#age-gap friendship

[fattyskeleton]

So, i think that one of my favorite type of Manga tropes, very specifically Manga by the way, i almost never see it anywhere else and it's never quite done how i like, is the "Age-gap Friendship".

And i'm not talking just a few years, i'm talking completely different generations.

At the moment, i'm passively reading "Umi Ga Hashiru End Roll", where the simple run down of the story is that a newly widowed old lady, in an attempt to find something to do with the rest of her life, ends up going to a film school university. She's older than everyone there, even the teachers, but she ends up becoming just another of the students. It's just her making friends and getting more and more involved in her passion for making films.

But, like, as much as i LOVE a romance, what i crave like water is this kinda easy going friendship with a meandering story with low stakes and self-reflection. Its like a coming of age story, accept that the Main Character is at the tail end of her life.

But back to the age gap, there's just something really cute and sweet about the contrast of an older experienced individual who has already used their energy up at life interacting with a fresh and bouncy youngin' who wants to run ahead and chase their dreams.

[vaguely-concerned]

having seen at least the rough outlines of all the romances now I have to say that I think emmrich's is probably objectively the best in terms of coherence and completeness of story arc (with the understanding that ultimately the 'best' romance is whichever one makes YOUR heart sing anyway so objectivity is a silly thing to claim that way, it just felt like it's the arc with the most well-paced focused content and the least dangling threads)... but lucanis' is my favourite haha. just. the whole kneeling before your beloved full of reverence but without any of the distance that usually implies??? his complete undramatic certainty and calm in every scene with rook after this, having spent the whole game caught between fear and longing???? mr. lives in a pantry but it says nothing about my psyche don't worry about it it's purely for tactical reasons that I keep myself contained in a small dark room not entirely unlike a cell, love among the parsnips -- finally coming to rook in their room and it's so comfortable and comforting???? after all the times rook supports and comforts him through the game he's finally able to return the same to them when they need it while being so calm and steady and it's so fucking sweet and feels so effortless and with no price attached?????? he basically assigns himself the role of your bodyguard and he WILL stab a god over it??????????????? the turn to protector (which was in his heart all along longing to get out and find a place) of it all????? he sounds like he's found himself unexpectedly stumbling into such a soul-lightening state of revelatory existential relief, full on 'you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves' mary oliver style, and he goes and he shares that with rook and protectively envelops them in it when they're hurting??????????????????????????? hello for the maker's sake hello can anyone hear me?????

[earthmixsclowderofcats]

[batsplat]

after 2015 until 2018 it seemed that things had calmed down a bit between valentino and marc, in the sense that they had started to be polite between them again and valentino no longer seemed to be on a war footing. then after argentina obviously the situation worsened again. in the podcast where valentino spoke in 2021 if I'm not mistaken, when he talks about marc,however, he only refers to the events of sepang and not to what happened in argentina which instead seemed to have been the final “divorce”. so my question is, during 2016 and 2017 did valentino just pretend to put up with marc? because in that podcast you can feel valentino's resentment is still a lot even after many years, so I imagine it must have been even greater in the two years immediately following sepang, even if it didn't seem if you see how he behaved

well. look. it was reflected in how valentino behaved... I think sometimes if you see isolated photos and gifsets, you can maybe be left with a bit of a mistaken impression of what that dynamic actually looked like for those two years. they got to a point post-catalunya where they were civil to each other, and maybe they'd exchange two lines in greeting, at podium celebrations, when somebody in a presser made a joke... and maybe marc at the very least was sincerely hoping they could get back to something like what they had before 2015. in reality, though, it was still very very far away. it wasn't open hostilities... at some point in 2016, valentino realised he simply couldn't go on like this. I talked about it a bit here:

you get this discrepancy in his 2016 output, actually. if you compare what he's saying that autumn for written press interviews vs what he's saying with marc right next to him... he'd clearly decided there was zero point in directly fanning the flames. at the sepang 2016 presser when marc and him are quizzed on what had happened the previous year, he just goes with marc's response and decides against reopening the controversy by adding anything from his side. but he still made it clear he hadn't changed his mind in interviews from the exact same time period! at times, he tolerates marc's tentative advances - at other times, he's almost accidentally sucked in, like he can't quite help himself from laughing at something marc has said. but there was never a period where he forgave marc for what he'd done... for various reasons he just decided he wasn't going to harp on about it too much. he did basically say as much post-argentina 2018:

but yeah, argentina 2018. it's an interesting one, isn't it? the stuff that valentino says there doesn't actually feel... quite in line with anything else he's said about marc. typically, when valentino criticises marc, it really is all about sepang 2015 - it's very focused, very specific, he's talking about being unable to forgive marc on a personal level for something marc had done to valentino... but it's not like he's really coming at marc for anything else... when other riders have gotten into spats with marc, he's stayed out of it - and generally he remains pretty neutral when he talks about everything else concerning marc. so, for example, there's a world where the moment alex rins is saying marc doesn't respect other riders in 2019, valentino immediately jumps at the opportunity to offer his hot take... but he doesn't do that. and yes, he had criticised marc's riding before, in particular in marc's moto2 days, but obviously those criticisms were considerably more restrained and sounded at times quite worried for marc's sake. (he also got close to that in silverstone 2016 when he remarked marc had 'something special' for their battles, but a) he's not wrong, except insofar as it's clearly mutual, and b) he explicitly said he didn't have a problem with that fight and considered it hard but fair). in 2017, when valentino was criticising other riders for being too aggressive... well, he wasn't doing so with marc, and he even conceded the point to marc in subsequent races after marc had obliquely criticised valentino at cota for his rhetoric not matching up to his own riding. when valentino's young riders have gotten into their own spats with marc, he's not waded in either, at most saying stuff about marc's fight with pecco that from his lips sounds almost like something akin to praise. radio silence after bez's run in with marc at the end of last year... argentina 2018 is the exception not the rule

and you know... at the end of the day, that was an emotional reaction. valentino might be wearing the habitual smile on his face during the media debrief and sound reasonably calm and composed, but he was furious. which, it's always worth remembering, isn't an entirely unreasonable reaction to that specific situation. yes, valentino doesn't have a clean track record either, but you're going to struggle to find such a... weaponised carelessness, a blatant disinterest in his fellow riders while shoving them aside, in the way marc was exhibiting that day - and indeed that whole weekend. looking back, of course argentina 2018 ended up being an isolated blot on marc's track record that he's not come close to repeating since (yes, he's made high profile errors that took out other riders, but it's different)... but we didn't know that at the time. also, I doubt valentino much appreciated being treated just like an obstacle in marc's path! the fact that valentino wasn't the only marc victim that weekend kind of has an interesting effect, because you have to doubt whether it would have helped if valentino felt like he was being targeted specifically by marc, but on the other hand... well, it's almost disrespectful, isn't it... being singled out is in a way still better than being brushed aside like any other rider

still, valentino's pushing it with his criticisms, he's out of line, and he clearly did lash out in the heat of the moment - which was of course largely a product of the resentment he'd been holding onto those past two years. calling marc's behaviour that day dangerous? sure, you'd find a lot of agreement for that. saying that marc was ruining the sport? that he was intentionally causing other riders to crash? ... well, hold on one moment. I reckon the simplest explanation is the best one here: valentino was angry and said stuff he wouldn't otherwise say, which we know because he's not done so before or since. of course, he was never going to retract what he said about marc that day - he wasn't ever going to apologise for it. not with their history, not when there was still just enough about those argentina comments that he meant... so he wasn't going to feel too much regret about the bits he wouldn't have said under any other circumstance. the problem post-2015 for valentino is that constantly signalling his fury to the world wasn't doing him much good... but pretending like everything was just fine clearly also took a bit of a toll. argentina 2018 wiped the slate clean - even though they gradually crept back towards basic civility after that. and valentino really didn't continue with that line of critique... since then he's basically completely reverted back to a sepang 2015-centric approach. maybe a few hints at it... in 2021, he said something along the lines of how he doesn't feel good when he's on-track with marc, but that's pretty generic while also crucially being personal - he's not saying marc is a problem for the series, he's saying it's them specifically that have an issue with each other

which doesn't mean he didn't believe what he said in argentina 2018 in the moment... when they reconvened in cota and had marc and valentino do separate media debriefs from the main presser, valentino said he stood by his comments - but also didn't actually repeat them or elaborate on them or anything. he's back to terse short responses to the press' questions, saying he wants to focus on the race ahead: kind of the go-to approach when it comes to marc post-sepang (with notable exceptions). he's walked his strongest comments back as much as he was probably ever going to - by simple virtue of the fact that he's left it at that. and you know, he's a complicated guy... 2016-17 was both pretending and it also wasn't. he didn't act like everything was forgotten, but he certainly was willing to let people believe that this relationship might end up being mended - which quite frankly was probably never going to happen. mostly, he was just sort of sick of the whole thing, struggling to enjoy himself in what had become such a charged, hostile environment for all the riders involved. at the same time, look - fundamentally, the interpersonal chemistry with marc was always fine. they click as people! they click as riders! marc makes valentino laugh! sometimes, that line between 'pretending' and 'letting yourself pretend' and 'actually not pretending at all' can be quite thin. when valentino talks in that time period about how much he enjoyed a battle with marc, of course he isn't lying - because he really does enjoy those fights! that's what racing is all about for him, and that's something him and marc still share! as long as marc isn't barging him aside and causing him to crash, that is. maybe it'd be easier if it were all a pretence, but it wasn't... sometimes, when you say you thought a race was hard and fair, you really do mean it and you really did have a lot of fun. sometimes, the struggle isn't actually acting nice for the cameras, it's trying to bite down the temptation to laugh alongside your sworn enemy

see also assen 2016... like, isn't this kinda wild? you've just had catalunya the race before, you've just had the mere semblance of a tentative start to a possible reconciliation - then they return to the place that was really the beginning of the end for them. they go on a few track familiarisation laps, including to check out the resurfaced final chicane (aka the scene of the crime). they race each other on said track familiarisation laps. then marc brings it up in the presser, giggling about the whole thing, and apparently valentino also finds it pretty funny - before he visibly swallows up his grin. later that weekend, marc pointedly decides to try out valentino's final chicane move himself during the warm up session. this is all obviously deranged, but it's a type of deranged where they are fundamentally on the same wavelength. it's the kind of ridiculous behaviour they're both incredibly fond of... you see it in how valentino shrugs off the towing at catalunya 2019, and thinks it speaks to marc's smarts and wiliness - unsurprising, really, because they're so similar in that regard, and valentino has never shaken his admiration for marc as a competitor

valentino can clamp down on his animosity towards a rival during his direct interactions with them... lord knows if you watch a few of the casey and valentino face-to-face interactions over the years, you really wouldn't match that up with the sheer vitriol of some of the stuff they were concurrently saying about each other in the press. that rivalry was never really personal (on valentino's end), it was never fraught in the same way (for valentino anyway) - still, it shows he's theoretically capable of separating this stuff out when he needs to... and he just about managed with marc for two years. if he had just been waiting for an excuse, surely you would have heard at least a hint of that when him and marc swapped paint in 2017. you never quite knew how he was going to answer the inevitable questions about marc's riding, but no direct criticism was forthcoming at any stage. the post-argentina 2018 rhetoric wasn't in any way premeditated from valentino's side, and personally I don't think he was just waiting for an excuse either. it was the result of a constant internal conflict between knowing that engaging in any more active beef with marc wouldn't do anyone any good, and the fact that he still hadn't forgiven marc... and then a race came along that simply pissed him off enough to push him over the edge

from 2016 onwards, valentino both very much wanted and very much did not want further conflict with marc, and neither of those impulses ever quite go away. usually, he's disciplined enough to avoid stoking the flames any further... potshots to the press outside of the paddock are essentially a free and harmless outlet in that regard, and even there you can tell he was trying to scale it back in the years where he was being forced to directly interact with marc. he was pretending and not pretending and sometimes pretending like he wasn't pretending and sometimes pretending like he was pretending. maybe it would have always just taken one major on-track confrontation for things to fall apart between them again... but you do kinda have to acknowledge the whole thing was really unfortunate. I've long thought that something like sepang 2015 was pretty inevitable as long as valentino managed to put himself in title contention once marc had joined the premier class, but I don't actually feel the same way about argentina 2018. an awful marriage of circumstance and coincidence and bad choices caused the relationship to fall apart again this badly. valentino might have had some more or less sincere misgivings about marc's riding, but at the end of the day he wasn't going to ever express them unless it got personal - because all of these people are incredibly self-centred and valentino wouldn't have felt like it was worth it. he lost his temper, he said some stuff he might partly but not fully believe, he's not inclined to bring it up again. that's that

[beeangxt]

GUYS I DIDNT MEAN IT LIKE THAT-

[hasanpits]

people who act like being friends with people decades older than you is super weird have clearly have just never had any sort of job. which is fine obviously, but the rest of us employed people all have 53 year old work besties.

[satsuha]

canon didn't give us a different past teme design so i have to do it myself

[team7-headquarter]

I need a fanfic where Obito marries Rin and Sasuke and Naruto get together, so Kakashi and Sakura start platonically living together.

It's mostly a character study??? Maybe?? On how Kakashi already devoted himself to protecting her if Sasuke and Naruto weren't around, on how they are so similar, how it feels to be left behind even if your team doesn't realize it.

If you think about it?

Well, imagine Sakura and Kakashi both fell for an Uchiha and had a jinchuriki be in love with them, only for the Uchiha to be interested only in your jinchuriki friend. Soon they get together and you start to feel like you're in the middle of something you are not part of. You still know they love you a lot, but it's not like you can erase the romance you were waiting for from your dreams.

And then you can add the fact that Gai and Rock Lee are kinda obsessed (in the good sense!) with Sakura and Kakashi. Neither Sakura nor Kakashi find them annoying, since Rock Lee and Gai were a source of strength when their team couldn't be there for them. Gai and Lee are their inspiration in so many senses. It's just another relationship they share, weirdly, funnily.

Of course they have their unique bonds, like the one Sakura shares with Ino, or the one Kakashi has with Tenzo. It doesn't mean that the themes are not shared: You see, Tenzo's wood release and Ino's whole deal with flowers are all about bloom and growth. Tenzo is that solid surface Kakashi can rely on when he feels he can't keep standing, the scarecrow that needs something to keep him upright. Ino is that force urging Sakura to open up to the world, to stop hiding who Sakura is for the sake of others; Ino is the gardener and Sakura is the flower.

There's the issue with their parents, who were not bad people, but who weren't there for Kakashi and Sakura while they grew up. Even when they love their parents, there's a void there, a tension, some distance that resonates and makes the absence loud and clear. Who Kakashi and Sakura are is not a product of some parenting: it's personal effort and being obstinate to no end.

Kakashi and Sakura greatly value each other. The proof is in the way they refuse to let each other carry alone their burdens. It's never as clear as it is when Sasuke is involved: in the Land of Iron, they tried to kill Sasuke to take the burden of killing a friend from Naruto's shoulders, but also because Kakashi didn't want that for Sakura either and she didn't want Kakashi to deal with it alone. Later, in the fight with Kaguya, Sasuke compares Kakashi to Sakura in how useless they were because they were mere humans in a fight with (basically) some goddess.

Kakashi and Sakura both suffer for not being able to free their teammates from the hurt. There's no doubt they would if they could. Not being strong enough, not being fast or skilled enough, being "useless" is their greatest nightmare. There isn't a day that Kakashi and Sakura don't hate their own weaknesses, there's not a night that they don't hate themselves for not being able to do more.

I don't know... It'd be interesting to study Kakashi in a more romantic light while Sakura is able to have more of a platonic centric growth. It would be entertaining, at least. What if Kakashi finally confesses out loud that he was in love, but he can only do it because he knows Sakura might be the only other person alive who understands what it is like to love an Uchiha? What if it is Kakashi who helps Sakura realize how many friends are there for her? How she can find fulfilment outside of the promises and dreams that are no more?

I also like a lot to see serious platonic relationships with age gaps, where the adult doesn't take any advantage given the difference in their experience and shows they can learn from the younger one.

A relationship that can't be described with nuclear family roles (father & daughter), the type where hierarchical roles are part of the drama because they see each other as equals, but even then they can't shake their responsibilities for the sake of their bond (Kakashi forced to send Sakura on a dangerous mission because he's the Hokage and she's a kunoichi, or Kakashi very openly refusing to use his status as her former sensei to force her to do something she doesn't want to do).

They are friends, just not the typical one... They're two different types of mirrors, reflecting broken images. And if they find in each other a bit of all the things they've lost and missed and they have hoped for, not enough to replace the originals but enough to lessen the hurt? Then, it's only natural they find easy companionship in each other.

[forestgreenlesbian]

.

[aeolianblues]

it is literally not about legality, if you’re in your late 30s literally what are you hitting up 21 y/os for. Don’t you have investments to make.

[porcelainguro]

Age on the internet is so weird because I find myself wondering if I should be really talk about some stuff with an online friend that's 2 years older than me (18 while I'm 16) meanwhile irl I have a friend with the exact same agegap and I only remember she's older than us on occasion

[our-transmasculine-experience]

i wish i was closer to my half-brother. or that he wasn’t 16 years older than me. i haven’t told him i’m trans yet, but desperately want a sibling who knows & supports & talks to me regularly

a sibling with that age gap might be difficult to really be friends with, you know? i’m sure there’s (likely trans) guys out there that could take you under their wing. i’ve done that with kids a year or two younger before and they all feel like family to me.

[thebirdandhersong]

Okay y'all it is over it is done the conversation has been had he knows I love him we are still friends I have cried my eyes out properly I have laughed again my heart will keep on hurting for a while but it is FINISHED

[c-nan]

if eloise would’ve met young queen charlotte they would’ve been friends !

[mfknart]

CW: suicide/abuse

Naruto notices an older boy hesitating at a crosswalk, tears in his eyes. Concerned, he offers to help the other across. (1/?)

[sonknuxadow]

umm ok so i kind of want to try to make myself draw more stuff of characters interacting instead of just standing in a void so does anyone want to send me pairs of sonic characters to draw together. would appreciate some sort of prompt but i guess thats not required