#and doing my due research

[russilton]

If you don't mind, what happened to Ben Barnicoat?

So, you’ll have to forgive me if I make any mistakes, because outside of occasional mentions, I’ve never known much about ben because my foray into endurance racing is very new, and most of my knowledge has come from sourcing for this ask. I wasnt watching junior formula series when ben was racing, but the short summary is that his story is near identical to George’s as I discussed here, only unlike George, it did effectively end his career in single seaters.

By all accounts from the articles I read on Autosport, Formula Scout, and racer, Ben was a well regarded up and coming talent in the junior series, with a very impressive karting record and his early single seaters entries following that pattern. PREMA was considered to be the best possible team for him to join for his European F3 run, and after he tested with them early, they seemed really really happy to have him. It seemed from what I read, to be a done deal, and Ben would partner Lance and another driver for the 2016 season. Then, surprise, with a couple weeks or so to go before the season began, Ben was dropped from PREMA out of nowhere and suddenly announced a move to newer team Hitech GP to partner- wouldn’t you know it, George Russell. Here’s freshly 18 year old George and 19 year old Ben in 2016.

Now ill say upfront, unlike George’s case, in my quick search I didnt find explicit proof it was Lawrence, and Ben himself said he wasnt sure and couldn’t presume how he lost his seat— but given that its an identical situation to George, two years after George lost his seat, and the seat Ben was set for WAS to directly partner Lance— its a pretty foregone conclusion that Lawrence likely had a sudden say in his sons teammates. This bbc article also implies Lawrence was putting quite a lot of money into lances appointments, including buying him a seat as a test driver in Williams in 2016. Lance went on to partner Nick Cassidy and Maximilian Günther (yes both of fe fame) and Ralf Aron, who tested alongside Barnicoat and seemed to be considered the weaker driver of the two.

According to this feeder series comment (which yes, is not a strong source, but does go into a lot of detail around lance), both Aron and Cassidy were considered good drivers, but less strong than Russell and Barnicoat. This is also the same year that George went on to publicly criticise Lance for receiving team orders to benefit him at the detriment of Cassidy, and from all the accounts I’m sifting through, Lawrence put obscene amounts into PREMA that year, like buying them a new sim, and moving f2 engineers to f3 instead- to the point many competing teams outright pulled out. This article does a good job covering the issues people had with Lance’s junior career and also has Lance quoted as comparing buying a team to buying a tennis racket.. do with that as you will

I’m guessing based on the fact that George mentions ben in his comment, the pair of them had gone from being competitors to having a sudden common ground at hitech. Either way, George had an okay season at hitech, but ben struggled quite severely, and he credits it to the end of his single seating career. Despite the fact PREMA won almost all of the races that year, 9th is a hard number to have on your record, and in the end Barnicoat Single seater career ended at hitech as he made the move to endurance racing .

This excerpt comes from this article that puts the whole situation more succinctly than I can- Ben had other issues relating to the dissolving of the McLaren young driver program— but that 2016 season is what he thinks put the nail in the coffin.

Ben does seem to be doing pretty well in endurance, hes won a couple titles in IMSA and Asian Lemans, but it’s a shame his single seater career ended the way it did.

[saltyb0ba]

a deep blood moon, a starless night

dark enough to see the light

[dontcallmeeds]

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 4

Eddie takes the piece of metal for the new piece and runs his torch along it. The flame flickers against the silver as he does, white hot.

But instead of bending it quite yet, he hammers down on it roughly before flicking the flame over it again. He bends it around the sizing device, still estimating Steve’s ring size to be just under his.

Once it’s shaped and melded together, he hammers it more, giving some of it a rougher edge.

The next part is tricker, the oxidation process.

Eddie is grateful his uncle stays out of his room and his business, he’s sure by now that the noises that aren’t just Iron Maiden or his own musical talents have caused confusion and intrigue.

He meant to tell his uncle about his jewelry, but honestly it made him nervous for people to see his work and know it was his. Like suddenly they’d change their minds and decide it was actually quite shit.

Especially the person he was giving most of his projects to.

Eddie takes out the clean plastic box from under his work station and puts a paper towel on the bottom, soaking in ammonia. He covers it with a plastic lid after the smell hits him and opens his tiny trailer bedroom window.

Realistically, he shouldn’t do this in the confined space, but he figures he’s inhaled enough bad shit; he’ll survive.

Eddie opens the box again to take a piece of tinfoil next and puts it in the middle of the box for the ring to sit on, then rolls the ring in the ammonia. He pours salt onto the ring, focusing on the spots he hammered more.

Placing it on the tinfoil, Eddie smiles to himself. This piece is going to be beautiful, but it’s also rougher than the last few pieces.

Steve would probably think his secret admirer, a woman no doubt, bought it from somewhere a little edgier. Eddie sighs at that thought, wishing he wasn’t such a coward. Wishing he could just tell him outright.

But it really wasn’t that simple.

As Eddie sketches out the final details of the ring, he hears the front door open, figuring Wayne might’ve come home on lunch. He had been doing that a lot lately, coming home from work to eat, to check up on Eddie.

But Eddie startles when he turns around to his own door swinging open, something his uncle would never do without knocking and waiting on an answer.

Mike Wheeler and Lucas Sinclair stand in his doorway, arguing something about their character sheets for the next campaign and apparently needing Eddie to be the tiebreaker.

Before he can hide the sketch or the box with the ring—

“What’s that?”

They ask it in unison with wide eyes and pinched noses, staring at the box containing his next secret gift to Steve.

“Nothing,” Eddie moves it aside with the sketchbook on top, trying to walk forward until they all go into the living room. He isn’t that lucky.

“It looks important,” Mike tries to look over his shoulder at the work station.

“Yeah, looks like a secret,” Lucas so helpfully chimes in, little shit.

“Can you guys drop it? What’s this about your—“

“We can stand here all day,” Lucas folds his arms with a smirk, nudging Mike’s shoulder.

“Yeah, I’m what Nancy likes to call ‘insufferable’,” Mike follows up, and Eddie has to stop himself from snorting at that.

“Fine! God, you guys are the worst and I’m starting to regret bringing you under my wing,” Eddie doesn’t, not once, but who is he if not dramatic, “you have to swear to secrecy of the highest level. It’s quite literally life or death.”

They exchange looks and then smile wide at Eddie, nodding in agreement with the terms. He takes a deep breath and starts.

“Eww, seriously? Steve? Like my sister’s ex, that Steve?!”

“For the millionth time, baby Wheeler, yes. Like your sister’s ex,” Eddie rubs his temples, having to literally repeat himself for the last twenty minutes.

The boys finally stop asking questions shortly after, at least about Steve.

“So how long does it sit like,” Lucas gestures vaguely to the now fully covered box, “that for?”

“About twenty four hours,” Eddie answers.

“So you make your own? All your rings and chains?” Mike asks, seemingly dropping his whole Steve grudge. For now.

“Yeah, have been since I was sixteen probably,” Eddie outstretches his hands and stares down at them himself.

“Cool,” is the last thing Mike adds before they seem to move on from the subject all together and ask about their character sheets once again finally.

The night becomes an ongoing argument, Eddie having to break them up multiple times. But he can’t help but feel a little relieved from being able to have people who know about his secret.

The teens leave late with promises to keep everything under wraps, they of course both want updates, even begging to come with to drop the next ring off. Eddie says he’ll think about it, but they’ll be louder than his clunky van so he’ll just tell him later he forgot.

The next afternoon, the ring is ready to pull out and he looks it over with pride. Taking fine grit sandpaper, he rubs over the piece and inspects it thoroughly to make sure it’s ready for final touches.

Taking a silver wire that he already prepped, Eddie takes jewelry pliers and wraps it around the thinnest piece of the ring. He fires over it and looks it over one last time.

It’s everything he wanted it to be, nothing else he’s given Steve has looked like this.

Smiling to himself, Eddie puts it in it’s box and writes the note to accompany it.

‘Stevie, something different.’

[griancraft]

Anyone else hate how syscourse has permeated online system spaces to the point where you literally cannot look at anything related to systemhood on the internet without seeing it. Looking at system posts and then getting syscourse recommended or sometimes just posted in the maintags is like. Nuts. Not caring about the discourse and being nice to people while still interacting with the broader community is literally impossible.

It’s super niche inaccessible online discourse that is lifted up like it’s an important part of identity and being a system online. It’s unintelligible to someone not in the know. Like. When I first found out I was a system I was so fucking confused when I joined a discord and was banned immediately for not understanding their intro questions.

In a (very limited) study done in Australian universities, DID was ranked almost as high as schizophrenia when it comes to stigma. Not even 20 years ago many professionals were saying systems weren’t real point blank. I’ve had therapists tell me they think DID and OSDD aren’t real at all. Do you really think the slow coming research is robust enough to tell anyone very much about our lived experiences as systems?

None of this does anything to further the acceptance of systems, because half of it is people telling each other to end their lives over asinine differences of opinion. No amount of debating these things will make us more accepted by the people who hate us. They hate all of us.

[finelinens]

it always pisses me off a bit when i see people trying to use their platform to Educate The Public and the "educational resources" they provide are twitter threads, tiktoks, and carrds. like yes absolutely a social media post from a primary source is invaluably helpful when it comes to getting first-person perspectives on current events, but you just cannot learn extensive history from tiktok. idk. maybe you can. maybe i'm being too quick to write off tiktok as a whole. it's just rare that a tiktok is going to be well-researched and provide sources for the viewers to vet or use for further research on their own, so it's natural to be doubtful.

people easily believe anything on social media if it's well-said and seems sincere, which is just dangerously stupid. vet your sources. think critically. don't just blindly believe a tiktok because the person filming it is using smart people words

[gamebunny-advance]

Irreplaceable

It's all "pikmin yaoi" this and "pikmin yuri" that, but then y'all will go and ignore the canon pikmin yaoi/yuri that's right in front of you.

[buglaur]

britechester’s newest cuties

[thebirdandhersong]

house on fire :)

[alexandriad]

⭐️ 🌟 ✨ ⭐️ 🌟 ✨

[sciderman]

american werewolf in london (1981)

[oatbugs]

pls i need to provide updates

[trans-cuchulainn]

does T make your dreams more vivid because I've been sleeping like shit and having deeply stressful dreams (most of them about taxis lmao my brain hates going places) and normally i don't remember my dreams at all but these are lingering

[yellowistheraddest]

im home and i just made list of shit i need to do today and let me tell you im gonna abuse the hell out of the 3 hours of sleep i had today, keep me in your prayers im gonna go tear my skin off

[vulpinesaint]

stayed up too late posting about being aromantic. ah well... life's temporary joys are worth enduring for

[aconstantstateofbladerunner]

I love following Tumblr’s generic “science” tag. I get links to new studies, experts blogging directly about their specific research, experts making jokes about their research, all the fun stuff NASA is up to, bone-related art, random cool facts, study aesthetic boards, discussions of science fiction literature and films, dinosaur memes, and fringe conspiracy blogs saying that vaccine researchers lock puppies in cages to be eaten alive by flies until death just for the heck of it and their only source is a screenshot of a tweet made by a known nazi-sympathizer with notes full of people condemning the moral depravity of the left in between saying how they should throw drug addicts in the fly cages instead.

[moeblob]

I am... so tired after work today. Have a very lazy bust up of an OC while I try to recover energy.