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wherevenusholdssomeofficespace · 8 months ago

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Linda Flynn-Fletcher

I think Linda Flynn-Fletcher is potentially one of the most misunderstood characters in the show.

It think comes from a natural enough place. Her role in the show is of course, to act as the potential threat to their summers of fun. While they boys never see her as a threat, narratively she's the big bad. If she sees it, its game over.

Here's the thing though. She's a not a bad mom. Her children LOVE her. Similarly to how Phineas and Ferb absolutely adore Candace and would do nearly anything she asked, Phineas, Ferb and Candace all love and respect their mother and don't disobey her. Now a bit of this is clearly Linda being a more permissive parent, but any rules that Linda has Phineas and Ferb never do anything to disobey their mother. While I wouldn't be surprised if there were one or two instances where Candace disobeyed her mother willfully, the closest I can think off off hand is Candace not doing a bunch of chores that she was supposed to do. Really, the fact that all her kids love her, shows how much all her kids feel loved in their household. And I think that's super important. Candace wrote a song about how much she feels loved by her mom, even if her mom is dismissive of Candace. But she still goes with Candace to see what the boys are up to even if she doesn't believe it. She sets boundaries on how often Candace can bust the boys sure. But she hasn't forbidden Candace from doing it altogether. Nor does she punish Candace for presumably lying?

At MOST Linda will say something like: "let's get you out of the sun" after a failed bust. The worst of it I think is probably the time Linda made her promise not to try or suffer the Pharaohs curse. Which, was just some guy in a Pharaoh costume telling Candace curse you. Linda goes out of her way to read books to try and deal with her daughter. She and Candace still clearly hold a lot of affection for each other and do spend a decent amount of mother daughter time together. Linda gives books to her daughter, tries to direct her to other activities, and finds her sleep busting cute, and sometimes goes out of her way to do activities her daughter wants to do with her. All things considered Linda is REALLY patient about Candace's busting. Could she be doing more to get to the bottom of why Candace is presumably acting out? Sure. But Doofensmirtz could also be doing a better job of listening to his daughter and not insulting her (or do we not remember why Vanessa wears earbuds around the house) but we all call him a really good dad.

A LOT of shows have kids hiding a secret from a parent for one reason of another. But while the crux of the show rests on Linda not knowing what her sons are doing, its not because its a secret. The boys aren't hiding it from her. The boys genuinely believe she knows. Lawrence genuinely believes she knows. Candace is the only one in the family who really grasps the situation.

Linda's ignorance, her disbelief of the wild shenanigans that her children get into is easily mistakable for normality. For representing the oppressive day to day. The same thematic antagonist as school. A mom who wants whats best for her kids, and thinks that whats best for them is them being normal, without realizing what's really best for them. After all why else we saw what would happen if she found out in Quantum Boogaloo. But the fact of the matter is aside from that one future (which also featured an effectively evil leader in Doofensmirtz, and therefore implies more factors at play than just Doofensmirtz and Linda's characters), we don't really know how it would play out in the long term. Future Linda even just kinda moves on after discovering the truth.

Linda is exactly like her kids. She just does the same things on a less physics breaking scale. The woman has like 37 different hobbies. She takes a cooking class, donated an art sculpture, is part of a jazz group. She has a background in astrophysics. She was a pop star. She won a meatloaf contest. She takes french lessons. The fact that Linda has several hobbies is part of the reason the formula works at all. Linda is constantly trying new things which gets her out of the house, while her sons are trying their own new things. Her absence is what prompts Candace to have to go looking for her. Also, What Do It Do when the moment Linda gets put in Candace's position she acts the exact same way.

Also it's why she and Lawrence are so compatible. They have a lot of weird hobbies they spend together. She likes Lawrence's history references. They watch car racing together. They went spelunking together. They go bowling regularly enough to have equipment. She has played the bagpipes while Lawrence danced (which sidenote: do you think she taught Candace how to play the bagpipes?).

Not to mention her extended family. Think about it. Her mom was a competitive roller derby skater who once bit a skate and shook it like a dog with a chew toy and pulls elaborate pranks with her identical twin. Really she's a lot like Candace with her aggressive passion. Her dad apparently won a balloon race, but tells the story in the most straightforward way possible, sometimes very oblivious, but is overall a lot like Phineas. Her sister is an adrenaline junky. And back to Quantum Boogaloo for a minute: Her granddaughter is just like Candace, Grown up Candace is a lot like Linda. Do you not see the implications!!?!?!? LIKE???? DO YOU NOT REALIZE THAT LINDA WAS PROBABLY A LOT LIKE CANDACE AND PHINEAS WHEN SHE WAS YOUNGER?!!?! YOU THINK IT SKIPPED A GENERATION OR SOMETHING???

Do you think Linda used to complain about Tiana??? Do you think Linda thought her family was weird and was embarrassed by them??? Do you think Linda ever called herself the only mature/normal member of her family?? LIKE CANDACE DOES????

Anyway, Linda is just like her family. Sure, she is RELATIVELY more normal, but that's relative, and probably simply because the universe bends itself around to keep her from knowing. Linda literally cannot find out about the real nature of her universe. Linda is just a grown up version of her children, seeking to make the most of each day, but within the bounds the universe has set upon her, both as an adult woman and mother, but also in the laws of physics expected of her. But she still makes the most of her life. You don't have to build a roller coaster to make the most of each day and all that.

I think if Linda is representing anything its that even parents can have rich fulfilling lives. Where they make the most out of each day. Having fun with your life doesn't stop with adulthood. Even if you have more responsibilities doesn't mean you can't have fun? Sure childhood is something you can't get back but growing up isn't inherently bad either?

#pnf #phineas and ferb #linda flynn fletcher #The woman is a former pop star #and has a secret background in astrophysics #you would think that would be enough but nooo #i generally don't care to comment on the suspected neurodivergent status of cartoon characters #because neurodivergency exists in the context of society #and cartoon characters exist in a completely different context #and when characters are inspired by real people (like Linda being inspired by Dan's sister) it can get messy #but if Phineas and Candace and Doofensmirtz are ADHD so is Linda #she just has adult woman flavor ADHD #aka the reason that woman and girls go underdiagnosed or are often diagnosed with anxiety instead #I think we often don't recognize how frequently she forgets things #I'm thinking back to that one time she forgot the “stuff” at the grocery store #she stayed up all night making last minute pies #working up to the deadline on an art sculpture #at one point runs out of contacts (presumably because she forgot to get more)#gets overwhelmed when planning the block party #and that's just what I can think of off hand #anyway I will not stand for Linda slander

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le-chevalier-au-lion · 30 days ago

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meaning upon motion: rosquez [e]

Marc catalogues those things that keep showing up.

The rosé wine he likes—God, Valentino used to give him so much shit for that, him and his girly drinks. Sugar next to the coffee pot. A room for himself, but Valentino’s door is always open. The towels are 100% cotton, silken soft to the touch.

It says—something, maybe, or it’s the heavy roll of all that fucking wine in his stomach.

Marc doesn’t want to look too closely into it, so he doesn’t. Everything is still there.

Valentino makes a noise, that cross between kissing his teeth and clicking his tongue. “Tomorrow, eh?” He says, pointing his chin to the window, to the track outside.

Rain had turned it into a slippery hellslide, all brackish puddles and mud banks. He’d been thinking about that track for ten years now, give or take. Dreading it, picturing it, loving it. If they go to shit tomorrow, if racing does to them what it likes to do, he’ll have gone up on a dirt bike there anyway.

It helps. A little.

“Yeah,” Marc mutters. He goes for another sip, finds his glass empty.

Valentino is right there, though. Their calves are touching. Their knees. He lets out a soft ah, let me and fills it again for him, just a couple of fingers, almost like a fancy restaurant. It’s funny, because a couple of minutes—hours—ago, they were pretty far from each other on this ratty couch.

Marc snorts. Doesn’t want to linger on this either. “Who else is coming?”

“I tell you, no? Just the two of us.”

Valentino’s expression stutters, his baby-fine eyebrows twitching and his mouth pursing. Marc wouldn’t have noticed if they weren’t so close.

“Did you? Sorry, I forgot.” It comes out easy, that harmless little lie.

Problem is, Valentino is bright like a knife between the ribs. “You are alone,” he points out. Then, less sharply: “I think, allora, for sure he brings Álex this time.”

Marc pulls a face, and Valentino breaks into a chuckle. He’d considered it, for a brief, panicky half second, right before he boarded on the plane to Bologna.

But Álex is already unhappy enough with this whole thing.

So Valentino is right—he is here alone. No Ducati mechanics, which he could’ve demanded, back to their usual tune; no Álex, which was expected; none of his branded bikes.

And the Ranch is empty.

“He wouldn’t leave the dogs,” is what Marc settles on saying rather than why don’t you have any of your staff here? Where are your Academy boys? Why are you doing this? Am I being stupid again? Is it funny? Another little harmless lie.

“All the better for me.”

Marc smiles. “Isn’t it usually?”

And that’s how the night goes, the two of them not quite talking, brushing against the heat of each other, edges dulled on rosé wine. Marc allows himself to wonder if tonight, maybe, but nothing happens.

The disappointment only softens the next morning, when Valentino shows up at his door at an insensate hour and drags him to the garage. He shepherds Marc along, a hand splayed on his back, between his shoulder blades, to show him—

“So?”

Valentino is basically bouncing. Trying to play it cool, with another impatient tsch sound, but his eyes are too keen, and there’s something jittery about the sway of his long, spindly arms.

Marc swallows past the tangle in his throat. Unsticks his tongue from the roof of his mouth.

It is an MX Honda, a red and orange 93 emblazoned on the front, two stroke engine. Not his model, but close enough. Everything about it is smooth and new and polished. If he tried, he thinks he would be able to smell the leather, the freshness of undented metal. His stomach rolls, light and airy like a frizz of champagne.

What an odd, expensive thing to do for a one-off guest when you have dozens of bikes around. Marc would’ve ridden any of them.

“It is,” he fishes for a word. Any word. Everything he feels is the hook of affection tangled in his guts, tugging. His mouth might as well be stuffed with cotton. “Good. Tell me the specs?”

“Always the hunt with you,” Valentino says.

It sounds mean—a little. In that way of Valentino’s of prodding bruises. Fond too, with him squeezing his arm, fingers lingering on the crook of his elbow. Marc wants to get on it already. Wants to race. Wants to freeze this instant, Valentino golden in the morning sun, just the two of them, talking about a dirt bike’s innards.

Leathers, gloves, boots, helmets. They hop in, and the track unfurls ahead of him. Dejavu threatens to kick Marc off the first five or so laps, where they aren’t exactly racing yet. It’s not that different—except the angle of a few corners. Too narrow here, too wide there, places where it’s either his memory fumbling or Valentino, shockingly, making changes.

“Still remember it?” Valentino prods, shouting over the engines rumbling. Marc can picture it, the slanted curve of his grin.

He scoffs. “Of course.”

Then they are racing, reckless with it. Valentino slides on a half-dried mud patch when he gets off the usual line to try and overtake him. Marc goes down too low on a corner and loses the front. They kick up dust and dirt, laughing uproariously, and Marc allows himself to think, just once, that Valentino has to be up to something.

It is easy anyway, to have fun, even if he knows that Valentino is shrewd, no stitch without a knot, even if he’s prickling, restless, unkissed. They didn’t come up with rules, so the excuse of racing becomes a graceless overtake fest, round and round and round, until their bikes start to splutter without fuel.

Valentino leads them through a final show, a victory lap on the colosseum, bathed by the infernal midday sun. Leads them to the kitchen after that—chipped plates, an atrocity of a tablecloth, horrendous yellow flowers on a green field. Another world from the track, it looks like.

There’s escabetx. The fish is soggy—reheated—but it tastes good. Familiar. Way, way, way above Valentino’s cooking skills.

Dishes left on the sink for later or tomorrow or whenever, they circle back to the couch. It throws Marc off more than the changes to the track, more than his growing catalogue of things that don’t quite add up. Last time he was here, there wasn’t a moment to think. The Ranch was full of cameras, and events, and eager-hungry Academy kids, and personnel, and PR stuff.

Valentino brandishes a small chocolate bar like a parrying knife. Breaks off a piece for himself, shoves the rest in his hands. Marc can’t pretend to not want it. He’s always liked sweetness.

He can’t pretend to not have something on his mind either. It lingers, red-hot.

Might as well do it. Make it real.

“Valentino,” he starts, gets cut off.

“Are you having fun?”

Marc’s mouth clicks shut. He prods his tongue against his teeth, the chocolate sticking there, to not laugh. The weave of them sitting so close feels like crystal in his grip. Fragile glass. It’s very Valentino. A bit myopic. He’s immortalized moments less gentle than this. Cradled them close and kept them with him forever.

And really, fun.

Was fun ever the issue?

“Of course,” he answers, smiles. The corners of his eyes are crinkling, he knows, but so are Valentino’s.

There’s a suspended beat, Valentino inching closer, about as subtle as his neon merch. “But is it fantastic—the best you’ve ever had?”

Marc does laugh this time. Valentino aims for smug, hits it pretty well.

“Almost.”

And it’s a mindfuck, that he sees the way Valentino straightens up in real time. Now that he isn’t so young anymore, buzzing with the chance of touching a streak of the divine. Now that he can recognize the man in him—which is no less devastating, truth be told. The little frown on his forehead, deepening the wrinkles there.

Tell me, he says without saying, spreading his hand on Marc’s ankle. “You used to be pushier when I was twenty.”

Valentino’s breathing does something funny. A convulsive little wheeze.

“You,” he starts, has to try again. “In Argentina.”

Marc looks off to the side.

Argentina, right. His arm had been hurting, chainsaw teeth to the old wound. Álex had been watching, a worried, unhappy tilt to his lips—one in a sea of pinched-tight faces, going from the jerky seesaw of his shoulder to Valentino standing there, close. Too many cameras, too many eyes, too many points he could win. Did win.

And Marc is as superstitious as he can afford to be.

Nothing good can come out of Termas, of Sepang—like nothing good can come out of Galilee.

Marc doesn’t remember what he said, exactly. Only that he’d been clenching down on a razor blade for the whole weekend and very, very tired of being in pain. If Valentino touched him then, it’d have hurt too. But now he has Marc’s ankle, and a bike for him, and Catalan food, and chocolate, and soft towels, and everything rattling in his mind for the past thirty-something hours is—

Kiss me.

“But it’s fine, now.” It isn’t.

It categorically isn’t, but it’s stupid to worry about that. Why tempt this into breaking? Marc licks chocolate off his fingers, Valentino’s eyes burning on his hands, his mouth. He clambers into his lap with the sugar sharp on his tongue, their knees knocking together.

Careful, mild, it never lasts, not between them. Valentino gets both hands on his waist, thumbs digging on the sliver of skin where his undershirt has ridden up.

The small bite of pain is exquisite. Barely anything, but still.

“Cannot be easy, hm?” Valentino hums, lilting, bemused, closer than they’d been since that odd week between Sepang and Valencia.

“Like you want it easy.”

He spits out the word, and Valentino laughs. Runs his fingers over the jut of his hipbones. “Allora, we can say we try, it is boring.”

It’s that small sway of movement that gets him. His head is spinning. He surges into the kiss he’s been hungry for a humiliating stretch of time, catches the noise Valentino makes ravenously. Marc likes it more than he thought he would, making out like teenagers—nipping at Valentino’s lower lip to make him hiss, licking into his mouth.

The kisses start melting together, one after the other after the other. They’re greedy, unashamed. Marc only realizes they’re grinding against each other when Valentino breaks off, groans, sweat beading on the edge of his thinning hair.

“Do you want—” Valentino skims his hand over the knobs of his spine. Marc wedges them closer together, leaning in to suck a bruise on the hollow of his throat.

“Not yet,” he mumbles there, hidden, safe as it gets. “No. Sorry. I am not—I do not know what—”

“Alright,” Valentino tells him, brusque but not unkind. “Alright.”

Is it, Marc wants to ask, but instead he takes his time pressing his teeth to Valentino’s jaw, leaving a red imprint there. Marc can feel him hard against him, pressing against his belly. There’s a gasping noise, but Valentino shakes his head at his inquisitive look.

It’s exactly as ungainly as the past thirty minutes and thirty hours were, Valentino pulling their cocks out. Takes some shuffling. Marc ends up with his hand on the half-melted candy bar, stumbles over half a dozen curses, and Valentino tugs at wrist to lick it clean before managing to get his underwear down and spitting on his own palm.

His hand is still dry around them both. The callouses there scrape. Marc chokes on a whine, closes his eyes, then forces them open again because he has to watch this.

“Vale,” Marc moans, hips hitching. Valentino’s other hand surges up, grabs his chin tight to force his head back. There’re teeth, his tongue soothing their sting.

Marc jolts, their cocks rubbing together—and God, it’s only everything he wants. After that, they don’t settle into a rhythm as much as they crumble into one. Valentino’s hand hot and tight around them, and his mouth insistent against Marc’s for a kiss, two, ten. The slide gets easier, wetter. There’s the fucking noise it makes, damp, obscene.

And there’s Valentino, looking at him. Softer, maybe, than either of them should risk.

“Are you—wooing me?” Marc asks, halfway to a laugh. He doesn’t stammer. Much.

It’s there, behind his teeth—were you wooing me this whole time? Are you being gentle?

Valentino has the gall to grin, makes his grip a little firmer when Marc tries to pretend to be annoyed. “I am a romantic,” he says, all showmanship that shatters when Marc bucks against him, grinds them together. “Stop that, Christ.”

He doesn’t.

So Valentino clamps down on his nape, wound tight, biting on his throat. There’s zero fucking finesse to any of it, Marc fumbling for air, for the string of his sanity, digging into Valentino’s skinny, sharp shoulders. It’s ugly, too fast. Valentino jerks at the bite of his nails. Marc is so hard his vision that starts to wobble.

Next time, they can get on a bed, they can be sweet—maybe.

Right now, Marc wants to come so much he’s unraveling, drool pooling inside his mouth.

“Good?” Valentino asks, strained. He could make it sound cruel—there was a time when it was the only way he spoke. But it’s plaintive instead. Small.

“Fantastic. Best I’ve ever had.”

God, he tries for a joke, for wryness—it comes out too honest, instead. Marc vows to be ashamed about it later.

Or not at all. Valentino buries whatever he was going to say next in a bite, hard and mean on the swell of his chest. Marc catches a fraction of what his face looks like, shocked, hungry, mouth tight. He comes over his hand, his stomach, shaking with a keening groan.

It’s—Christ. Marc ruts against Valentino and his lax, sloppy grip until he’s twitching and whining with oversensitivity, cock fully soft against his thigh. But those flashes of pain get Valentino back online, have him wrapping his come-streaked fingers properly around Marc.

He doesn’t take that easy, either. Fucks Valentino’s fist, pants heavily. It’s burnt with hot iron in his mind, how Valentino’s expression had turned raw like a bruised nerve ending. Marc chases his own orgasm wildly, babbling—Spanish, Catalan, Italian, whatever. He comes in a kaleidoscopic fritz of color, everything narrowed down to the slack line of Valentino’s mouth.

His bones are loose, liquid. If he tried walking, he thinks his feet would sink in clouds. The minutes tick by around them, a string of flowing, round pearls slipping from his fingers.

Marc blinks—once he feels marginally more human again—and stretches his neck. Smooths his hand over Valentino’s crooked collar, his skinny chest. There’s come on his stomach, drying on a viscous patch over dark gray fabric.

“Your shirt is dirty,” he says, feeling clumsy, feeling golden.

Valentino clicks his tongue. “Ah, who cares.”

“Uhm, okay.” Marc decides against safety, tucks his face into the crook of Valentino’s throat. “It is an ugly shirt anyway.”

There’s laughing, the sound punched out and disbelieving. A hand comes up to cradle the back of his neck. Outside, it’s raining, a soft, gray security blanket over the everything else that they’ll one day be able to say.

#motogp #rosquez #marc marquez #valentino rossi #chev fics #hahahaha #what if i didn't either write any of the pieces that i said i'd write #and instead sunk six hours into this #adhd rizz #anyway vale the service top manifesto but he isn't very sex service top #and more like “i want you to be happy and to have fun and to think i'm the best at taking care of everything you want”#anyway

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