#and the complete lack of respect

[delicatedemolition]

you know you’re healing when instead of crying over how someone treated you, you just get angry instead<3

[anoant-haikyuu-dump]

IF TORA HAIKYUU HAS NO DEFENDERS I AM DEAD

[waterlinkedgirl]

Musical Touken Ranbu: Michinooku ~ Hitotsu Hachisu (Michinooku ~ A Single Lotus)

Here we go! Only a few days after the archive release and toumyu's ninth anniversary (congratulations!)

Michioku, or Michihasu, is a myu I have many conflicting feelings about, both positive and negative. However, I do believe that with the right amount of care in the next Mika-related story myu, the negative can still be cleared. Plus, I'm glad about a lot of things being re-established. The writer does need to step up her game a little on the plot-writing side of things, as well as the understanding-and-respecting-past-myu side of things, but as long as she does, this can still be given a proper place within what was already established.

Keep in mind that these are only the subtitle files, timed and tled to the DMM senshuuraku and the bluray respectively. The archive version will have a talk at the start, so the starting times of the subs will have to be delayed accordingly.

You can find the subtitles and my TL notes document here!

[arealtrashact]

Read your tags for your Spider-Verse art, (love it btw, SCREAMING, OMG) Supposedly the time between ITSV and ATSV is one year and four months.

But Wiki suggests that two years had passed since. Wiki also says that Gwen joins the SS in Feb with ATSV taking place in April,, I hope that satisfies your curiosity- shrug

This does satisfy my curiosity, thank you ! That seems like a believable amount of time to thaw the glacier that is Miguel O'Hara.

( Somewhat... )

[sleevebuscemii]

[luminous-orb]

half the time I think “oersted and streibough are strong narrative foils” it’s like, a complex and well constructed thought about how they bring out each others worst qualities. and the other half of the time, well, it’s just This Image

[csphire]

Is nobody else upset by this?

Warning: Major spoiler for Dragon Age Veilguard below regarding Varric and Solas.

Please bear in mind I've not gotten to the end of fail guard yet but I've been spoiled in this aspect. (Yeah that's what I'm calling this action game in a preschooler-level RPG guise as I'm holding my nose in order to play it.) I know Varric is dead-killed by Solas. But I don't understand why I've yet to see any commentary at all over how an Inquisitor, Lavellan especially, forgives Solas for killing a mutual friend?

Because I can't see my Lavellan forgiving him so easily. Sure he is trying to restore the world to what it was before knowing full well demons will kill some people. I can understand that and he doesn't have blood on his hands directly. He did take measures to minimize casualties etc. But apparently killing a mutual friend with one's own hand is a step too far.

What? Does Solas say something akin to, "Oppsie I didn't mean to kill him I swear! I was aiming for his shoulder and the fate of the world and all." How do we move past this finely polished coprolite? It just makes Varric's whole story arc and life seem cheapened. Where is the memorial?

Most of all I hate how it's only Rook who didn't know he was dead. Sorry, I can't suspend my disbelief that far although I could certainly swallow the idea better if Solas misled the two companions who were there also. Certainly one of them shed some blood too, right?

[batsplat]

wait, is there a dovi/jorge feud???? i didn't know this!! also thank you so much for all you do for this community ❤️

not the only ask I've gotten about this and... look, rather than doing a proper write up that would take forever, I'm just gonna give my top ten fun... facts? bits of trivia. tidbits related to the two of them. quite long tidbits, on second glance. the highlight reel, if you will

(1) that time andrea dovizioso made 14 year old jorge lorenzo cry

the two of them already raced each other before the start of their grand prix careers, competing for the first time in 2001 in the cev when dovi was around 15 and jorge around 14. in riveras tobia's biography, here's jorge talking about their first fight:

I led the way at the start and Dovizioso and I escaped. It was our first head-to-head encounter, the first time we raced each other. My dad had heard that Dovi was a really clever rider and he warned me before the race. But just like in 1998 at Jerez, with Olive, I acted like a dummy and pushed for the whole race. I kept looking behind me to see the bastard still there! It was impossible to shake him off, he was watching me the whole race until the last lap. Three comers from the end I could hear his engine getting closer and I saw his shadow to my left, but he didn't come past. I thought to myself "This guy is going to try something in a second!" I decided I had to on a tighter line and close the door. Sure enough, Dovi went wider through that comer and then dived up the inside. I didn't close the door in time and tried to get in his slipstream, desperately hoping I could get him the next corner, but I ran wide and he won. I came back in tears, I didn't even want to go to the podium, I felt so cheated. I'd been on the limit for the whole race and I felt like I deserved the win more than he did.

so that's a nice and positive start! there's something charming about how even fifteen year old dovi was an absolute menace on last laps

also about that race:

'Jorge beat Dovi in Braga but in the previous race at Most, what a tantrum!' recalls Juanito, laughing. 'He didn't even want to go to the podium, he was crying like a baby! I can still see Dani (Antatriain) talking to him, trying to convince him. In the end he went but he didn't want to look at anybody.'

(2) the photo finish

in 2004, they were rivals in 125cc - a year in which dovi claimed the title and jorge was p4 in the standings. in the very first grand prix ever at the lusail circuit (pretty eventful weekend, you have to say), jorge and dovi crossed the line at the exact same moment

(3) dovi's top three favourite career win

dovi and jorge progressed through the categories at the exact same rate, and after their 125cc rivalry they continued fighting in 250cc. they were title rivals in both 2006 and 2007, with jorge's aprilia winning out both times against dovi's underpowered honda. (the general pattern was that dovi clawed back a bunch of points from jorge in the wet - jorge, with perhaps the exception of a few years in the premier class until around 2013, has never been much of a wet weather racers, while it's always been one of dovi's strongest traits.) for dovi's 300th career start in 2019, he was asked what his top three wins were - and one of his picks was from way back when in 2007

I'd recommend the race! which... well, I did in the race rec post - and I can only reiterate that these two kids do not acknowledge each other, not good vibes at all

(4) jorge's thoughts on young dovi from 2008

Jorge has a lot of respect for Andrea Dovizioso and feels that his two 250cc world titles have even more prestige because he had to beat the Italian to win them. 'You wouldn't label Dovizioso as fast, particularly, but he's much faster than he looks. He doesn't set many pole positions but he is always up front in a race, fighting to win. He is very intelligent and you can't trust him an inch on the last lap. He has been faithful to Honda, he has great belief in them. His negative side is that he tends to play the victim too much. He'll say that if his bike had a better engine or if it was a bit faster he would win. He's even said that if he was on the same bike as me he'd give me a hiding. I think he looks for excuses too often sometimes, but as a rider and a person I don't have a bad word to say about him.'

some dovi traits read as very familiar, from how he's a better racer than qualifier to the intelligence to the last lap prowess. as for jorge saying dovi plays victim too much? well

also this:

ER: Don't you think that Dovizioso wanted to be World Champion too in 2006 and 2007? Don't you think he gave everything to achieve it? JL: He will think he gave his maximum but he will be lying to himself because nobody does that. Nobody gets close to their maximum, not even me. He will think that he didn't win because he was riding a Honda. There are very few sportsmen who will say, I deserve what happened to me and there are no excuses. I didn't know how to do any better and I've done things wrong.' That is the only way to be the best, the only way. People who make excuses don't get to the top. I know riders who haven't made it for just that reason.

plus ça change

(5) jorge's thoughts on young dovi from 2018

when they were doing their thing as ducati teammates (bickering), here is one of the things jorge said about dovi:

dovi's been trying to undermine jorge's morale his WHOLE career... even when they were but teenagers... love it when you can really tell someone's been sitting on something for over a decade

(6) "also lorenzo is not my friend"

both of them moved up to motogp in 2008, jorge with factory yamaha and dovi with satellite honda. dovi had a very strong rookie season and finished in p5, only sixteen points behind jorge in p4 (who after a promising first few races had spent a lot of time that season crashing). after that, their fortunes diverged. dovi did not have a particularly happy time in the factory honda team and needed to do some shrewd negotiating to be retained by them for 2011 in that three-man squad, while jorge of course won the championship in 2010

here's a deep cut from 2011, a season where much of the excitement and drama was caused by marco simoncelli alone. jorge had exchanged tense words with sic in estoril, one race before simoncelli was responsible for a crash where dani broke his collarbone. the crash and sic's subsequent penalty meant that the three-way fight between jorge, dovi and valentino became one for the podium, with dovi and valentino eventually grabbing the two remaining spots behind casey. but during the race, jorge had executed a... questionable manoeuvre on dovi, one that did have some similarities to the sic/dani incident. given jorge's strong previous comments on racing standards, unsurprisingly the journalists pounced on this incident in the post-race presser and ask the podium sitters about it. here is the clip:

in this clip, dovi essentially says it was a dangerous move from jorge, but he wasn't sure what jorge's intent had been and he needs to watch the footage again. valentino (who had been the most outspokenly critical of sic of the three of them earlier in the presser) takes the opportunity presented to him to have a bit of a potshot at jorge. he says that dovi doesn't have the best relationship with sic but jorge had done something pretty similar in the race... at which point dovi goes "also lorenzo is not my friend"

which, you know. not exactly a major incident, but I find it very charming dovi felt the need to clarify that, actually, he doesn't like either of them. valentino also adds that by jorge's own standards, surely he too should have gotten a penalty. not exactly a meeting of jorge's biggest fans hm

(7) mapping eight-gate

well I can't leave it out, can I

so in 2017 jorge switches from yamaha to ducati and does not have a great time of it. a lot of weekends, he's just too slow, other times he shoots to the front of a race at the start (typically not great news for the rest of the field in his yamaha days) and then chews up his tyres before gradually dropping like a stone back through the field. at some point that year it became a bit of a running gag - especially when you saw he was the only big name to be picking a soft tyre and just went... buddy we ALL know how this is gonna end....

while this was happening, his teammate dovi was for the first time in his premier class career in championship contention. an extremely close title fight throughout the year with five protagonists until pretty late in the season, it eventually went to a title decider in valencia between dovi and marc. you know, the kind of year where every point counts. the race where marc put a bit of daylight between himself and dovi was phillip island, with marc winning a great dogfight out front while dovi had a bit of a horror show of a weekend. this meant that a lot would have to go right for dovi to have a chance of still winning the title... and sepang was already a match point race for marc

ducati had not won a championship since their 2007 title, courtesy of one casey stoner. after that year, their bike became steadily less competitive every season, reaching a nadir around the 2011-13-ish period. so by the time 2017 rolled around, they wanted this so so badly - even if they wouldn't have expected dovi to lead the charge. dovi had only narrowly beaten out iannone in the 'who's going to be fired for our shiny new lorenzo hire' contest of 2016, and really it was supposed to be jorge who was carrying ducati's dreams on his shoulders. but, never mind, they were throwing everything behind dovi now... no stone left unturned

which brings us, of course, to the subject of team orders. this discourse really took off at the penultimate race of the season at sepang, but was already brewing before that - and in phillip island, satellite ducati rider redding had been told early in the race to let dovi past

here from marc at sepang:

dovi had been in great form all weekend at sepang - and with his wet weather prowess being what it was, really there shouldn't have been any need for team orders at all. but he got a sluggish start, and the race unfolded from there... until eventually jorge was in first, dovi was in second and marc in fourth. in those positions, marc would have clinched the title there

and then, jorge got a message on his dashboard. suggested mapping: mapping 8. pit boards and dashboards and all sorts of boards will feature various codes during races, most of them completely innocuous - but of course they are a healthy source of all sorts of conspiracies. the timing of this one was certainly... notable, and speculation immediately started about how it might be a way of telling jorge that he should swap positions with dovi

jorge didn't end up letting dovi pass - it is questionable whether he really would have done so with what would have been his first ducati win on the line. in the end, he made a mistake that let dovi through so that dovi claimed the win anyway, keeping himself in mathematical contention in valencia. and jorge did say afterwards he was keeping dovi's title hopes in mind, kind of

jorge also said he hadn't gotten any message indicating team orders, and of course nobody at ducati confirmed that mapping eight did have anything to do with team orders

for what it's worth, this is what dovi said about their relationship at this stage:

lovely! let's see what the vibes are like a few months later

anyway, onto valencia. this race was pretty boring despite being a title decider, but the jorge/dovi bits were just unequivocally the weekend's most enjoyable aspect and rather nicely spiced up the whole thing. dovi's chances were always slim going in, given he'd have to win the race and marc would have to barely get any points at all... but still, you never know, right? marc could always crash (narrator: he did almost crash). jorge plays coy early in the weekend about the whole 'helping dovi out thing', and basically just started putting in place...? ... very specific conditions...? under which he'd help:

so during the actual race, dovi got stuck behind jorge in p5, with marc ahead of both of them. valencia is traditionally not a fantastic track to overtake at... so even if dovi had been faster, it's not like he'd have an easy time clearing jorge and cracking on. but they were beginning to drift further away from dani in p3 as ducati watched on, increasingly unamused by what was happening - and the tv cameras were of course kind enough to repeatedly show the ducati box looking deeply unamused. again, they went for the good old mapping eight message, which, hey, that could mean anything! they sure did keep showing it to jorge though, almost like he wasn't paying attention to it

eventually, they abandon all subtlety and go for a pit board message that does just straight-up tell jorge to swap positions. jorge kept ignoring the messages, lap after lap, and he never ended up letting dovi past. eventually they both crashed and marc claimed the title with a p3 finish, so it wouldn't have mattered anyway, but... still. the feeling was that this might things rather awkward inside of ducati

publicly, ducati was extremely keen to smooth over the whole controversy, saying they totally weren't mad at jorge blatantly ignoring team orders. jorge had, after all, explained to them (and the media, repeatedly) that he had totally been intending to help dovi by dragging him closer to dani

Giving his take on events, Lorenzo acknowledged that he ignored Ducati’s instruction because he felt Dovizioso’s chances would be boosted by having him directly ahead. “Even looking at this [dashboard] suggestion, I keep pushing until the end, because I knew it was the best thing for me, for Ducati and for Dovi,” said Lorenzo. “I helped him to improve his pace by one or two tenths, to be as close as possible to the first group. My intention was, and it was the case, that we arrive at the first group. If he had the option to win, I would have gone wide and let him pass. But unfortunately it was not like that. Maybe in some corners Dovi was close and I slow down a little bit his pace, but in general terms, having my wheel in front of him made him improve slightly his pace. I helped him stayed closer to the front group. “I knew Dovi was struggling, I knew his pace during all the weekend, and I knew he was making the best pace of the weekend just in the race. It was [because of the] help from my wheel. I’m happy because I was not wrong. If I was wrong and slowing him, I would be very sorry. But it’s not like that, my feeling was true.”

which, you know. is it really that easy to tell how much faster you are than someone who's sitting on your rear tyre? who's to say. dovi did certainly seem rather keen to get past

anyhow, of course there were plenty of fun dramatics post-race:

'our rider ignored team suggestions not team orders' is a great line, fairs. there's plenty more of this from ducati, some excellent spin doctoring - and dovi was extremely magnanimous about what had happened:

the whole thing was pretty undignified from all non-dovi parties, but it was also very funny so who's to say if it was bad or not

(8) runner-up-gate

let's check in on them in 2018, the second and ultimately last year in which they were teammates. remember that 'undermining morale' quote from above? those are from early 2018, after dovi says he wouldn't be surprised to see jorge elsewhere the following season. so, once jorge has complained that dovi had been trying to put him down his entire career, comes this:

so that's something. jorge, dovi and dani have a three-in-one crash in jerez, after which some fingers are pointed but it all remains fairly civil, and a bit later dovi says that jorge's approach doesn't work at ducati:

by the summer break, jorge's results had gotten better, but it was already too late to save the relationship with ducati and they parted ways. anyway, here's dovi and jorge having another go at it:

And while a rough patch for Dovizioso coupled with breakthrough back-to-back wins for Lorenzo in Mugello and Barcelona have now left the pair just three points apart in the standings, Dovizioso refused to back down from his claim when speaking to Spanish sports daily Marca ahead of the upcoming Brno race. “He’s won two races,” Dovizioso said. “Winning two races does not solve the problem of a year and a half. Lorenzo was not signed to win two races. Therefore I do not change my mind.” When the comments were put to Lorenzo, the three-time champion offered an ardent retort, stating that Dovizioso's rhetoric was proof of the claim he'd made back in April. “I'm a bit fed up with this situation, mainly because when I had trouble and he was winning, I was down there applauding,” Lorenzo told Spanish broadcaster Movistar. “What I said in Argentina - and the comments caused a big surprise - you can see that I was right. “He tried to undermine me, or downplay what I achieve or just attack me. As you can see, I wasn't lying. He's still doing it and now he says my method is not good, according to him.” Lorenzo intimated that Dovizioso was in no position to criticise him, as the Italian could do no better than runner-up to Marc Marquez in a 'perfect' 2017 season. He said: “I think my method has not worked too bad in my career. I've won three MotoGP titles and have 46 wins.” “In my second year in Ducati I'm usually faster than him, but maybe I should look at his method closer if in his best season, with everything going perfectly, he was second. Otherwise he's fourth or seventh usually. I'd tell him to leave me to go my way and to focus on his own and everything will be better, because when you have an angry Lorenzo it's usually worse for you.” 

fair to say that by this point the pretence at civility has mostly been dropped. I'm rather fond of the "lorenzo was not signed to win two races" line, though "when you have an angry lorenzo it's usually worse for you" is also really strong stuff. dovi tries to restore a little bit of peace:

Responding in turn to Lorenzo's tirade, Dovizioso sought to play down the conflict. “Jorge has his ideas and I think they are based on particular things. I don't think like him, but it's not a problem,” he told Movistar. “Everybody creates their own ideas based on what they see and how they live. “I don't think he has everything clear in his head about what's happened, but we continue the relationship that we started last year with respect, there's no particular problem. If he thinks this way, that's his problem."

so basically the classic 'idk what he's on about but it's not my problem' approach to attempting to defuse feuds

(9) twitter-gate

there's a few more on-track battles where it's nicely obvious how badly they want to beat each other, with jorge beating marc just ahead of dovi in austria and then dovi beating jorge in brno. jorge's season is increasingly derailed by injuries, which sets the stage for their next big spat:

The row was sparked by Dovizioso's comments to Sky Italia after qualifying at Sepang on Saturday, as he was asked what he thought of Lorenzo having to pull out of the Malaysian GP weekend with injury. "I don't know the details, I don't want to get into this, it's a bit of a strange situation," said Dovizioso."It happens often in Ducati or to certain riders, but I don't understand the details and I don't want to get into it and give my opinion." When it was put to him he was offering 'cryptic words', he added: "I leave things there, it's not my problem."

pretty vague, yeah. but anyway, I'm sure jorge had a proportionate response to this

Dovizioso's comments prompted a series of irate posts from Lorenzo on Twitter, with his first reaction being "Thank you very much @AndreaDovizioso! You are a real gentleman!". In his next post, he went on to call Dovizioso "an exemplary teammate", adding: "You applaud him under the podium when he wins and then... (That's right, he does not give his opinion, it's not his problem)." After that, Lorenzo labelled Dovizioso "envious" and described him as "a world champion... in 125cc."

the podium thing really bothered him, don't you think. their ducati in-fighting follows that general pattern where dovi says something... a little shady, a little ambiguous, where his intentions aren't entirely obvious... at which point jorge goes all in at fighting back and has a go at dovi - often not as much for what dovi is actually saying, but what jorge thinks dovi is implying. which is based on his understanding of dovi, the image of dovi he's built up in his head over the years, so that he is... predisposed to think ill of the intentions of the 'intelligent' dovi who always knows exactly what he's saying

again, dovi tried to downplay the argument, while simultaneously not exhibiting much patience for jorge's stance:

After the Malaysian GP, Dovizioso was asked about Lorenzo's responses to his comments, and the Italian accused his teammate of reading too much into headlines. He said: “Why should I talk to Lorenzo? I do not waste time on these things. He makes the usual mistake of giving too much importance to what is written, even without the context. "I have not pointed my finger at anyone and I have no problem with Jorge."

if I were ducati, I probably would've let the whole thing blow over given jorge was off soon anyway. but they decided the whole thing was so bad they had to organise a peace summit

Asked about the situation, Ducati sporting director Paolo Ciabatti admitted to Motorsport.com that the Bologna marque has already planned to sit its two riders on Tuesday in Milan to make it clear what its priorities are. Ciabatti said: “It is clear that the interests of Ducati come before personal problems between riders. On Tuesday we will be together in Milan, for the EICMA [motorcycle show] and we have in mind to spend half an hour to sit and talk to Jorge and Andrea. "We want to avoid similar things to what happened last weekend. "I understand that these kinds of situations can happen. Sometimes riders get nervous during a Grand Prix weekend and on a rainy day, with tricky conditions, sometimes they say things they shouldn’t have said."

god knows how that turned out

(10) wow, you guys aren't gonna let this go, huh

late 2020 and jorge's career is already over, while dovi's looks like it will be... paused, at the very least. which is always a good time to check in with riders on how they feel about their rivals - if they're still being nasty you know that shit was personal. from december:

some quality petty material here. "I can't understand his somewhat peculiar mind" vs "he was envious of me since 250cc, but I wanted to give our relationship a chance". note too jorge talking again about how generous he had been in the face of dovi's 2017 successes, and how he feels like this was not reciprocated at all. jorge's complaints don't stop there:

merry christmas!

not the only rider jorge has beefed with post-retirement, but compare and contrast with how he really hasn't been doing any of that with some of his biggest career rivals. valentino, marc, dani - sure, he still talks about the controversies he's had with them pretty regularly (to put it lightly), and he's hardly free of complaints... but mostly it's a distinctly nostalgic tone he's adopting with these guys. admittedly, it helps that none of those three have gone out of their way to say anything particularly inflammatory about jorge. still, the absolute lack of any sort of rapprochement with dovi of all people is pretty funny

bonus: that time when jorge skittled all of marc's rivals

you know how in catalunya 2019, jorge took out like? all of marc's major rivals in that era including himself in one go? with half a decade of hindsight, this was kind of hilarious, and it did also feature jorge having to eat a hell of a lot of humble pie and go to the three other blokes to apologise. anyway I have a lovingly assembled set of screenshots of all three of them emoting in their boxes after the incident, all suffering some form of an existential crisis. here is dovi contemplating the bleak realities of our brief lives on this planet:

truly one of the world's least enthusiastic waves

bonus 2: another one for old time's sake

already posted this elsewhere, but this from late 2023 made me laugh

"jorge came to ducati and thought he was going to beat everything, but in the end he didn't" uh huh

[lgbtlunaverse]

Wildly veering into the realm of headcanon here but I think jgy has, like, deeply embarassing and intense fantasies about nie mingjue being courteous to his mom.

He has them about everyone to some extend it's his favorite way to calm down. Close your eyes, imagine your mom decked out in gold, her hair bound up, everyone bowing to her. It's how he gets through meetings without murdering everyone. But I think nie mingiue in particular is a very common solo target for these.

Lan Xichen gets his own special edition too, but it's not the same. Because he has a very clear and realistic picture of what he'd actually do. They don't talk about his mom that much but whenever she comes up xichen is always like well she sounds like a kind woman trying to make the best of her situation 😊 and everytime he thinks about them interacting there's a risk of it getting sad because oh if only...

Jin guangshan? Complete opposite end of the spectrum. It's very gratifying to imagine his mom getting everything she wanted but it's also too unrealistic. Even when still desperate for approval he knows what his father is like. He indulges in them from time to time but it's like the whole time there's an alarm flashing red overhead and going "out of character! Out of character!"

But Nie mingjue. Ohhhhh. Perfectly in the middle. Possible, but improbable enough it be exiting. Sure, he's an honourable man who didn't judge him for his background but he judged him for a whole lot of other things. Did he not discard jin guangyao just like his father threw away his mother when he got bored of her? He's both so easy to admire and so easy to be angry at and it's tantalizing.

He imagines himself walking arm in arm with his mom, in better health than she's ever been, dressed more luxuriously than even the wives of sect leaders on their wedding days, and Nie Mingjue comes up and bowes to her deeper than any sect leader should bow to anyone. Maybe even takes her hand and kisses it and dream!jgy gasps because that is so improper for any unmarried man to do to a woman not of his family!! But Nie Mingjue just looks confused because why shouldn't he pay Meng Shi the respect she so clearly deserves? If people interpret it wrongly that is their problem. Not even er-ge would do that. Would avoid inappropiate touches as a proper lan should but Nie Mingjue? Mingjue doesn't care about those things, if he wants to tell jin guangyao's mother she is the most elegant and radiant woman he's seen in the entire jianghu he will do so because he means it, dammit.

You can't call them horny exactly but they are carnal. This is a deep base desire he's satisfying here and oh does nie mingjue do his job well.

I think he has them, like, almost every day. I think he wakes up from them blushing I think he daydreams about it every single time he and Nie Mingjue talk. Even if it went bad. Especially if it went bad.

I think after the stairs incident the dreams mortifyingly increase dramatically for a few days. He sees it play out behind his eyelids everytime he so much as blinks. Imagines Nie Mingjue down on his knees kowtowing, apologizing to his mother, imagines him being outraged at his real self's words. Dishonourable, unfair, he would never say that. He closes his eyes when he first plays the song of turmoil for nie mingjue and imagines it the entire time. And when he's done he takes a deep breath and then he fucking beats the thought to death and stuffs it away with all the other feelings he's repressing and then never thinks about it again.

Nothing else is ever that satisfying but sometimes sacrifices must be made.

[bonefall]

If Pinestar was the Mi of his kits, why didn’t he try to take any of them with him when he left? Like Brightsky keeping some of her litter. He knew how the clans were, he was specifically leaving to get away from it, why did he choose to leave his children behind?

It wasn't a choice. Brightsky gave birth in the home she bolted to; Pinestar wasn't going to be allowed to take his children unless he snuck out with them.

He wishes he did something, when he sees what became of his son. But he tried to be brave when he left, announcing that he would not be coming back, and where he would be going.

He thought that was the right thing to do. Unfortunately, no one else appreciated it the way he hoped they would.

If he DID though, ThunderClan would not have allowed that. They see it as kidnapping. Being Mi doesn't mean you're allowed to do literally anything you want, especially if you do have a Ba involved.

In cases of handoffs (surrogacy, secret halfclan kits being given to their other parent, etc) it's actually SUPER important you do it before 1 moon, so you can pass the disappearance off as a fading kit. There are no funerals thrown for fading kits besides the Mi and any Ba quietly burying the body, so this is the time where you smuggle the baby out.

So you need all the Ba on board with such a handoff, in addition. Cloudtail is an example of that actually! When Brightheart surrogates, he is fully aware of how many are ACTUALLY faders and who is receiving their child.

Tigerkit was like 3-ish moons when Pinestar hit da bricks, unfortunately there wasn't a way he could take him along... plus it wouldn't quite make sense with how he was having nightmares about murdering his son.

[maximusboltaqon]

WHAT!!! WHAT!!!!

THE THEM. LOOKIR AT THE THEM. OUAGHHJ ITS A NEW BLACKAGAR AND THEY INCLUDED MAXIMUS??? ITS A MAXIMUS??? ITS OFFICAL MAXIMUS MERCH IN THE YEAR 2025????? HELLO??????? LOOOK AT HIW COOL AND GOOD THEY BOTH LOOK??????????

ok im gonna be honest im not huge on this gorgon design he looks a bit like ganondorf BUT STILL!!! BOTH OF THEM?? OUT OF THE BLUE??? WHAT!!!!! AN ENTIRE INHUMANS PACK. HELLOOOOOOO??????

[blujayonthewing]

I wish I had any way of knowing whether people have gotten Weirder™ about my name in recent years or if this has been happening behind the scenes the entire time

I've been going by Jay since I was 11. At the time nobody objected to or questioned this, at least not to me; I found out many years later that Jay is supposedly a "boy's name," but nobody ever said 'you can't use that as a nickname, it's a boy's name' and it went completely uncontested by anyone when I switched. Lots of kids announced some manner of name change at the start of a new school year in middle school; it was all normal and fine. My mom and, you know, grandmas and other relatives kept calling me Jessica, which was also fine! I didn't make a big family announcement or correct any relatives on this, I just wanted to differentiate myself from the half dozen other Jessicas in school.

For twenty years!! This has gone on being perfectly normal! My Real Name™ is an increasingly obscure bit of trivia I get to spring on friends who didn't realize I had one, which is always funny (my brother in law didn't believe me and demanded to see my driver's license). My mom and grandmas have largely still called me Jess, and that's also fine! It's nice, even! There's a particular intimacy there of having a name only my mother uses-- but, crucially, I have never asked her not to, or said that I don't like it. And as FAR AS I KNOW, this has all been true and fine for TWENTY YEARS.

My own feelings about it have never changed, and feel, to me, very straightforward: if I tell you that my name is Jay, and you decide that no it isn't, that is a problem. That's the rule. That's literally it. I had a high school teacher who asked on the syllabus for us to write down if we went by something other than our full name, who was nonetheless UNIQUE among all of my teachers from 6th grade onward in always and only ever calling me Jess, even though I signed all my work Jay, all the other teachers called me Jay, he literally asked whether anyone wanted to be called something else and I answered Jay, and I had him for two semesters. I met a work friend of Justin's once who asked upon introduction whether Jay was short for something, and when I told him it was short for Jessica he took it upon himself to call me Jess instead. This isn't me having a problem with any particular iteration of my name, this is just asshole behavior! I told you what my name was and you said 'no it isn't'. The problem here does not seem complex to me?

But within the last [hand wiggle] handful of years I feel like it keeps getting weirder? Apparently my dad and grandma argued about it at my wedding rehearsal-- she, dramatically, insisting 'I don't care, her name is Jessica, I'm going to call her that ;n;' and my dad angrily defensive that no it isn't, I go by Jay, that should be respected. And I'm sitting here listening to my dad relay this in utter bewilderment like. Well dad I love the energy but I have never been bothered at all if grandma calls me Jessica. I have never even once asked her not to or complained to anyone that she does. But also this is the grandma who HAS called me Jay more often than not?? My mom's mom never picked it up, but I was astonished to hear my dad's mom was acting like this was some New Dramatic Change that she Hated and not a thing she's literally already been doing for, again, twenty entire years. Why are you suddenly making it weird! Last weekend Justin's stepmom mentioned seeing my mom at the hospital where mom works, and how she said something like 'yes I'm Jessica's mom-- wait, no, Jay, she hates it when I do that' and I just?? I literally don't, the only problem now is that people who know me won't know who the fuck you're talking about

all of this and I'm just. I am literally just sitting here. why are we inventing problems out of this two decades later. what is going on

[poetry-written-in-blood]

I swear to god if I see one fucking fanfic taking place at Liam’s funeral

[crippled-peeper]

you can call the white cane a mobility aid. it’s purpose is to prevent injury while ambulating (moving around in a space with your body). so it literally fits the definition of being a mobility aid if you want to call it that.

[colgatebluemintygel]

how is oao going? any thoughts on when a new chapter will be uploaded? okay also—have people been secretly bookbinding ur fics for profit? ive seen like thirty tiktoks about ao3 maybe being taken down bc people are exploiting writers and selling their work which is so evil and scary!!!

re: oao not long now ... chap needs a heavy edit but is otherwise pretty much complete :o) this chapter has been a lot of fun to write mildly scared 4 the next one tho ! 😇😇😇

and re: the bookbinding, not that i'm aware of. i feel terrible for the affected writers though .. i genuinely don't even have words. it's insane. unsure what exactly is in the air rn but it's hugely disheartening to see and i don't blame a single person for stepping back and/or removing their works. the recent trends towards commodifying fandom are worrying, especially because i'm not sure i see it changing any time soon. these little bitches have shown time n time again that they have no regard for the literal fucking law, let alone other people's boundaries. i'd like to believe it’ll change but i just don't trust that it will. idk i feel v jaded and i've been keeping fandom at arm's length for a while now; i have my treasured circle of mutuals and i very rarely step outside of that these days. it's sad bc i've always enjoyed exploring diff pockets of fandom but alas . it's scary and i'm tired ! 🤒🤒 these people did not live through anne rice's reign of terror and it shows

[pikky126]

go girl give us nothing