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miraculouslbcnreactions · 10 months ago

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I’ve always wondered why I’m so harsh on Zoe outside of just her character being used to it’s simplest degree (ie just being a replacement for Chloe) and I think I get it now.

Zoe is a perfect example of the “good/perfect victim”. The writers literally used her to downplay Chloe’s own abuse experiences by saying “See? Here’s a teen who was also abused at school and she turned out to be a sweetheart who’s so much better than Chloe in every way” blatantly ignoring She and Chloe possibly different home lives because Zoe had a different father.

As someone with experiences of toxic home lives I don’t appreciate it when abuse gets undermined especially parental and Zoe being used as a mouthpiece for what I guess can be summed up as abuse apologia made me think so lowly of her as a character.

Thoughts?

I actually just got another ask about my thoughts on Zoe, so I'll schedule this to post the same day since it's topical. In that post, I talked about why she bugs me and it's because she reads like the main character in an escapist self-insert power-fantasy fanfic. Once again, to be extra clear, those types of fanfic are FINE! Power fantasies and escapism are extremely valid things that are popular in professional works, too. For example, they basically dominate isekai and romance stories, but Zoe showcases exactly why characters like this only work as main characters in escapist fantasies. If you try to make them work as a normal side character, they just feel weird. Make them the main character or don't write them. Since she's not the lead, why is she even here?

I didn't consider the perfect victim angle in that other post, but now that you've brought it up, I'm wondering if that was indeed why she was introduced. Is she here to show that someone could have Chloe's mom and still come out to be a good person? The writers do seem really obsessed with that idea as we see from this moment in Derision:

Marinette: (as she goes down the stairs) I just got three more hours of detention on Saturday, and it's all because of Chloé. Rose: Don’t be mad at her. She's this way because her mother left her when she was young. Mylène: So did mine! And you don't see me having fun bullying Marinette. We've got to do something about your pants. I'm afraid they might be ruined for good.

This isn't even why people think that Chloe is the way she is? It's not just because her mother left. It's her father's terrible parenting, her absurd wealth, and the fact that her mother didn't actually leave. Audrey is still very much around, she just ignores Chloe most of the time and insults her on the rare occasions when they're in the same place. That's a recipe for disaster.

Sure, some people are lucky enough to come out being a good person in spite of their messed up home life and those who come out as jerks don't get a free pass to be jerks, but it's not like it's a total shock when bad home lives lead to people being jerks. The bully with a bad home life is a stereotype for a reason.

I'll once again point to The Good Place as an excellent show to watch if you want to see a realistic journey for a Chloe-like character. A journey that acknowledges the struggles that come from a messed up home life without giving the characters a free pass to use that home life as an excuse for their actions. Part of their journey is accepting that they have to stop blaming their parents and take charge of their lives.

Miraculous could have done something similar if it wasn't a formula show. The potential was there. But it is a formula show and the writers apparently don't think that Chloes are capable of change. I get that childhood bullies suck, I had one! I am very happy that she's no longer in my life, but I also don't think that she was incapable of change. She just needed to be put in the right situation where she accepted that change was needed and that never happened when we were kids. Has it happened since then? I don't know! Some people never change, but that doesn't mean that they can't change. Most of us are capable of changing. It just takes the right catalyst and a lot of hard work. People rarely start changing out of nowhere. It almost always has an inciting incident.

That's actually part of why Zoe's story feels so shallow. We're never really told why she was the way she supposedly was pre-canon or what caused her to change into her canon self. This is the backstory we get in Sole Crusher:

Zoé: I'm... really sorry about today. I thought that if I did everything Chloé wanted me to, she'd accept me. I just wanted to meet my family's expectations. Which is why I left New York in the first place. At the boarding school, I was playing a part; being someone else, hoping they'd accept me. But finally, I just couldn't anymore. That's when everyone turned against me, and one day, I found roaches in my locker. They all said I was a loser. Maybe they were right. I get that I'm different, and... I'd understand if you guys didn't want me as a friend.

So Zoe lied about everything and, when she revealed that she was a massive liar, everyone turned against her? Shocking. Why wouldn't they welcome a confirmed liar with open arms? That's so weird! (That was sarcasm.)

Seriously, why are we acting like Zoe was the wronged party here? This is literally Lila's story save for the motivation behind the actions (as far as we know). There are times when motivation matters, but this is not one of them. If you've spent weeks (months? years?) lying to people, then they're not going to trust you when the lies are revealed. Maybe you'll get lucky and someone will be willing to hear you out and give you a second chance, but that's an act of kindness. It's not an act of basic human decency.

This speed run story probably wants us to believe that everyone at Zoe's school was evil and that Zoe had to fake a personality to fit in, but I don't believe that. Writers, if you want me to believe it, then actually show us her story! You had a full New York special to do it! Why didn't you make Zoe the lead there since the specials love to introduce new characters to hog the screen? Have Zoe's school be the American school they go to and have her personality change be caused by Marinette and Co. so that Marinette and Co. trusting Zoe in Sole Crusher actually makes sense instead of feeling like something the plot forced on them! This is the scene I'm talking about, btw:

Marinette: (confused) I don't understand. When I met her this morning, she was so nice. Alya: That's crazy. Chloe's influence is so toxic that she's managed to corrupt her sister in a few hours. Alix: We gotta get her out of there.

Why are you all so sure that Marinette's two-minute-long interaction was the "real" Zoe and that her new personality is all Chloe's fault? Why are you acting like it's impossible to fake being nice but faking being evil is totally reasonable?

It really feels like this show is trying to say that people are either inherently good or inherently evil. Zoe was inherently good and just played at evil, so she's fine, but Chloe is just evil so she's doomed. That is really not how the world works, but now that I think about it, it does match the way the miraculous are often used. There are "evil" and "good" versions of some of the powers instead of just powers that can be used for good or evil. I've never liked that because it makes no sense. Why do akumas need a good form? Why is there an evil transformation phrase? Why do the miraculous even have an evil mode? Who programed that in???

While were on the topic of things that were possibly done just to show that Chloe is evil: is this why they made Jagged Stone an absentee parent to Luka and Juleka and then made the "twins" totally cool with it? Is the show trying to say, "Look! Luka and Juleka are nice! Therefore this is a Chloe problem. Stop blaming her parents!"

Who knows, but your idea certainly has merit. I wouldn't go so far as to claim that this must be what's going on, we don't know and I don't like to treat educated guesses as fact because they're not, but the text certainly has evidence to back this read.

#red-balloon12 #ml writing critical #ml writing salt #Zoe salt

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violetfractal · 24 days ago

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All of my work is inspired first by the work of John Conway. He pioneered the study of cellular automata, which are the tools I use to draw my fractals. A cellular automaton is a network of cells in which each cell processes its own output, so all computation is done locally. The global properties of a cellular automaton are all emergent properties.

Conway’s game of life is played on a 2D grid that iterates in discrete steps. At each step each cell decides its new value by considering its previous value and the previous values of the 8 cells immediately adjacent. If exactly 3 adjacent cells had value 1, the cell’s new value becomes 1. If 2 adjacent cells had value 1 and the cell’s old value is 1, it stays 1. Otherwise the cell’s value becomes 0.

It’s a tradition for me to code Conway’s game of life in each new programming language I learn - like Hello World part II. So this was spreadsheet was overdue! I implemented it in two formulas:

BM2=IF(OR(SUM(A1,A2,A3,B3,C3,C2,C1,B1)=3,AND(SUM(A1,A2,A3,B3,C3,C2,C1,B1)=2,B2=1)),1,0)

to play the game on sequential 63x64 grids and

A131=INDIRECT(“R”&SUM(ROW(A131),-64*2,-1)&“C”&SUM(COLUMN(A131),756*2),0)

to wrap the output to my window.

The game of life is Turing-Complete. (You can run Doom on it.) How wonderful that simple rules can produce such complex behavior!

[Image ID: Four images. Each image shows Conway’s game of life being played in an excel window. The background of the window is black. Small patterns of living cells are lit up in white. There are 84 iterations visible in a 12 by 7 grid.

The first image shows iterations of an initial condition called “r-pentomino”. In the seventh row of frames a glider forms and flies away.

The second image shows an oscillating configuration with period 15 called pentadecathlon.

I tried to input a configuration called die hard that lasts an optimum 130 stages. But I misplaced one of the seven cells. The third and fourth images show the 128 stages my input survived before going extinct. The bottom half of the second image is empty. /.End ID]

read about r-pentomino et al on wikipedia

#msexcelfractal #my art #reruns #fractal #cellular automata #math #042 Conway Tribute

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redfacedpalindrome · 2 months ago

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every day i wonder: why, after starting to follow formula one, did i gravitate so immediately to ferrari? to being an idealistic, devoted, romantic, head-over-fucking-heels deluded tifosa?

then i remember that in my second year of college i wrote an essay about the medical field where i said:

"Excellence is something that is hard to live up to, even when morality isn’t involved. In medicine, excellence is everything that could exist: it’s equally technical, intellectual, and discipline-based while also being moral, ethical, and humanistic. Excellence in medicine is ideally both goodness and greatness, and just one of those is difficult enough. Realizing that it’s hard, that it’s probably impossible, is necessary. But to decide it is not worth trying on that basis alone is overly practical and defeatist in its own way."

"We have been given an education that makes us just a little hopeful that we can both do good and be great despite everything we know to be true. We are idealistic that we can make a change on some level, grand or small – and perhaps we are tilting at windmills. I find the worst case summed up by the quote Osler cites from Rabbi Ben Ezra: “what I aspired to be, and was not, comforts me”.

and i fear that the delusion and the idealism did not come from ferrari – i zeroed in on ferrari like a fucking homing pigeon because of the delusion and the idealism. i love to dedicate myself to an impossible uphill climb.

#saw charles standing like a greek tragic hero and was like sign me the fuck up right now #formula one #formula 1 #f1 #charles leclerc #ferrari #cl16 #forza ferrari #f1 2025 #some may call it quixotic

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ducktoonsfanart · 3 months ago

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Scrooge McDuck as Julius Caesar and the March Ides and Donald Duck as an ancient Greek mathematician (Pythagoras and Archimedes) and Pi Day - Fearsome Four (Bushroot, Liquidator, Quackerjack and Megavolt) from Darkwing Duck and March and April holidays - Duck comics, Darkwing Duck and Duckverse - My style

Even though I'm late and don't arrive on time, I still decided to draw something related to the international days that are celebrated during March and early April. So I drew a few drawings related to that. The first drawing I drew shows Donald and Scrooge dressed from the classical period (the time of ancient Greece and ancient Rome) related to March 14th and 15th, or according to the ancient Romans, the days of the Ides of March. Ides, or in Latin Idus, means the middle of the month, and on that March 15th in 44 BC, before the birth of Christ, a terrible event occurred in the then Roman Republic when corrupt senators led by Brutus and Cassius killed the Roman dictator and leader Gaius Julius Caesar, which put the Roman state in danger and a new civil war. In the end, the senators who killed Caesar were punished and after more than 15 years, the civil war ended with the victory of Caesar's grandson-nephew Octavian Augustus, who declared himself emperor, and Rome became the capital of the Roman Empire. Scrooge McDuck is here as Gaius Julius Caesar and it's part of my Duckverse in History, luckily he wasn't killed, but he got a lot of knives in his salad like Caesar's salad. By the way, Caesar's salad was only created in 1924, named after the Italian chef Caesar Cardini who worked at Caesar's restaurant in Tijuana, Mexico, so it has nothing to do with Gaius Julius Caesar, but that's how a meme related to it was created. You can imagine Scrooge's reaction to that. "Beware of the Ides of March!" By the way, if you are more interested in Scrooge as Caesar, look here:

Donald Duck is here as an ancient Greek mathematician like Pythagoras who gave the Pythagorean theorem regarding a triangle and how it is calculated. "The sum of the areas of the two squares on the legs (a and b) equals the area of the square on the hypotenuse (c)." You can see the given formula in the drawing. By the way, Pythagoras is one of the greatest mathematicians of all time and lived in the 6th century BC and came from the Greek island of Samos. He was an excellent geometer and was a lover of music, and he also founded a secret order related to that. More precisely, I was inspired by the cartoon "Donald in Mathmagic Land" from 1959 in which Donald goes to the land of mathematics and then goes back in time to Ancient Greece and meets Pythagoras and becomes a member of his society. March 14th is the International Day of Mathematics because of the infinite number Pi, which is a Greek letter in their alphabet and is often used in mathematics and physics. "It is defined as the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle or as the ratio of the area of a circle to the square over its radius." The number is actually 3.14159…It is also called Archimedes' constant by the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes from the third century BC who lived in Syracuse, now Sicily. The number Pi was introduced there by William Jones and popularized by Leonard Euler in the 18th century. On that March 14th, 1879, physicist Albert Einstein was born, so that day is also celebrated as Einstein's Day. That's why I drew Donald wearing ancient Greek clothes with the letter Pi on his T-shirt, and wearing a green laurel wreath.

The other two drawings are related to Darkwing Duck, or rather the villainous team of the Fearsome Four consisting of Bushroot, Liquidator, Megavolt and Quackerjack, certainly a great team and I drew them also related to international days. Dr. Reginald Bushroot wears a Leprechaun hat and a four-leaf clover, which also marks St. Patrick's Day, which is celebrated on March 17. Bud Flud (Flood), or Liquidator, presents his product of bottled plastic water, which marks International Water Day, which is celebrated on March 22. Water is certainly important to us, and plants and water definitely go together. And finally, Quackerjack and Megavolt together while Quackerjack holds a toy tooth that winds up, and they mark International April Fool's Day, which is celebrated on April 1. I haven't drawn them in a long time, and they deserve it so I drew them, and they are also one of my favorite characters.

I hope you like these drawings and that you like these characters, especially from Darkwing Duck and that you like these ideas, and feel free to like and reblog this, just please don't copy this without mentioning me and without my permission. Thank you! And I apologize for the long post. Also happy holidays celebrating this that I tagged.

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heliads · 2 years ago

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i've got my money on things going badly

Lance Stroll should be delighted to watch his sister get married, but the only heart he's thinking about is his own. The one Fernando Alonso broke.

masterlist

To Lance, weddings are a kind of performance art. He’s gotten somewhat good at them ever since he was younger, when the Strolls were invited to everything. His father would get caught up in knots of expensive men wearing expensive suits, lost in business talks for hours, but Lance could slip away the second someone blinked, go find his sister disguised in a coat closet somewhere and talk about Pokémon or cable TV or something little kids like best.

Now his sister is the one getting married, and, enfolded into someone else’s party of groomsmen, Lance has absolutely no chance of hiding, excessively large coat closets of the elite be damned. He likes Scotty, really he does, even went to the trouble of presenting him to Chloe as a potential husband in the first place, but ceremonies are always long and Lance, as per usual, is tired of it.

He should be good. He should like this. Weddings are wonderful ceremonies. You can appreciate them for the expensive decorations and myriad artistic decisions that go into them, if not the fact that they’re basically just one extended celebration dedicated to the love of your close friends and family.

Lance is here for his sister and her future happiness with her recently declared husband. This should be an excellent day, and it has been, along with the rest of the wedding festivities that have been going on for ages, but now that the sun has set and he’s still here, starch-stiff in his dress suit, wishing he could go but knowing he can’t.

It’s not even the wedding’s fault, really, it’s just that Lance can’t stand spending so long thinking about the bliss of someone else’s love when he’s just lost one of his own. His sister is twirling in a white dress, a woman who hasn’t stopped smiling in hours, and Lance is standing in the shadows of this rosy glory with just one name on his mind.

Fernando Alonso.

It’s foolish, what this has done to him. Lance waved goodbye to Seb last year and told himself that he could look forward to another good relationship with another world championship teammate. Fernando would be challenging but rewarding as another Aston Martin driver, or so the motorsport gossip pages had told him.

What no one counted on was just how Fernando would make Lance feel. Not even Lance can do a good job of that, not really. There are no words in English or Spanish or even half-and-half lighthearted Spanglish that can sum up how Lance’s ribs ache like they’ve been bruised from sentences alone.

He had not meant to love Fernando; hell, he wasn’t even sure he did until the abrupt ending, but now Lance is choking on the words he never got to say and wondering how he’s meant to pick up the pieces of a heart that was only ever Fernando’s to break. Lance was supposed to stay professional, and he didn’t, and now he’s the one suffering for it. So it goes.

It didn’t take much, actually. Four months to fall. One month to break. Now he’s standing alone in the corner of his sister’s wedding, hoping for an escape that doesn’t seem willing to come his way. He’d been stupid, thought he could take too much, but is that really his fault for trying? All his life, he’s been told that he could be anything, do anything, have anything, and now he’s found that limit and it hurts like hell.

It’s not like anyone told him that the meter on Stroll luck and expectation would fall short when it came to one Spanish two time world championship winner. Well, that’s not true. Esteban had tried. Lance had not listened. He cannot even say for sure that he should have, because Lance had been very happy up until the point when he wasn’t.

It almost makes sense that the whole affair was conducted over such a short period of time. Lance is impatient, he likes doing things fast. It’s why he was able to become a Formula One driver. It’s why he set his sights on the man most likely to break his heart and cut the brakes before either of them could back out of it.

And it was just. Fuck. Hands on shoulders on the backs of necks on waists. How Fernando kept whispering in his ear, so close he could feel the other man’s breath hot on his neck, even though/just because it made Lance h— they were on camera the whole time. It didn’t matter. They wanted what they wanted and they got it, too.

Or, Lance had thought they had got what they wanted, and then he had dared to ask for a label for the unspoken thing he was sure both of them felt, and everything was lost for good. It was the end of the Miami race weekend, and Fernando was drunk on the glory of another podium, happy enough that Lance felt certain that he could have the conversation he wanted without it going sour.

They had been hanging around one of their driver’s rooms– which one, Lance can never tell, they kept swapping door to door until even the labeled placards felt like a joke of hospitality’s courtesy. Sprawled out on a couch, so close that Lance couldn’t stop staring at how their legs kept touching whenever he breathed too hard, he’d felt absolutely crazy with the knowledge that this was his.

Too much of a good thing can make you foolish, convince you that things will be that good forever. Lance had laughed to himself, then turned to Fernando with a grin. “We’ll still be like this next season, right?”

Fernando had given him this look as if he were being intentionally difficult. “Yes, Lance. My contract will not expire for another season. I will be on the grid.”

Lance had shaken his head. “No, duh, I mean like, hanging out like we are now. You know, like us.”

Lance doubts he could have packed more meaning into that one syllable if he tried. He’s heard Fernando refer to the unbreakable us before too many times to count, like when they’re coming back from a bar late and Fernando, eyes dark and heavy, promised him they’d have fun like that again, just us. Or, scoffing at the other driver lineups– they’re not us, you know. They don’t get along as well. One hand on Lance’s shoulder, fingers digging into muscle, the others could never get along as well.

Fernando had cocked his head to the side, curious. “What do you mean? We’re teammates.”

Lance had rolled his eyes. “Yeah, obviously, but like, there’s more. You know that.”

The space between them went silent. He should have taken that as his first warning sign if nothing else. Fernando had cleared his throat carefully and said, “What else would there be?”

Lance can still imagine the cold feeling that had descended upon him, spreading from the back of his throat like ink. What else would there be? It was impossible that he could have misread every single signal, every touch, every unspoken word. Unless, of course, the hidden meaning he dedicated so much time to channeling had never been there at all.

Lance had waved his hand vaguely. “But we were– you know, we did. Things.”

Fernando’s expression was impossible to read. “Did we?”

It was condescending and pitying and Lance hated it, all of it. He felt like a boy again, small enough to watch his voice disappear into the stillness of an uncaring room. He’d shot up from the couch, pushing out the door and away before anything else could happen. If anything had happened at all, or if it would, that is. Apparently, Lance has made a habit of picturing things that didn’t fucking exist.

Now he’s left spiraling like he survived a bad breakup, but you can’t have a breakup if there was never so much as a spark in the first place. It’s impossible that Fernando could have missed it all. Impossible, that Lance could have simply invented it. He knows what he felt, he knows what Fernando did, but none of it was worthy of a single word of acknowledgement from the other half of two seemingly perfect parts.

He wants to scream and throw up and put his phone down for longer than ten minutes at a time. There are many, many things that Lance had wanted to tell Fernando, and it’s only now starting to occur to him that he’ll never get the chance. I wanted to transform. For you. I wanted to be good. You made me want to be better.

It’s foolish for him to be thinking of things like this. Lance is a young man. He’s got time for his heart to grow up and even out. Maybe in a decade or less, he’ll meet some perfectly nice young woman, someone his father would approve of, someone with country club connections that won’t rival his own (who can) but could at least keep up with the game. They’d have a manicured front lawn and two docile children, including a son to keep up the Stroll legacy. It would be normal, it would not break his heart like this. It would be very dependable.

Lance doesn’t want dependable, though, he knows it as he thinks it. He wants wild, unpredictable, insane things like falling in love with your teammate and letting him convince you that he’d settle down for you. Lance wants to be the reason someone so used to choosing themselves chooses you instead. He wants Fernando, and he wants no one else.

This is a difficult thing to think about at a wedding. Across the crowded event hall, he can see his sister, happy and secure in the knowledge that her husband is hers, legally and emotionally. There are scores of couples smiling up at each other, content that their love is theirs and no one else’s.

Lance stands alone, tapping his foot to the beat so he doesn’t look like a complete loser. Every time someone looks over at him, he wants to shout that he’s fine, actually, this is fine, he doesn’t need someone the way that everyone else seems to, but they glance away again before he can properly vocalize this.

The DJ spins another song, the beat drops and the dance floor shakes appropriately from a hundred stomping feet, and just when Lance is certain that he wants to give up and really tries in earnest to look for somewhere to go, the crowd parts and Lance sees him.

Fernando. Here. Impossible. Yet that’s still a glint of hickory eyes he’d know anywhere, even distorted by swimming shades of party lights. Lance feels physically immobile as the man who cannot possibly be his teammate skirts couples and friend groups, and then they’re standing in front of each other and even though this cannot be, it is, and this is the first time Lance has seen him since the argument.

Lance stares at Fernando, jaw dropped comically. He has the harebrained thought that he’s glad the only camera nearby is the one in the hands of Chloe’s Vogue-ordered photographer; if this was the paddock, he’d probably end up as yet another stupid reaction image, giffed into oblivion until not even Lance can recognize his face when he sees it again.

If this was the paddock, seeing Fernando wouldn’t be such a surprise. If this was the paddock, Lance would not feel the absurd urge to run, because Fernando would already be gone, separated by an impenetrable wall of PR officers and personal trainers and anyone else he could shove in between the two of them.

Instead, they’re in one of the rare quiet patches in the wedding reception hall, and Lance is watching Fernando watch him, and slowly, deliberately, Lance forces his mouth to shut enough to ask, “How did you get in here?”

Fernando chuckles, teeth flashing in the uneven lighting of the dark hall. Lance has taken to ranking his teammate’s grins on a sliding scale from closed lips to a shark’s predatory display. This one is somewhere in the middle, hovering between quiet and pleased. Maybe even real.

“I bribed Daniel to get me past the door,” he says.

Lance casts an outraged look across the dancefloor until he catches the Australian attempting to foxtrot with Scotty. They should both be at least passable at it, but both men keep trying to lead, then follow, then lead again, endless cycles of not-quite-right.

Daniel somehow feels Lance looking– twitchy, isn’t he, has been all day– catches sight of Fernando standing in front of him, and grins apologetically. Bastard. If Lance gets him for grid Secret Santa, if Daniel manages to make it back onto the grid before December, he’ll have to actually try this time. Lance might owe him big for this.

The DJ starts a new number, cueing flashing lights that cascade from the blinding storm on the dance floor to faint rays out here where the two of them linger in the shadows, occasional flashlight beams sent out to catch them.

Lance swallows hard, watches the LEDs dye Fernando’s hair with undertones of Renault yellow, Ferrari red, Aston Martin green. If he were in the mood to be honest, Lance would admit that he’s been looking at Fernando for a while, actually. Not just since Fernando joined his team, before that, too. Long before they were teammates, when Lance first started racing in Formula One and he was eighteen and Fernando was thirty-five, a fact that makes him shiver down to his toes every time he thinks of it, which is– more often than it should be, for certain.

Now that the issue has been solved of how Fernando managed to get past the security guards Chloe swore were unnecessary and Lawrence swore he wouldn’t hire, plus the overeager wedding planners and racing fans stuck outside the gates with iPhone cameras, Lance pivots to a new question, one far more important.

“Why are you here?” Lance asks cautiously.

He knows what he wants to hear, of course, but he can’t let himself get his hopes up just for them to be dashed yet again. This is not his wedding, of course. Fernando could be here to corner some Aston Martin engineers or strategists if they won’t return his midnight calls. He could even be here for Danny, which would explain why the Australian went to the trouble of letting him in, and he’s just stopping by Lance because he got caught while trying to get drinks.

That thought makes Lance’s stomach twist in angry knots, and he’s only calmed from saying or doing something rash by Fernando’s following words, quiet in the dark but full of a lasting power.

“For you, Lance,” he says, “I came for you.”

God. Lance has spent the whole day witnessing lavish displays of affection, but for some reason it is seven simple words that makes him come undone. He stands there, stock still, and Fernando asks hesitantly, “Is that okay?”

It reminds Lance of how it had been before everything went south, when they were both dancing around a truth both ugly and glorious, that teammates do not stare like they did, that coworkers should not use getting drunk at an Aston Martin post-race celebration party as an excuse to keep their hands on each other, that Fernando didn’t keep interrupting Lance’s interviews to place his hands on Lance’s shoulders and whisper in his ear that he was Fernando’s hero just to get Lance to react like he always did. Not something he was supposed to do on camera, but neither of them could stop.

It is like the very beginning. Fernando, infiltrating Lance’s garage to lean down over the edge of the halo of Lance’s test drive and grip his gloved hands. How’s the car? Fernando, stopping by Lance’s driver’s room to hug him around the shoulders, cold and damp from the champagne that was still soaked through his race suit. I saw you out there. It was good, no? We are good? Fernando, with his hand on Lance’s leg when they’re supposed to be paying attention in a dry and stilted meeting with no one’s eyes on them for once. Can I? Is it alright?

Lance never said no. Even when his breath caught in his throat. Even when he knew he was just sinking further into a pit he would never be able to escape. The falling was the best part, anyway.

“Fine,” he says at last, “Dance with me, then. If you want to talk, we dance. I’m sick of being a wallflower anyway.”

He raises an eyebrow impetuously, daring Fernando to make the next move. If Fernando’s actually serious about being here for Lance, he won’t mind this. He won’t mind the chance that someone could see them together and start to speculate. If Lance is anything other than a backroom missed connection, they should be able to dance without worrying.

Fernando nods once, accepting his challenge. He places one hand on Lance’s waist, the other on his waiting hand. His grip is strong, but not agonizing. Just a reminder that Lance will not be able to leave easily, not unless Fernando is satisfied that the situation has been handled as he planned.

Here, locked in the vise of another man’s arms, Lance thinks about how deeply he’s let himself get enthralled in Fernando’s way of doing things. He likes pretending that he’s the one in control, that Fernando is here to win him over, but the second Fernando’s hands are on him, Lance cedes that last bit of power over to him. Fernando does it easily, like a habit. It probably is.

Esteban warned him about this, after all, how easy it is to get sucked in. Lance, however, does not mind Fernando’s trap in the slightest. The rabbit must learn to love the snare. The bird likes its cage when the gilded bars keep it safe.

“I was thinking,” Fernando begins.

“Always a good start,” Lance quips.

The hand on Lance’s waist tightens momentarily, a warning. Lance kind of wants to mouth off some more to see what the resulting action would be.

“I was thinking,” Fernando repeats, “that I may have gotten something wrong. I did not want to rush you, Lance. We have a lot of time. Being hasty can cost you.”

Unwillingly, Lance’s mind flashes to driver’s meetings, planning sessions with his engineer. Being a driver is knowing the difference between when to push and when to plan. Fernando may have spent a lot of time guarding his pace, but Lance gets the feeling he’s finally ready to go for the trophy, the fastest lap. To sprint and never look back.

“I don’t want you as just a teammate,” Fernando continues. “I had not realized you thought we were past that. It would have sped things along, I think, if I had.”

“I thought we had plenty of time,” Lance comments.

“We do,” Fernando says smoothly. “But that does not mean I want to push this off any more if I don’t have to.”

“This?” Lance asks, feeling like he’s parodying that fateful conversation from so long ago, “And what’s this?”

Fernando meets his gaze coolly, calmly, and then he smiles and changes everything. Night brown eyes go caramel. “We have something better than anyone else, Lance. I do not want to lose it.”

There’s a sharp, triumphant streak in those words. Fernando Alonso has always been on a different level from everyone else. Hearing that he considers Lance on that distinct pedestal as well– it makes Lance lean into his touch a little more, and the last of his guard drops away.

“Why’d you tell me differently earlier, then?” He can’t help but ask. “You could have said you wanted me then.”

Fernando sighs, looks away. “I didn’t know I wanted it then. I didn’t count on how it would feel to lose you. I know now. I don’t want to feel it again.”

Across the room, they’re starting to cheer and shout from the center of the dance floor. It takes Lance a few moments to realize that the applause isn’t for the two of them but for the newlyweds, Chloe and Scotty, who are leading the group in an exuberant rendition of I Wanna Dance with Somebody. Lance thinks that it wouldn’t be entirely unfounded for the cheering to be for him, though. He feels like celebrating now.

And, when he looks back, Fernando’s lips are on his. Lance stumbles a little, and Fernando’s hand slides up his spine to catch him before he loses balance. It’s easy. It’s victorious. Lance never wants to let him go.

Fernando’s breath is hot against his throat, sending Lance into a feverish spiral. “I’ll see you in Monaco,” he whispers, and then he’s pulling away.

Lance watches him leave, but for once, it’s not a sad feeling. Instead, the emotion currently crashing through Lance’s bones is more one of anticipation. This is not the end, just the beginning. Fernando turns once, smiling at him before disappearing in a crush of people. Lance’s chest feels cold where Fernando’s hands had once been, but his heart’s racing enough to make up for the lost heat.

A voice by his shoulder; his sister, who has somehow fought her way through the crowd of well-wishers to find him. “Was that your teammate?” She asks, frowning.

Lance gazes softly at the place that had once been his. “Yeah, it was.”

Chloe tilts her head to the side with a frown, considering this. “Is something going on there?”

“Yes,” Lance answers her. Chloe looks like she wants far more of a response than just that, but Lance just laughs and helps her back to the dance floor. He will have plenty more days to explain it to her. After all, Fernando was right. They do have plenty of time.

f1 tag list: @j-brielmalfoy, @juphey

all tags list: @wordsarelife

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radiantresume · 2 months ago

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Top 20 IF Formulas in Excel – A Complete Guide

Excel’s IF function is the backbone of decision-making formulas, allowing users to automate calculations and streamline data analysis. Whether you’re a beginner or advanced Excel user, knowing how to use the IF function in various combinations is essential. In this guide, we’ll explore the Top 20 IF Formulas that can significantly improve your Excel workflow. From basic comparisons to complex…

#Excel AVERAGE #Excel conditional formulas #Excel formulas #Excel formulas for beginners #Excel IF function #Excel IF with VLOOKUP #Excel logic functions #Excel SUM #Excel tips #Excel tutorial #IF formula examples #nested IF Excel #Radiant Resume #RadiantResume

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youzicha · 1 year ago

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My wife was complaining about the Google share price reacting so strongly to the announcement about dividends... like, shouldn't the investors have long-term vision? What about the cool ideas and the culture of excellence?

Maybe we can quantify how much vision they ought to have. Like, the textbook formula is (stock price) = (sum of discounted dividends). The current interest rates are something like 6%. And Σ(1/1.06ⁿ) = 7 for n=1..10, and 16 for n=1..a gazillion. So like, about half the value comes from dividends in the next 10 years, and a sixteenth (6%) from the next year. And the share price moved by 16%, which I guess is indeed the right order of magnitude for a short-term change.

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kyndaris · 3 months ago

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Fake It Til You Make It

It's with a heavy heart that I admit, once again, I have yet to finish off Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth at time of writing up this post. While I'm certain the ending is not far off, there's a plethora of side activities demanding my attention including the likes of Queen's Blood and secondary quests. Oh, and competing in the Musclehead Coliseum at the Gold Saucer. But I'm certain my next post will most assuredly be all about our Gaslight, Gatekeep and Girlboss queen: Sephiroth!

Honestly, if the world of Gaia actually had an Employee Assistance Program and a slew of therapists at their beck and call, I'm a hundred percent certain Sephiroth would not be able to so easily manipulate main protagonist Cloud Strife into doing his bidding.

Of course, that's a blog for another day!

Speaking of therapy, though, I'm certain I'd be perfect picture of a client who is intellectualises many of my problems and is quite self-aware of the glaring issues I need to address. Unfortunately, knowing what I need to do is a lot easier than actually putting in the effort. Take, for example, the very real impostor syndrome I felt when I'd been offered a chance to act up at my work place.

The anxiety bubbling in my stomach, the spiralling thoughts...

This was, despite the fact, I'd grown bored with my role and was actively looking for something a little bit more challenging. I think a part of it was because the supervisor for the new team, when he called me, had glanced through my resume and had pinpointed several aspects he thought beneficial to the role I'd be taking up. Namely, Microsoft Excel.

Of course, I'd tried to dissuade him of his assumptions. After all, for most of my working life, Excel has simply been a means of inputting data. There is no sorting, no freeze rowing or actually pivot tabling of the information at hand. That is reserved for another member of our team. One who eat, sleeps and breathes spreadsheets.

I just know how to do basic functions. Like filtering or creating new columns.

Using something like vlookup, though? No. No way. Not in my wheelhouse. Heck, any formula besides sum and a few other simple functions are way out of my scope. I wouldn't know the first thing about them. At all.

And yet, here I was, being trusted to assist with an important report and finally use my brain to critically analyse the information that would go in it, noting any important trends that may have cropped up. Wasn't this something I'd wanted to do since I'd got my degree in Social Science? Yes, the quantitative data before me wasn't entirely related to criminology, but it was a start.

I think part of it comes from being a gifted child when I was younger. One who attended school with other gifted children. Growing up was not easy when everyone else was just as intelligent, if not more so, than you. Coupled with my mother's expectations to be more perfect, is it any wonder I came away from it saddled with crippling self-doubt and low self-esteem?

While failure is a great fear I've harboured for many a long while, it seems passingly strange that it doesn't always carry over into everything I do. Take video games, for example. In many a game, especially platformers, I've often had to retry levels multiple times to get past it. Each time, of course, learning what I did wrong and how I might improve. Yes, sometimes I'd be convinced it was the game's fault and not mine, but I'd persist.

And if persistence didn't pay off after a significant period, I knew I could always lower the difficulty.

Failing in real life, however, is a different ordeal. Or so it feels.

While I know each failure I commit won't lead to the heat-death of the universe, and that it's a learning experience, I find it hard to accept I may not always be good at something from the onset. After all, theoretical principles, once explained, are understandable to an extent. And if I'm following an instructor, doing as he does during special targeted training with minimal requests for help, it must mean I innately know the content. Right?

Well, no. Because training in a closed and guided environment doesn't always translate to the exterior world. Take for example, driving a car. Let it be known, dear reader, I failed my driving test twice before finally passing my third go.

It was this very reason that I found problematic when it came to my degree at university. Sure, we used the programs available for the students, but there was a distinct lack of focus for the wider applications for the knowledge I was attaining. There was no course for extrapolating information from an Excel database. Qualitative data was nigh impossible to assess for the end-of-term project unless the responses were individually sifted through. And none of what I was doing seemed to reflect the kind of work I'd face in a professional setting.

Quite frankly, it was a bit of a mess.

Fast forward to the current day and I'm all but drowning my fear that I'll mess up and make a fool of myself. Even as I know I'm a quick learner and could pick up the skills after a few tries.

But in the back of my mind, the doubt remains. The harsh inner critic telling me I'll never be enough. That the people around me will judge me for not immediately knowing what needs to be done and how. Even though I know they'd only have picked me out of the gods-know-how-many other candidates who had also thrown their hat into the ring (maybe it was one. Maybe it was two. Or perhaps it was a neat hundred. One can only dream, right? Like winning the lotto?)

And maybe it's also the reason why I struggle with finding love. Sometimes I wonder if part of the reason why I can't seem to connect with anyone is actually a form of self-sabotage. My own self-hatred getting in the way of me creating a lasting connection with the strangers I meet. Then again...it could be just that many of the people I've met haven't really wowed me or met my stringent standards.

What I do know is that the person I have a crush on?

I'm scared they might reject me if I were to find a quiet time to tell them of my feelings. Yes, my friend (who is their cousin) has told me that there might be a sort of reciprocity (or, at least, they seem to attend events if they know I might be there), it's still a little hard for me to know with absolute certainty it'll end merrily.

Still, I suppose that's the risk of life.

There is no certainty. No control over the will of others.

The act of being vulnerable sets one up to being hurt.

To failing.

To being unmasked as the impostor one is.

But it's only by embracing that very thing, and putting oneself out of their comfort zone, that we can grow. I don't know what the future will bring but I have told myself that after my mother comes back from overseas and I'm no longer stressed about caring for my elderly grandmother, I should, at least, try for the possibility of happiness. Whether that be a new career path or even finding myself a possible life partner.

For now, I'll have to settle for proving to myself how much of an asset I can be to my new team. And if I struggle a little bit, that's good. Because it means I've finally come up against a challenge. Something I've been looking for since my previous role has led to a lot of stagnation in what I actually want to achieve (not that I have a lot of ambitions when it came to the work place - please, can a publisher just reach out and offer me a contract to write books? I swear I can write something people of all ages would enjoy!).

So here's to pretending I know exactly how Microsoft Excel works and looking at endless spreadsheets for the next six months! Huzzah!

#personal blog #excel #spreadsheets #the work life #corporate drone #insecurity #self-esteem issues #low self worth #perfectionism #gifted kid problems

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skullchicken · 1 year ago

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How to optimize your tabletop character with minimal headache

This is a tool for building and equipping ttrpg-characters. It might be helpful for people like me who struggle with weighing options intuitively and easily start to feel like they accidentally built their character to be less interesting or effective than other characters at the table.

1. decide on the category you want to comb through

It can be skills to put points into, gear, feats/talent options, whatever. For my example I picked magical items.

2. make a table

First column: name of The Thing (e.g. weapon, item, skill...). Write down all of the instances of The Thing that you want to compare.

Second column: joy - this will denote how much joy it sparks in your heart to have/be able to use The Thing, without taking into consideration how sensible it would be.

Third column: RP - this will denote how well The Thing fits your character concept, be it from an aesthetic point of view, because it fits into your character's backstory, whatever.

Fourth column: practical - this will represent how often you assume you will be able to use The Thing in-game.

Fifth column: effective - this will represent whether this is the best way to achieve whatever The Thing is good for or whether there's better options.

Sixth column: score - this one calculates the end result.

The table then might look something like this:

3. add numbers

Now score each item in each category (joy, RP, practical, effective) from 1-3

1 = not really / no

2 = okay/ it's alright / so-so

3 = yeah!

e.g. I'm playing an orc paladin and I'm checking which of the items I should get for her. She grew up in the city and she aspires to be a knight in shining armor.

Item: Lighter (a magical stone that can make fire).

Doesn't really spark joy, so that's a 1.

Fits her character concept so-so, since she would have had little reason to get one before the adventure starts and she's not very outdoorsy, that's a 2.

Pretty practical, I can imagine it becoming relevant in almost any adventure, so that's a 3.

Finally it's not very effective, because in the setting we're playing, we have many choices for how to make a fire and, most importantly, we'll have an elemental mage in our group, you can snap a fire into existence anytime he likes, so that's a 1 again.

Count it all together and the score comes up to 7/12.

I repeat the scoring until the table looks like this:

Which means that from all the options listed, I would be best advised to get a large light quartz, followed by the lighter.

The closer to 12, the higher in priority it is, the closer to 3, the more easily I can discount bothering to get it at all.

4. notes and acknowledgements

What I like about this system is that it allows me to split a big and hard decision into many small and easy ones, so if I score diligently, I'll arrive at a sensible result that's not just min-maxed, but also takes rule of cool and roleplaying into account.

It might also help with "character build envy" because you didn't overlook any options and made sure to consider everything to the best of your ability. So I hope it's helpful to someone else out there.

... or you might look at this and have the same reaction one of my buddies had, which was:

"you put a number on joy???"

Either way, thanks for reading ^^

If you use excel or libre office calc, you can use a formula to automatically calculate the score, which would be

=SUM([first cell with a number]:[last cell with a number])

e.g.

=SUM(B2:E2)

which would automatically add together every number from B2 to E2. Alternatively you can just select the cells and it should show you the result in the down right corner.

#tabletop #ttrpg #ttrpg community #dungeons and dragons #earthdawn #shadowrun #the dark eye #blades in the dark #vampire the masquerade

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dailyanarchistposts · 1 year ago

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Chapter VIII. Of the Responsibility of Man and Of God, Under the Law of Contradiction, Or a Solution of the Problem of Providence.

THE ancients blamed human nature for the presence of evil in the world.

Christian theology has only embroidered this theme in its own fashion; and, as that theology sums up the whole religious period extending from the origin of society to our own time, it may be said that the dogma of original sin, having in its favor the assent of the human race, acquires by that very fact the highest degree of probability.

So, according to all the testimony of ancient wisdom, each people defending its own institutions as excellent and glorifying them, it is not to religions, or to governments, or to traditional customs accredited by the respect of generations, that the cause of evil must be traced, but rather to a primitive perversion, to a sort of congenital malice in the will of man. As to the question how a being could have perverted and corrupted itself originally, the ancients avoided that difficulty by fables: Eve’s apple and Pandora’s box have remained celebrated among their symbolic solutions.

Not only, then, had antiquity posited in its myths the question of the origin of evil; it had solved it by another myth, in unhesitatingly affirming the criminality ab ovo of our race.

Modern philosophers have erected against the Christian dogma a dogma no less obscure, — that of the depravity of society. Man is born good, cries Rousseau, in his peremptory style; but society — that is, the forms and institutions of society — depraves him. In such terms was formulated the paradox, or, better, the protest, of the philosopher of Geneva.

Now, it is evident that this idea is only the ancient hypothesis turned about. The ancients accused the individual man; Rousseau accuses the collective man: at bottom, it is always the same proposition, an absurd proposition.

Nevertheless, in spite of the fundamental identity of the principle, Rousseau’s formula, precisely because it was an opposition, was a step forward; consequently it was welcomed with enthusiasm, and it became the signal of a reaction full of contradictions and absurdities. Singular thing! it is to the anathema launched by the author of “Emile” against society that modern socialism is to be traced.

For the last seventy or eighty years the principle of social perversion has been exploited and popularized by various sectarians, who, while copying Rousseau, reject with all their might the anti-social philosophy of that writer, without perceiving that, by the very fact that they aspire to reform society, they are as unsocial or unsociable as he. It is a curious spectacle to see these pseudo-innovators, condemning after Jean Jacques monarchy, democracy, property, communism, thine and mine, monopoly, wages, police, taxation, luxury, commerce, money, in a word, all that constitutes society and without which society is inconceivable, and then accusing this same Jean Jacques of misanthropy and paralogism, because, after having seen the emptiness of all utopias, at the same time that he pointed out the antagonism of civilization, he sternly concluded against society, though recognizing that without society there is no humanity.

I advise those who, on the strength of what slanderers and plagiarists say, imagine that Rousseau embraced his theory only from a vain love of eccentricity, to read “Emile” and the “Social Contract” once more. That admirable dialectician was led to deny society from the standpoint of justice, although he was forced to admit it as necessary; just as we, who believe in an indefinite progress, do not cease to deny, as normal and definitive, the existing state of society. Only, whereas Rousseau, by a political combination and an educational system of his own, tried to bring man nearer to what he called nature, and what seemed to him the ideal society, we, instructed in a profounder school, say that the task of society is to continually solve its antinomies, — a matter of which Rousseau could have had no idea. Thus, apart from the now abandoned system of the “Social Contract,” and so far as criticism alone is concerned, socialism, whatever it may say, is still in the same position as Rousseau, forced to reform society incessantly, — that is, to perpetually deny it.

Rousseau, in short, simply declared in a summary and definitive manner what the socialists repeat in detail and at every moment of progress, — namely, that social order is imperfect, always lacking something. Rousseau’s error does not, can not lie in this negation of society: it consists, as we shall show, in his failure to follow his argument to the end and deny at once society, man, and God.

However that may be, the theory of man’s innocence, corresponding to that of the depravity of society, has at last got the upper hand. The immense majority of socialists — Saint-Simon, Owen, Fourier, and their disciples; communists, democrats, progressives of all sorts — have solemnly repudiated the Christian myth of the fall to substitute there for the system of an aberration on the part of society. And, as most of these sectarians, in spite of their flagrant impiety, were still too religious, too pious, to finish the work of Jean Jacques and trace back to God the responsibility for evil, they have found a way of deducing from the hypothesis of God the dogma of the native goodness of man, and have begun to fulminate against society in the finest fashion.

The theoretical and practical consequences of this reaction were that, evil — that is, the effect of internal and external struggle — being abnormal and transitory, penal and repressive institutions are likewise transitory; that in man there is no native vice, but that his environment has depraved his inclinations; that civilization has been mistaken as to its own tendencies; that constraint is immoral, that our passions are holy; that enjoyment is holy and should be sought after like virtue itself, because God, who caused us to desire it, is holy. And, the women coming to the aid of the eloquence of the philosophers, a deluge of anti-restrictive protests has fallen, quasi de vulva erumpens, to make use of a comparison from the Holy Scriptures, upon the wonder-stricken public.

The writings of this school are recognizable by their evangelical style, their melancholy theism, and, above all, their enigmatical dialectics.

“They blame human nature,” says M. Louis Blanc, “for almost all our evils; the blame should be laid upon the vicious character of social institutions. Look around you: how many talents misplaced, and CONSEQUENTLY depraved! How many activities have become turbulent for want of having found their legitimate and natural object! They force our passions to traverse an impure medium; is it at all surprising that they become altered? Place a healthy man in a pestilent atmosphere, and he will inhale death.... Civilization has taken a wrong road,... and to say that it could not have been otherwise is to lose the right to talk of equity, of morality, of progress; it is to lose the right to talk of God. Providence disappears to give place to the grossest fatalism.”

The name of God recurs forty times, and always to no purpose, in M. Blanc’s “Organization of Labor,” which I quote from preference, because in my view it represents advanced democratic opinion better than any other work, and because I like to do it honor by refuting it.

Thus, while socialism, aided by extreme democracy, deifies man by denying the dogma of the fall, and consequently dethrones God, henceforth useless to the perfection of his creature, this same socialism, through mental cowardice, falls back upon the affirmation of Providence, and that at the very moment when it denies the providential authority of history.

And as nothing stands such chance of success among men as contradiction, the idea of a religion of pleasure, renewed from Epicurus during an eclipse of public reason, has been taken as an inspiration of the national genius; it is this that distinguishes the new theists from the Catholics, against whom the former have inveighed so loudly during the last two years only out of rivalry in fanaticism. It is the fashion today to speak of God on all occasions and to declaim against the pope; to invoke Providence and to scoff at the Church. Thank God! we are not atheists, said “La Reforme” one day; all the more, it might have added by way of increasing its absurdity, we are not Christians. The word has gone forth to every one who holds a pen to bamboozle the people, and the first article of the new faith is that an infinitely good God has created man as good as himself; which does not prevent man, under the eye of God, from becoming wicked in a detestable society.

Nevertheless it is plain, in spite of these semblances of religion, we might even say these desires for it, that the quarrel between socialism and Christian tradition, between man and society, must end by a denial of Divinity. Social reason is not distinguishable by us from absolute Reason, which is no other than God himself, and to deny society in its past phases is to deny Providence, is to deny God.

Thus, then, we are placed between two negations, two contradictory affirmations: one which, by the voice of entire antiquity, setting aside as out of the question society and God which it represents, finds in man alone the principle of evil; another which, protesting in the name of free, intelligent, and progressive man, throws back upon social infirmity and, by a necessary consequence, upon the creative and inspiring genius of society all the disturbances of the universe.

Now, as the anomalies of social order and the oppression of individual liberties arise principally from the play of economic contradictions, we have to inquire, in view of the data which we have brought to light:

1. Whether fate, whose circle surrounds us, exercises a control over our liberty so imperious and compulsory that infractions of the law, committed under the dominion of antinomies, cease to be imputable to us? And, if not, whence arises this culpability peculiar to man?

2. Whether the hypothetical being, utterly good, omnipotent, omniscient, to whom faith attributes the supreme direction of human agitations, has not himself failed society at the moment of danger? And, if so, to explain this insufficiency of Divinity.

In short, we are to find out whether man is God, whether God himself is God, or whether, to attain the fullness of intelligence and liberty, we must search for a superior cause.

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ethanhuntfemmefatale · 2 years ago

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Okay give us the TC movie ranking, and know Punct and I will be taking notes

Also have you seen Collateral yet bc yooooooooooooooooo

I have not I need to see it!!!! I might make another ranking once I’ve seen more of his films cause the list isn’t That long rn. There are so many of his movies on my to-watch list

So far of his movies I have seen: all the MI films, Edge of Tomorrow, The Firm, Risky Business, Oblivion, Jerry Maguire, Top Gun, and Top Gun Maverick. For those films, my ranking is below (top to bottom):

1. Mission: Impossible (specifically 1,5,6,7 but I’m partial to 2 and he does great acting in 3 and 4 so I’m just gonna put the whole franchise at the top for simplicity’s sake. This is my least objective ranking cause I love this fucking franchise) I just think MI is neat. I think TC has had a chance to do something really unusual with Ethan Hunt and I really fucking love it. The movies are excellent action films but they also just consistently feel personal and well crafted and thoughtful. Love this franchise so fucking much

2. Risky Business—honestly I can’t say enough good things about this movie. It’s emotionally complex and emotionally unusual and hurts to watch in a cathartic way that sticks with you. This might be some of TC’s best acting although there’s also just a very particular awkwardness and vulnerability to the role that he doesn’t usually get to portray in his later films. I don’t want to be the guy that says his best acting was when he was young, and I don’t think that’s true, but his acting was definitely fucking spectacular when he was young

3. Top Gun: Maverick. TC is beyond excellent in this movie. He holds up most of the main emotional threads (gonna say something blasphemous to TGM fans here but when I watched it I felt like the only actor who truly kept pace with him was Val Kilmer in their one scene together.) it’s a testament to him that the movie is as strong as it is. And it is really strong!!

4. Edge of Tomorrow—this is a personal thing for me I could see the Firm being ranked over EOT but I like EOT better. Bottom line for me if I had to choose one of them to watch I would choose EOT every time. TC is so great and expressive and funny in it and Emily Blunt is just epic as Rita and even though I have some issues with it they’re pretty nitpicky. I like that it’s a very genre-standard movie that has its own ideas, and there are some really interesting moments where the movie Does Something that’s surprising and emotional and doesn’t just follow the formula. But it’s also just entertaining. I feel like it’s more than the sum of its parts and I loved it more than I expected to. It’s the kind of movie that I can’t help engaging with when I watch, which wasn’t the case with the Firm, I felt like I had to “buy in”

5. Top Gun—yes I know I just said firm could be ranked above EOT. I also feel like it could be ranked above Top Gun cause I do think Firm is a more well done film. I expected to like Top Gun more than I did…but the things I did like about it hit me hard and left an impression. What I really liked about it was literally just Mav and Goose. Goose is the fucking center of the movie and Mav works as a character because of his relationship with Goose. The scenes with them got to me hard, shout-out to “you’re the only family I’ve got,” gotta be one of my favorite crying wailing moments. This might be controversial but I didn’t like Charlie and that weakened the film for me

6. The Firm—pros of this movie, Jeanne Tripplehorn. She’s stunning in it. I love TC and he does good work here but he never gets to her level. Cons, the suspense didn’t totally hit (although I know people who thought it totally did so that might be me) and the emotional beats didn’t really impact me they just landed and I thought oh that’s interesting. I never went rabid which for me is a necessity to recommend a movie highly, although it’s a personal thing and isn’t based on movie quality

7. Oblivion—I am actively angry at this movie because it has so much potential and it does not work. I would 10/10 watch it again to yell at the screen and go apeshit over the scenes that hit and be filled with disappointment and rage and shut my laptop feeling deeply unsatisfied and highly emotionally affected. It’s a solid watch, the aesthetic sense is amazing (I would give it all up for TC in white leather) and it’s very entertaining. What I loved about it was that it had these striking and unexpected emotional beats. And then just when I felt invested it would shapeshift into a standard schlocky sci fi action film. To the point of undermining and sacrificing all the emotion it already set up. And in the end you come out of it having seen something that feels emotional and tense and thoughtful and meaningful—like 50% of the time—but completely falls apart thematically when faced with a stiff breeze. There are parts of this movie that literally haunt me. And there are parts of this movie that are just bog-standard, amateurish. And I’m so mad about it. This is the kind of movie that makes you plot out The Secret Good Version in your head at 2 am (guess what I was doing at 2 am last night)

8. Jerry Maguire—I HATE putting this movie here!! Because I know (/know of) two people whose lives were directly impacted by seeing this movie, one of whom became the concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic after seeing this movie, and I watched it years ago and it was my first experience with TC and I wanted to like it so badly. And I just didn’t. It did not work for me. I would really like to see it again to see if it works better now that I’m. Was I even a legal adult back then? God knows. Passage of time is a mindfuck. Anyway I don’t actually believe this is the worst of these movies I just didn’t connect with it for some reason and I might see it again in case that changes on rewatch

#arc I am hugging you….thank you so much for the ask #tc posting #also just a side note this list has 14 films on it and only one of them I had seen before I watched MI1 and fell in love with movies #before that I would watch maybe a couple movies a year #everybody stand for tom cruise etc

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