[Icon ID: A yellow-gradient waning crescent moon. Between the two points of the crescent is a purple-gradient key. The background is a dark blue circle. /end ID]
If you are having a bad day: #nil desperandum
Topics oft-discussed at La Canta Magnifico Blog:
Essays (especially on the below topics)
#F1 (particularly #Charles Leclerc, Team Silverstone (#Aston Martin / #Racing Point / #Force India / #Spyker / #Midland / #Jordan), and #Jules Bianchi).
#motorsport (notably #motorsport safety, #FIA, #Giancarlo Fisichella and #lm24 )
#game development (mostly #interactive fiction)
#communication (including #writing and #information literacy)
#image description and #video description of some other people's posts (primarily F1)
The majority of my imaged/videoed posts prior to August 2024 are not image/audio described. If you would like any particular older posts transcribing/image describing, please tell me.
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i’m trying to be the change i want to see in the world because i NEED the dash to revive my body and my brain are fighting me in such a big way and not having the dash is like lacking a powerup or a huge part of my life
except i don’t know what to post about because there’s actually nothing going on with f1 rn and all of my personal thoughts rn are so morose
but i am watching masters of the universe! and love and light to nick galitzine but this movie is TERRIBLE
i was rewatching the hywel and toto beyond the grid to see what had changed from their thoughts on how 2026 would be and getting my blood absolutely boiled listening to hywel talking about how turbo lag is an anticipated issue. so we all knew. we all KNEW. fred knew and ASKED and they were like yeah we have 3 customer teams and us we'll just not do the rules it's fine. and it was. unfuckingbelievable. aboslutely. flames. flames on the side of my face.
Believable because psuedopolitical power is so important and the FIA wanted to look new-manufacturer friendly (as far as I know, every new manufacturer tried and failed to beat the turbo lag, so the FIA was unlikely to have held to the rules even if Toto had not spoken. We just didn't know at the time about those failures - and haven't forgiven Mercedes for not having the courage to face the challenge presented as intended.
I had a vaguely similar feeling today in class, when I encountered "sacra" and "agonaglia" for the only time not involving Galaxy Princess Zorana. Makes me appreciate the work you put into the religions even more.
At the end of every month, we will post this roundup, summarizing the IFs that were released or updated! You will also find a list of all the rec lists we posted and what events we held in that particular month!
We decided to do this mainly so that everyone can get a small reminder about the different IFs that have been shared here. With the sheer number of IFs we reblog, it's easy for the older ones to get buried and forgotten about. This is our way to minimize that!
Please note:
Only IFs that were reblogged onto this blog and were originally posted about in the relevant month will be included.
This list will remain static.
IFs List
The Inane Nightingale: It Calls for Blood by @ladyopalette | if intro | dark fiction | demo tba
The Greenhouse by @heli-wuz-here | if intro | low fantasy, romance, horror | demo tba
Iron King's Heir by @ironkingsheir-if | demo update
Excellent Cadavers by @darkfictionjude | demo update
Heir to the Stars by @juno-a | fantasy, adventure, romance | demo release
Blue-Blooded by @blccded | demo release
But You Lived by @butyoulived-if | if intro | thriller, mystery | demo tba
Starburster by @starburster-if | if intro | stardom, movie star | demo tba
The Golden Wolf and the Silver Shepherd by @goldenwolfsilvershepherd-if | demo update
Sinistratum by @krogpile | demo update
The Liferaft Network by @theliferaftnetwork-if | if intro | modern mystery | demo tba
Pact by @pact-if | if intro | fantasy | demo tba
Unforgiven by @unforgiven-if | if intro | sci-fi, cyberpunk/space punk, spy thriller | demo tba
The Words You Say by @twys-if | if intro | academic setting | demo tba
Anything for the Crown by @anything4thecrown-if | demo update
Sadeans by @tifa-writes | demo update
Moonbathing by @moonbathing-if | demo release
The Kingdom of Auseda by @tkoa-if | fantasy | demo available
Crash Course in You by @fakeyellow | demo update
Pactbinder by @pactbinder-if | demo update
Don't Forget to Scream by @dontforgettoscream-if | if intro | comedy, thriller, romance | demo tba
Penelope and Her Guest by @surprise-iguana | completed if | submission
Final Cut by @finalcut-if | if intro | stardom | demo available
Lies of Elphame by @kafieldev | if intro | fae court, romance, mystery/detective | demo tba | submission
Herotome by @herotome | demo available | superhero dating sim | submission
Sunkissed by @sunkissed-if | if intro | slice-of-life | demo tba
Negative Exposure by @negativeexposure-if | demo update
A Thousand Melodies by @kittybraz | if intro | stardom, opera, crime | demo tba
Benedictus Deus by @benedictusdeus | if intro | fantasy, romance | demo available
Libercage by @libercage-if | if intro | vampire, dark fantasy | demo tba
Dormant Star by @dormantstar-if | demo release
Wolf Set Free by @wolfsetfree-if | demo update
The Split by @the-split-if | demo update
What Remains in the Dark by @whatremainsinthedark-if | if intro | modern, apocalyptic | demo tba
Our Life: Now & Forever by @gb-patch |vn intro | slice-of life | demo available
The Tender Darkness by @tenderly-if | if intro | dark romance, fantasy | demo tba
Lost Boys Everywhere by @lostboys-if | if intro | based on fairy tales | demo tba
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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Cadillac | Audi | williams | ferrari | vcarb | haas
I wanted to wait until after Hungary to post this so we’d have a sense of the trajectory. Aston Martin’s garbage year has been extremely well documented and I think we’re all familiar with the torture vibrator they launched with.
Just a quick summary of that. Adrian Newey joined AM towards the end of last year when they had most of a car designed. He clashed with the previous team principal, Andy Cowell, who had come from Mercedes as the powertrains guy who was the architect of their wildly successful turbo hybrid v6 and had previously worked with Honda during the McLaren days. They basically had a car already, Newey didn't like it, Andy got fired and Adrian was put in to replace him. This was already a ridiculous move because Adrian is notorious for not liking limitations or process or schedules or meetings or people, so giving him a management job seemed… unwise. They scrapped the initial car and very quickly produced this monstrosity. Honda maintains they weren’t told what the engine requirements were and that's why they are still figuring it out. On their side, they had basically dismantled their powertrains group that had been working with Red Bull and most of its staff had moved to other parts of Honda. Also, going a bit further back, Honda had wanted to stop working with Red Bull and producing the V6 engine it had been because it didn’t match the rest of Honda’s business goals. When the decision came in that this reg cycle would be 50/50, they got interested again, which is why Aston Martin could scoop them up since Red Bull had decided to do its own powertrain with Ford backing in their absence.
The little joke story I like to tell about this is what if Honda's been trying to escape Newey and he chased them down. Like they were like oh no we couldn't possibly keep doing red bull but here's a face saving reason we're going to Aston and then he was like haha I'm following you. you can never escape the sound of the f1 car designer that loves you.
So basically two totally new groups working on things and not communicating well. They were late to winter testing and short on parts, having produced a car that is debatably worse than the 2019 Williams, which is widely regarded to be the worst modern F1 car. Yes, worse than the 2015 McHonda. That one was mostly engine.
But there is a lot of belief in Adrian Newey. He’s known more recently for being the Red Bull guy, producing the insanely dominant 2023 car, but he’s been in the sport since the late 80s. He produced the Williams that Senna died in. It’s his car that won Alain Prost a WDC, Nigel Mansell’s WDC, Damon Hill’s, Jacques Villeneuve’s (even though he left Williams for the 1997 season), all four of Sebastian Vettel’s titles, and Max Verstappen’s. So from 1990-now, that’s 12/35 titles (and one of those, 94, is when Schumacher crashed Damon Hill out on purpose and got away with it). So that’s why people are like he is the car messiah. But he’s not infallible and he is predictable. The cars are always sharp and stiff and ride low. He’s a downforce merchant.
And… this is a team sport. The eagerness to elevate Newey above others is its own self-reinforcing hagiography. The pundits tell the story over and over but I mean, you could pick some other people and start talking similarly. Ross Brawn had all of Schumacher's titles and also Brawn GP (8). James Allison currently of Mercedes has 11, probably 12 this year (5 Schumacher Ferrari, 2 Fernando Alonso Renault, 4 Mercedes constructor titles). Hywel at Mercedes power trains has 10. In general, I give more credit to the mid-level staff than the top leaders because they are the ones doing the work but even if we are going to pick a Great Man there are other great men. Idk.
The chassis:
the original chassis was also the worst of the chassis. Worst engine and worst chassis. Hilarious. At first they tried to be like it’s all engine but we saw them in monaco… we saw…
but now they have a totally new one. There’s a full F1 tech breakdown on it, but in summary it’s an entirely new car. It’s not clear yet how the whole package will come together after the summer break but they jumped from qualifying in the p20 zone to p16. Since it’s Newey, main thing to report is downforce way up.
The engine:
genuinely this is so well-documented so I’m sorry to rehash but Honda has re-assembled its squad and is coming with an update that is on the car now! We will see it in action at the next race they say 5/10ths of a second. who is to say. us at the next race. My favourite engine fact is that ADUO invented a new category for 8%+ off to account for Honda suckage but I think they didn’t make it. They didn’t even suck enough to get the extra help everyone wanted to give them
part of the problem is that Newey wanted to stack the battery and it meant more vibrations transferred into it hence the torture vibrator. Other teams separated them more but his design had them closer together and Honda didn’t really understand what was being expected of the PU, but now they do and they seem to have fixed that already
they won’t have their best engine til next year, given the imitations of ADUO, so some improvement now, potentially more improvement later. both them and audi are saying things like oh in 2028 you will fear us… you will all see…
What to expect:
i genuinely don’t know. It’s crazy. Anything could happen. They already scored a point this year and Alonso loves to fuck with everyone and ignore blue flags when it suits him so i don’t even know.
[Image description: Two photos.
Image 1: Mauro Bianchi, wearing a dark-coloured coat, looks at the camera with a slight smile. There is a pit building in the background.
Image 2: Jules Bianchi, wearing a red and white Marussia coat, looks at the camera. His expression is the same as Mauro's.
/end ID]
@f1-described
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With all the (rightful) pushback against streaming, I just wanted to remind everyone that the music industry itself is extremely unfair and therefore streaming STILL is taken as a measure for a musician's success.
Even though artists don't get paid enough for streaming, their streaming numbers impact charts/billboard rankings. And not only that, very often how many monthly listeners a musician has and how often their songs are streamed on average determines how much they're paid when it comes to festivals, etc.
If you boycott every kind of streaming because you want musicians to be paid properly, very often what you actually achieve is that people take one look at the most common streaming platforms of your artist, shrug and go "You don't even have xy monthly listeners and want THAT high of a payment for our festival? That's not justified at all, either you're happy with a lower payment or you won't play here at all!" (Also, most new musicians are in debt after playing at a festival because playing a gig with a crew is expensive (your crew members are your employees so to speak, they need enough money to pay THEIR rent too) and the festival's payment doesn't even cover half of it)
A musician's success these days depends on a mix of buying their music AND streaming it additionally. What you do through streaming is making your musician visible to others. Streaming is part of their portfolio. Buy their music, buy their merch, and then let their music play on loop in the background on a streaming platform of your choice. THAT'S how you help them make a higher payment seem justified to others! If they have music videos, leave LOADS of comments as well. Numbers are extremely important here!
Please share this post - most people don't know much about how making a living as a musician works, and unfortunately boycotting streaming because you want musicians to be paid properly often achieves the opposite...
update I need to bring back my books to borrow more books because I also have two on hold and interlibrary loans only allow four books at the time. FINE.
I agree. (My local library system has a separate, 4-item list, for holds, although only 2 of them can be out-of-county loans. It also has a separate 10-item list for e-materials).
Finally getting off my HA-ASS to get this done! This year's project is a little bit more involved than previous years'. It's been tough trying to figure out the best way to explain everything so...
CLICK HERE FOR FULL INSTRUCTIONS. (I also recorded an example video + instructions with captions soooooo hopefully things are clear.)
CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT. (link is also in the carrd website above)
This might be the last time I do one of these because frankly, I'm running out of time and energy to keep going. :') So please get involved! We're celebrating 2 big milestones so it'll be amazing to get as many people involved as possible.
Tagging everyone who promised to take part (please reblog or forward to your moots if you can, thank you!) or liked my previous post about it: @estebanbicon @seb-ees @alianoralacanta @augustat0-1 @toffee-and-tandoori @estebunny @estiehowells @principesincorona @torturedridersdepartment @sizzleandwizzle @olympialogy
[Image description: Two images describing the Esteban Ocon Birthday Video project.
Image 1: A red circle with the headline "Be In Esteban's Birthday Video!",
Overlapping this circle is a circular photo of Esteban Ocon in sunglasses and a black and red Haas T-shirt. He is grinning and giving a thumbs-up.
Six chevrons (three black above three red), pointing towards an upper-left circle, are above a black circle with red radiant-lined border, with instructions:
Here's what we're looking for:
Video messages.
Audio messages.
Text messages.
Images: any form of art, photos and/or edits.
Instructions at: estebanocon2026.caard.co
Please email [email protected] or DM @ratiorae if you have any questions.
Disclaimer: this is a fan project and is not affiliated with any official channels.
In the bottom-right hand corner is a red circle stating:
Deadline - 31 August
estebanocon2026.caard.co
Image 2: Video Instructions from estebanocon2026.caard.co:
In the video, please say:
1. Greeting in your native language (Hello Esteban, salut Esteban, hola Esteban, etc.)
2. Your name and where you're from.
3. What you admire most about Esteban.
4. Anything you want to say to him directly.
5. "Happy birthday" in your native language.
Tips and Guidelines:
1. Please make sure there is no background music/noise! (the "no background music/noise" is in bold.)
2. Portrait (vertical mode), 1080 p
3. 90 seconds maximum (the "maximum" is in capital letters.)
4. Upload your video to Google Drive / Dropbox (or other file-sharing service) and paste the link (in bold) into the submission form (link below). Title the file (mov/mp4) with your name (in bold). Example: Esteban.mp4. /end ID]
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
