#personal ref

[rustic-space-fiddle]

[She’s been waaaaaaiting, waaaaaaaaaiting~] 🏹 Final Penelope face ref for myself! I’m enjoying how many opportunities for cool noses EPIC just shoves in my face XD

[otherparties]

the latest yearbook video from the f1 channel is actually fascinating in terms of a george russell perception study. yes, all PR is to be taken with a hefty tablespoon of salt, but this whole thing is low-stakes enough that there is no horse in this race for anyone beyond like, some ribbing and some patting on the back. so to take the video seriously, as a kind of semi-accurate sketch of how they think about each other (and themselves):

we start off strong with george winning teacher’s pet by a country mile. there’s consensus among a vast and varied grid group on this: isack, alex, carlos, max, pierre, lance, ollie and oscar. one wonders who each of these drivers conjure as the supposed teacher. the obvious answer is, of course, toto, and it is both possible and plausible that even the non-merc rookies have picked up on that psychosexual dynamic and have Opinions on it (isack smirks like he knows something. like we’re on it with him).

the answer i’m more interested in is that “teacher’s pet” is less about the literal sense of the expression and more about the associative traits abstracted from their context of deference to an identifiable authority. which is to say it’s vibes, but specific vibes. a know-it-all. Involved in Classroom Activities. people pleasing, but possibly, no one is very pleased. obedient, but in that specifically annoying way where a raging superiority complex manifests through strategic submission.

there are things about george, outside of toto wolff, on a pretty varied spectrum of superficial to core characteristics, that fit this persona. it comes up later in the video, but we also all knew: george, in meetings, is the kid raising his hand in class, presumably to ask and answer the questions. and then there’s the GPDA. though george, as a GPDA director with a vocal focus on safer racing is the closest thing to a union leader, this is not something most drivers are fully able to comprehend as a relationship, and that’s including fellow vocal proponents of safer racing, sustainable mechanisms, etc. generational wealth, incredibly stunted amateur socialisation processes and a job that keeps adrenaline levels sky-high means that in a very serious sense, responsibility, especially unpaid, unsexy and voluntary responsibility is something they’re just not that proximal to. GPDA director is then less union leader, more class prefect or head boy, which you only get to be in elite, private schools if you are a teacher’s pet. the GPDA is really the ultimate classroom activity and george is up to his neck in it.

and this stunted relationship is somewhat ironic. the GPDA, and george as its most prominent spokesperson, is pretty constantly in conflict with the actual authority in the sport, the FIA. but a. the specific way george communicates with the FIA/puts his two cents about swearing regulations in the media is not how most drivers conceptualise conflict with authority (because max is the most established and public model of beef with the FIA, and max makes statements in what can only be called a very different way) and b. the FIA is such a mutually agreed upon evil among all the drivers that beef with them doesn’t really count as not bending over for authority. it’s too default, too normie.

(george’s own perspective on all of this is conspicuously absent. the official f1 channel did not include his answer. a patented move of script writers and editors everywhere is to have a bunch of people go, “x person” in response to something and cut to that person either agreeing (funny) or completely disagreeing (double funny). this happens in this video, multiple times, but not for the answer where it would be funniest. which does make me wonder what the hell george said, and how.)

and in some convoluted ways, this thread ties into the “brainiac” question, which is interpreted somewhat differently across the board. lance’s parameter for “brainiac” is “who talks the most in the drivers’ meetings? probably george.” which is different from how the question is explained to alex, “who’s the nerdy one?” and allegedly, alex’s “mind goes to george.” carlos and pierre also say george, without the final cut divulging any further explanation. but re: interpretive difference, max says fernando because he’s the most experienced, esteban says “fernando is very clever” and gabi says carlos “looks quite clever”. so even though george gets 4 votes, and shows up in denim in the yearbook photo, it’s difficult to determine exactly what the votes are for.

but if “talks the most at meetings” and “nerd” is what we have, then the commonality there is not necessarily the perception of intelligence, but rather an identifiable performance of knowledge. george behaves like he knows things, has the information, can make powerpoints with data systematised into readable graphs and flowcharts. but all the drivers who explicitly interpret the question as cleverness, probably most proximal to the kind of brain/intelligence these drivers value having (on-track and off-track ability for strategic thinking) do not go for george. apparently he’s an enthusiastic nerd, but he isn’t clever like that. that’s carlos. definitely fernando. maybe oscar.

both george and oscar take a weird sort of meta route in their answers to this one, where they both assume they’ve got the most votes and try to pre-empt the final cut operating on that assumption. oscar answers himself, and it’s heavily implied that he says it because he agrees with the consensus. george— george says, “i feel like people would say me, but i’m actually not that intelligent.”

which, fair play to george, but i don’t think he won that one because people think he’s intelligent. but there’s a multi-layered tension between perspectives on george russell at work here that’s still interesting. take him at his word (and i will, because the environment at mercedes seems to cultivate a naïveté in george + that contract kind of infantilises him) and operate from there, he thinks he isn’t actually that intelligent. but he thinks enough other people will think that he is for him to have the votes. there does have to be a conscious show george is putting on, then, of whatever he thinks intelligence is. he also thinks this is successfully landing. except, talks too much, and nerd and never very clever. the show is obvious. and there is truth to every performance; it’s believable that even if george isn’t super strategic, isn’t a chess player about races or the paddock, he does put work into the ‘knowing’ being real in all the ways that matter: staying on top of information, having eloquent or at least well-crafted opinions, making sure they’re heard.

the hefty agreement among everyone about “teacher’s pet” and the fragmented, vaguely reluctant agreement among four people on “brainiac” are cut from the same cloth: the awareness of persona. teacher’s pets are annoying because they, intentionally or unintentionally, but always non-consensually, include you as both audience and participant in a scene whose success banks on your relative inferiority. and the scene, in this case, i think, is the performance of intelligence that george believes will win him power points. in a lot of ways, since he was a teenager, george has lacked significant decisive power over his own trajectory.

and these chinks that george finds, or thinks he finds, in the armour around his future compel him to believe that even if he isn’t very “intelligent”, he is the most “resourceful”. but he’s also literally the only person who thinks he’s the posterboy for resourcefulness.

[emdashbitch]

I found out Shang Chi is technically younger than Shuri and just about lost my mind. So here's a list of the new/"younger" characters ages (or an estimate if they don't have a canon birthdate given yet) by Doomsday aka approximately 2029, oldest to youngest:

all info based on what we know as of May 2025

* indicates estimated birth date, no canon given yet

(original age had Blip not happened)

Yelena Belova - 35-36 (40-41) - 1988-89

Bob Reynolds - ? anywhere from 28 to 39 - ~1990-2000*

Shuri - 24-27 (29-32) - ~1996-9

Xu Shang-Chi - 29-30 - 1999

Maya Lopez - 28-30 - 1999-2000

Joaquín Torres - anywhere from 26 to 29 - ~2000-2002*

[absolute youngest possible age in TFATWS/2023 is 21 if the Snap didn't affect process, but could possibly be younger if the armed forces altered their process due to mass shortages post-Snap]

Peter Parker - 23 (28) // Aug 10 2001

Kate Bishop - 26 - Q4 2002

Riri Williams - 24 - 2005

Cassie Lang - 21 - July 2008

Kamala Khan - 19-20 - Q4 2009

Billy & Tommy Maximoff - [ 3-4 - Nov 2013 ] / 18-19 - 2010

T'Challa II - 9-10 - Q4 2018-Q1 2019

[mo-ok]

Shows on the Toku To Watch "Short List":

(shows that i feel a more pressing need to watch sooner rather than later. Realistically everything i've ever heard about is on the list but oh my god oh my fucking god)

Sentai:

Zyuranger

Finish shinkenger

Timeranger

Damn maybe i should finish ninninger

Rider:

Finish den-o

Gotchard

Fourze

Metal heroes:

Solbrain

Speilban

Shaider

Ultra:

See i WANT to watch return of ultraman because i miss Shin Kishida but like... can i watch return of ultraman without watching the stuff before ?????? Like i know i CAN but CAN I ?????

Misc:

Every day i think about watching Bima X

Kikaider 01

I really should get back on the rainbowman bullshit

GIN. SEISHIN. JUSTIRISERS

[alarici]

Published in The Nation, “Square Poem: King” by Nkosi Nkululeko

[offtlme]

tattoo/piercings ref

[bottombillyapologist]

Ok I’m compiling these because I need them too often myself to keep hunting them down

Eddie Munson Tattoos and Vest Refs

The patches visible in this picture are the Iron Maiden patch behind the right pocket, and the Megadeth patch on the bottom hem

From this angle, you can see some of the other patches on his vest (the leviathan cross and the buttons over the left chest pocket, which are Judas Priest, wasp, mercyful fate, and accept)

Not pictured here, but over the opposite pocket there is a Motörhead patch

AND I’ve hit the mobile post photo limit, so I’ll have to continue with a reblog.

[soyouthinkim-skinny]

Reasons I want to lose weight / gain stamina

💗 I want to run!! I want to go running with others in the morning or with a boyfriend and we’re all exercising and I’m not keeping the group back.

💗 I want to look good in swimsuits! Last year was the first time I bought and wore a bikini and I only wore it a few times. When I was with friends I had a shawl wrapped around me constantly because I wasn’t comfortable with my body at all. I can never forget coming out of the pool and immediately scrambling for my shawl because my crush was there and saw my body. I bought a slightly more revealing bikini purely for the purpose of motivation to look good.

💗 I want to take cute photos! Friends always try to take candid photos but if the angle isn’t right I look very big, and then I’m a killjoy because I nag them to delete it. I want fun memories to hold on to in photos but I can’t do that if every photo taken is angled + planned.

💗 Cliché but I want to be easily picked up 🙊 I want to hop on people’s backs for piggy back rides like I used to, and I want my future boyfriend to feel like he can randomly pick me up, hold me, twirl me around.

💗 I want to go on cute hiking dates! Exploration dates! I don’t want to be winded very quickly.

💗 I want to like vegetables! I have no problem with fruit but I definitely want to be the type of person that genuinely enjoys veggies. I’m thankful that after a while of eating something I develop the taste for it, so if I continue to eat healthy I’ll eventually enjoy it.

💗 I want to look good in my friend group. I want to be the fit one. Pretty little waist, skinny legs, big boobs, long hair, clear skin.

💗 I want to one day visit / live in China, and I don’t want to be outcasted because of my weight. I want to be seen as the gorgeous foreigner.

💗 I strongly dislike my double chin. I want it to melt off leaving me with a cute lil side profile.

💗 I want skinny privilege!! I also lowkey (highkey) want to intimidate people with my beauty - which will come along when I’m skinny.

💗 I have always had chubbier cheeks, and I don’t know if that’s because of weight or genetics. If it is genetics I want to be skinny so the cheeks are seen as ‘cute’ and not fat.

💗 Daintier fingers!! Cute rings sometimes make my hands look chunky instead of elegant.

💗 The clothes! I would start buying the cutest shirts and dresses