this video is somehow my vital energy. i come back to it regularly to remember what it is to be alive.
charles "i was so impressed with him in 2019 that he must have found me weird" leclerc doesn't know what to do when sebastian "sexy angel with a moustache" vettel approachs him for the post pole photo.
if he was afraid seb would think he was weird, i think he was acting a bit... weird. seb is so lovely there noticing it. look at his smile like who says "come here, i don't bite" 😭 and charlo just smiles so happily after it, quite relieved tbh.
this not enough we have these pics:
why didn't charles hug lewis too? 😭 it's giving the brazilian meme "my mom has two arms, but she used them both to hug my brother"
i love dnd..i love playing heavy utility/support/backfield and i love having three to six attacks in a turn and an insane ac. at heart im a support player ill get my hands on whatever we're missing in a group
5. Three songs you wish you could forget (because listening to them hurts)
Pretty much the entire La La Land track list cause I certainly watched the movie at the wrong time in my life and hated how it ended for personal reasons. It was so unfair 😩
Another sad movie the ending of which I was expecting but damn. I stopped watching sad movies. Chest pains over fiction are not worth it hah
These songs have painful or sad associations, but I don't know if I would want to forget them, as I often view painful memories as important reminders that I have lived.
I know the song Superman (It's Not Easy) by Five for Fighting is like metaphorically comparing the struggles of the narrator with that of Superman - being a figure who's expected to be seen as invincible and infallible, heavily implied to be like a new parent who wants to give their kid everything, but having struggles and anxieties that they wrestle with to provide that illusion and fill that mythical role. Yes, I am an immovable rock who will never shatter - but men weren't meant to fly with clouds between their knees. I'm more than a bird, I'm more than a plane. Even heroes have the right to bleed.
But it works so well because it's such a great portrait of Superman himself. He too is only a man. He dreams. He's bold and heroic and fantastic, but he understands the frailty of human life and he knows that he's just one guy trying his best. He's just as much the man in the song as he is the figure who the figure is comparing himself to.
He does a lot of good, but he's still Clark Kent, the man who reminisces fondly about his deceased dad. He's Clark Kent, the guy who gets along with Lois Lane and who would take both halves of the world and hold them together under the sheer magnitude of his strength if it were falling apart around her. Now, he could probably physically do that - but it's the weight of how he feels about her that matters. It's something he shares with all of us at our most idyllic selves, with the fantastical element of actually being able to make good on his promise if he needs to - but he's still Clark Kent, the man. He still worries, and regardless of his supernatural ability to help them if he absolutely needs to, he still fiercely wants the people he loves to be okay.
Everything that makes Superman special is - for the last labored lyrical reference in this Tumblr post - the special things he's looking for inside of himself. He works as the impossible figure of a hero that a person might always strive to meet, to keep his family happy and comfortable and safe while keeping up the facade, but CLARK KENT IS ALSO THE GUY. HE'S A GUY. HE'S GOT A HEART PUMPING BLOOD AND EVERYTHING THAT'S AWESOME ABOUT YOU AND ME.
So like the song is a great case study of a man trying to live up to impossible standards and become infallible, which is fallacious and impossible by the narrator's own admission due to the human flaws that are screaming to come out against his efforts to be that sort of figure, but it's an outstanding case study of Superman as the man and the myth. The pretty face beside a train and the guy who acknowledges that men like him aren't meant to fly above the clouds.
And the weight to which I feel that this song exemplifies the duality of Superman so well is only exacerbated by the 10+ years of "what if someone killed Lois Lane and Superman became a fascist", or "what if Superman actually wasn't Superman but was actually Casual Murder Is Okay Man because real people would actually Commit Mass Murder if they were Superman", in almost every significant cultural depiction of Superman.
Like yeah, Evil Superman is a cool concept. But that's all he is to most people nowadays. If Evil Superman existed, who's SO MUCH COOLER and MORE INTERESTING than 1950's NUCLEAR FAMILY BOYSCOUT SUPERMAN, how would BATMAN have to KILL HIM????? Would he drop a KRYPTONITE MOON on him?????? It feels like that's all anyone says or feels about Superman any more.
So like, the song Superman (It's Not Easy) by Five for Fighting maybe isn't meant to be a commentary on the duality of Superman. Superman is explicitly a reference point, the narrator compares his efforts and struggles with the huge feats that Superman accomplishes despite the very human doubts and shortcomings that comes with being a guy in uncharted water who's just trying to do his best - but it's not explicitly "the guy is Clark Kent". It's just a metaphor for this regular-ass dude to vent his insecurities about being a supportive figure despite his insecurities. The comparison is invited, but it's not Literally a song about Clark Kent's relationship between himself and his persona of Superman. I'd even say that this is explicitly not the case.
But viewing it as being a comment on the duality of Superman, it's still one of the most cohesive and straightforward depictions of the guy in the last 20-ish years. It is a superb fucking song.
cw canonical character death, angst-ish, animal death
Martyn goes back, sometimes. To Dogwarts. It’s on a dead world, now – serverless. The hostbeast’s moved on to other things, carrying other worlds. New ones. Ones where Rendog is just Ren, and where Grian doesn’t love Scar (says he doesn’t love Scar), and where the Red Banner doesn’t fly. But it’s still accessible, with the right tricks. If you know the right paths.
There’s not many things special about Martyn. He’s not like Scott; like Grian; like Etho. Not like most of the others who’d lived here, if he’s being honest. They were all special. He is not.
But he’s always had a knack for world-hopping.
His feet crunch through the frost on the grass as he walks. He’s not sure if it’s the seasons, or the death of the world, or something else, but it’s always cold here when he visits. Never snowing, but always crusted in creeping frost, always whitish and pristine and– hollow. That strange kind of empty-quiet you get, right before the snow-heavy storm clouds let loose.
Red Winter is coming, Ren had said. The Red King had said. Maybe he’d known – maybe it had been a prophecy. Maybe he hadn’t. Either way, he’d handed Martyn an axe of the same name, pressed it heavy into Martyn’s hands, and–
Here. the altar. Here, the grass, long and lush beneath the frost, as though fertilised. Here, beneath the ice, something rich-red and blackish, frozen solid in the cracks between the stones.
Martyn sighs, and shoves his chilled hands in his pockets. His breath crystallises in the air.
“Hey,” he says, and feels stupid, like he always does. It’s a fool’s errand, what he does here, and he knows it. He’s not sure why he keeps coming back. Sentimentality, maybe. “It’s, uh. Me again. I’m back! Haha.”
The self-conscious laughter echoes, strangely, against the stones and ruined walls. It only half-sounds like his own.
“Brought you something,” he says, when the echoes have faded – when the crawling of his own skin has faded, too. He lays the rabbit, dead, still warm from the kill, down on the altar. “I dunno– if you like this kind of stuff? Would be nice to get a, a sign, maybe. Or something. …Would be nice to even know you’re there.”
There is no echo to his voice, this time. No foreign laughter. The rabbit lies still on the altar. Its blood spills, sluggish, from its fresh-slit throat. The ice beneath it turns pink.
“Okay,” says Martyn. He scrubs a hand over his face, and fights back the strange, stupid urge to cry. “Okay, cool. Great talk. Thanks.” He swallows. The lump in his throat does not subside. “I… oh, jeez. I guess. I guess I’ll– go, then. Like usual. Um.” He swallows again. “I’ll come back in. I dunno. A month or so? Maybe? We’ll see. Things are pretty busy. You know how it is.”
There is no answer. He doesn’t know why he was expecting one.
Martyn bows his head – and then, after a moment’s hesitation, drops to one knee. The frost soaks through his trousers, turns his skin to wet and cold. “I’ll… I will return, though, milord. I swear it.”
He presses a fist over his heart, and pretends he’s not swearing to empty air.
After a long moment, he rises, to stand before the altar once more. Another long moment, and he turns, and leaves. His boots press prints into the frost, trailing patches of wet and flattened grass behind him. The world around him is dead, and empty, and heavy with the weight of snow that never seems to come.
He knows, when he returns, his footsteps will be gone. As will the rabbit. The frost, or maybe – as he hopes, as he prays, as he dreams when he sleeps – something more, will have reclaimed them both.
I vaguely mentioned in conversation the other day while making a sandwich how bread at the store has a bunch of gross shit in it and how fresh would be better whatever and I went to the kitchen and saw my dad made a loaf of sandwich bread today and it was on the counter…..made sure it was ready before I went down to make sandwiches for work………love is real.