#this is my contribution to The Bit

[song-of-the-spheres]

okay, I’ve been sitting on this take for a couple days because I feel like I’m probably going to get hate mail over it but here goes.

I think Goncharov is overrated.

Now, before Tumblr tars and feathers me, let me say that I don’t think Goncharov is a BAD movie; I’m not even saying that I dislike it. There are some things about it that are excellent: every single actor gives it their all (especially the brilliant Cybill Shepherd), and the bridge scene is genuinely devastating. I remember seeing it in film class in college, and the entire room was dead silent for several minutes after the end--no small feat for a class full of squirrelly freshmen!

but there are a couple things that, imo, hold it back from being truly great.

The dialogue is deliberately, almost artificially philosophical, which, fine, it’s a stylistic choice that could work, but it doesn’t match the general tone or cinematography, which feels grittier and more down-to-earth. You could say that the contrast is the point, but I’d argue that it actually works against the movie in that it verges into presenting us archetypes rather than characters sometimes. For example, “We are birds, my dear, and each feather in our wings one more broken promise,” is a good line, but it’s not something you say after six glasses of cognac in negotiations with your rival. It always holds us at a remove, making us acutely aware we’re watching a construct rather than immersing us in the characters’ lives.

Also, characters will just...disappear. We never see what happens to Mario; Ice Pick Joe vanishes for forty-five minutes and then his murder is revealed in a blnk-and-you’ll-miss it line during Katya and Goncharov’s argument in the Sicilian cafe; and poor Valery gets about half an hour of screen time (kind of a waste of Gene Hackman) before he’s only ever alluded to for the rest of the film with vague mentions of what he’s up to. (Honestly, I think the theory that he dies at the same time as Ice Pick Joe has some merit, but there’s not a whole lot to support it directly.)

And this is going to sound crazy, but I think, as good as the actors are, De Niro and Keitel should have switched roles? I know “wistful pining” isn’t usually the sort of role De Niro is known for, but god, imagine.

idk, maybe I’m just salty because Goncharov gets so much acclaim for its themes of the inevitability of time and your downfall being inextricably linked to those you’re closest to when Marco Ferreri explored those same themes a full two years earlier (and to better effect, imo) in Postcards from a December Wedding, and was way bolder regarding the homerotic undertones and resultant tragedy (that shower scene still makes me cry every time).

anyway, now I’ve got that off my chest. Am I missing something? I think Goncharov is a good movie, just not the masterpiece everyone’s been making it out to be.

[yaoisquidbob]

serious gaming

[zodoods]

just don’t think about how they changed for the better and how they went back hand in hand ready use the hope they’ve found to make a difference and how they were the bad timeline but now in every universe they’re not letting evil triumph don’t think about any of it and how they’re fated for each other in every timeline . etc

[hyacinthsdiamonds]

I'm sorry but the irony of Nico calling Max unprofessional is sending me so bad like sir there's an entire garage full of people, who were literally in the trenches trying to survive the Brocedes fallout while just doing their jobs, who might have a few things to say about your (& Lewis') level of professionalism at that time 😭✋️

[treibholz-des-universums]

more incorrect one piece

[melonalemonade]

happy pride month 🤩

[northstarscowboyhat]

Can't help but imagine that in the Lucky Clover AU, if Frisk were to manage to sneak away and end up befriending Undyne and the skelebros whilst everyone in the Dunes is probably having a panic attack (maybe Flowey caused a distraction or something, like some scaffolding collapsing causing everyone to focus on figuring out how that happened, giving Frisk the ability to sneak away), by the time Martlet finds them they've already managed to make the Underground a bit safer for at least themself.

Doesn't stop them from being grounded though-

That's exactly the plot set up I had in mind for this AU!

Even though Frisk is under very strict rules by Clover to not leave the Dunes without them, Frisk is constantly wandering off (perhaps influenced by a certain someone...) and exploring the other parts of the Underground. This is how Frisk eventually meets Papyrus, Sans, Undyne, Alphys, and others! And yes, Frisk is always grounded by Clover once they're eventually found and brought home. Doesn't stop them from sneaking out again, though. Clover is getting a taste of their own medicine trying to control this kid LOL.

[ominouspuff]

Victory (smile, we’re on TV)

REQUESTS / BLOG EVENT

Request from @gaeasun - Palette #2 - Dogma, Tup - Slice of Life

Winning the bake-off by a landslide is prime brotherly-bonding and a test of one’s prowess in chemical warfare of the best and tastiest kinds.

Thank you for requesting, @gaeasun , this one was a delight to draw!

[unfortunatelyilikebnha]

Thinking about the KaeyaJeanDiluc friendship where they grew up together and they were CLOSE & sure maybe Jean felt like Diluc & Kaeya were closer since they were brothers & sure maybe Kaeya felt like he had to keep secrets from the two of them bc they would never understand but they were like. A trio! A team!

& then Diluc’s 18th birthday comes around and everything goes to shit and Diluc LEAVES so they’re no longer KaeyaJeanDiluc but just Kaeya & Jean & in some ways Kaeya and Jean get closer because of it but there’s also a pronounced DISTANCE where Jean doesn’t know how to reach Kaeya anymore & Kaeya is even more determined not to tell Jean anything & they both lose themselves in their duties to Mondstadt while also missing Diluc and ALSO, despite everything, offering each other unconditional support

& then Diluc comes BACK & in addition to Kaeya & Jean there’s the shaky reestablishment of Jean & Diluc and Diluc & Kaeya but it’s not THE SAME. they’re no longer KaeyaJeanDiluc; Jean & Kaeya are knights and Diluc will never be a knight again & they all changed while Diluc was away & none of them know how to talk to each other anymore AND YET there’s still an undercurrent of trust!! Not fully, especially between Kaeya & Diluc, but Diluc still calls on Jean during the archon quest, trusting that she will keep their secrets even though as the acting grandmaster she should probably not. Jean says in her about Diluc voiceline that she understands why Diluc hates the knights & is working hard to make them an organization he can trust again. Kaeya covers for Diluc’s darknight hero escapades & fondly reminisces about their childhood in front of him. Diluc invited Kaeya to dinner at the winery & (afaik) never told anyone about Kaeya’s origins. Kaeya tells the traveler that they need to give Jean their full support and planned a birthday party for her. Jean left Kaeya in charge of Mondstadt when she went to the golden apple archipelago! On some level they recognize that their goals still align!! There’s still trust and love there but there’s also this gap between them that none of them know how to cross and I just!!!

[akakumoeteru]

This is the piece I contributed to 華胥之國, a private DragonFox anthology I was invited to. You can see the other participant works by browsing this hashtag on Twitter or visiting the project account here!

[brain-usurped-by-bug]

"Smoke Break" Digital Art. September 2024.

[axel-ambassador]

~I'll be good~

[manicpanda-art]

just a 10-min sketch i did in a call

[ifindus]

My piece for the @hws-anthology ! ✨

[jula483]

no photoshop needed 😅

[chaoticlandworlder]

Legit so disgusting how so many ppl are jumping at the chance to criticise Max. In the past few days, I've seen so many social media comments calling him names like 'brat', 'manchild', 'immature' etc. + belittling his racing skills.

So many ppl are also completely spinning their own narrative, acting as if Max is the only driver to ever be heated up during a high-adrenaline race. According to them, Schumi, Senna, Lewis etc. have never lost their cool and always take the blame for every single incident. (Note: this is NOT a hate post ok- any driver examples I use is just to show the hypocrisy of these ppl. I mentioned these drivers cuz it's based off genuine comments I saw.)

First of all, Max had every reason to be upset during the race. The major Hungary updates RBR had been hinting at for weeks underwhelmed (don't give me the 'it's still fast anyway'- this is F1. Every driver and team expects their car to be the fastest, not just fast. If you don't understand that, you don't get the point of F1- an engineering competition. Also RBR has been struggling with the same kerbs issue since 2022.), with Max struggling with various issues during the race.

Additionally, the strategy was not great; Max gave the 1st pitstop decision a pass, but then they repeated it for the 2nd pitstop. RBR was hoping that the tyre delta would salvage the race but c'mon, Christian Horner admitted after the race that they got the data wrong and miscalculated how fast they needed to gap the others cars per lap to overtake. From Max's pov, RBR repeated the mistake of the 1st pitstop, allowing him to be undercut again, by both Lewis and Charles, dropping him back to 5th when he started 3rd, on a track known to be hard to overtake. Furthermore, this race was more a race of undercutting than actual on-track overtakes; one prominent example that showed the power of the undercut in this race was Lando, who was stuck behind Oscar for the vast majority of the race. Yet once they undercut Oscar, Lando ended up 3s+ ahead of Oscar, with the gap increasing to ~5s+ as the laps went on, with Oscar unable to catch up. To make matters worse, Max had told the team that undercutting was impt BEFORE the race. Finally, I love GP (Max's race engineer) but honestly they were just antagonising each other during the race. The most obvious example was the sarcastic remark of 'some gentle introduction' after Max did a fast outlap so that he could catch Charles and Lewis, which just made Max even more frustrated. After which, there was literally radio silence for 15 mins, no communication of modes, gaps etc. Max himself mentioned after the race that it did not help that instead of being a calming presence, they (presumably RBR, including GP) did not listen to him and even argued with him. So this mixture of the team not listening to him, repeating the same mistake twice, underwhelming upgrades and poor communication on the radio contributed to Max frustrations in the car. (Oh but according to crofty (sky sports) it's cuz Max did not get his beauty sleep despite Max having followed his standard sleep schedule. Because sleep outranks good strategy and the best car in F1. 🤡 Kids these days and their simracing.)

Could Max have been more polite? Ideally, ig. But GP too was confrontational when he should have been trying to resolve the issues with Max. Was Max wrong in terms of calling out the strat? No. Also, it's so easy for ppl to judge, lazing on their couch. This is a high adrenaline sport for goodness sake, with millions of dollars on the line and millions of people watching their every move. Randos get pissed off at a slow moving vehicle on a normal road; imagine how it would be to be a racing driver going at ~200mph, with the expectations of the team, fans etc. weighing down on you.

Some are arguing that Red Bull generally does well so Max has no right to be upset. Lol. Idk how ppl don't get it into their heads that this is a SPORT. In every sport, any top performing athelete and team knows that every single match/race/point etc matters. You're not there to say "Oh we've won in the past so let's just throw away some games". You're always there to deliver your best. With this kinda logic, Lewis should also have no right to be upset/disappointed with Mercedes cuz didn't they deliver him a championship winning car for years? Idk lmao this particular line of logic is so weird.

I've also seen so many people saying things along the lines of "Max always complains", "Max can't win without the car"- a really weird one considering one only has to look at the recent races to debunk that, "Max blames everything on the team" etc. Be so fr literally every driver 'complains'. A notable case was Austria 2023, where Toto had to come on the race to tell Lewis to 'just drive the car' because he kept going on about it in multiple races last year. Most of the time they're just giving feedback. When they're genuinely 'complaining', it's often cuz they've been screwed over by their own team. See some cases just in this race alone: Alex on the indecisive tyre choice by Williams, Daniel on the screwed up strat by by VCARB. Max wasn't even wrong about the strat. The comment that 'Max blames everything on the team/ When everything goes well it's him, when it doesn't it's the team' is so laughable because if there is one driver on the grid that is consistent in thanking his team and rarely himself, it's Max. You literally just have to see the previous race, Silverstone 2024 where he could've easily said him making all the right calls to pit was essential to getting P2 in the end. Instead, he gave the credit to the team. He's also quick to apologise when he's in the wrong. See Spa quali 2023 after his outburst in Q2. Or when he bought ice cream for GP a few years back to apologise. Also idk where ppl get the idea Max treats his team like shit? Time and time again, people who worked with him have mentioned how they love working with him. For this particular weekend, he literally treated the team to dinner the night before the race but these ppl will never talk about that. What's said on the radio is in the heat of the moment, which ALL the drivers have done. And Max wasn't wrong either; maybe ideally he would have conveyed it nicer, but again, they're all pumped up on adrenaline.

As for the incident, it wasn't even that bad? It looked bad cuz the wheels touched, making Max's car fly up + cuz it was btwn Max and Lewis, certain 'fans' immediately jumped into their hate frenzy. Idk I find it so weird that people keep harping on about it when Lewis said immediately after the race that it was a racing incident. (Those clowns trying to liken Max to Alonso in Austria 2024 need to rewatch the collisions instead of looking at static pictures is all I can say lol cuz Alonso's was straight up a T-bone while Max-Lewis was a wheel bang.) And anyway, ALL drivers get into incidents no matter their accomplishments (Lewis in Monza 2023, Charles hitting Lando in fp this year, Carlos-Oscar in Miami 2024 etc.). The narrative that Max gets into incidents more than the other drivers is just untrue. In fact, this brings me to my next point. The moment Max is half of any incident, regardless of whether he is at fault, so many scumbags immediately completely trash him like a bunch of rabid dogs. For example, Max-George last year at Las Vegas 2023, where Max was not at fault at ALL; George even admitted he wasn't looking in his mirrors. Or Lap 1 Turn 1 of that same race, where ppl to this day are shitting on Max for 'pushing' Charles off-track- when there was literally an oil spill on his grid spot before the race, making that side slippery despite efforts to clean it up, with others like Alonso and Carlos spinning at the same point Max 'pushed' Charles. His onboard then even showed he tried to steer in but the car didn't budge. Besides, he got a penalty that slowed him down a lot (when Lap 1 Turn 1 incidents don't usually get a penalty- idk how ppl can think the FIA favours him lmfao- and no matter what the haters who prob didn't even watch the race said; serving the penalty in the pitstop dropped Max much further back than just swapping positions would have) AND he apologised to Charles right after the race (but noooo he never takes the blame).

The hate ppl have for Max (and tbh, some other drivers) is honestly quite alarming and weird. Like, these grownass ppl are hating on a 26 year old at the top of his game lol. It doesn't help that the media (especially the British media) feeds, if not started, this hatred frenzy. Just see Austria this year, where the media and 'fans' completely blew the incident between Max and Lando out of the water, only for multiple current and ex F1 drivers to call them out on their bs lmao. Again, for Austria 2024, Lando and Max spoke after the race too. But it doesn't fit their narrative so these ppl will never bother to mention this.

Slight tangent but for ppl who try to justify it by saying 'oh it's how it is cuz Max is dominating'- I understand where yall are coming from (see Seb 2013 lol), but the hatred for Max is particulary overwhelming because there are much more fans now, mainly due to DTS and consequently, F1 becoming popular/more popular on social media platforms like TikTok, Twitter etc. As such, Max is arguably facing higher levels of vitrol, since DTS didn't exactly favour him (understatement of the year lol) and many fans who 'watch' F1 through social media just jump on the hate bandwagon without actually watching races/fact-checking. This is worsened by how the media (mainly the Brit media) jumps at every opportunity to put Max down. Sky Sports in particular, being the main broadcast for most fans, often feeds this hate (esp if David Croft or Ted Kravitz is speaking). Finally, all this is only worsened by how social media allows this hate to circulate much more quickly and widely.

lol sry for the rant but gosh it gets tiring seeing the toxicity of so many F1 'fans'.