chara, in which you trade your SOUL to recreate the timeline from square one. (my personal headcanon for if Sans ever remembers you're genocides is to go fuck off elsewhere, since there's no reason to fight, right? After all, you're not permanently erasing the timeline, he has no reason to fight. It may be erased, but it keeps coming back, even if YOU don't recreate it, because another Player will.)

[mcl38]

it's mostly the delusional shippers that turned me off "carlando."

after qatar when he was being all dramatic and doubting himself, there were full on essays weird carlando shippers were writing about how he clearly just wasn't ready to lead a team and still needed carlos to guide him and encourage him before his mental health spiraled or something idek. like what the everliving fuck do you mean he's not "ready to lead a team?" the guy fucked up and he knew it, yeah maybe was a little too self-critical but he took accountability for his error, he was right there to congratulate and support his teammate despite those feelings, etc. it genuinely amazes me how whenever a teammate outperforms lando we start getting these he's "not ready to lead" or he's "a shit teammate" accusations because those are genuinely the moments where his being a team player shines through for me. he's had a few opportunities now, with basically every f1 teammate he's had, where he could have been a shit team player and gone off to sulk and cry, yet he's been there supporting and celebrating with the team even in those moments.

but idk there's something so infantilizing about people acting like lando needs carlos to function or depends on him to know his worth or talent or abilities. and i'm sure carlos encouraging lando in his rookie year did play an important role in his development, but one of my fave things has been seeing him come to terms with his imposter syndrome and struggles and finding healthy ways of combating and coping with that and genuinely believing in himself. like i don't think these people realize mental health is not just something one person is going to come along and fix - and i think as evidenced by andrea stella's statements on how they were going to try to find ways to help lando spin some of that self-criticism into healthier mindset - that's a continuous battle and something lando himself will have to deal with, to some extent, likely throughout his career. carlos whispering "omg ur so talented mi vida" or whatever these people fantasize about isn't going to do shit for lando after he's screwed up and is punishing himself for it. like idk i'm just not a fan of this lando "damsel in distress who needs carlos to save him" narrative so many carlando people push. he's proven he's more than capable, why the hell people still look at him in any context - whether personally or professionally - and think he needs carlos to function/survive beats me

so like firstly anon u make me feel so lucky that ive managed to avoid the majority of carlando content since like 2021. "writing about how he clearly just wasn't ready to lead a team and still needed carlos to guide him and encourage him before his mental health spiraled or something idek" gives me actual hives one of my biggest icks is when a fan of a 'ship' clearly isnt actually a fan of at least one of the individual drivers on their own. rly theyre just infatuated with whatever collective fantasy of a relationship theyve bought into, and while shipping drivers absolutely does not imply you're unable to confront reality on its own, i do think theres a correlation between intense (read: irl rather than just rpf) shipping culture and absolute delusion about what a driver is like (so when the driver shows their true colours its shock horror hate)

anyways god those r some insane takes about qatar. i do find it funny retrospectively how landos biggest narrative flop was literally a p3 sprint p3 race and ppl acted like he was in p13 getting lapped by oscar. i also think qatar was an obvious demonstration that lando CAN lead the team, and sustain a relationship w his teammate. and he can do those things WELL at that. a pettier person wouldnt have congratulated oscar as much as he did. oscar doesnt even count his sprint win as a win, but lando does - again, a pettier person would go pedantic about the sprint format and refuse to acknowledge it. but he didn't - despite clearly feeling his Feelings the whole weekend, he manned up (unlike someone else that week lmao) and held his head high, smiling for the journos and placating them when they were concerned abt how self-critical he was. i respect and admire him so much for that. thats my guy

yeah the one thing we saw return w a vengeance that week was the self-flagellation - a thing thats not only very much NOT new, but also that landos talked about at length. like hes been SAYING this, this is the main thing he talks about every time he talks about mental health, which is a lot (bless him). this is like when ariana grande wrote a song called 'break up with ur girlfriend im bored' and then years later she broke up a married couple and her fans were like gasp what did this evil hag do how dare she like my beloveds she TOLD YOU. she TOLD you she was like this why did you not LISTEN.

anyways you say some downright beautiful things about lando and his development that i wholeheartedly agree with. "one of my fave things has been seeing him come to terms with his imposter syndrome and struggles and finding healthy ways of combating and coping with that and genuinely believing in himself" is SO true and correct bc like YEAH this is a journey he's been talking about and trying REALLY hard at. this is gonna sound kinda perverse but i think his 2023 challenge is like... unrosberging himself. i think he (following in the footsteps of nico, wait, let me expand on this) took the easy way out of his intense self-doubt and self-criticism: that is, he bought into the (unsustainable) strategy that if he just doesn't make any mistakes, he'll get rid of his impostor syndrome and be mentally healthy. lmao. so its easy for him to look back at 2019 now and be like 'i was way too stressed about being a bad driver but i was just a rookie, i had room to learn, see im better now, no stress', but when he DOES make an error nowadays, i don't think he's quite yet reached the level of stability where he can rly take that on the chin. which, as u say, is SO normal, bc stuff like this is such a continuous battle (i should fucking know my therapist tells me that every session lmao).

its just that the one thing carlandos or other ppl who consume f1 media in similar ways is that carlos comforting him is so not what lando needs or what he'll get either. landos worked w a legit sports psychologist for a while, and he's got jon who clearly actively tries to document himself on how to deal w mental health issues in athletes, and mclaren has just added a team psychologist to their paddock crew, AND like u mentioned, andrea said he'll try to find other ways to help lando mitigate his self-doubt. if anything, carlos whispering sweet nothings to lando (if we entertain the hypothesis n all) will only aggravate him further. not only do i know this from personal experience of how i (a known self-flagellator) respond to that kinda stuff, but he's also like famously rly unreceptive to ppl understating bad situations ("well, the only way is up, isn't it lando?" "n-no, actually, for us it's also down" and all the other extremely funny pressers at the beginning of 2022, esp in australia where everyone was trying to convince him the car was suddenly way better when it was just track-specific performance). AND we also know almost verbatim from carlos (the only f1 driver whos ever spoken abt the less camera-ready aspects of landos personality) that he does Not know what to do w lando when landos in a funk. i rmbr theres this bit in one of the last interviews they did together, that retrospective one, where carlos was talking about landos moods, when he gets quiet and crabby, and how he couldnt get through to him, and it was like lando was a completely diff person. but, yk, whatever serves ppls fantasies ig

so like yeah i absolutely absolutely agree w you that especially within the carlando dynamic theres this super nasty damsel-in-distress element. i think it probably started as ppl projecting onto lando's anxieties and wanting a big strong man with a sexy accent telling them everythings gonna be alright (which so fair), but bc lando wears his failures and deficiencies on his sleeve as a defence mechanism (known fan of low expectations, wants to preempt anyone saying he's shit by saying it himself, this goes from his painful-to-watch post-quali self-criticism to his aggressive anti-intellectualism in general knowledge quizzes) then its so easy for the fandom to characterise him as a hopeless mess, weepy, stressed out, needing someone to come fix shit around him. if lando himself knew this, considering how independent he is, i think he'd have an anneurism lmao. bc like it IS infantilising as well (a pattern w lando). and disrespectful. and dismissive. and w an implication that they dont like lando for his qualities, but for the stuff thats wrong with him, so they can imagine someone making it right and completing the narrative.

and all this over a mess-up in quali that he still converted to a podium. jesus christ. being a lando fan is genuinely exhausting fr