#My guy just likes things to be Fair and Fun

[mandareeboo]

This is so precious. Heimerdinger's like "I've seen a lot of spy films my boy. I know how to sneak!" and Ekko's been picking pockets since he was born and he's like "Alright peepaw we'll do it your way."

[missfrustration]

to teach a captain - part 2 (luffy x reader 18+ fanfic)

summary: If the “D” in his middle name didn't stand for dick, you don’t know what would.

part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 part 6 part 7

rating: 18+ explicit, minors do not interact!

tags: pwp, nsfw, smut, sexual content, masturbation, first times, self discovery, cluelessness, luffy is a curious guy, sub!luffy, dirty talk, "good boy," some praising, reader is a member of the crew, post-time skip, second-hand embarrassment, you will cringe, no use of y/n

A/n: the real spice starts now. I got carried away and wrote like 6k words for this one. Luffy, ur my goat forever. on ao3 here!

words: 6.1k

“Talk to me? About what? I find it hard to believe you would end your time out there just to talk to me.”

Without a beat, Luffy tilts his head. “You didn’t answer my question earlier, and I wanted to know why,” he says, crossing his arms.

“What?” But you didn't need to ask what he meant—you knew exactly what he was talking about—but that didn’t stop your entire body from freezing. 

“You had your clothes off, making noise, and had that thing. At first, I thought you were in pain, but then when I came in, you seemed… good. I have no idea what happened.”

You swallow thickly, only looking at the deep brown of Luffy’s eyes. You feel a heavy blush form on your face as you struggle to find any words. 

“I’m sorry, Luffy, but I don’t think we should talk about it,” You say. “I don’t think it’s appropriate.”

“What? That’s not fair.” Luffy whines.

“What’s not fair?”

“You were having a good time, and I want to know why. The way you talked… you looked like you were having fun.“

Your body tenses into a rigor mortis level of shock.

“You want to know what you saw?”

He nods adamantly.

“Luffy, how long were you watching?”

He shrugged it off like it was no big deal. “A while.”

You blink. Luffy definitely saw everything then. The feeling of him seeing your bare form pleasuring yourself with no guilt is enough to make your face light on fire. You cuss at yourself for not closing the door like you should’ve.

“How old are you again, Luffy?”

“Uh… 19?”

“That‘s what I thought,” You mumble, sighing so hard you groan. “If you don’t know, I can’t imagine you know other things— anything about…” a pause, “ do you know where babies come from?”

Luffy scratches his chin.

“Isn’t it a giant bird? I think Grandpa told me that once.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’d thought you would say. Okay, we both need to sit down for this one.” 

You rustle some stacks of clothing off your bed onto Nami’s bed to the right of you before you sit on the edge of the sheets. Luffy plopped onto the edge beside you, kicking his feet against the bed frame.

“If this were anyone else on the Sunny, I wouldn’t need to think twice about entertaining this,” but of course, it’s Luffy. You sigh. “So, we can talk about it, but no relaying ANYTHING about this to the crew, got it? This conversation cannot get to them.”

Another shrug. “Sure, that’s fine.”

You sigh and rub your face, watching Luffy through your fingers for a moment before sliding them down and crossing your arms.

“You can ask away then.”

Luffy perks up and grins. His mind was off to the races.

“What was that noise you were making?”

How you painfully grimace at the first question tells you how much you’ll enjoy this conversation.

“Well, that’s what happens when you, uh, when people do what I was doing?” Your voice turns into a question by accident. If this was anyone else but Luffy, you would’ve tapped out here, but you know Luffy would never let you hear the end of it.

Luffy hums, reflecting on your answer.

“What were you doing?”

Yep, we are going there.

“Uh, I was making myself… feel good. It’s called masturbating, or…pleasuring oneself.” You cringe at the informative tone in your voice as you mull it over.  “Like you said.”

“What were you using?”

“Using? What do you mean—” Before Luffy answers your question, you realize he meant your dildo. “Oh, it was… a tool.”

“A tool? Like, to help fight?”

“No, it’s to help me feel good. It’s called a toy.” 

Luffy looks around the room.

”Do other people need that?”

“For what?”

He briefly thinks about the question, scratching his head like the words are right there.

“If they want to feel like that too.”

“Hardly,” you snort. “Guys never have it that rough; usually, hands work fine. Women may. It just depends on whether they need some extra help.”

As far as you know, you recall Nami telling the girls she gets her pleasure from men on different islands and usually her hands if we’re stuck on the sea for a while. Robin doesn’t mention her individual sex life, but you’d assume Franky takes care of her whenever she needs a pick-me-up.

”Then why do you need a toy?” Luffy asks.

”Man, Luffy…” You mumble, arms supporting you as you fall back on your bed. “This is a lot for me.”

When you look at him, his pout says it all. You pinch the bridge of your nose with the strength that could knock you out of this nightmare, yet disappointed that you’re still here.

“Okay, okay, fine. Sometimes, during these moments, it’s harder for me to reach the same… conclusion than it is for others, so I need the assistance of a toy to help me. I don’t know much about the others–that’s not really something people talk about to each other.”

Luffy perked up at your last sentence.

“Huh? The others do it, too?”

“Well, maybe. That’s not for me to know.” You say. You try to shrug it off–thinking about it too much will make you want to knock on every door you need to open on the Sunny.

“Why can’t the crew just help you next time?” Luffy asks.

Suddenly, the bed no longer offers support as you sit straight up. You didn’t need to say anything; Luffy saw your concern screaming before you could open your mouth.

“We’re nakama! I would do anything for you guys. The others feel the same.” He says with a smile. Luffy’s words make it seem like the easiest answer, practically beaming at a newfound resolve. It just makes you sink into the mattress more.

“That’s not exactly… something that requires you guys. People don’t usually help each other with this…” You stop before you explain only people who are very close can, but you know Luffy wouldn’t know how close that is unless you explain it.

“Does that mean you won’t tell me how to do it?”

“Tell you?” You ask. Luffy nods, and you only widen your eyes more. “Wait, you want me to tell you how to masturba-“ you clear your throat before finishing, “tell you how ?”

“You said it felt good, right? I wanna know how, then!”

Your captain is a nice guy, giving you a clean, optimistic smile after his words. To him, this is practically like learning a new combat skill–the way he fights for his nakama means he always wants to learn how to get stronger. You guess this is just another skill for him. To you, this obviously crosses intimate boundaries. 

You sigh, “You wanna know that bad, huh?”

Luffy nods.

You gaze at Luffy, wondering how you should go about this. You know he’s a loose canon when it comes to anything in the realm of keeping things private. He couldn’t keep Mr. 0 a secret even when their lives depended on it! On top of that, Luffy is the type of guy to pester you about something he’s curious about until he finds out or flatlines. If you tell him no, he could possibly keep asking until everyone on the ship hears about it. Your mouth opens to deny him, but it’s lost on your tongue.

If explaining to him how to please himself is all it is, maybe you can rush him through the steps and have him out the door shortly after. After all, he is seriously uneducated, which may help him in the long run. For what exactly, only God knows. You’re just a girl.

“If it means you keep this all a secret.” You relent, “Promise? Like, really promise. I know you’re horrible at keeping them, but I need you to just this once.” 

It makes Luffy perk up, crisscrossing his legs and resting his hands on his ankles. “Promise!” He says with a toothy grin. He’s ready to listen.

“Okay, you know your…penis-“ another cringe, “between your legs?”” You ask, gesturing to his crotch. You have to find a baseline about what he even knows in the first place. 

“What, the family jewels?”

Wow, off to a great start.

“… yeah. that’s what a man has with their penis—it’s your version of genitalia—whereas women…. it’s a long story… but I'm sure you saw the difference.”

He nods again, making you groan. You realize he really did see all of your pussy this morning, not to mention in excruciating pleasure. Judging by his face, he doesn’t seem confused as to what you mean when referring to his junk. That at least helps the awkwardness of this.

“Alright, y’know how sometimes you wake up and you’re hard?”

“What do you mean hard?” Luffy blinks.

“Hard means when your dick, or penis, y’know, is hard. When you wake up like that, it’s called ‘morning wood.’” You cringe at yourself again, but less severe.

“Oooohhh, yeah, you mean when it’s hard to pee!” Luffy says.

“Yeah, that’s kinda what I’m talking ab–”

“You mean like this!” Luffy smiles, reaching for his pants. He unbuttons his shorts and pulls the hem of his boxers down.  

“W-what the hell are you doing?” You squeak, scrambling around.

By the time you think to turn away, you see Luffy’s hand pop out from his shorts, followed by…

“See?” 

His dick is in his hands semi-hard. It’s flush against his fingers, almost the exact same color as his skin, except for a tinge of pink that lightens the more you travel towards the tip. Your eyes bulge out.

“Woah, you’re already hard… that’s surprising.”

“Yeah, it's like this a lot.”

For some reason, his words send a strange spark in you. Of course he has working bodily functions–that makes a lot of sense–but you suppose it surprised you. At first, it seemed like Luffy was completely oblivious, his body included.

“You're very red,” He says, his other hand starts waving in your face, snapping you out of your thoughts. “Are you okay?”

“Y-yeah, yeah I’m fine,” You say with a nervous laughter. “But you don’t just whip it out like that, man.”

“Oh, sorry, I figured I could since you’re teaching me.”

You look down at his dick still in his hand, except this time, it’s grown to what you guess is his full length. Compared to others you’ve seen in the past, his length is a little smaller. You can’t tell completely without staring it, and you don’t feel like gawking would be that nice.

“It’s fine. We can work on courtesy later, but it’s super important you know about consent. Just know you’re allowed to stop whenever you’re uncomfortable with this, or by me, alright? When you talk about—or do —topics like this, it’s important to know this if you’re overwhelmed or if you don’t like what’s happening, understand? That’s called consent. Are you okay to keep going?”

 “Yeah,” He smiles, “so, what do I do now?”

You shift a little, trying to scan the room for literally any answer that would get you out of this situation without your face feeling on fire—at the very least without talking about his penis again—but you cannot find a single reality. There is nothing but the goddamn wall of the girl’s dorm looking back at you.

You hope your face isn’t red anymore, or else you’ll think you’ll die from high blood pressure. 

“Okay, go ahead and put your hand on it like this.” You do a hand demonstration, lightly grasping the tips of your fingers together to form a lazy ‘O’ and gesturing for him to do the same. Luffy grips the middle of his shaft on the second attempt after floating his hand around the head. 

“Then you’ll want to pump into it a few times.” You pump your hand ring into the air, one that he followed suit around his dick.

His movement is stagnant and uncoordinated, imitating your motions with a waver. His hand shakes in all different directions, making his dick shift like a goddamn joystick. But it’s enough to start stimulating himself.

Slowly, his shaft begins to grow a little more.

And more. And more. And…

…Holy shit.

“Like this?” Luffy asks.

“Y-yeah, Luffy, it’s working,” you say, slack-jawed.

If the “D” in his middle name didn't stand for “dick,” you don’t know what would.

His hand gripped around the base of his shaft is now a fraction of the entire length, whereas previously, it covered everything but the head. Maybe his dick was still flaccid when he took it out. If that’s the case, bro was packing a fucking monster this whole time??

And you realize how much you’ve been staring.

“What now?” Luffy’s voice puts you back to reality.

“Well, there's one more thing that helps.” You get up slowly, your legs trembling a bit. You shake it off and walk off to the side to reach into the confines of your drawer again. What you pull out after rustling through the clothes is the small bottle of lube, almost empty from this morning’s events. You shake the bottle back and forth before popping the top open and reaching for Luffy’s hand. Although he looks at it quizzically, he obliges to give you an outstretched palm when you reach for it. You squirt a quarter-sized amount, which slowly spreads around the surface. 

You motion for him to close and open his hand, making him spread the lube to the rest of his palm and fingers. He grimaces at the sight, watching the sticky substance break apart into small strings before separating, but he still looks back at you for more directions.

“Good, okay, go ahead and do what you did earlier.”

He nods, eyes now filled with determination for a newfound purpose. With one hand toying with the fabric on his clothed thigh, the other hand encircles his girth again, now barely touching fingertips as he starts to move up and down the shaft. It doesn’t take long for the lube to spread across his length, leaving small beads that move everytime he glides over them. 

“This is feels different. This feels,” He trails off, but you can tell by the fluidity in his arm that the stimulation feels better…

You’re really gawking now. You rip your eyes away and stand up from the bed.

“Well, you keep doing that until, you know… alright, I have to leave, I hope you—”

Luffy whines your name. You feel a hand grab your wrist gently, immediately removing his grasp when you turn around.

“Wait.” Luffy's eyes set on where he touched you, then back to your eyes.

“What is it?” You ask. You look down to see his dick still in his hand, stroking up and down. You swear there’s a pink tinge dusted on the apples of his cheeks.

“I need to know if I’m doing it right!” 

“Yeah, Luffy, but God, you want me to watch you while you do it?” You ask.

“Is that such a big deal?” Luffy gives you puppy dog-like eyes, almost offended that you don’t want to look at him. “I thought you said you were gonna help me.” Luffy says sheepishly, lowering his eyebrows.

Obviously, it is a big deal, but he’s so innocent for his own damn good that you can’t even argue with him at this point. He really doesn’t want you to leave, but you’ve wanted to keep his privacy as a top priority. Regardless, you know your say on things won’t get you anywhere, now. You swallow a lump down your throat.

“I guess it’s not.” You sit back next to him. 

His feet sit firm on the plush pink carpet, he continues.

“So?” You hear his breath hitch, seeing his lips purse a little. His voice is quiet now. “Am I… doing it right?”

“Yes, you are.” You say. “If you need to, you can also control the pressure by squeezing or loosening your grip, slowing down or speeding up your hand, too.” You do some more motions with your hand, pumping it in the air with different speeds. He nods before focusing on his hand. 

He changes his pace, you see his hand lose tension around his member and go slow for a few pumps as he tests the feeling. You watch your captain languidly pump his length back and forth, before he hums his disapproval. You see his hand start to speed up now. Small veins from his hand to his arms start to peak out from the firmness of his grip.

Luffy’s breath hitches again, this time at the change of pace, brows now furrowed a little.

“Okay, how long do I go for?”

“As long as you want to, but usually, there is a good stopping point. You’re trying to cum–uh, climax, which is where it feels the best, but you’ll know when that is when your penis… well you’ll see,” you shift. You hope it’s not too long. Luffy is a guy–a beginner–, so you’ll assume he won’t last long for his first time.

You realize the words sound crude coming out of your mouth, but if you could figure it out by yourself years ago, Luffy can too with a rudimentary explanation. The whole time, Luffy focuses on your words in agog, fully digesting each part. He goes right back to pumping himself with a firm nod.

“That means I’m doing it right?” He asks.

“Yes, Luffy, youre doing it right.”

“Okay.”

You’re limited in what you should say at this point. His vest is unbuttoned, revealing a chest that heaves after each firm thrust of his arm. He’s starting to throw his head back slovenly, the lids of his eyes lowering until they shut tight together. You don’t think you can look at his face anymore. At least without having a deep pool collect in your stomach. This is purely for Luffy and his educational purposes, after all. It’s stupid of you to feel anything more than that.

Your eyes nail to the wall, the very same place you chucked the bottle of lube at when Luffy first found you, trying to stifle the urge to stare. It’s futile, however, all you can hear is the small shallow huffs from the side of you. Luffy notices your sudden disassociation, however. 

“You can keep looking.” He says quietly.

“R-right.”

You look down at his hand, which moved from the shorts on his thigh to the mess of the sheets between you two. There are the veins on his skin you only see when he’s fighting, popping out from his forearms to the back of his hand. 

One particular pump makes him whimper loudly, whipping his head back more and parting his lips. Then another, one that makes the whiny groan in his throat linger in the air, until his legs dart wider apart, clacking his knee against yours. The quick force of it makes you jump in your skin, letting out a squeak that snaps his head forward. His brown eyes search for you, darting between you irises with low lids.

Something strange has been setting you off.  

With you specifically. You squirm in your place on the bed, only a few inches from your captain jacking himself off, feeling his pleasure so well, so vocally , and now looking at you with the eyes he has after being starved and seeing a feast. Dark, enticing, needy hues, but this time, so aroused . The musk from his body is so— 

“Hey,” Luffy calls out your name again. His voice has a waver in it now, a sound not lost on you, and one that is dripping more with the feeling of desire, of lust , that you certainly detect. The entire time you’ve known Luffy, you’ve never heard his voice have such a neediness in it. You never would’ve guessed it was possible. Your thighs shift together subconsciously, creating some space between your once-grazing legs.

 “Am I doing it good?” He whines again. Its so breathless, so lovely. That voice so coaxed with fervor. Each word lingers a little bit more in the air the more he speaks, making your face hot and body hotter.

“Yes. Yes Luffy, you are.” You whisper. “Do you feel good?” A small sound comes out of Luffy’s mouth after your words come out. It’s almost like a hiccup, one that erupt throughout his body as his hips jut forward.

“I, think so,” He says, he looks all over your body, “Yeah, I do feel good.”

Your breath hitches. There’s a pause that feels like hours have replaced seconds.

“I feel good when you say that,” Luffy whines. “I think.”

Your chest swells as you look into his eyes. You see they’re staring right back at your face, looking at each individual feature like it’s the first time he’s seen you. Like, really seeing you. 

“What do you mean, Luffy?” 

“When you tell me I'm doing a good job. Hahh ,” Luffy moans. You see his eyes dart to your lips which you didn’t realize until now that your biting between your teeth. “Am I still doing it?”

“Yes, Luffy, so, so good.”

Is it wrong for you to enjoy seeing this? His hand palms the sheets more, head whipped back again from firm, languid pumps to his dick, and he’s whining from it now. He sounds so desperate for release, so welcoming for every tinge of pleasure he receives from himself that builds up more towards an awaited ecstasy.

His head lazily tilts towards you, his eyes open and on you, drinking up the very essence of you.

It almost feels like you’re naked. 

“Please...” He mewls out, which commands your attention from whatever haze it’s in. 

“‘Please’ what, Luffy?” Your voice is a thin veil of what it was prior, with an airy breath that crashes with the impermeable heat radiating from his body. 

“I don’t- mmph!-“ Another delectable whine escapes his lips. He continues, “I don’t know, just–ahh, please – “ 

The hand previously entangled in the sheets finds purchase on your shoulder, his needy fist grasping the strap of your tank top. The abrupt move causes your stance to falter due to his inadvertently tugging you down closer. Your eyes are level now, with your noses just a hair from touching. Your hands land on his thighs, and Luffy’s pace falters while his breath hitches at your touch. 

Luffy stares at you, and your senses are overwhelmed; His brown eyes seem to swallow your closest features, the hot breaths and hiccups that escape his mouth ghost upon your lips, and the downright filthy sounds his lubed hand makes against his cock have you reeling. He never takes his eyes off of you, even as his expression shifts to desperation and his whines evolve into needy whimpers.

“Tell me… mngh that I’m doing good, I’m still doing good, yeah?” You notice his fingers flex in the grasp he has on you. For a brief moment, you wonder how it would feel to have even one of those thick fingers inside of you. 

“You’re doing…so good. You’re so good at touching yourself, Luffy… good boy .” The rational part of your mind is shocked at the words coming out of your mouth, but the way Luffy’s leg twitches and breath wavers at the sound of praise from your lips silences any rationality you may be harboring. 

Almost under his breath, he murmurs out a reply whilst his gaze flicks from your eyes to your lips; “Yeah, I’m..” he begins, “...your good–“

Before you can even muster a reply, He whimpers in a voice you never heard, your name wavering on his tongue, instantly stealing your attention and giving you a bellowing heartbeat. 

“I feel something.” He says, letting his words faded out with a breathless huff. “Something new , hahh, I don’t…”

“Yeah, I–I know that.” 

“What do I… do I do?” His lids are low when he looks at you, pleading for an answer in the colors of your eyes. Your chest feels tight from his small voice, encompassed by a lit flame inside that compels you to speak.

“If you want, please keep going.” You breathe, a horribly devious idea coming to your head. It’s a want to push him further to the edge. “You’re doing so good, Luffy.”

“ Mmmh. ”

You don’t know what’s worse: In the beginning, when Luffy revealed to you and only you his desire when watching you touch yourself, or hear his lustful whines and moans that only elevate because of you. Your voice being the thing your strong captain, with a bounty of countless berries, needs right now. His pleas and wants make you want to see the end of this. 

Luffy pants more now, loosened hair clinging to his forehead, tongue peaking out to moisten his lips as his eyes start to squeeze shut. His pace is faster now as he groans in delight, quickly learning a pace and intensity that he needs . It’s an instinct of his he never knew, a yearning programmed in his brain that compels him to stroke his length faster, it’s a yearning you share as you watch thick beads of precum drip out. 

It was extremely enticing. His plush lips once encased in smiles now slackjaws in stuttering breaths. His chest is heaving in a way you’ve never seen in his fights—whereas his chest hollows out in deep, robust pillars of breath during a battle, it’s now unsure, uncertain, but so daring to steal another fading breath. 

Watching your captain build this unsteady breathing tempo, the way his arm juts around as his eyes languidly blink, and most of all, the way his hand grips and pumps onto himself. You can see from his jutting hips and louder huffs that he’s close, and you can practically see his way to climax. But you know something is very off.

As his arm starts to shake a little more each time, just as Luffy mewls his loudest, starting to hitch his breath, starting to garble unintelligible things, closer and closer to a sweet release. Suddenly, he releases the grip from your shoulder, fingers unclench as it wavers, flinching up and down in the air. In an instant, he grabs onto your plush thigh with such strength you do more than flinch. You moan loud. Luffy doesn’t notice your voice, though; he’s too preoccupied with the fireworks that are going off in his head.

That’s when you register what’s wrong.

You hear knocks on the deck above you. It’s footsteps of people.

It’s the crew.

Your uneven breathing once aroused and whining from Luffy is now panicked in fear. You look to him; he’s so close now you can see his lids flutter.

There’s no way they won't hear him. You huff against him, seeing him teeter, hand gripping on you, moving closer and closer to your crotch. You decide to do something you didn’t think twice  about until you moved in towards Luffy.

“ I, I’m …— mmf! ” Luffy pants, but is swiftly cut off by you. Your lips bury themselves against his, so rugged and rough that Luffy’s eyes widen against it. Your hand latches on to the side of his head, intertwining the fingers with his black hair as you push into him. You feel his whole body jolt, going so stiff except for his rapidly moving arm until it suddenly stops. 

Luffy moans against your lips, pushing against you so hard you feel the vibration of his vocal chords. His lids lower, eyes unfocused as he starts to helplessly whimper into your mouth. 

You feel small, warm ropes of liquid sputter onto your arm, your shirt, reaching all the way to his neck as he whines again and again. All tries to moan his orgasm are stiffle by your mouth against his, the sounds muffling enough that you know they won’t hear. 

You move you lips away, seeing a small string of saliva before it quickly breaks, and you realize how fast you need to act before the crew comes.

When his moans are replaced with breathy huffs, and his hands lay comatose at his sides. You spring into action. Your shirt is already covered in ropes of cum, so it’s the first thing you decide to change. You rip off your shirt, revealing your chest to Luffy right next to you. You cover your hand with the fabric and wipe down the cum on your arm in one fluid motion. You rub the stain off of your neck. Luffy’s body follows suit. A frantic apology leaves your lips as you clean his chest, arm, and hand with your shirt. You toss it, immediately grabbing for a clean shirt from the neglected pile of laundry. Once its shimmied on, you whip to Luffy, another apology as you lift the hem of his boxers, trapping his half-hard member inside before hiking his boxers and shorts back up, buttoning and zipping up the fly with speed that Luffy doesn’t say anything.

In Luffy’s daze, you rush him out of the girls’ room to the hallway. You straighten his back out, make sure all of his clothes are straight on him, and try to act as normal as possible. Normal like you didn’t just teach your captain how to jack off. Or kiss him.

Almost on cue, some of the crew appear into the hall. Smiling when they see you and Luffy. All except Ussop, who immediately clamors to Luffy as soon as he registers him.

“You!” Ussop points to him, stomping over to Luffy with a vengeance. “Where the hell were you? I was looking for you everywhere, man!”

Luffy just looks at him, partially confused, partially still in a post-nut delirium. 

Ussop is hammering into him something, you honestly aren’t paying attention, as you see the other crewmates walk down. The girls come next, both carrying comically large numbers of shopping bags. Sanji is following them, practically hovering behind them as he asks them about their time. You see a patch of moss-colored hair and some bones too, they wave their salutations before heading to different areas of the ship. 

You smile and wave back at everyone, putting on a curt smile. 

“So? That doesn’t give you an excuse to ot say anything before you leave. Jeez, what am I gonna do with you.”

Luffy manages to shrug, the larger half of his indifference showing towards Ussop, but you are at least relieved to see he’s starting to use some braincells. Ussop starts to sniff in the air when he catches a whiff of something. He steps towards Luffy.

“Ew, Luffy, you reek like…” Ussop stops, pauses for a second to look at you. You’re only a few feet away from them, but with his puzzled glance it feels like your seeing things through a wide lens. His attention immediately jumps back to Luffy when he breathes in, wrinkling his nose a little as Luffy tries to step back. Ussop doesn’t let him, gripping the front of his shirt. “Dude, you need to take a bath anyway. It’s been way too long.”

“What? No way? I hate that tub, I get all weak and stuff!” Luffy groans. For his last attempt, he pries each finger off of his vest, but Ussop turns to him and jerks both of his hands around the nape of his collar. 

“You’re going now!” Ussop shouts, walking away and hauling Luffy with him.

“Nooo. Help me! AHHHH!” Luffy screams, kicking his legs against the floorboards as his hands scramble at his collar. With no luck, Ussop drags him down the hall with immense irritation. It’s honestly surprising how well Ussop can manhandle the captain. They disappears around the corner of the hallway, but not without Ussop giving you a glance and following. The eye he gives you sends a chill down your spine. Does he know what happened? 

Oh God. 

You attention is immediately stolen as a mop of blonde hair whisks you around to face his figure. The cook takes your hands in his so gently.

“Ah, mademoiselle, I hope you’re doing alright.” Sanji kisses your hand. “Was it alright being on the ship by yourself?”

“Yeah! Um, it was, uh… things were okay, I guess.” You spit out. In your mind, you curse yourself for sounding so obviously not okay, but it doesn’t seem like Sanji notices.

“Ahh, if only I hadn’t promised Luffy to take him to that restaurant, I would’ve spent it with you.” He cooes. “That idiot captain barely stayed with us before he disappeared to wherever God knows. I wasted my time instead of pampering a delicate lady.”

So he really did sneak away. was it really all because of you?

“Oh, I see, maybe next time.” You plaster on a not-so-convincing smile, but it was just enough for Sanji, as he let go off you and instantly ran towards Nami, who was walking towards you too.

It seems that Sanji had flailed his arms wide open to try and embrace Nami before he was promptly shut down by Nami’s right hook. He falls head first on the floor.

“Hey girl!” Nami says, entirely ignoring Sanji’s limp body as she steps over him, as ruthless as ever. “I got you some things.” She smiles, rustling through her loads of bags in hand.

A humongous gift bag with pretty tissue paper poking out of the edges is put in your hands, you look at her quizzically.

“Thanks, Nami! But what’s with the fancy bag?” You ask. When you take it, your arm almost gives out from the sheer weight of the contents. What the hell is in here? You think.

“Just a little something I think you should have,” she wries. Nami has one of those grins on; the one where you know she’s up to mischief. “Tell me how you like them,” She says before scampering off, almost stepping on Sanji’s twitching body in the process.

Robin comes up behind you and giggles. “She said you need a wardrobe change soon when we start shopping. I couldn’t stop her.” She smiles, now hold up a small bag of her own from a slew of other ones she had. “Here, take this.”

“Aw thanks!”

“No problem, it’s just what you asked for, by the way.” She winks, before also walking around you. 

You hear the hinges creak behind you, meaning she’s opening the door to the girls’ dorm. Robin’s footsteps stop, making your heart drop to the goddamn floor.

“You seemed to be busy in here.”

You turn around, remembering the state you left the room in. The girls’ clothes that were once neatly stacked on your bed are either knocked over, greatly disheveled or both. Robin looks back at you with minor confusion.

“Oh!” Your voice cracks as you shimmy past her figure in the doorway, rushing back to the bedside. “About that. The ship was… rocky earlier.”

“At dock?” She asks with her usual soft smile, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, um. I’ll fix it up, sorry for the mess.” You look down at the edge of the sheets, now noticing the small beads of bodily fluids from earlier. You quickly fold over the wrinkles formed on the sheet to cover it up. Robin’s on the other side of the room at this point, setting down the bags and sorting through them.

“I don’t mind it at all. Just make sure Nami doesn’t see her clothes on the floor. I don’t think I can help you there.” Robin giggles.

You look between you and Nami’s bed, seeing a pile of her baby tees toppled off the bed and lay unfolded on the floor. You yank it back onto the bed immediately.

“Right.” You say. Jesus, how much sweat is on your face at this point. From how wildly embarrassed you’ve reacted, she must think something is up.

Thankfully, Robin seems to have not noticed, or at least dropped the subject. She’s now in the corner of the room. Taking the things out her and Nami’s bags and hanging them up on the closet while she hums a soft tune.

“Cute shirt, too.” Robin softly says. 

In horror, you look down, realizing the shirt you threw on was Robin’s old Galley-La shirt.

“Thanks.” You stammer.

Robin is almost a decade older than you. She’s in a relationship, and you hoping to God she doesn’t realize what you’ve been up to. Ussop’s questioning glance towards you tells you they both noticed something. Your heartbeat was frantic now.

You excuse yourself as you slip yourself out of the girls’ room, frantically scurrying to the deck. You need some fresh air. Now.

At the deck's side railing, your feet brush on top of the soft bed of grass of the Sunny. You watch the waves brush up against the hull, gently lapping up against the wood before dispersing into the air. Tashini's shoreline is only a few yards away, greeting each ebb and flow of seawater.

You take a deep breath of the night air, releasing it with a languid sigh. Your hands have stopped shaking at least, but a feeling of morose still creeps into the back of your mind. Your heart beats at a regular tempo but with an echo that confuses you. You take a deep breath again.

You should probably change out of Robin's shirt now.

[lemotmo]

As a standalone episode I think it was good. One of the best we've had in a while. What I think is throwing some people off is just where it landed in the season. After last week, I can get why there's frustration at the lack of any movement in some arcs. It does feel very much one step forward, two steps back by interrupting the flow of some of those arcs and not addressing them at all. I get it. It can feel like emotional whiplash. Investing and then expecting viewers to pause that for a silly fun filler can throw people out the plot.

But isn't this a classic 911 thing to do though? We as a fandom, have been complaining about this problem for as long as I remember.

911 has one or two character driven episodes that give us some insight into the character's minds. And then the next episode when we all expect something to happen? Nothing.

I'm used to that rhythm by now. So I kinda knew, going into this episode that it wouldn't give us anything big. It's just the nature of 911 and... most network shows to be honest.

I grew up on network shows, before the streaming era. I remember watching 'NYPD Blue', 'ER', 'The Practice', 'Law & Order', 'Ally McBeal', 'JAG', 'Third Watch', 'The X-files', 'Stargate Atlantis', 'The West Wing', 'Without a Trace', 'Star Trek - Voyager', Star Trek - DS9', 'Castle', 'Bones' and so many other shows, and being frustrated sometimes with the fact that we got filler episodes after a really emotionally intense story arc. It's ensemble shows on network TV. That's the way it works.

Yes, we all want to see these character's personal storylines progress, but we can't see all of them progress at the same time.

Does it feel like an emotional whiplash sometimes? Especially because we love certain characters so much and we finally want to see some progress in their storyline? Well yeah, it does. But that's how it's always been.

And to be fair, we did get to see major character growth in this episode. We got to see a new facet of Athena. She is starting to realise that she's getting a little older, no longer able to do it all by herself and she wants to pass on all of her knowledge to a rookie. That's major progress for her and I'm willing to bet the Athena fans had a blast watching this episode. As they should. Next week it'll be time for someone else to have some character growth. Again, that's the way this works.

So, I'm here, I'm sat and willing to wait it out. And in the mean time? I'm just enjoying my show. You know? 🤷‍♀️

Anyway, this is just my two cents you guys. Feel free to disagree with me and ignore this. You know I don't mind. It's all good. This is just the way I see it.

[decepti-thots]

Ultra Magnus for the headcanon asks, please!

Headcanon A: realistic

I think that while the existence of the Magnus armour stuff is officially only known by a very tiny number of people in Autobot high command, it's not nearly as unknown in an unofficial sense as one might assume, and a not insignificant number of people with some amount of security clearance and/or regular interaction with Magnus know about it and gossip. Obviously we have two concrete canon bits of proof for this (Bumblebee shouldn't know, but was told by at least one Magnus armour wearer, and Ratchet guessed despite never being told), but I think it's gotta be something that over the years has spread enough that it's a little bit of an open secret tbqh. The guy keeps dying and then popping back up with a noticeably different personality. Any medic treating him has the same opportunities as Ratchet to notice. They're robots where the concept of a loadbearer is a clearly known possibility and the propaganda possibility is not that hard to infer! I feel like the number of people who guessed that something was up cannot be anything close to zero, or even just a couple higher ups. Like. It's been gossiped about. You know.

Headcanon B: while it may not be realistic it is hilarious

Due to spending two years in direct collaboration with Verity, he has a baffling knowledge of the very specific segment of Earth pop culture that appeals to a teenage girl from the USA in like the late 00s/early 10s. Specifically a rebellious nerdy one. He legitimately knows more about it than he ever knew about Cybertronian popular culture. This never comes up until he offhandedly mentions some random thing within earshot of Swerve that is so incongruous it causes him to mentally bluescreen. How the fuck do you know about that Magnus. What the hell.

Headcanon C: heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict on friends

Magnus is going to carry the guilt of dismissing Rewind's insistence Dominus was somehow alive the whole time with him for the rest of his life. The realization that Rewind was right but they confirmed it too late for him to do anything about it until the very second it was too late, in a time and place where Magnus was present and might have been able to make a split second decision that helped if only he was there, must be such a fucking thing for him. Let alone that as Ultra Magnus, if he had believed like Rewind did, he'd have possibly had the resources to get answers much, much earlier, if he'd tried.

Realistically, he had every reason to assume Dominus was dead. Rewind was being unreasonably optimistic, especially when the comic implies that Minimus was cut off from the literal sparkbond they had in a way that in any other situation would be definitive proof Dominus was dead. But he wasn't! And he missed every chance to intervene by like, the tiniest margin. You have to assume that on some level he's got some fucked up feelings about that.

Headcanon D: unrealistic, but I will disregard canon about it because I reject canon reality and substitute my own

I know Roberts said he thinks that Megatron becoming an Autobot without all the code-test stuff that Tailgate went through wasn't an issue because realistically, Megatron would know it back to front. I don't even disagree with him, I absolutely believe that he would, it makes sense. But it's objectively too fucking funny to imagine Magnus putting Megatron through the 'you WILL listen to my three hour lecture on the syntax of this one sentence being Extremely Legally Important' gauntlet and I simply choose to believe this did happen but off-panel and Magnus absolutely kicked his ass about it in terms of sheer Knowing His Shit about it. Way too funny to pass up tbh. Megatron thought he knew and understood it very well (and to be fair: he did, compared to every not-Magnus person), but he got grilled. Magnus quite enjoyed rebutting every single interpretation Megatron had by way of ludicrous pedantry.

[logmore]

hello logmore! silly question but i was curious about your thoughts on like a dragon: infinite wealth so far. you mentioned being bored by the first few chapters (fair) so i’m curious what your impression is now that you’ve played more of it. i wish sega was a bit more transparent about the development of the yakuza games because im kind of fascinated by some of the decisions they made in this one

I finished the game last night so I can reply now. I will talk about Infinite Wealth spoilers here:

Things I like:

Combat: Just Yakuza 7 combat but fleshed out, which is perfect. Being able to position your character is great, the team chain attacks and weapon attacks and stuff are fun to set up. The one flaw with it is that it does not interact with Kiryu very well, and by the end I was actually doing less damage with Kiryu if I got a tag team or weapon attack instead of a basic Brawler attack.

Classes: There were a lot of classes I ignored in 7 because they just weren't doing anything; it was just better to leave Joongi, Zhao, and Eri as their defaults and go to town. I think 8 has an improved skill inheritance system that made it more worthwhile to try out different classes, so by the end I switched every character away from their base class. Desperado and Aquanaut stood out as being very flexible and fun.

Kiryu: Technically this is an Ichiban game, but its more of a send-off to Kiryu than anything. I like how there was a ton of content dedicated to Kiryu revisiting characters from the past games, delivered in a way that I still liked it even though I only played 0 and 1. I thought the way they introduced leveling up his stances + gaining the ability to go beat-em-up mode was pretty clever. I also liked equipping him with gear that gave him buffs every turn so he could tear enemies apart like King's Hawaiian rolls.

Yamai: They knew what they were cooking here. You have to fight this guy like 4 times and I enjoyed it every time. He's cool, he looks cool, even the main characters say he is cool, and if he isn't playable in Yakuza 9 I'm gonna be astounded.

Things I don't:

Slow start: The first chapter got me pretty invested, but after Ichiban goes to Hawaii the story is a fucking slog for like 15 hours. I got so bored I stopped playing, and when I came back it finally picked up again.

Side content that I wasn't ever going to do: This is the reason the start of the story is so slow. I'm sure Dondoko Island and Crazy UberEats and all that is fun, but it isn't the type of thing I'm playing these games for, and when so much time in the story is spent ramping up all these side games to play, I just feel like I'm wasting my time. Next game might as well have a Virtua Fighter 6 tournament in the middle of it, why not?

Villains: Bryce and Ebina are just lame characters. This is a game with essentially 2 final bosses, but neither of them have the emotional core or the weight of the bosses from 7. Bryce is literally just 'a weird guy shows up', and while I understand what they were going for with Ebina, his goals seem so disconnected from what the protagonists are experiencing that him taking his shirt off and fighting Kiryu doesn't feel like a real climax. Getting Danny Trejo on board was a pretty inspired choice, but you fight Dwight so early that it framed him as a weakling that didn't matter. And he keeps coming back, in spite of that! There were a few showdowns in 7 where it felt high stakes/intense, but in 8 they had to bust out Sawashiro again to capture that.

Managing 2 parties at the same time: On one hand its cool because it means I get to use every party member, but I wish they bumped up the XP of whatever party you weren't playing, so that when you switched between them they were both at the same level. There were a couple of points where I had to grind because the difficulty of the content was scaling based on what my previous party had left off at, so I needed to get my current party to that level first. I also had to spend a lot of time doing the dungeons to get the materials for weapon upgrades on 9 characters. Just kind of time consuming, but it isn't the worst thing in the world.

Tatara Channel: Its dumb, but this is the only thing in the game that actually made me mad. The social media aspect of the story already feels dated in a way, and I don't care about Vtubers to begin with, but the thing that actually got me upset about this shit is that all the Tatara Channel scenes are just story recaps with unskippable dialog where something relevant MIGHT happen at the end. At one point I got tired of it and just skipped the cutscene, and then all of the sudden Kiryu is in front of Tojo HQ ready to fight. I hope they never deliver a plot in this way ever again

Even though I wrote more negative things than positive things, I still liked this game a lot. 7 is a way better story, but I think Ichiban and Kiryu are just too strong of protagonists to truly hate on the story, even if a lot of things surrounding it are dumb. I'm looking forward to playing pirates with Majima, and I will wish on a genie's lamp for Yamai to come back as a playable berserker-type character

[spindle-girl]

Daybreak 1.1

Let's get started

It was a second chance for humanity as a whole, and they’d gone and screwed it up from the start by coloring the city gold, of all colors. ... All put together, the light that bounced off of the city and reached skyward gave the clouds linings that were gold, not silver.

i wonder how much of this hate for gold is because of Scion's attacks or Khepri's portals. probably both. i do like the gold lining, seems like a fun visual.

Plaques were recessed into three of the four faces – the fourth had come free and fallen after the collision. Each plaque bore an etching of a face, a name, a date of birth, a date of death, a message. ... They were part of an initiative by an independent cape, a hero turned rogue, helping out.

with all the anti-cape stuff that's popped up so far and knowing it continues later on, i'm surprised projects like this aren't talked about more. a genuine moment where a cape is doing something nice with their powers. maybe this guy is an outlier or the other stuff the capes get up to weights more than it--which is fair since even the apartment stuff in Ashley's prologue is enough to get pissed off at--but with how much hate the Advance Guard gets in this section it seems forgotten that the whole reason the crowd is getting angry is over something a cape provided being destroyed by an accident anyone can do.

The crowd, too, seemed to realize that the situation had mostly de-escalated.

sigh

The summer heat was holding out through the start of September, making things just a little more uncomfortable, tempers a little shorter.

Ah! an estimated date. i want to try and keep track of all these to work out a proper Ward timeline since the one on the wiki is lacking.

We’d called him the second cape after Scion, but he might well have been the first, after all.

hello Vikare, congrats on getting mentioned in the first chapter instead of the first interlude. moving up in the world. if there's ever a parahumans 3 you might get a pov chapter. really tempted fate naming yourself after Icarus.

“Work,” I said.  “They wouldn’t fire me, especially if I explained.  I’d get in trouble, maybe, but I wouldn’t mind much.  Job is… a seven out of ten fit.”

i'm down right jealous rn. 7/10 seems great for a job

As in most things having to do with law or bureaucracy, it took longer than it should have, for a relatively simple process.  I hurried to the high school once they were done with me, and I arrived rather late.

Victoria is going from one bureaucracy to another lol

We had grass and fields, yes, but it was coarse and the ground beneath wasn’t usually landscaped. The area was large with large trees left untouched in the corners, chain link fence separating the field from the roads on two sides, the grade school formed the third boundary to the west, and the high school formed the fourth boundary to the north. The ground was uneven, more hilly than flat, and there were still large stones here and there, and a seemingly out of place play structure for the grade schoolers.

nothing much to note here, just that the paragraph made me remember some good memories.

Point_Me_@_The_Sky: If you stop by? I set up tarps by house. Make sure they still there & no water getting through? Lost cause maybe ~P.5 ... My destination wasn’t in the high school, but was across the street. It was an open building with a partial second floor. ... My office was the closest thing I had to a home, in this world. ... I’d rigged up tarps to keep the water off that corner of the house, but some of that moisture had been coming up from below.

okay. this is just sad. literally calls her office her house

I opened a notebook and began searching through it. I found the name before the internet succeeded in connecting.

this is about Victoria finding the cape who was building the pillars. i have no idea why there was a whole arc of the Undersiders sneaking into the PRT to steal their database. it seems like New Wave had access to it all if she can find random capes in her collection. should have just walked in and grabbed it while they were out heroing.

From: Deferent.I@Mail Subject: Re: Damaged Pillar I already heard.  Advance Guard were on the scene and let me know.  Will have it fixed tomorrow.  Thanks.

this just makes it seem like Deferent has access to much faster internet than Victoria does if they can check their emails and respond relatively quickly while going out and building as many pillars as described earlier. dunno, it's out of place with the descriptions from Victoria booting up her computer and the glowworm chapters. maybe he got better tech to be able to respond to stuff quicker?

She spent a lot of time palling around with a biotinker called Blasto. She kept going back to him to pair up. Might have been boyfriend-girlfriend, even. That ended when the Slaughterhouse Nine passed through Boston. We don’t know what happened to Blasto, but we can guess it wasn’t good.

rip Blasto. Defiant didn't care enough to note what happened to you

“She did her time,” I said.  “She made a mistake, she paid for it as much as she was able.  We don’t have enough good jails and so she’s free, and it looks like she’s trying to do good.  That’s pretty decent, really.  She’s not the enemy here.”

this will be interesting for later. i am surprised in general that Fume Hood is getting brought in this early. i vaguely know what happens to her so I guess it makes sense she gets some focus early on

End thoughts:

i'm like the story so far. while Victoria is obviously weary of there being a coming conflict between capes and non-capes, i think there are a few lines hinting at her feelings of separation from them. namely how she doesn't like the pillars, which seem to be for the civilians. tbf, it could be her not wanting reminders of Gold Morning or a reminder of the Leviathan fight where after there was a similar memorial that a quarter of her family was on. i could understand that.

nothing wrong with the story, but i really don't like the patrol group or Gilpatrick. reminds me of the rotc guys at college

[lonesilverw0lf]

Glad you like them so much! I’ll try to throw some more your way if I can think of anything. Ya, feel free to use and alter whatever fits your story and style!

I was partially inspired by this one villain introduction where he’s attacked and the bad guy casually pulls the weapon out of his body, drops it in front of his attackers, and says ‘try again’. A hell of a way to introduce your enemy there.

Part of me thinks that Hiccup might take some kind of twisted pleasure when people try to kill him. It’s a game to him to see what they’ll try first. Perhaps he has a passing line about “yeah, they usually are pretty predictable when they attack me. They begin with some big speech about ‘come on out so I may kill you’ to which I’ll reply ‘I wish you could’, and they do some grandiose proclamations before charging me head on. Sometimes they’re smart enough to gang up on me, take turns attacking, always have a guy at my back- what do you mean ‘fighting dirty’? Buddy, if you ever find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck. Anyway, it’s usually pretty boring these wannabe monster slayers. Although there was that one guy who had some cat eyes, an animal medallion, and attacked me with a silver sword. Now he was interesting. I actually thought he was going to be the one to finish me too, got all excited. Was really disappointed when it didn’t happen.”

He is chill with outsiders attacking him because fair, but he has zero tolerance for if they go after the locals. I forgot to mention his fire sword last time, but when he pulls that thing out, or just any other burning weapon, or just lights them on spectral fire really, your judgement has been passed and it’s time to die. Forget proper burials, your ashes have been burned to naught. The other adventurers who haven’t done anything wrong can leave, but don’t try to beg for the guy who tried to rape one of the girls. He had it coming. Female aggressors aren’t spared either. He’s quite egalitarian in that regard. The surviving adventurers would open the window for a full on cleansing invasion, or just some vengeance by some lord for killing a friend, giving Hiccup his commander of armies moment.

The silver sword guy with cat eyes is a reference to the Witcher franchise. Professional monster hunters these guys. Fun game too. Worth a play if you can. So sad what Netflix did to Henry Cavill there.

Perhaps when he’s attacked and they scamper away leaving the weapon in him, to which he just casually just tries to remember what they were talking about like he doesn’t have a weapon sticking out of his torso. That could be the ax that Astrid gets, or Hiccup could gift her one of the good ones from the castle armory. Learning to defend yourself is essential, and they find that someone who lived way back when and has been sorta defending Berk for all these generations has some good advice for fighting and warfare.

Maybe there’s a throne and a crown sitting in the old castle, practically untouched by time as part of the curse. When the curse is lifted, only then can he once again take that seat and wear the crown as is his right, and Berk can have a proper leader once more.

Blurb #59- Halloween Special

I'm going to try to share 70 blurbs from my WIPs and unfinished fics to celebrate reaching 70 posted fics! To help with this endeavor, please feel free to send me a word or a fandom you know I write for, and I'll share the blurb. IDK if I'll get 70 prompts, but let's try it! Send as many as you want!

Astrid had grown up on the isle of Berk. Born and raised on its cursed soil. She knew the best trees for climbing, she knew every name in the five hundred or so people that roamed the village. She swam its waters, explored its caves. She knew not to eat the dark purple berries on the thorny vines, and she knew not to make fire from black wood. She knew it was bad luck to wander into the bonefield, and that only people with a death wish went out at night. She knew that the trade ships that came in refused to stay more than one night on their soil, and that no ‘blood of the island’ was able to leave the isle’s waters.

And she knew not to approach the Pale Rider. 

Life on Berk was not really all that different from life on any other island or village. There were a few things to get used to, but all things considered, life was fine. 

Almost idyllic. 

They had farms, they had a baker, a blacksmith/butcher/dentist, a tailor, and a medicine woman. There was a large field of wildflowers. And the cliffs that overlooked the ocean offered beautiful views.

What was odd was that they didn’t have a mayor, or chief, or any kind of ruler. And the land was cursed. Oh, extremely cursed.

The extent of the curse was not fully known. It had long been set into the island for many generations. The inciting event had wiped out a large amount of the population, that included the witnesses. 

Thus the boneyard and the forbidden, crumbling castle on the mountain. 

Besides a few stray quirks of the island, the main effect of the curse was that no one born of the descents of the original village was able to leave. The curse feasted upon the life of its inhabitants and leaving the waters a few miles out would find one drained of energy before they perished. 

That’s how her father died. 

A fisherman, out alone on his vessel, just trying to go out a little farther to look for a better spot. The medicine woman stated that he had succumbed to the curse before he could even turn around. That was of course several days after he hadn’t come back and his ship finally floated back. 

So if you weren’t the adventurous or vacationing type, it wasn’t that big of a deal. 

Oh right, there was also the Pale Rider. 

When she was a child, stories of the Rider would instill fear into the children of the village. He was responsible for the missing livestock, for the trails of blood, and piles of bones. It was only a matter of time before his hunger would turn to those who he cornered in dark alleys at night. 

Things changed a few years ago. Whereas the Rider had only ever been talked about, and stood as an urban legend of the town, he was still a mystery. Parents made up what he looked like, how he acted, what he wanted. There was occasionally a sighting. Someone would come ranting and raving in the village square that they saw the rider running across the ocean or some other flight of fancy. Others still swore they heard the whinny of his horse. Although when asked to describe it, they ended up mimicking the sound of a bear or a mountain lion. 

But one day, the village Blacksmith/butcher/dentist, an eccentric man named Gobber, gifted with a backbone made of steel, decided he had enough. He called everyone together in the village square and announced, “I have invited the Rider to come to my shop tomorrow, and he accepted.” 

Horrified murmurings fell over the crowd. 

“You did what?” 

“Aye! You heard me! I got tired of the creature snagging my chickens! Pickin’ them off one by one…terrified them out of laying eggs!” 

“…so you invited him into the village.” 

“Yes!” Gobber exclaimed. “But you’re looking at it all wrong. I invited him to come and run his errands like a normal person, instead of him stealing like a horrible raccoon!” 

“He’s no horrible raccoon! He’s worse! He’s a demon!” 

“An abomination!” 

“The curse that walks!” 

“Death incarnate!” 

“Now now,” a voice called out among the crowd. This belonged to Dagur, son of the richest man in town, Oswald. As the richest family, the Berserker clan had some power, and opinions. “I’m sure Gobber didn’t mean any harm in inviting…an eldritch monster into our sweet little village.” 

“It’s jus’ as much his village as everyone else’s. He’s been here longer than all of us. A little goodwill won’t hurt nobody.” 

“You better hope it won’t, old man.” Dagur poked him in the chest. “Or I’ll make sure you suffer.” 

Astrid remembered the day the Pale Rider came to town for the first time. She was only 13, still a child. Her father was still alive. That day was sunny with big pillowy clouds. Many folks would claim that he arrived on a gray, rainy day, but that simply wasn’t true. It was sunny, and lovely. 

The caws of ravens preceded him. A flock of five swooping in. Then a horn from the watchtower alerted an intruder. 

The black shadow appeared at the edge of town, opposite to Gobber’s forge. People screamed and ran inside, while others coward in alleyways, terrified but curious to see what would happen. 

Astrid had been pulled into her house by her father, but still peered out the door to watch. 

The Pale Rider made his way through town, the clacking of horse hoofs and the calls of the ravens the only thing to show life in the village. 

He was not what she was expecting, but much worse. His horse, if you could call it that, was a black beast with leathery wings. It had tusks and fangs and its hooves morphed into talons. Its eyes glowed an acid green and it breathed fire from its nostrils. Its shape was unnatural. The neck looked like it was made of only bone, and its joints were spindly and narrow. 

The Rider himself was tall, too tall. His neck was elongated, as were his black and blue fingers. He wore an animal skull mask over his face, but his own violent green eyes still burned through the sockets. He had antlers like an elk, and wore a long, draping black cloak that fell open just enough to reveal his chest. 

His heart was on fire inside of him, and the flame illuminated it through the skin, only obscured by the form of his rib cage. 

Astrid’s home wasn’t too far from Gobber’s shop, and she slipped out to watch the Rider arrive. 

Gobber waited for him, hands on his hips and smiling. “There you are! I wondered if ya’d show. And ah, sorry ‘bout the cold reception! I told the other folks that you were comin’ and well, maybe one day they’ll come around.” 

The Rider didn’t respond. 

“Right, so come on in…” Gobber beckoned him into the forge. 

The Rider ducked his head, entering the forge, horse and all. His antlers scraped against the doorframe. 

He stayed for about an hour. Then, just as he came, he left. Silent, slowly, just rode out of town, leaving everyone behind to deal with the aftermath. 

That was three years ago. Every day since then, without fail, the Pale Rider would arrive at noon. For the first year, the guard sounded the horn at his approach. But after a while, he went unannounced. 

People still halted in the streets and let their conversations go silent. They watched him go, no longer terrified, but cautious. 

No one said it, but everyone agreed one day he’d snap and kill them all. 

Not Astrid though. She had come to see the Rider as a part of village life. Just as the rooster signifies dawn, so does the Rider declare noon. 

Each day, he went to the blacksmith’s shop, taking his horse in with him. Some days he left with a paper package, and some days he left empty handed.

[danwhobrowses]

I'm not sure how much good this vent will do, I'm not even sure I want to post this vent after my last one, but I'm writing it just so it's out of my head and into words because it seems once again fandom has chosen to send vitriol Ashton Greymoore's way.

What for? They talked to a 'specter' of the primordial titan within them, through their connection to the earth, the natural flow of creation and destruction. They ask what will happen to the world, it responds that it'll endure, they ask what of the people, it responds that the strong will survive and the weak will be remade into something stronger, to which Ashton replies they think they understand. To fandom this means that Ashton is becoming a fascist, that they have a 'Make Exandria Great Again' attitude for wanting the Primordials back, that they need to be beaten up or 'get what's coming to them' in order to change their mind, and I can only sit here and stew and wonder if this hate is really well-founded? Ashton is among my favourite characters in C3, I get frustrated by them at times too but if I think about it a big percentage of my frustrations is more towards people disliking them than me disliking things they do, or Matt setting up scenarios that doesn't do them any favours towards the fandom that hates them. Some of these are knee-jerk reactions of course, but for others it does feel like they have it out for Ashton, and I don't wanna engage with that, which makes it quite lonely when most of the fandom hones in on it.

For the most part I can understand how the whole 'the weak will be remade' bit can be taken badly; it's definitely iffy, but every other plan we have is also very iffy. The Release Predathos option literally involves unleashing an entity that wants to genocide the gods, the Maintain Status Quo option ('option' the status quo imo is impossible, in my mind the Gods can stay but the dynamic will still have to change) maintains a relationship where the gods pick and choose who they feel deserves help, using their power to covet more power, strongarm and demand loyalty, and overall choose fellow gods over mortals when the chips are down and not owning up to it. We should also remember that entities can speak in riddles, 'remade into something stronger' doesn't necessarily mean death; it could mean to adapt and grow, to become strong enough to bear and overcome it as many of the PCs of Critical Role have done with their hardships and trauma. It's worth reminding that the sad truth is that people will die whatever outcome happens - the aim is always to lessen the amount but if the Gods leave it's a power vacuum, if we linger too long it's a Calamity, and if the Gods stay it's a holy war on a more wild and less organized scale - and that Ashton isn't saying they approve of such death, merely that they think they understand. The commune doesn't tell Ashton which way to go; it only tells them that the world will endure, there will be change and it will change people, trees will still grow, the wind will still blow, the waves will still flow along the coasts of the sea, and people will survive. I know the interpretation can differ from people thanks to Matt's patented vague or riddle-mounted choices in phrase, but I also think if it was the Wildmother who told Orym or some other follower that 'nature is a cycle, everything must adapt to change or else it'll die - this world will change, but it will also survive' nobody would be calling Orym a fascist, people would accept it because the Wildmother's domain is nature, and nature is not always kind.

While we're mentioning Orym - and because this is gonna come off as critical I must preface that I like and enjoy All of the Hells, that's not changed - I also gotta call it out here because it does very much feel like the people who hate Ashton hate them for the reasons they love Orym. Both are stubborn, they're diligent in their personal code, they care deeply for their friends and would give their whole being just to keep them safe, they believe in the Hells' power and greatness more than each member does and more than they believe in their own, but Ashton gets the hate mainly because these fans agree more with Orym on the god stuff. What confuses me though is how these same haters can despise Ashton for being consistent but love Braius, the literal Devil Worshipper who secretly is on board with the Chase Away plan only so he can help the Devil rule the world, the compulsive liar. Where's Braius' scrutiny? A world under Asmodeus will be a far worse 'survival of the fittest' scenario, why does Braius get a pass in all this stuff huh? Because he's funny? Seems people ignore the whole morality talk when they're discussing Braius' dedication to Exandrian Satan.

I find it irksome too that even the group seem to criticize Ashton reaching out to Primordials too - as if that wasn't what we wanted them and Fearne to do anyway. They don't dislike the gods simply because they're a 'great entity', it's because they're a great entity that holds power and doesn't use it equally or fairly; they pick and choose who to help, a lot of the time in Ashton's experience for their own self-service, but they won't prioritize mortals over another god no matter who cruel or heinous the god is being, and the following of these gods are so intertwined with politics that most religious motivation also ends up being political. Ashton has no connection to the gods, they reached out and got nothing, an Angel looked at them and made them feel like nothing, but they do have a connection to the Primordials; from the Earth Golem to the Titan Empress they're literally a vessel of, they experienced something significant in their connection to the Earth, so I don't like how that they're almost mocked for having it. In addition, Ashton's behaviour during this commune differs because of that connection, but also because the titans are a natural flow; they don't demand or test or politic or prejudice, and despite being a Great Entity in its own right it never made sure Ashton felt small for their own satisfaction, they asked a question and got an answer, it's the same reason Ashton has disdain for most political leaders but likes and respects Keyleth, Allura, Kima, Pike, and (eventually) Percy despite also being people in power. To call on Orym and the Wildmother as an example again; Orym's an Air Ashari, the Ashari are guardians of the Elemental Planes - made from the Primordials - not tied to a god, but nobody criticizes his connection to the Wildmother despite both not being a follower and his culture being more tethered to Primordials and their descendants. I'm not saying it's all correct for Ashton to want things to go back to how Primordials ruled, but we must remind ourselves also that we only know a story written by victors when it comes to the Schism - a story which could very easily have been altered and edited to make it feel more justified for the Primes and mortals to actively genocide all the Primordials, the native species and creators of this world, and desecrate their remains to make weapons, soul anchors, and cities - the specter didn't say 'fuck em, all mortals should die' after all, if they believe mortals would survive then they must be at the least tolerant of mortal existence. Why is it okay for god followers to say they wanna keep the world with the gods they have a connection to (and I'm not saying they aren't) but Ashton is out of line for wanting to have a world which has something active that they also have a connection to? It seems rather unfair to allow one side to have and the other to have not, picking and choosing because our audience's bias has spent more time with the gods, Ashton wanting something they can connect to doesn't feel all wrong either, the Eidolons still exist with faint worship hiding away so they're not smited by the gods, why can't faith exist so they're not in hiding? I sincerely doubt the Punk Rock that is Ashton is asking for the Primordials to fill the Gods' roles the same way the Gods have been running things either, they want to break the throne remember? There needs to be a balance in ideals and practice of course, and in an ideal world there could even be a more fluid and all-inclusive Exandria where gods and Eidolons live harmoniously with mortals without hierarchy and class systems, I think Ashton could happily live with something like that, they did say the world needs 'a little chaos' to call back to Matt hinting that the current world doesn't have enough.

Which leads us to those wishing violence upon Ashton - and I really don't like that. People who say 'hitting them over the head is the only language they understand' seem to misinterpret Ashton as if everyone around them have been on their hands and knees begging Ashton to reconsider and them ignoring valid points and pulling a Leroy Jenkins. In reality, nobody is actually talking to Ashton about it, a lot of the frustration with Bells Hells right now is that they aren't talking to each other, even about the end goal! Ashton has valid reasons for their thinking, so being violent isn't gonna change their mind; undermining, dehumanizing and trying to effectively bully anyone let alone someone with chronic pain and low self worth will never truly convince them to your way of thinking. All people understand the language of violence, but that language is not used justly, those who truly wish violence upon Ashton don't want it in hopes it'll force Ashton to change their mind, they want it for their own satisfaction of seeing them in pain; so they can further push them away from the rest of the group and go 'that guy's not one of us', make it so the people Ashton calls family after a lifetime of loneliness, confusion and abandonment - the people they promised they won't abandon, and have kept true on that promise even at their lowest - make them feel small and worthless, and force them into box where they can't be themselves, and I hate that people would want to treat them that way. Ashton IS capable of listening; they've stepped back and trusted the other Hells to do their own thing even when it's ridiculous like staging a play where they pretend to be Ludinus to trick Unseelie emissaries into thinking that he attacked them, they listened to the gods even when they didn't have to like they promised they would and despite it being very personal they held themselves back for the benefit of the group, and if the group talked to them calmly where they were all allowed to healthily discuss the pros and cons, the ideals and compromises, and the risk and reward of all plans that have been proposed then they would listen, and they would try - you don't need to slice bread with a broadsword.

Will Ashton 'get what's coming to them'? Maybe, but what is that exactly? We only assume to know the full vision of what Ashton wants to act on. All of Bells Hells are gonna face the consequences of the choice they make on Ruidus - when they finally make one that is - in and out of the world they live in, so won't that apply to everyone? So what for Ashton? do people want Fractures 2.0? Does everything Ashton wants in life have to blow up violently in their face? Family, Closure, their best friend's safety, why does 'what's coming to them' have to be something aggressive and harmful? People change through positive reinforcement and good experiences too! Caduceus Clay would remind you that it's love that makes people. Don't mistake this rant as me wanting Ashton to be exactly as they are now, I too want to see growth from Ashton and we ARE seeing it happen; I see it in small instances where they think twice about rash actions and try not to fly off the handle, when they sit just to listen or understand or to defuse tension, and that when they're going somewhere or doing something they let the group know in advance, those who think Ashton hasn't changed since ep. 1 aren't paying close attention, but that doesn't mean that they don't still have more ground to cover. I believe that Ashton grows the most through kindness; when they're treated like a person and not a blunt instrument or a nuisance, and I hope what's 'coming' for Ashton isn't rejection, bitterness, and isolation, but acceptance, empathy, and for someone - if you know me you'd know who I'd want it to be - to convince them that they are worthy of living, that they're special not because of their powers or blood or because they have died and been put back together again (honestly, it does irk me a little that both Keyleth and Imogen chose that for titles and to brag to the Matron, I know it isn't intended this way but sometimes it feels like saying 'your best defining quality is that you've died a lot') but because while they have every reason to hate everything they still chose to be kind to those who deserve kindness, they have a good heart and they mean well. Are they perfect? No! They're in their 20s very few people irl have their lives together at even twice that age, but I want them to have good things in their life; things that help them feel happy and safe and like they can still feel comfortable in their own skin without having to appear more 'palatable' for people who've already decided that they don't like them. I want them to know that they've always deserved to live and they still deserve it now, I want that not just for Ashton but for all the Hells, and hopefully they'll all live to have it.

And most of all I want the people who hate them to be wrong about Ashton Greymoore, and I want Taliesin to prove them wrong.

[ganondoodle]

(probably very problematic opinion on the english voices in totk

watching skittybitty's totk video for the 27864269th time and i STILL get jumpscared by the english voices, anytime anyone ever opens their mouth it just sounds like they took some random person they caught on the street to monotonely voice a line in one take, and sometimes one of them rly likes to pretend their are doing a voice but it just sounds like a little child imitating their granpa or someone trying to overact to their toddler, its especially sad for ganondorf, its hard to hear any of them for me but gan i start laughing and have to skip it bc thats NOT gan, thats me doing my worst evil guy impression, or zelda, thats not zelda talkign thats me doing a sarcastic uwu lil princess voice

to be clear, i have nothing agaisnt the people voicing them and i know people like the guy doing the gan voice but none of them fit at all and none feel like they are actually coming from the character, much more so you muting your TV and talking over the people on screen making shit up as you go for shits and giggles, i dont know what happened here, why are these SO bad, i listen to plenty of movies and games and whatnot in english and i only ever had a similar problem with the english voices of ghibli movies -though that could be bc im jsut so used to the german ones, which are fantastic- or maybe an extremely old game that was just weird on its own even

i take no pride in hating the voices, espeically knowing how badly voice actors are treated and often replaced with some shitty celebtrity, but i truly do not get why they are so bad, the voices themselves never rly fit, and even if it would be passable, they are all speaking in a way where it either sounds like they are some guy sitting next to you reading a line for the first time or overemphasizing so much it sounds like someone playing pretend with toddlers

and its not in an indie game where the devs did their best to voice people themselves bc they didnt have the money, this is nintendo, how is it still like that, bc even the ones returning from botw, are STILL just as bad, i dont know if that can all be the fault of the actors, its so weird to me

and it makes it even harder for me to believe that people take this game as seriously as they do or as emotionally affecting bc a, if not THE, biggest part of the fandom is made up of english speakers who would probably never even think about trying a different language

...anyway, i needed to say that at some point)

[moe-broey]

Back to what I do best (bare minimum Putting My Guys In Situations shitposts) 😌

Inspo under cut!!!

[spacelesscowboy]

truthfully while i enjoy billford and fiddauthor i think they’re much more fun as like. lightning in a bottle moments. weird built up tension that neither side acknowledges. but It’s There.

and 30 years later ford is shooting up in bed wide eyed and sweating going. oh my god i was in love w them. while both bill and fiddleford moved on LONG before ford even realized what was happening.

[carcarrot]

well the poll hasnt ended yet but im sorry once again to those of you that wanted me to be more responsible. im seeing those bitches again as close as i possibly can

[eddiemunsonsmum]

Just saw this comment on a story posted a month ago.

*cries in Eddie Munson Solo Series no one wanted to read, interact with or request for*

No shade to the person that commented this on their own fic if you recognize it. It's not their fault. I'm not mad at them. More crying in the tags.

[batsplat]

so in assen 2004 comms talk about how valentino helped melandri with riding yamaha A Lot, and how they are two great friends. and indeed those two have known each other since childhood/or at least their teens right? (seen a lot of their photos w matching terrible dye jobs) but then fast forward to 2010 and melandri is going full conspiracy theorist about the freaking chair affghhhkgjk. like what happened here? is it any interesting or is it like mostly one sided bitterness from melandri or something. like that can’t really be about 2005 season for vale bc come on melandri wasn’t his main rival that year.

even if it’s not interesting feud or drama wise it is another friendship that vale had (and unlike w sete vale&melandri go way back) that eventually fell apart as a result of competing in motogp…….hm

yeah, we don't actually have a great sense of what happened there! it's funny the coldness seems to have crept in during the 2005 season specifically, because I'm very much with you here on the 'come on valentino why bother' stance - melandri was aggressively not a proper title contender that season and really not even the main on-track rival... but actually I do think this fits in rather nicely within my sete thesis, which we'll get to. the subsequent public bitterness has been entirely one-sided, with melandri occasionally saying something kinda mean-spirited about valentino in recent years and valentino... not doing any of that

anyhow, they definitely WERE close, which was hammered home not just through repeated mentions by the commentators but also when you read the columns he was dictating every race for mat oxley in his early years. here, from his 250cc days:

mugello 1998

I wasn’t so confident before Mugello because while I was at home I played football and lost, I played tennis and lost, I rode motocross and lost. The only thing I won was minicars – I am the champion! We got beaten in a five-a-side soccer match, six-one, then a friend beat me at tennis, six-one, then Marco [Melandri] beat me at motocross. I’m always fighting with Marco on motocross but he’s faster than me. I’m getting better though – at the start of the year he’d beat me by five or six seconds, now it’s only one or two. I have much fear when I ride motocross because I’m not good at flying. We don’t go crazy; it would be stupid to get hurt doing that. Motocross is great for my muscle power though. I don’t go the gym much in the summer because I want to be outside, so motocross is perfect.

paul ricard 1998

As usual, my break between Mugello and France was full of battles with my friends! First we played football and my team won on penalties. I scored the winner. I never make a mistake from the penalty spot. Next day I did motocross with Melandri and he beat me, as usual, but we had some very funny races. Then I raced with Melandri again, but with electric cars. He’s bought a Honda NSX – it’s fast. Before I left for France we raced minimoto at a track in Rimini. There were about 20 of us: me, Melandri and a load of fast, young Italian riders. We had a lot of really crazy battles. Lots of fun! I don’t think it’s dangerous because the bikes aren’t so fast, maybe 60kp/h. I had some big fights with Melandri, we hit each other all the time – BANG! BANG! BANG! – and we crashed together maybe two or three times.

madrid 1998

I’m doing motocross three times a week now to help build up strength, but Melandri is still faster than me, so I’ve started practising in secret. I get dressed into my motocross gear, then ring him to tell him we don’t need to ride today, then do a few hours riding in secret! Soon I will be faster than him! Anyway, I beat him in minimoto before we went to Jarama.

assen 1998

“Hooray, finally I am first on a 250! It was the day of the teenager at Assen, the Italian teenager! I was so happy when my friend Melandri won the 125 race, so it was fantastic to go out and win the 250. A perfect day, except Marco and me couldn’t party on Saturday night, because I flew home to celebrate with my friends, while he stayed at Assen. I guess we’ll make sure we have a beer together before Donington.

donington 1998

We had our own paddock World Cup at Donington on Thursday, which was really shit, because we played three games and lost three games. I played in the Italian team with Melandri, Boscoscuro, Scalvini, Locatelli, Borsoi and Carpani. First we played the Suzuki 500 team and lost, then we played Team Rainey and lost, and finally we played Dorna, and lost. Dorna were all Spanish and very good. But the games weren’t so much fun because the pitch was tiny and really bumpy. Last year we had the paddock World Cup at Imola on a full-size pitch, and I scored twice. Nice!

sachsenring 1998

Now we have a four-week holiday before Brno, but I’m going to spend most of my time on the beach near my home – it’s sunny and the girls are nice, that’s all I need! But I am going away for one week – a racers’ holiday with Loris Reggiani, Roberto Locatelli and Melandri. We’re going to Tunisia to mess about with jet skis and fast boats. Should be a lot of fun!

sepang 1999

The winter was fun. Usually I don’t like the winter because it’s too cold, but where I live, near the Adriatic coast, there are so many people in the summer. That didn’t used to be a problem, but now everyone recognises me, so it’s Rossi! Rossi! Rossi! all the time. I don’t like it! I spent a lot of time with my friends, as that’s when I’m happiest. We went skiing a few times, a big gang of us. Mad! Snowboarding is more fashionable nowadays but I’m faster on skis, so it’s better! Melandri came with me once, he’s my best mate in the paddock, plus Alessandro Brannetti, a new Italian 125 guy.

mugello 1999

Before Mugello I spent some time at home, riding my 250 road bike and going motocrossing. I have a new motocross bike at home, but I can’t tell you what it is, because it’s not an Aprilia! But it’s a lot of fun on the new motocross track I’ve built behind a friend’s house. I dug the ground myself with a JCB digger we hired. I have designed the track to be safe for me, because modern motocross tracks have near-vertical take-off jumps, which are very dangerous if you don’t have good control in the air. And I don’t! So I’ve built low and fast jumps which I can take in fourth or fifth gear and be safe. Big fun! I’m looking forward to racing my friend Melandri, who hasn’t been doing motocross since he broke his wrist in Malaysia.

sachsenring 1999

Now we have a four-week holiday, hooray! All I really want to do is sleep. During the break last year I went to Tunisia with a bunch of friends like Melandri, but all I want to do now is stay home and rest. My home is near a holiday resort anyway, near the Adriatic Sea, but to be honest I don’t like the sea so much. I prefer snow...”

argentina 1999

I already have some plans for the winter. The World Championship may have finished, but I already have two more races over the next few weeks. No rest yet! First is the X Race at Misano. This is a special event for GP and world Superbike riders. I’m racing go-karts, motocross and cars with [Carl] Fogarty, Melandri, Capirossi, Harada and a lot of other guys. They ran this event for the first time last year and I won it. It’s only fun of course but I want to win again because winning is always important. Then at the end of November I’m doing a car rally at Monza.

so yeah, clearly close buddies! I'm sure there's more out there about their friendship, but I've never been that invested in digging into the details lol. about the collapse of the relationship... well, there's this from the barker biography, which kinda lumps melandri into a generic section about valentino's rivals:

Marco Melandri, who had been a close friend of Rossi's for years before he started winning races in 2005, noted the same shift in attitude: 'When I started to race well with him he changed a lot. When we were growing up we were very good friends. Valentino plays games with everybody... the way he talked to the media - he tries to never say something good about you.'

in 2007, after valentino had finally lost a title fight (and was in the process of losing another), there's another oxley column where a few key figures like his teammate edwards, his rival hayden, and his crew chief jb were asked about what made valentino so good. and valentino's crew chief jb was kind enough to give his own take on the melandri dynamic:

“He only uses mind games when people make a serious challenge, then he pulls out that extra tool in his armoury, which he did with Max, with Sete and to a lesser degree with Marco. Then there’s Loris, who is also serious challenge, but there’s a different understanding between them, there’s a respect. When I first worked with Valentino he was mates with Marco. Whenever there was a dinner or a party, Marco was always there. When Marco came to MotoGP it was still fine, then when there was any sort of a challenge their friendship cooled off a bit."

and then by 2010 you get melandri be like. full yellow chair conspiracy theorist. now, he also mentions how his own celebrations were received, and we do actually have jorge himself give his review of said celebrations a few years earlier (x, x):

I don't really have a point here, I just think it's funny

whereas from valentino's side.... well, there's really not much. his autobiography goes until the end of 2004 and is published in 2005 - so if melandri was already a 'proper' rival when the book was finalised, it will have been a very recent thing... but there's literally one reference to melandri in the whole thing, and it's something generic to do with the yamaha's development. valentino himself has said pretty much fuck all about this friendship falling apart. it's a bit frustrating because... when melandri says that valentino tries never to say anything good about you in the media - look, that's probably referring to something substantive, but we don't really know what exactly valentino supposedly said. we just have to take melandri at his word.... when you go that far back, it's a lot trickier to hunt down specifics if it's not a big news story, if there's not been a major controversy

you do have this from mid 2005:

"No. I think this is not true," replied Rossi, when asked if he deliberately avoided friendships with his closest rivals. "With Melandri, when this year he start to go fast, especially the Italian journalists, try to put some bad things between us - to make fight like what happened between Biaggi and Doohan. "But I go to speak to Melandri after Shanghai, on the podium, because I say one thing and the Italian journalists they modify and say to him another thing - and also the same journalists come to me and make the same. "I know Marco from minibikes when we were friends - we've been friends for more than ten-years - so I try to keep a good relationship because I don't like a bad relationship with anybody," he insisted. "For sure I have had a bad relationship with Biaggi and Gibernau but I don't think that is the right result."

now, according to the article, there were already rumours at the time that the relationship had grown colder that year. which is mainly funny insofar as valentino had quite literally double melandri's points - and the latter still hadn't won a race. again. what's the point

which, well. I do think jb's mention of capirossi is kinda interesting, as another rival valentino had known forever and one who wasn't like. dramatically less likely than melandri to end up a serious challenger to valentino, beyond being a bit older already. jb mentions they have an "understanding", a "respect" between the two of them... it's also maybe worth bringing in what hayden, the man who had actually managed to beat him in 2006, had to say about valentino for the same oxley piece:

“I can’t say it’s just his approach that makes him good. Some guys take their racing real serious, others are really laid back, it’s whatever works for that rider. But regardless of whatever he does he definitely gets around the track fast, that’s what’s most important. “One thing I noticed when we were team-mates is that he looks like it’s fun, fun, fun, he definitely cuts up a lot, but once you’re in the garage that dude is so serious, so focused. Everything seems perfect, right down to the windscreen sticker and the colour of his boots. He doesn’t overlook anything and I think that’s a big part of it. “More than anything it’s the racer in him that makes him so strong, it’s obvious the guy wants to win. He’s got a lot of natural talent but I know a lot of guys with natural talent and it gets some guys in trouble. It’s the whole package that makes him strong: the desire, the focus, the talent. “I think sometimes maybe he’s not as laidback as he comes across. He knows what to say and when to say it to make it look like things aren’t really getting to him. He knows how to play it, on the bike and off the bike. “It’s hard to say what he’s like with mind games because I can only comment on how he’s been with me and I’ve never seen him play any games with me, especially last year when he was taking chunks out of my points lead. The guy didn’t really change, maybe he just knew that I wasn’t going to roll over. Maybe some of the guys he can break down mentally, maybe he knew it wasn’t going to get to me. “Him and JB (Jeremy Burgess) haven’t won all those titles just through his riding, they know how to play people, they know how to play their cards, when to show their hand, when not to show their hand. I don’t think he plays as many games as other guys – you don’t need to play a lot of games when you can ride like that.“ "On track sure he’s aggressive but he’s totally clean and he definitely has a lot of tactics. He knows when he wants to race just one guy, how to separate groups, how to slow down. Like Phillip Island in 2005 I was on him the whole race and he eventually saw that he wasn’t going to get away, so he slowed down, brought the next group up to us to get me caught up with them, then tried to make another break. He’s got a lot of race craft. “I’d say his biggest strength is that he can adapt. If the tyres go off and he needs to slide he can slide, when the bike need to be ridden in line he can ride in line, he can definitely adapt to situations. I can’t say there’s one area of his riding where he just kills guys. It’s not just braking or corner speed or this or that, I’d just say that when he’s in a rhythm and putting those laps down he can break a guy. Like at Jerez this year he broke Pedrosa by about half a tenth a lap, he just kept putting those laps down, riding on that edge. He doesn’t ride 95 per cent, he rides on that razor edge for a long time. “I don’t know about weaknesses, it’s hard for me to point out a guy’s weakness when he’s won all those championships. In fact I’m not going to say he’s got any weak points because I don’t need to motivate the guy! That’s why I don’t want to say anything negative, I’m a big believer in not motivating these guys anymore, that’s why I don’t talk trash.”

like, you do have to bring up the context that valentino had four title rivals in 2006 - melandri, hayden, capirossi and dani - and he really only seems to have cooled off towards one of them. I'm not saying it's melandri's fault! I think it's more... hm, it's a bit telling, isn't it? competitively, there's not really any reason for melandri to be singled out in any way. I mean, you'll note he didn't win the title - and the guy who did explicitly says he didn't think valentino was fucking with him. valentino says in 2005 that he's made an active effort to not let the melandri relationship get worse... which could be true insofar as he didn't want any drama, but clearly he did allow that friendship to grow cold. why do that? is melandri really such a threat? I feel like if valentino said something particularly egregious about melandri, we would have some kind of a record of it - but let's say he was just mildly bitchy about the guy. you'd want to take him to one side and tell him 'dude, you really needn't bother', right? like, no offence, but is THIS guy worth it?

except. well. it is a little interesting that in the immediate aftermath of 2004, valentino had another friend of his (who he had considerably more history with than his last title rival) head over to honda gresini, turn into a more serious challenger... and valentino went. 'hm, yeah, maybe let's not do that again.' whether consciously or subconsciously, he does seem to have drawn back from melandri a hell of a lot quicker than he did from sete - and let's not forget that sete was actually beating him in dramatic last lap duels, which melandri extremely did not do. now, look, of course there COULD have been some sort of private spat here that nobody involved ever talked about... or maybe valentino just decided for completely unrelated reasons he'd had enough of melandri. but isn't it just. a little noteworthy. that when it comes to the 2006 title rivals, valentino is on good terms with all of them, who he seemingly does not piss off too badly with any sort of off-track antics... except melandri. his coldest relationship is with his childhood friend. one might conclude that melandri was the one who had the most power to hurt valentino, if he had been allowed to remain close. one could argue that there the sete rivalry marked a bit of a turning point in terms of how valentino approached his rivalries, that after this point he really didn't want another rivalry that could affect him in the same way. one might point out that some of the details of the melandri rivalry sure feel like they could be used to back up this framing

all that being said. what valentino is doing here is... well, it's basically fine, isn't it. everyone and their dog agrees it's tough to remain friends with your actual close rivals. jb describes it as their friendship 'cooling off', which is also the kind of thing that can just... eventually happen with childhood friends, even when you don't have pressures of competition warping interpersonal dynamics. there's not all that much to suggest valentino was massively treating melandri differently from any of his other major rivals at the time - it's just that his prior relationship had been closer and melandri seems to have taken the shift poorly. given how little of a paper trail there is, it feels like any mind games on valentino's part were generally on the subtler side, perhaps just the occasional snide comment or insinuation or ambiguously shady line that never made it to an article we can still access nowadays. more in line with what nicky "I don't think he plays as many games as other guys" hayden is describing: how valentino knows how to play his cards without necessarily escalating it into full out war. when melandri's talking about the rivalry, at times he does seem less annoyed by anything valentino actually did than he is by the media pressure of being an italian rival of valentino's, of being subjected to a more hostile media environment tan valentino, etc etc. after a certain point, valentino was often a passive beneficiary of his own successes in that regard. it's not like he's telling the italian journalists to put extra pressure on melandri... but he's also hardly going to complain

in general, the timing of it does have a certain charm to it as useful evidence for my great big 'the sete experience changed how valentino approached his rivalries' thesis, but I'm always a tad wary of analyses that flatten valentino's rivalries and by extension valentino by treating the patterns of behaviour in each as identical. it's also worth pointing out that... well, melandri isn't exactly a neutral source here, and his 2010 great big yellow chair theory does maybe suggest his resentment was getting in the way of his judgement where valentino was concerned. in the end, people didn't enjoy melandri's celebrations as much as melandri would have liked. and at some point in 2005, valentino apparently decided he didn't like this guy's vibe any more. c'est la vie

[mokeonn]

I'm playing bg3 again and trying out the honor mode (which as it turns out, might be a bad idea if you never beat the game in general, much less beat it in tactician mode) and I have been confronted with the fact that I absolutely have dnd race favoritism and it absolutely is contributing to my need for many many bg3 saves because I constantly think "hmmm I want to try playing as a deep gnome to see if I get special dialog with Barcus Wroot, the Iron hands, and the underdark" before picking Drow for the 4th time.

[blujayonthewing]

so in juniper's campaign we've just found ourselves in a high-stakes situation that I as a player do frankly find stressful and am anxious about, but hey hi also the DM was like 'okay here are the exact mechanics of how this is going to work because I don't want to surprise you with serious repercussions, also here are all the options you will have to try to do something about the situation-- [affected player] what do you think? honest feedback, I don't want it to feel unfair, I want to be clear that I am not just trying to kill your character, and if it ends up being badly balanced we can revisit it down the road' and oh my god I could COLLAPSE and WEEP with gratitude