#and it’s easier to write it out than to speak it

[inchidentally]

"short and easier to read" babe I am so sorry to you and everyone else for how my insane posts come out - it's why I link to so much stuff bc it is a struggleee for me to not write just run-on sentences ;__; but I do get what you mean and I promise I tried my best - it's def shorter than the og and in smaller bites if that helps ??

(I actually wrote this on someone else's laptop so it's got proper punctuation and capitalization and everything!)

For those who don’t know: Oscar is an acts of service guy Lando is a words of affirmation guy. Let’s remember that someone’s love language is how they choose to express themselves, not what they should demand of others!

Oscar is also very much not a PR guy, for anyone totally oblivious to the obvious (and that all his "greatest hits" in PR were done unintentionally or bc he's awkward or bc his mom is cooler than him). For example, Oscar brings up his girlfriend of 4-5 years a fair amount but it’s almost hilariously not gushy or romantic (having a “cuddle” is as far as it goes lasfgjlsagfl). But he’s said himself that for the most part he’d prefer not to have too much private life available to the public. *His downtime with Lando joins in with all his other social life in being extremely limited to the public. 

The “thanking the sponsors” thing is one of Oscar’s safe, approved speeches he pulled from Andrea so that Oscar doesn’t have to do spontaneous on-camera speaking. Sorry but not all of us are good at it and it’s wayyyy easier to just have some rehearsed pre-approved soundbites. He tends to have a few that he repeats for a while until he updates the list lsafjslafhlafh.

He also very openly struggles to do on-camera speaking and no one knows that better than Lando who’s had to help him a huge amount. 

It does seem to be mostly cameras that make him stressed bc he was fine thanking Lando for his help in Baku at the fan stage in Singapore and overall he can use more of his dry humor when he's speaking to people rather than just to a camera. 

Lando’s recent inclusion of Oscar in his media responses to this degree is a reaction to Hungary and Monza - normally, his post race responses focus on himself and his own performance (which is literally normal and the default for drivers!!). The recent emphasis on teamwork/Oscar is something he feels he needs to do with his own PR work right now. He’s a smart man who’s been doing this a long time, so his reasons are valid no matter what fans think. He’s not sitting there working out or analyzing Oscar’s PR, just his own. 

People are absolutely running away with themselves over Monza and ignoring that apart from that one moment, Oscar is widely popularly seen as the supportive teammate role. To the point where last year and even part of this year, Lando was criticized by a lot of fans for not acknowledging Oscar enough.

Going off of that, let’s show how easy it is to take PR and media to make one of them look bad by turning it around onto Lando (!! this is for an example, I do NOT endorse hating on Lando for any of it !!)

Lando openly disliked being referred to as the “older teammate” and kinda left Oscar to his own devices so much last season that Oscar wouldn’t know where he was going a lot of the time and even semi-joked “my teammate’s abandoned me” (again, reminder this was not a source of drama for anyone but fans). He got called a little duckling a lot bc he’d tail Lando closely so as not to lose him. In fact it started irking some people that Lando would spend so much time with Carlos or Daniel and not getting to know his new teammate and helping him out with his rookie season of F1 the way Carlos did for Lando.

In every team photo where Lando has had a podium and Oscar has had nothing (and sometimes due at least in part to team orders!) which is very often! the comments sections have always had plenty of ‘Oscar is such a great team player, always happy and showing up for Lando no matter what’. So the whole ‘Oscar doesn’t do enough for Lando’ narrative is extremely recent and at odds with the rest of reality.

Please read the very first part of my enormous full post bc Lando didn’t thank Oscar for his Miami win, he praised his driving.

Even though at Silverstone this year Lando got on the podium and Oscar didn’t, Oscar made the fan stage all about bringing Lando out of his disappointment and even said he did the shoey “to make us feel better” and then dedicated the top row of his IG that week to photos and videos of him and Lando. Special note that this is in no way Oscar’s home race and he was solely seeing it as emotional for Lando and McLaren - and he had zero reason to personally be very happy after that weekend.

I’ve seen Melbourne this year get mentioned in the team orders discussions on my fyps, so that’s a handy example in many ways: Despite Melbourne being Oscar’s literal hometown race - and Lando even filming some Quadrant stuff at Oscar’s childhood karting track where a corner is named after him* - this year Lando didn’t acknowledge Oscar really at all over the weekend until someone mentioned him at the end of the podium press conference. Lando acknowledged that Oscar following team orders made his (Lando’s) drive a bit easier in Melbourne this year but said that he was faster than Oscar and deserved third over him anyway. (Good contrast to Hungary and even Carlos stating that something an undercut due to pit strategy shouldn’t erase one teammate being faster/more dominant in a race in order to give the other teammate the win!) He did PR work with pretty much everyone except Oscar actually, even doing promo for his (Lando’s) dad’s electric scooters on the new dotmov acc. Kind of like him being on a similar PR campaign at Singapore this year because of a sneak preview of Quadrant rebranding and announcing the Landostand at Silverstone  - he went for the biggest PR hits and posted Daniel on his jpg account, did a golf day with Carlos and Max F and was more active on socials than he had been for months. All while only having Oscar in one photo out of the whole weekend’s carousel despite the McLaren double podium. You could even read into him cutting Oscar and Oscar’s trophy out of two of the shots if you wanted! (He did include Oscar in the big group photo after the podium celebrations.)

*I saw some ppl say he didn't include Oscar in the Melbourne karting filming bc McLaren doesn't cross over with Quadrant, which isn't true. Zak has shares in Quadrant and Bianca has been included in the Quadrant rebranding launch with Lando's Singapore helmet design.

See how easy that was to flip it around?? If you’re even slightly biased against a driver or never see flaws in another- or are dying for two teammates to hate each other - then confirmation bias will always find plenty of “evidence”! Because the reality is that after the Austin GP, Lando found his “older teammate” mode and began helping Oscar out with his rookie year. In Melbourne, Lando spent his first day filming for his .mov account including the Oscar jersey and merch he came across - and Oscar mentioned how he and Lando talked about Lando filming at his old track. (Again, not PR coordinated or filmed, just mentioned!) And that after the Singapore race this year, they beamed at each other every other second of that night, filmed a deliriously happy post race video and joked in the cool down room - I honestly doubt have even noticed yet what the other has posted to IG salfhsalfafa. All of the negativity fans are coming up with is their own personal spin and does not resemble how Lando and Oscar are behaving to or speaking about each other.

They base their relationship on their conversations and interactions solely away from the public and the cameras and don’t do any inflammatory commentary about each other. They bragged about the door in the team hub that separates their drivers rooms from everyone else and leaves them open only to each other. Their communications only matter to each other when in private.

Segueing on from that: media and social media are literally PR. Lando is extremely skilled at it now and Oscar is not at all naturally skilled and is still learning. Lando is quick to be able to adapt his media responses, Oscar is not and often sounds stilted and uncomfortable. But it still has nothing to do with how they think of each other and talk to each other personally.

And “Landoscar” has never had the typical PR bromance aspect that we all love in other teammates, and it never will. Lando and Oscar mention but don’t broadcast or package their downtime together and they don’t share their private dynamic with fans or the media apart from the glimpses we see in more relaxed content. It’s just their choice! And just like it doesn’t mean Lando and Oscar are less friends because they don’t PR their relationship, it doesn’t mean the friendships who do utilize PR are less friends! 

And tbh that’s a good note to leave on: that seeing two drivers with no PR to gain from openly liking and respecting each other should mean that we as fans place less importance on the PR responses they give to media and put on social media. So many people want them to hate each other (Netflix even begging them outright) and rivalries get far more headlines and fan engagement, that if these two didn’t like each other or even were blah about each other, they wouldn’t waste time trying to fake it (side note ppl actually thought this joke was deadly serious for a short while). F1 isn’t team sports, no one really cares if drivers or teams appear “friendly” unless they’re desperate for money/engagement to keep them afloat (even there, Alpine prove it clearly isn’t a priority to have friendly teammates when you’re lower down the grid!)

There is absolutely nothing to be gained for them in faking the smiles and laughter and twinning. Equally there’s nothing to be gained by us as fans in judging them and their relationship based on their PR responses and PR work. Lando beams and smiles the same at Oscar after all of Oscar’s awkward, stiff debrief speeches and I kind of want one of these crazy stans to say to him that Oscar is a bad team player and doesn’t show Lando enough appreciation just to watch what his adorable face does in response (don’t do that I’m joking).

[satancopilotsmytardis]

I’m curious do you have an estimate for when the next chapter of ACBAON will be published? (I’m so sorry I know I’m being impatient😭)

I totally understand if you don’t but every time you post on tumblr im like omg!? Is this it?! Another chapter! Lmao.

I adore your writing though and I’ve been enjoying everything you’ve been posting so far so thank you for taking the time out of your day to write such lovely stories

I'm glad that you are enjoying that story, but I don't post on a schedule! I did two very large updates to that piece last week, and now I'm working on a variety of other things, including the next chapter of ACB!

My hope is to post something by tomorrow, but not for that fic!

[waitineedaname]

thought I should collect my vague fma/mp100 thoughts here to make it easier to have them all in one place !

basic plot/character stuff

ed and al are both talented young psychics who got their powers when they were pretty young. ed got his powers around the time their dad (a CRAZY powerful psychic) left, and al got his shortly after their mom died :(

they thought they could use their powers to bring their mom back as a spirit, but it went. very bad. instead, an evil spirit took advantage of them and started fucking Eating Their Life Forces. al freaked out and astral projected out of panic, but his entire body was consumed so now he's. stuck like that. ed managed to exorcise the spirit, but not until after his arm and leg are devoured too

their motivation is to get rid of evil spirits that take advantage of people and hurt them like this, which is what takes them to roy mustang's door

roy mustang is a fake psychic pretending to have pyrokinesis (he just has a flamethrower behind his desk) because I think that's funny. he's running an exorcism business like spirits and such, except he has a larger crew -- mostly his friends he can call up to do odd jobs for him, like fixing the leaky pipes that make noises that make people think their house is haunted or whatever. he's also the only exorcism business that's willing to hire a teenager, so that's how the elrics end up working for him

in addition to mustang's crew of non-psychics, he also has hughes, who is tragically a ghost. there is definitely some tragic back story here that I'm still working on hashing out, but they've kind of come to terms about it now. he still haunts his family, who know he's there, and he agrees to help out mustang with Actual Spirit Issues when the elrics are unavailable

the elrics' quest to deal with manipulative evil spirits leads them to encounter the sins, who are all very powerful evil spirits. one of the first ones they deal with is greed, who they mostly exorcise, but he manages to just barely survive, dimple style. he's looking for ways to bring himself back up to full power

enter: ling yao, recently awakened psychic who is also looking for ways to become more powerful. he keeps over-exerting his psychic powers and exhausting himself, which is how the elrics come across him mostly unconscious. he's very excited to meet another esper, but he makes the mistake of asking why al doesn't possess ed, since he knows that can enhance someone's psychic powers. the elrics are both Very Sensitive about that kind of topic and tell him to fuck Right Off

bad idea, because then he goes and finds a spirit of his own. both he and greed approach their mutually beneficial consensual possession situation for self-serving reasons. both of them look at each other and think "yeah I can definitely manipulate this guy into making me more powerful" [fast forward a couple months to when they've become Extremely attached to each other] oopsies

lan fan is a telepath. ling did not know this, so he tried to act soooo normal about being possessed around her. that didn't work for long, jackass! she got so fucking angry with him when she heard a literal devil on his shoulder, and even though ling stopped her from destroying greed, that evil spirit is on THIN ICE.

scar's family was killed in a psychic terrorist incident (think kimblee if he was part of claw). he's one of those really late bloomer espers -- it wasn't until this traumatic event that his psychic powers awoke, and he hates them because of the link to the event. now he's on his vengeance based quest, going after psychics that abuse their powers

things I'm still working out the details for

mustang was involved in some high profile fuck-up. kind of like separation arc reigen except uhhh people Died. hughes was likely one of those people. no one has enough proof to outright prove he did it, but he is definitely linked to the event, especially because he was a pretty public psychic figure at the time. in reality, it was the fault of the sins, but it's harder to find evidence when it was evil spirits doing it

olivier + the rest of briggs are an anti-psychic terrorism government agency (kinda like joseph) and initially scar is one of their targets, but they end up recruiting him bc they have a common goal

eventually scar starts working at spirits and such (olivier's assignment so he can keep an eye on mustang) but he fucking hates it. oh my god I cannot emphasize how much he hates it. imagine reigen serizawa and mob at spirits and such except none of them can stand each other. that's mustang, scar, and ed having to work together.

mei is also a psychic! she kind of latches onto both scar and alphonse (separately) because she needs some help killing someone. they have very different reactions to this.

the someone she's trying to kill is father, a super powerful psychic who's been orchestrating much of the psychic terrorism, as well as directing the sins. he's like if toichiro had a specialty for spirit wrangling like matsuo

miscellaneous au details

ed and al's auras (and al's spirit form) are mostly gold, ed's leaning more coppery and al's more of a green-gold. ed's kind of has the look of fire crackling around him. ling's aura is a blend of red and purple and has a kind of watercolor/bruise look. it's more vibrant and has more purple when greed is possessing him. mei's is mostly pink with some red.

mob psycho spirits range from completely abstract to mostly humanoid and frequently have multiple forms in between. hughes looks mostly humanoid most of the time, but can go simplified and silly when gushing about his family. al has a more powerful form that looks like the full suit of armor but he doesn't like using it very often, so most of the time he's a long blob that's just kind of armor shaped (like when the armor is simplified for silly moments). greed at full power looked like the ultimate shield, after being weakened he looks more like a dimple-like blob that resembles the face in ling's mindscape. when possessing ling and both of them are using their powers, ling gets lines on his face like on the ultimate shield (like dimple's cheek spots!)

other spirits: pride looks how you'd expect. horrible shadow spirit. envy bodysnatches a lot. wrath has been possessing a politician for Literal Decades. it's no good. I'm not sure about the other sins

people's feelings on possession range from the elrics (Fuck No), to hughes and mustang (if necessary to get a job done), to greedling (they like it like this actually)

the rockbells aren't psychics but they live kinda adjacent to the psychic world bc theyre family friends with the elrics + hohenheim, so they know more than most about psychic powers

[smallest-turnip]

hi guys i am pretty bored

[hideyseek]

9.09.2023

its so interesting as im writing narrative!fic the way that each subsequent draft / outline gets me closer and closer to a version of the fic that is ... true to the original conception? like i started gathering notes and ideas for this fic in earnest in ... 2021, like spring/summer 2021 and only today have finally put together an outline that FEELS like i am really, really close.

actually it's not even an outline it is a bunch of bulletpoint freewriting in a google doc that is roughly in the order of the series of events in the fic. i made a note to clean it into an outline later. but ohhh my god i finally!

like its been literally 4 drafts, i am slightly frightened to count how many words of draft material (probably about 60k give or take 15-20k), but THIS outline! i finally have the throughline of haiji's character arc through the fic, i've finally like .... idk. pared it down to the core parts and they magically (throug the power of thinking about this fic near-constantly since 2021) fit together now. THANK FUCK!

i told my old roommate i would send them a completed draft to beta like. two years ago.

i still don't know how this fucking fic ends but i have OPTIONS that probably will all require drafting out and revising before i pick sigh. but ohhhhhhhh my god this has NOT BEEN FUN but it is SO REWARDING to finally fucking hit (for like the third time) the feeling of "oh okay. i figured another thing out about how this story is going to work. it's going to come together now."

admittedly i said that to myself the last several times but THIS TIME I FIGURED OUT THE JOURNALING AND HAIJI'S WHOLE CHARACTER ARC and there is CAUSATION AND EVERYTHING which there sure was not before ahahaha. god this time i figured out the journaling!!!

and yes this is uhhhhhhhhhh an incredibly personal reading of haiji, i truly feel that my irl friends will kind of squint knowingly. but ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh A MILESTONE!

a milestone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[karamazovposting]

I always say I have literary analysis posts in my drafts and I swear I do but I never post them because I don't even finish writing them as I'm not confident in my writing abilities at all so yeah

[fnafawoundleftbleedingau]

Gonna be a while before I think I'll be drawing much beyond some planned doodles I said I'd do to a couple close friends, but... I'm curious, what FNaF AU drawings types from me sound more interesting..?

A random poll yes, but I'm curious, and ngl, I think I'm approaching one of those not so great "Spells" where I'm losing confidence in the things I'm well, supposed to be doing for fun. ^^;

[starswallowingsea]

thinking about rinne playing saxophone with the people who record their backing tracks

[elegyofthemoon]

doc: okay try and call me past this hour and we can talk over the case

me: ok

>tries to call

>the phone number doesnt work

me:

[crescentfool]

after a year of on-and-off playing, i finally finished persona 3 fes (the journey) and it was a very lovely experience! so i thought i’d write a post compiling some of my thoughts about it!

first things first, p3p or p3fes:

i enjoyed fes a LOT but for people who are looking for a smoother game experience and fun social links, i would suggest playing femc’s route on p3p, and then watch the p3 movies to see minato’s journey.

that said, if you feel that 3d models are important to help immerse yourself in the setting and storyline (like me!), i would still recommend playing fes!

and if you are not entirely sure if you want to commit to an 80+ hour long game… the movies are a very good starting point!

where im coming from:

before i actually get into Some of My Thoughts™, a lil’ precursor  i did go into fes with the general gist of p3’s plot (i watched the movies).

p3 fes was the second persona game i played (after p5r), but i have seen a good chunk of gameplay of the other games (p1, p2is, p3p, and p4g).

i can say that playing the game definitely heightened my appreciation for the characters and setting in a way that the movie couldn’t. soufhglkhdf i loved it. 

but anyways. some More Thoughts™ under the cut, mostly just about fes’s gameplay and Some Spoilers!

on the gameplay:

i think that playing fes after p5r was really interesting! i felt that i could see the foundation of what makes up the ‘modernsona’ games. it’s not as streamlined as p5r (no baton passes 💔) but i think it’s still playable (though that might be because i played on easy, lol).

tartarus, i found it… oddly calming? but i understand if people feel it’s repetitive, and not as interesting as the dungeons in p5r. i enjoy that tartarus isn’t as segmented since the story beats didn’t have to be tied to it.

i think the worst part of the gameplay to me was anything to do with the golden hands…. it’s very annoying to get into a battle with them on the map, and once you DO get into a fight they can just run away before you can do anything? so i’m glad that their appearances in p4g are much more fair and feel more rewarding bc i had to abuse so many save states just to hit the fuckers.

in regards to the ai, i think they’re alright unless you’re trying to pull off a more elaborate strategy that isn’t “knock down enemies and all out attack them.” i think the directions that you can give SEES are fairly straightforward but there have been times where their decisions are questionable (no mediaharan or… attacking when the final boss activated their reflect barrier… lol).

i found fes to be tolerable but i do think that sometimes enemy advantage attacks combined with the ai can be rather punishing when party members heal people that aren’t the leader (given the if protag dies = game over). totally not speaking from experience haha what do you mean (volume warning)???

if you’re playing on emulator i highly recommend keeping save states! i used them a lot for hands and the (groans) random skill mutations and. shuffle times. im cheap. i know. but don’t b afraid to make it easier for urself ✨ 

there’s also the new moon difficulty mod for anyone who’s concerned about the game balance, but i haven’t played it myself.

on the characters / story:

i liked sees when watching the movies, but gosh, playing the game really heightened my appreciation for them! especially yukari, i loved her social link and i really enjoyed getting to know her better.

that said. anyone who’s been in the p3 fandom long enough probably has heard that minato’s social links are… lackluster. there are a few good ones (that weren’t SEES) that i really liked- bebe (XIV), mutatsu (XVI), and akinari (XIX)! but all of these are… available in femc’s route and she gets a lot better options. i don’t want to sit through nozomi and kenji’s social links again </3

even if i feel that minato’s SLs are a bit meh, i really appreciate how SEES’s social links are handled and that their development does not hinge on minato DOING things- i think it allows for stronger and more believable character arcs and i loved seeing the different dynamics among the cast!

i think that playing the game and living out each day brings out the inherent strength of the persona calendar system- i really felt a stronger attachment to the characters and their individualized storylines than i did in the movies, which in turn enhanced my enjoyment of the themes portrayed in the narrative. which. i already enjoyed a lot (gestures a lot at ryoji mochizuki who everyone probably knows that he’s my favorite character ever).

if it’s not readily apparent! i really! enjoyed playing FES! im glad i chose it over p3p bc :) i like to look at minato and smile at his silly little animations. but uh. i think that’s all i have to say!

if anyone wants any specific thoughts™ on the characters / gameplay, feel free to leave an ask !!! i would be happy to answer it whenever i have the chance to~

 TL;DR: p3 GOOD i loved it a lot

[sn0wbat]

Einarr, in his very old norse accent: “Bjørn-Sigurd. Bane of the undead.”

“Yeah, you. Mother’s-brother of Morten. You who hates vampires...”

[in actual old norse, barely understandable to the average norwegian] “If you ever touch my children, death shall come for you”

[seekerstone]

yesterday i was literally dragging myself along by my fingertips sobbing the whole time abt how i didn’t want to write and it was too hard & then today had the errant thought that all i had to do to be done with nano was write the remaining 13k

…so i’m sitting at 2k already logged today and i’m planning on writing at LEAST a thousand more words tonight. ideally as many as, say, 4.3k more. just hypothetically. maybe another 6.3k tomorrow to bring my total up to 12.6k in two days. my monthly total up to 50k. who’s to say, really

[eldritchlittleblackdragon]

I miss my obey me fic.

But also I'm having Devil May Cry Thoughts.

But also my Fire Emblem Awakening thoughts are over here.

But then again there's also my new super secret original project that only my friends know about.

hmmmmm

[invisiblerhythmcat]

Day 2 also sucks

And also I had to write up my notes for the appointment and I hate doing that

I honestly don't know why I'm bothering when I know it probably won't do much

[hotmess-exe]

i no longer believe in code-switching. it's never an active decision to do it, but i've come to realize that has never made it any less taxing for me. the only switch i'm bothering with anymore is professional, for obvious reasons. no more switching for the room, the audience, the authority figure, the hypothetical. no more.

i'm too old for that shit!

[real-life-cloud]

hhhhh.