#bc i had so much fun doing it with vale

[bcdwclves]

so before my sub ran out, i actually took up healing.

i started with sage, bc it was the only healer high enough to do high-end content but after getting it to lv 80, i decided to also pick up white mage/conjurer, bc WHM was supposedly the most straightforward.

literally got WHM to lv 30 in a few hours and then to lv 55 in 2 days. then "hey," i said, "i'll also try astrologian, bc stars and shit," and that was also fun, but lo and behold, i got kicked out of a dungeon bc my sub ran out.

i'll prolly also unlock scholar, too, bc well, fairy wife but also, they're the OG shield healer, while WHM and AST are pure healers.

[moonshynecybin]

if you have the time or inclination, can i ask what the deal with motogp/those boys is about? i don’t mean that in a mean way btw, im just curious and i love drama

i will try to be brief (1/4358)

SO! valentino rossi (born 16 February 1979, aquarius. italian.) is one of the most iconic people in motorsport, CERTAINLY in motogp. he's a 9 time world champion, your favorite driver's favorite driver, and is generally credited with revolutionizing the popularity of the sport by: a. being insanely good at motorcycle racing, and b. in general having a lot of fun about it. lethally charming and charismatic. all time active listening face. just a fun and funny dude that everyone pretty much likes and MANY younger riders idolize. VERY good at handling the media and his legions of cult-like fans. sometimes treated more like a god than a person. i was in the store yesterday and saw one of his themed monster energy drinks despite him retiring two years ago. his fun retirement activity is racing BMWs and running his own motogp team/training facility/cult for young italian racers. (this is where cele and bezz and basically every italian rider not named enea bastianini come from!)

so in 2011ish valentino had won 9 titles, and he decided to leave his current manufacturer and move to italian manufacturer ducati where he generally had a stone-cold terrible time. EXTENDED flop era for a couple years. any time ive watched content that covers this period everyone is so sad. so sad. anyways he GOES BACK to his old manufacturer in 2013 and is much more competitive. kind of just happy to be winning sometimes and be on the podium. 2013 is also where marc comes in. what could go wrong.

marc marquez! (born 17 february 1993, almost exactly 14 years after vale which i'm sure means nothing. also an aquarius. spanish.) childhood sports idols include: dani pedrosa, VALENTINO ROSSI.

marc carved his way up through the feeder championships until casey stoner unexpectedly retired at the end of the 2012 season leaving a seat empty on a VERY good bike for his rookie season. rocked up and was immediately VERY good at winning and very good at being a crazyinsane person on track that made people mad at him lol. hilarious habit of pissing people off via on-track crimes that i really enjoy. motogp riders are already crazy (they do death sport) but marc is famous for taking risks no one else will. basically if he's not winning, he's crashed out or he's maybe crashed YOU out. he wins the championship as a rookie (insane) and the next year's championship as well. heir apparent to the throne. sweet and goofy but is now known as one of the more reserved riders with the press. probably because of all this drama tbh. undisputed GOAT of acting like a slut on camera

throughout 2013-2014, marc and valentino had a good relationship! marc very clearly idolizes him and is like. bowled over completely with delight every time valentino looks his way. vale likes him! theyre buds! truly an endless well of pictures of vale explaining something with his hands and marc babygirling at him. highly recommend checking out @pgaslys every rosquez podium tag for contextual brain damage. insane times.

(IT SHOULD BE NOTED: before the 2015 season marc visits valentino at his practice track in italy, where they compete to break the track record and almost kill each other bc they are so pathologically competitive. APPARENTLY, marc showed up with some official mechanics and valentino was a little pissed off because it was supposed to be a like. fun thing. and to marc winning is the most fun! if you dont come to win why come at all! anyways marc breaks the track record and credits that to cooling their relationship a bit. good post about it here.) here they are that day:

so what could go wrong, right? WELL. valentino has a chance to win his tenth title in 2015. marc is on a flop bike and crashed a bunch so he's not in the championship conversation but vale is leading the standings from the jump, with his main opponent being jorge lorenzo. i think he really wanted that tenth, and dedicated himself to the season in a way he hadnt really ever before (he was a very effortless competitor when he was young. gym-adverse. king).

marc and him start to get into some scraps along the way, notably in argentina (where they made contact and marc crashed out), assen (where they made contact AGAIN and vale won the race), and phillip island (marc won. GREAT race available here for free). phillip island sees vale finishing P4 and jorge lorenzo finishing ahead of him in P3, reducing his championship lead by quite a bit. no real indication of any tension during these races, and they are asked about it!

this is where valentino's delulu era begins! basically, ahead of the next race (🔥🔥SEPANG 2015🔥🔥) in the pre-race press conference, he goes after marc, saying he was deliberately sabotaging valentino in phillip island because marc wanted jorge to win. in valentino's mind. marc wants jorge to win because a. they are both spanish (??) and b. it would mean marc has to win less titles to equal valentino's total. record scratch. freeze frame.

everyone (including marc!) thinks valentino is joking at first bc that is bananascrazyinsane. he was not joking. (it should be noted valentino STILL thinks this lol.) anyways marc is completely blindsided. he thought they were good! yeah they've been chippy on track but that's racing!! truly like. 22 years old and your friend (AND CHILDHOOD IDOL.) is calling you a snake in front of your face with NO prior warning to the entire motogp establishment writ large including your coworkers and REPORTERS. valentino wont even look at him the entire time. the press conference is available here on vimeo. excruciating gifsets of marc's very stiff bewildered PR smile found here.

anyways so. the race. marc is uh. pissed off. he's stuck to valentino like GLUE the entire time and they trade places a bunch of times. now marc is kind of famous for being a little asshole on track anyways, but its not like he's gonna get out of valentino's way and just let him pass after what he said in that press conference so. hand in unlovable hand <3. truly very fun to watch imo even with the sword of damocles hanging over them. marc is fucking on one the entire race and basically refuses to give valentino an inch until vale gets so fed up with his antics that um. well. it certainly looks like he kicked him. vale says he didnt, and that his leg accidently made contact with marc's bike. marcs says. he fucking kicked me. judge for yourself here!

so valentino gets hauled in front of race direction and penalized for the next race (the deciding race for the championship). he has to start from the back of the grid and it kills his chance at a tenth title stone dead. vale places the blame squarely on marc's shoulders and his legions of fans decide marc is public enemy number 1. him and jorge have to get security at the next race because of death threats, someone tries to break into marc's childhood home back in spain, marc's mom throws away all of marc's valentino merchandise from when he was a kid. vale says nothing.

but the thing about marc. is that he loves very hard and chooses his people pretty carefully. didnt really move out of his tiny hometown until he turned 30 and also made his baby brother move in with him kind of guy. so all this is not really enough for him to let go of vale entirely! 2016 is where the pain lives! bc marc is still reaching out and vale himself stays pretty cold for a couple years. they seem to faintly reconcile for a bit but its not anywhere like it was before sepang.

the real nail in the coffin is argentina 2018. another insane race where marc has to start from the back and goes on a rampage through the field and crashes out like three people. i cant remember. this race is also available on youtube for free its very entertaining. every five minutes marc does something insane. vale is one of the people marc crashes out and afterwardshe goes on a big rant about how marc is destroying the sport and is actively dangerous. marc goes to valentino's garage immediately after the race to apologize and vale doesnt even look at him. he gets turned away at the door after vale's best friend/assistant/henchman yells in his face1!!! and thats kind off all she wrote in terms of reconciliation

anyways that's where we are! they are both very much not over it. vale goes on podcasts and is like. in 30 years i will still be mad, im literally never going to get over it it was such a big and unfair thing and i think about it all the time like it was yesterday. and marc (lying) says as time goes by i dont even think about it :) and i care about valentino less and less :))) but yes he hurt me deeply lol. CANNOT stress enough how much this entire thing is now inextricably liked to both of their legacies. the two arguable GOATs of a sport had an epic fleetwood mac-style beatles breakup divorce and everyone wants to talk about it allllll day long including me :)

additional context! really recommend checking out marc's little docuseries he put out this year about his recent struggles with injury. he is so not right in the head and it goes over the valentino drama in ep3. theres also hitting the apex (2015) which goes over the 2013 season (marc's rookie season) and is a really good introduction to all the major players at the time. its like less than 2 hrs long so its not too much of a commitment

also recommend following scholars @babynflames, @its-always-silly-season, @baking-soda, and @f1vegas as well as many others im forgetting rn bc its 2am!

[batsplat]

just so you know bc I don’t think enough people tell you this but every time I check your blog (a bit compulsively at this point? your compilations and opinions are very enlightening on the general psychology of those crazy motherfuckers and also the uhhhhhhhh other part) and see that you answered another ask I honestly break into the hugest grin and settle down at the next given opportunity to read the newest batssay (batsplat essay) like it’s an academic paper (it is to us sports scholars, I believe)… please never feel the need to cut short your thoughts on any subject. the longer the better! connect all the dots, bat! we are listening!!

thank youuuuu this is so sweet, I know this ask is a little older but trust whenever I get something kind in my inbox I very much read and appreciate it and it very much makes my day. and I love the term batssay. a lot

so I thought it'd be fun to do a follow up post to the casey/jorge/valentino one where I just dumped a bunch of photos with a wee bit of context... for the culture, y'know. and I'm doing this with just casey/valentino, mostly for 2007-09 but with one 2005 photo chucked in as. build-up. for flavour

we know from the #archives that the two of them did have like. a reasonably warm dynamic pre-casey's motogp debut. they'd talked... also at least one race where casey shows up to valentino's podium and chats to vale's crew chief and fellow aussie jb... I think about it often. what did it all mean

casey's first win!!! qatar 2007, very first race with ducati. he'd gotten very close to a win before - in his third ever premier class race at turkey, lost at the final chicane. casey's goals going into that first season with ducat had just been winning a few races... he notes that valentino congratulates him warmly, but reckons it's just because valentino didn't take him seriously as a threat, which. I don't think that quite stacks up with supplementary evidence from the time, but we'll allow it

one of my fave photos for a reason, idc it's sweet. I was trying to figure out when this photo was from through like, normal means of reverse image search, but then instead I had a horrifying moment of 'oh yeah I'm pretty sure I remember that specific presser backdrop is at mugello that year' and. I was right. which. god. anyway yeah mugello 2007 pre-event presser. by this point casey was 21 points clear in the championship standings

more mugello 2007!!! look at casey constantly sipping from his lil cup. this will have been after qualifying, where casey snagged pole. I'd forgotten valentino actually makes front row in qualifying because he makes a typically horrendous start. I'd also forgotten that this race is like. proper good. one of the best that year. slows down eventually but the first ten or so laps are some of the most exciting of the entire alien era

catalunya 2007, which unfortunately I also dated solely through the presser backdrop. idk I just like the vibes of this photo. anyway!! this race is ofc the one where casey won an all timer late race duel against valentino (+ dani). it is after this race that valentino said casey was, and I quote "riding like a god". a seminal moment

the championship is already extremely over by the time they get to estoril, but casey still needs to formally wrap it up: this is his first match point race. depicted here is valentino getting one of his few Ws that season. an account of this event: “valentino was playing table football in the yamaha hospitality and somebody spotted casey outside. so they invited him for a challenge. it was all good fun”

motegi 2007. valentino had managed to put off the inevitable the race before and temporarily stopped casey from sealing the title, taking his last win of the season (cool duel with dani in that one). but motegi... well honestly it's just a bit of a flop all round, nobody's bike is working the way they want it to, casey seals the title with his worst result all season of a sixth place (the horror) and in his autobiography he was kinda like 'well I was very happy but also. meh race' (I paraphrase). but really, who cares, he had his title

bit of a time skip!! after both of them have put their sketch early 2008's behind them, the pair of them had a proper fun fight at catalunya for p2. a continuation of the battle the year before with valentino once again coming from lower down the field, this time he gets the better of casey. still, things are finally looking up at ducati... and the post-catalunya test might be enough to put casey right back in title contention. the above photo is from donington, where casey confirms the progress ducati made by winning his first race of the season after the opener in qatar

still donington, both of them watching each other etc etc. valentino is in a much better place than the year before, given both casey's rough start to the season and how they're both now on the same tyres. but it's not a good sign if casey's hitting his stride... at assen, valentino makes his one mistake of the year and crashes on the first lap, remounting to finish eleventh (he still beats casey's teammate melandri). this puts dani in the championship lead - and with casey's second win in a row, he is now very much closing in

look at them chatting here!! cute imo. this is casey's third win in a row, at the rainy sachsenring. dani crashes out from a few miles in the lead - while casey had stayed sensible and brings it home for a pretty straightforward victory. valentino needed to fight his way through from further down the field and in the end he loses too much time to put any serious pressure on casey, but it's still damage limitation and he retakes the championship lead from dani (who will miss the next race due to an injury sustained in the crash). and yet, momentum really is firmly on casey's side now... and the rest of the calendar does looks like pretty casey-friendly territory. next up, they're headed to a race track where casey had won very comfortably the year before. would he seal his fourth consecutive win at laguna?

now with my sincere apologies to casey stoner, every photo that came out of laguna 2008 is objectively pretty funny. I have limited myself to a mere two podium photos, but lbr there's a full collection. casey had already rejected valentino's handshake in parc fermé - which some might have taken as a social cue to give him some space. whereas valentino, local dickhead, just will not stop yapping at casey on the podium. this is quite possibly as genuinely delighted as he gets after a race, and it's simply a beautiful contrast with casey who is not quite rude enough to actually tell valentino to shut the fuck up - but may be fantasising about pushing valentino off the podium. this, to me. is art

gather around body language experts, we need to have a conversation. this is at the pre-event presser of the race immediately after laguna, aka brno. by this point, casey's less than flattering remarks about valentino's riding at laguna had already been distributed near and far... everyone's been talking about them, people have Opinions. the captions for these photos are all something along the lines of 'stoner extends olive branch to rossi to apologise for his post-race comments after losing laguna'. now, I don't know if he literally is apologising in these actual photos - though of course he did publicly walk back his comments, saying all riders can react badly to losses and that he'd overreacted when he'd said he'd lost respect for valentino. he has since walked back his walking back, doubling down on his criticisms of valentino's comportment at laguna

still, for all the talk that the feud properly started after laguna, it's kind of fun to have the presser immediately after it showing... well, it does look like casey is actively engaging valentino in conversation, right? whether he's apologising or not - this isn't just valentino yapping at him, if anything it's the reverse. laguna had been right before the summer break, so casey had been given a month to cool off... and also be viciously criticised by the press. brutal, isn't it? it's not just the loss that sucks, it's also being excoriated by the press and fans for having the audacity to get mad over it. is all of this just him being forced into pretending to play nice to get the press to leave him alone? were there any genuine regrets over his laguna comments? what ARE the vibes between them like at this time? what story do these photos tell us

casey went on to crash out of this race from the lead, the first time he had done so in the premier class and his first dnf with ducati after their one and a half seasons together. when he crashed, he'd had a fairly comfortable lead over valentino - though valentino was steadily closing in, and the commentators were already rubbing their hands in anticipation of another laguna

the next race is at misano - and casey is struggling with an old hand injury, see the bandages in the photo. the previous year had been the first time valentino had gotten the chance to race at this circuit, so close to his home... but he'd suffered a mechanical dnf, not his first or last in a frustrating season. this year, everything is different - and casey once again crashes out of the lead as valentino takes victory in front of his worshipful home fans

another trip to america, this time for indy: their first time racing at the track. after the double whammy of brno and misano, casey's title charge is essentially over... but you never know, right? indy kinda gives off the vibe of being a good casey track

in the end, the race is extremely wet and very, very windy and is eventually red-flagged. because of how many laps they still have to go, it is initially unclear whether they would restart... at which point first valentino (who was leading), then casey (in fourth) go to dorna ceo ezpeleta to tell him they have less than zero interest in going out in that weather again. a beautiful moment of solidarity - long live the power of unionising, capable of overcoming even the bitterest of feuds. blast the internationale over the footage, I've seen enough. the race is called off and valentino wins his fourth consecutive race

by the time they get to phillip island, valentino has already won the title, courtesy of his fifth consecutive win at motegi - the same circuit casey had won the title at the year before and the home race of valentino's old enemies at honda. a couple of nice photos of jorge congratulating his teammate and casey spraying vale with champagne here. casey, known phillip island goat, would of course finally end valentino's win streak at that circuit, which is where the photos are from. idk they're fun to me, like this is still not that long after laguna. I'm aware being able to chat normally with your coworkers and share a smile with them isn't normally that high a bar, but canonically valentino has been known to completely blank some of his rivals. it's not like casey is particularly cold towards valentino either, eh

case in point. this is from sepang 2008. #TheEstablishment does not want you to know casey and valentino canonically still regularly yapped in pressers post laguna. they won't silence me. sepang was valentino's last win of this season, after a good scrap with dani - and the season is rounded off with a casey victory at valencia

jerez 2009, where valentino gets past casey with a block pass at the final corner on his way to victory. unlike in 2005, he actually manages to not barrel into his rival. this is just a fantastic photo... I don't even have much to say about it. a+ vibes

a lot of the photos from this season were already included in the jorge/valentino/casey post, which reflects how casey wasn't consistently a factor in the same way the other two were. this one's from assen, the race right after catalunya when all three of them were tied on 106 points. very good side eye here, excellent job casey. unfortunately, casey is now in mystery illness territory - and he can't really compete with the two frontrunners in this stretch of the season

this is the first race after casey's return to competition - valentino goes up to casey after qualifying at estoril to congratulate him for his front row grid position. casey would win an early race scrap with valentino in the race itself, eventually finishing second behind jorge and swiftly silencing all the people who had declared him mentally weak and done for in his absence. a race that brought back suspense to that year's championship

phillip island 2009, another important moment in the canon where I've limited myself to just the one photo. casey wins just his second race back - and he also hugs vale pretty warmly in parc fermé. jorge was kind enough to crash in the opening lap, meaning valentino can very much be pleased with a second place here

and at sepang, valentino seals the title, while casey wins another race. casey ended up crashing in the warm-up lap of valencia, apparently due to an issue with the tyre warming? just kinda... the general vibe of his 2009, really. valentino closes off the season with another podium at his least favourite track, while dani takes the win

anyway after that they spent three years getting into increasingly. dumb arguments. like. so dumb. by the end of 2012 you feel you're killing your brain cells by even engaging with this stuff. it's beyond undignified. there's zero competitive justification, but they just couldn't shut up about each other. that being said, they're still capable of doing a small talk with each other even during the dark years, so that's something. maybe one day they'll finally be able to get that dinner and talk about all the good times

[strqyr]

Do you have any freezerburn headcanons floatin' around? I'd love to hear them!

idk if these count as headcanons or just fic ideas that i've had over the years, but uuuuuuhhhh

– weiss sometimes hums / quietly sings while she's doing stuff, and yang is absolutely mesmerized by it; so much so that she will pause whatever she was doing atm (or about to do) (which may or may not be an issue. if something caught on fire then that's just how it goes okay)

– yang rating weiss' unintentional jokes / puns with a completely nonsensical rating scale.

– inspired by canon: weiss being inspired by yang and that leading to experimenting with her semblance more like the sword? concept art freezerburn 2.0 attack? sorry ruby and blake but i think weiss "i know we're not as close" schnee has a favorite lol

– can either of them cook? no. will they still try to cook together? yes. 9 out of 10 times it's a complete disaster and the remaining one is food that only the two of them can stomach.

– they would adopt a dog together and it would be the most spoiled dog in the universe.

– yang plans to built a house—a small log cabin in the middle of the woods listen it runs in the family—for them as a surprise but gets too excited about it that she shows it to weiss when it barely has a foundation in place just so that they can built it together exactly like they want. (yeah yeah when i'm with you i'm at home the house doesn't really matter but it's still nice thing to have when their work takes them all across remnant.)

also a little canon-divergent definitely-a-fic-idea-i've-been-meaning-to-write: weiss feeling down during the vytal dance bc as much as atlas is. well. atlas, she was still feeling a bit homesick and she thought planning the dance like it was a gala in atlas would make her feel a little better but it didn't and tbqh there's a lot more to it than that BUT. yang notices, talks to her, and eventually offers that they could 'sneak out' (idk if it's really 'sneaking out' when it's just a dance but they also planned it and kind of acted as hosts so i'm counting it ✌) to vale—there's a festival fairground there that they could spent the night in and have fun—and weiss is unsure but also, yang is already halfway through climbing down from the balcony and it would be really awkward if she had to climb back up and well, weiss really, really wants to go. so they go. and have fun, completely unaware of the goings at beacon's cct tower :)

i think that's all for now. i'm not a huge headcanon person bc i like them to be at least somewhat rooted in canon so i'm always struggling with them like "is this a headcanon or just a fic idea?" no one knows. least of all me.

[atlasisreal]

YOU WERE AT *WHAT*????????????????????

yes it's true. the atlasisreal deep lore is that I attended dashcon in 2014.

that me 💕

anyways if you wanna hear my recollection of dashcon it's under the cut.

i was literally just a teenager at the time but seeing dashcon ads on Tumblr I was like. it's in Schaumburg??? like 30min from me??? I HAVE to go this is going to be the coolest thing ever. I love Tumblr all my mentally ill friends and supernatural gifs are on that website. I bet they're gonna have the coolest party ever.

LMAOOOOO

so i asked for the dashcon tix for my birthday! it was for me and my best friend (who attended and even cosplayed Homestuck with me despite not knowing anything about it) and my mom, who was mostly excited about staying in the nice hotel and swimming in the pool. I was so hype for this. anyways we get there and as people have previously talked about vis a vis dashcon, it was so hilariously underwhelming. the first thing you had to do was walk into the registration hall. I think most people have seen pics but they had written "Welcome DashCon" or something to that effect on the ground using blue painters tape, and the hall was empty asf which was really funny because they had set the table up aaaaaall the way at the back so you just got to walk across this big empty hall towards ONE PERSON sitting at a table (who in retrospect I'm pretty sure was the 19 year old they'd foisted this thing onto). she was super nice at the time though so shout out to that interaction.

we pretty much immediately headed for the only actual show floor area, which was the artists alley. if dashcon attendees are hard to find, I'm sure dashcon exhibitors are fucking unicorns bc there was... maybe 30 booths, if I'm being very generous. that being said, I got to meet nd Stevenson at dashcon! he was really nice, and complimented my cosplay. it's kind of fun to get to say I met the artist and author behind nimona and lumberjanes and she-ra at fucking DASHCON lol. hopefully next time I meet him it will be as a fellow professional comics artist huh who said that

gotta take a moment here to stress something. dashcon was very poorly planned and executed. this is true. BUT. the atmosphere, especially on the first day, was so joyful and connected. everyone was so stoked to be at THE Tumblr convention. all of us were weirdos who liked the weirdo website enough to show up in person for all our weirdo friends. We were all exchanging urls and taking big group photos and going to grab lunch together. people were very open and friendly. and I know that's my perspective as well, obviously there were plenty of things going horribly wrong behind the scenes, but having only been an attendee, it really wasn't the worst experience.

anyways so the day was fun and weird and a little boring because dashcon had fucking nothing going on but anyways so the scamming part. they called everyone into this main ballroom and stood on a little stage up front and were like "HEY IF WE DONT RAISE $200,000 THEYRE SHUTTING US DOWN" which definitely did NOT break my tiny little idiot baby heart. I definitely was super self aware and knew this was a dumb scam and I definitely DIDN'T cry and run to the hotel pool to tell my mom. she however immediately went "they're scammers and we paid for our hotel room so whatever lol". my bestie gave them $10 and after the fact was (rightfully) SUPER pissed about it because she WAS smarter than me and figured out the scam thing faster.

I think besides that scam thing the other thing I remember thinking was such fucking bullshit was that we would be walking past the ballroom where Welcome to Night Vale was supposed to perform and the line was insane. It was literally SOOOOO many people. I remember being a little bummed that I hadn't gotten tickets which was.... obviously a short lived regret. when they announced the night Vale cancellation I definitely realized shit was hinky.

a majority of the photos I have are from ballpitstuck! there was a Homestuck meetup at the ball pit, but a lot of us had found each other already and had been hanging out in little feral packs of homestucks, so we all meshed super well and basically immediately all became besties. we ended up kind of collectively agreeing to post stuff in the "ballpitstuck" tag, which is hilarious. I actually made fanart at the time! It's somewhere in the depths of my art blog. I've probably posted most of these before but for posterity:

we were cringe. but we were free. no but for real I did have so much fun hanging with the homestucks.

anyways the rest of the con was pretty much just hanging out and watching everything burn from the inside out. my favorite part was watching Tumblr react to dashcon in real-time, because everyone AT the convention was posting about it, and everyone who wasn't at the convention was actively following the updates. by the time we left I just remember being like "I think we've just experienced something very interesting". and now there's a Wikipedia page and a sarah z video about it so.

anyways shout out to my dashcon homies(tucks)

[allyriadayne]

What do you think would have happend with Jace if he had survived the Dance?

oh this is fun, thanks for the question!

survived as in everything happens the same except jace survived the gullet? i won't get into mechanics of this happening because i'd involve too many moving parts and what ifs and blatant avoidance of certain parts. so whatever. let's say daemon and aemond kill each other, aegon kills rhaenyra and imprisons baela and baby aegon.

two things:

1) if jace is in dragonstone, let's say recuperating from his injuries, in reality i don't think aegon would kill him just like he didn't kill rhaenyra's heir at the moment. jace might be too injured to truly pose a threat or aegon's advisors would "protect" him like they did baela.

2) jace is not in dragonstone. he could be healthy or injured but he's not there when aegon takes the island for some reason. i've read fic where he's with the northern/riverlands army or makes his way to the capital alone after aegon's dead. in any case, he reaches the capital at some point.

when the greens are neutralized and all the heads turn to rhaenyra's children, it's probable that the support would be split between the older, seasoned prince of dubious birth and the young, unresponsive prince of clear ancestry. the things is while a regency happened in canon i don't think anybody wanted to do that. the issues lingering needed to be solved NOW, the armies needed to be disbanded NOW, alicent and jaehaera needed to be secured NOW. even if jace is physically injured or abed at this moment, i think he would get the clear support of the biggest faction aka the riverlands, the vale, and the north. on the other side, he's corlys' grandson, he was a dragonrider (let's assume the dragon still died sowwy), he's commanded armies, and if he married baela that moment, he could be having an heir by the next year. the succession and therefore the kingdom, is stable.

i'm not saying there wouldn't be people vying for baby aegon's ascension just to be against jace perceived bastardy now or down the line but it's more likely that he gets more support to get the crown and just end the war once and for all.

so jace takes the crown immediately. i don't think the hour of the wolf happens at all, most of the attributions cregan takes for himself came from intimidating baby aegon and probs by being the highest ranking lord in a place where everybody was burning incriminating papers from the last reign lmao. i think he would be a lot more aligned with corlys in sending peace terms first, but would not hesitate if the rest of the kingdom didn't fall in line. as for aegon ii's advisors, to me jace would try to get them out quietly. stay for a bit but sending them home as soon as he could. corlys betrayed the blacks, jace would probably marry baela as a reward for past services (and bc he loves her obviously etc) and dismiss him to driftmark. thanks to jace, corlys has his legitimate heir in alyn, he's more than okay.

for people like larys, the ironrod, orwyle and tyland....... they were aegon's closest advisors and while i don't think jace would imprison them or kill them i think he'd test them in some way to prove they can change their loyalty and move on. after a few months or years when the transition smooths out, i would bet jace will be dismissing them for lords who are 100% on his side. i'd say all would do it because at least in the show i don't see them supporting the greens out of personal reasons, not enough to die for the memory of aegon OR jaehaera's claim, you know? and in any case, it /is/ a man that is ruling now lmao lol. i still see jasper wylde pushing his daughter to baby aegon if jace is not available anymore, tho.

jace wouldn't kill alicent or jaehaera either. i think the death of so many people and most of all, his brothers, would affect him very much. at this point alicent is described as mad and jaehaera is a traumatized child. he wouldn't send them to oldtown or keep them together all the time but i don't think he would be cruel (as for jaehaera's future, well, that's another story). they are his family after all and most of the threats are neutralized (hello alys hiiii i'm such a fan).

i can speculate on jace's mental state and say that while he would not shut himself out like baby aegon did, he wouldn't be the same at all. his drive to be the best version of himself would still be there of course, this is what will make him push himself to take control of the situation. but at the same time, i don't think he will want to be as much as a people pleaser as he is in canon. people will be vying for his favor, for baby aegon's hand, for rhaena's but to me, he will make the family close into themselves. during the war he learned to take command of his people, he has the presence and the confidence to say no now, he also has the crown and the symbols. that's half the battle done.

[evenstarfalls]

Ranking the past years sewing projects in an attempt to convince myself that I am hot shit and need to actually work on the stuff I have planned: let's see how this goes

I have actually done quite a lot of sewing in the past year—kind of been getting back into it as a hobby. Most of it has been based on online instruction guides and improvisation, it's kind of a messy journey but I have been having success (and arguably more importantly, fun).

Blouse made from cut up shein top and satin.. I am not happy with this and have yet to wear it out. Straps are poorly done and the satin doesn't really match, I am seriously considering replacing it with green fabric (may or may not be a thrifted top). 4/10

Too small Shein dress converted into top. The front looks good. The back is another story but the front looks good!!! Sleeves fit weirdly and limit the range of motion however I think that's Shein's fault. 5/10

Plaid pants. I used a real pattern for these!! I love them they're so silly however they stretch too much and I always feel like they're going to slip off. 7/10

Jurse. I love it however it has not held up particularly well, probably due to both construction and materials—the pockets have holes worn in them. I still use it sometimes. 7/10

Victor Vale poodle skirt. Unfortunately I am too self-conscious to wear it much in public. I need to add more characters. 7.5/10

[redacted] dress I had to redact this one for doxx reasons. It is made of like 23 cut up neck gaiters and an old bedsheet. I spent like a year planning this dress. And I love it. Has some construction issues but idc 8/10

Love Händel oversized tshirt dress. I love it I love the Phineas and Ferb of it I actually wear it quite a bit. My only issue is that I wish I'd seamripped the hem before adding the ruffle but that's. Not something noticeable. 9/10

Corset. I spent an ungodly amount of time on this but it looks awesome fr. I wore it to my first ren faire! 10/10

Queen/kitties reversible vest. I love it I really do and I think Freddie Mercury would agree. Wore it when I saw Queen + Adam Lambert. And I still wear it a lot. And get compliments on it. I love this vest. 10/10

Franny Robinson cosplay Halloween dress and bonus creepy frog stuffed toy. I would consider this one to be unrankable actually due to the sheer amount of time and effort I spent on this. I had to drop a class bc of this dress. Objectively poor construction but I don't care it looks good and I love to wear it. I listened to an AUDIOBOOK while making this. I am going to wear this dress as many times as possible. I am...really proud of this dress. 100/10

[bragganhyl]

Can you do kana for the character thing please? And Eder if you want 😘

I sure could, thank you :D

How I feel about this character: Sweet angel boy, too good for the world, I learned so much about different chanter builds just so I can keep him around along with my chanter Watcher lmao but also his arc hits harder with every replay

All the people I ship romantically with this character: As I recall, he only ever shows interest in Maneha and well she's obviously not interested. So... idk at most the Watcher, I bet a romance would have been very cute and very - for the lack of better word - romantic with him.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Hiravias, I'm probably repeating myself but I do very much like how Kana brings out his more scholarly side. Hell, I'm pretty sure Kana is one of the very few people if not the only one (aside from the Watcher potentially I mean) who sees and treats him as an intellectual. So yeah I like their nerd dynamic a lot.

But also Maia, ofc, just... give me all the Rua family interactions, it's fun, it's tense but the love between them is undeniable still.

My unpopular opinion about this character: I feel very ambivalent about his post-Crookspur cameo in Deafire, because on the one hand I'm always very happy about more Kana but why did he have to join the navy 😭😭😭 That's not what I meant when I told him that Rauatai should seek common cultural links with other nations, babyboy nooo 😭😭😭

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: This might be obvious but he should've been in Deadfire more. Tbh I think the faction companions could've worked better if we had 2/faction and we could see their different attitudes and maybe see them play off one another but that may be just me I definitely would have liked if I had both the Rua siblings on board and see their friction more. And ofc see how the last 5 years changed Kana - aside from him joining the navy I mean

I'm putting Edér under the cut bc it's getting long

How I feel about this character: Do you need to ask, Anon? I love himst, I love him so much it's not even funny at this point 😭

All the people I ship romantically with this character: The Watcher, like... a lot. His devotion for them is through the roof, the Watcher is in some ways the light of his life who pulls him out of the dark and apathetic mental space where the Saint's War and its aftermath placed him. Like how am I supposed to be normal about them? Especially if you throw in lines like "I wish [the gods] knew you like I did" or the personal +5 to deflection line seriously who's idea was that and why does it sound like that

also if you've been around this household then you might know that I also like the Team Gilded Vale throuple but like a) i'm not ready to submit that 5 page long essay rn and b) I kinda can't separate the dynamic from my Watcher in specific rn so yeah ask me about that some other time I'm very sorry my brain is a mush

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Tbh he's got good chemistry with like most of the companions in either games, but ngl I do like the idea of him befriending Grieving Mother a lot. They only interact once but even then Edér calls her a "nice, stranger lady" - despite GM's aura of unpleasantness - and GM seems really heartbroken over being unable to help him during his personal quest. And they both end up in Dyrford potentially, I'd like to think they end up bonding between games.

My unpopular opinion about this character: He's not a himbo, he's not dumb enough for that tho deadfire does dumb him down ngl and he can be very mean at times too so... yeah.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: Elafa should not have died. It does her dirty because obviously. It does Edér dirty because he ends his story still holding onto a version of Elafa that hasn't existed since the Saint's War. In some ways it even does Bearn dirty because the only way to establish a substantial link between him and Edér is to navigate the boat scenario in a very specific way that most players won't even think to aim for (you need to run out of convo options with Bearn while he's still undecided to push Edér to talk him down himself)

[artanticaa]

in my head it was just that they never dare ask the name of who's in the photo and marc is solely known as "the small bastard" by everyone in the shop. and when they finally do meet him, bez is like "if you're a tattoo artist, why don't you have any tattoos?" and marc just shrugs and goes "i'm afraid of needles". although bonus for him having a 46 tattoo somewhere hidden (upper thigh?) that drives vale insane whenever he thinks of it and has him stabbing the photo with the dart very aggressively while everyone else is sat there like ... okay then. oh and pecco and bez doing their first proper tattoos once they've qualified or whatever on each other bc cute. there's more like plot and drama in my head lol, but it's all v self indulgent lol.

IM CRYING- no no “the small bastard” is literally perfect and i love that so much…

What i’ve come up with so far is basically marc has his own studio and vale hates it because marc is very into like his own one style and like “new” tattoo trends, so like UV tattoos and all that fun stuff… i’m thinking maybe marc apprenticed with Vale like a loooong time ago and then they had a big falling out

marc seems like he doesn’t have any tattoos but i like the idea that he has UV ones and they don’t show up until he goes like fucking black light mini golfing or something and then he’s glowing everywhere 😭

AND WITH PECCO AND BEZZ UR SO SPOT ON BRO- they DEFINITELY have atrocious stick and poke tattoos from when they were like 15 and once they get licensed they give a tattoo to each other ASAP HAHAHA

Somewhere between all of this i picture Bezz wandering into Marc’s shop one day not knowing it’s “the small bastard’s” and marc comes out of the back wearing like a mask and goggles because he’s laser removing someone’s tattoo (he offers that service) and has a whole conversation with Bezz without showing his face and Bezz LOVES him and comes back to get a tattoo and Marc’s face is showing and Bezz is like “oh my god it’s YOU🫵”

But again thank you so much for enjoying this💕

[moonshynecybin]

the way Marc’s diplopia issues in MotoGP could translate so well into concussions episodes in a hockey AU (just like Sid…)

the head injury of it allllll.... its crazy because motogp injury is USUALLY (not always) caused by incidental contact or a personal fuck up. "racing is a contact sport rubbing is racing" okayyyyy but not like hockey lol. in motogp you USUALLY arent making contact on purpose (no one crashes for fun) and when you DO make contact it is almost ALWAYS on the limit. while often hockey injury (ESPECIALLY HEAD INJURY) is caused by a hit. could be a dirty hit could be a clean one, but usually its cuz a guy decided to hit you very hard with his body personally. theres a lot more.... agency in the injury? which feels bad bc not everyone is running around concussing people but i think its fair to say theres more interpersonal violence with INTENT to be violent even if its like. a fairly innocent shove on the forecheck. touching people on purpose. cause and effect. you are injured because of someone. thats comparatively rare in motogp

all this to say. known injury weirdo vale (and i hesitate to mention this but part of the reason he is that way is BECUASE he was involved in a tragic accident that injured another person). in a contact sport. vs marc. famously most injured man alive including in his head. in another sport that LOVES to ignore concussions. add famous rivalry. add playoff hockey hit lenience. and i can see marc (head already fragile/diplopia'd up when he was in juniors) falling weird when vale is trying to muscle him in the corners and getting his noggin absolutely scrambled. and now we have to deal with vale as CAUSER of marc injury. where he's out for months. in a dark room. doing his eye exercises and cuddling shira and MAYBE it was during the playoffs so alex had to convince marc not to try and get on the fucking ice and vale is in the same city all the time feeling like his heart is getting pulled out through his SPINE because its one guy to convince yourself a rival is evil it is ANOTHERRRR for injury weirdo to actually and for real hurt someone he loves. like if you look at them in motogp thats not vale's bag at all during the marc years. even with him being a criminal against sete in 2006 he never pulls that shit out post sepang 2011. and i think if he managed to actually INJURE marc. well i think he might feel so bad he shows the fuck up at this door

so its. hushed tense voices in the hall (alex and vale). vale climbing into bed with him in the dark. holding ice over his forehead. playing cards to keep him occupied and off his phone. reminding him to do his eye exercises. taking him to appointments contacting the diplopia specialist... and marc is brain foggy and confused and needs comfort and just WANTS IT so badly that he doesnt question it too much... lets himself take a little... and vale is there... like truly vale LOVES to take care of people, acts of service is his love language, and he is. FANTASTICALLY guilty. so hes trying to fix it anyway he can. but then the playoff series passes. and marc gets a little bit better. and there isnt a REASON for him to be there. and marc might be edging on asking him wtf hes doing there in the first place. and one day marc rolls over and vale is GONE.... because hes like okay. well marc is better now so i should go WALLOW in my GUILT. which of course to vale looks like pretending it never effected him at all while being secretly very kind about the whole thing. because he SUCKS !

[batsplat]

I’m gonna sound like a boomer but we’re never gonna get any rivalries on par with vale’s feuds or actually any pre late 2010s feuds anymore. and I think social media is definitely one of the major reasons why. now you have to watch what you say bc it’s gonna be immediately broadcasted and some your 253655665 followers or insta or twitter are gonna overreact and go hurl abuse in another guy’s comments. and this is so lame.

right there with you anon. I've been wondering about the 'why are athletes these days so boring' question for years (not in motogp specifically) and one theory I've seen touted is just the increased professionalisation of sports, how much more all-consuming it is from childhood onwards - essentially suggesting athletes today don't have the time to develop a personality or cook up feuds lol. and I think there's probably something to that theory - the current demands of professional sports are inevitably producing some singularly single-minded athletes, far more pr-friendly and moulded into being acceptable to the average consumer... but the other part of the equation just has to be the incredible levels of scrutiny they're subjected to. social media and the rabid fanbases it helps cultivate have to be a part of that

I'm always wary of speaking too definitively about the vibes of an era I wasn't around to experience - obviously controversies back then were also, in fact, controversial, sometimes athletes had to walk back their comments, fanbases certainly were rabid... but it's all a question of degree, isn't it - and how relentless the content consumption is, the ferocity of the news cycle, how inescapable everyone's opinions on everything end up being. if you look at the general tone of the alien era, I just don't think that kind of thing would be possible nowadays. it really wasn't just valentino either, and it's always worth remembering the context of the time in which valentino rose through the ranks. his first major feud, after all, was with a notoriously abrasive rider who was hardly beloved by his non-valentino opponents - and let's not forget how he was physically threatened by two riders after his very first grand prix (to be clear, I am not endorsing threatening seventeen year olds and think it's probably quite good they don't do that anymore). god, if casey said some of the stuff he used to come out with nowadays, and not just about valentino either... the discourse, it would be bad. the jorge/dani feud too would surely have reached cataclysmic levels of toxicity

and there's a lot of people who say, 'well, why don't you think competitors can just be respectful to each other, why can't athletes just be tough in competition and friendly outside of it, why do you need everyone to hate each other' - look, I think it's fun! sports is supposed to be about extreme emotions, heightened emotions about these artificial contests that feel larger than life. in one sense, it really isn't that serious, but on the other hand it obviously couldn't be more serious. more important than life or death, as the cliché goes, or that orwell 'war minus the shooting' quote mat oxley is ever so fond of - but that's only because we ascribe it meaning. which allows it to exist in this fun zone where we can live out these bizarrely dramatic stories that are high on emotional stakes, but for all intents and purposes are rather less high on material stakes (certainly for the fan). it's a release of a kind, sometimes an escape. now, personally, I enjoy my drama with a little bit of edge, of nastiness, which I understand is a personal preference but don't think (as is sometimes suggested) means I am any less invested in the sporting side of the equation. it is the substance of the sport that provides the scaffolding for the human interest stories it generates, but fundamentally nobody would give a shit about sports without the human interest element - and to me, a feud is simply an extension of that principle

another probably controversial critique of the 'why can't everyone like each other' stance is that I just fundamentally believe it to be dishonest. or, look, maybe there are some competitors out there who can feel nothing but warmth and love in their hearts for the opponent who has just beaten them - which is very lovely for them, they're clearly far better people than I am. but I don't buy everyone feels that way and I also don't buy this is something that has changed with a generation or two. obviously, the norms within any given sport end up shaping how the athlete approaches competition, what they believe is acceptable to say or do, or even to think or feel. the emotions might be visceral, they may even resemble hate, but the question is to what extent we allow them to be expressed. if these people don't like each other, if they think uncharitable thoughts towards each other, then, y'know, let them have at it as far as I'm concerned. respect is overrated. and even when it's not just earnestly felt emotions, even when they really are just playing games, attempting to fuck with their rivals... well, that's the other question, is it. is it acceptable to deliberately attempt use 'psychological' tactics, perhaps even intimidation, to win a contest or not? to me, the answer is 'obviously yes' and 'that's how sports works', but I accept not everyone agrees lol

I have particularly little patience with this stance in motogp, I think, because the belief that 'riding in a manner that could physically hurt another human being' is an acceptable element of competition but 'not conforming to social niceties afterwards' is not feels viscerally absurd to me. now, the former just has to be countenanced to some degree or other as part of the moral calculus you are performing in even engaging with the sport, because fundamentally you cannot 'objectively' determine how much risk riders can acceptably put each other in before it crosses a moral line. as far as I'm concerned, then, you might as well have at least some patience for the latter too - we're already morally firmly in the grey here. and intimidation still happens, after all, mind games are still all the flavour... but there's this constant need for subtlety, to keep the nastier side of competing hush hush, that I find deeply tedious. sure, sometimes subtlety can be nice, but at this point it feels less like a personal preference and more an ironclad requirement. and this is the thing, right. sometimes, people are arseholes. professional athletes certainly are. sometimes, just like their fans, they feel violently extreme emotions. especially if they've just been competing. but of course, if every single controversy attracts such out-sized vitriol from fans, a moral referendum on everyone involved, a boiling pot of feverish partisanship... well, it's unsurprising if athletes try to steer clear from all that, isn't it

I also don't think we're going to get another feud that can get mentioned in the same breath as valentino's offerings any time soon, though perhaps next year we can have a good go at it. (ironically, of course, this is still an extension of one of his feuds - you have this built-in vitriol which I reckon at times allows it to worm its way past the filters all of these people have developed.) which, you know, I don't need them to artificially cook up feuds just for the sake of it. beyond broader trends between generations, obviously this is also a question of individual personalities and how they happen to interact with each other. if valentino's feuds are as good as it gets, I can live with that - I do still enjoy the sport plenty, am grateful to valentino for providing me so much good archival material to pour over and dissect, and don't want to ask for too much here. god knows, the current version of motogp is still highly dramatic by the standards of my main sport, and unfortunately I still watch that shit all the time. but it's still a bit of a shame that competitors don't seem to get a lot of choice in the matter these days. and it's a bit of a shame that fans seemingly prefer it this way, going by the vitriol they heap on athletes over any and every offence. it's also a bit of a shame that it feels like there's no real escaping the relentless partisanship of online fan spaces. personally I'm not all that into discoursing about whether things are 'good' or 'bad' and more into establishing whether something's 'interesting' and then thinking about it some more, which doesn't feel like much of an option if you for some reason ever get struck by the desire to interact with other fans online. but it is what it is, y'know. at least we'll always have that time valentino put a curse on a guy

[vulpecular-draconic]

i’ve been feeling some kinship towards fae and changelings for a while, but i’ve always brushed it off as just liking the stories about them, or relating to them bc i’m autistic and autistic kids (and other disabled kids) were mistaken for changelings.

now i’m wondering if it’s more than a kinship in the non-kin sense, or if i actually *am* one.

i sometimes daydream about being fae. i even have a daydream world where i’m technically not a fae, but humans occasionally mistake me for one. my sona in that world also sometimes calls themself a changeling instead of a shapeshifter, bc i just like the word and concept of being a changeling more. it makes me happy to call myself a fae and a changeling.

i get slightly annoyed (in more of an amused way) at how a lot of fae in modern stories are written to basically just be humans with wings and magic, instead of creatures with their own non-human ways of thinking. i feel like that kinda takes the fun out of it — like why would you remove the interesting stuff? (disclaimer: i know there’s alterhuman folks who are those types of fae, and that’s totally fine and awesome ofc! this is just my personal feelings. i’d rather be perceived as a more traditional fae than some modern versions.)

on that note, when i try to daydream about being fae, i feel disappointed that my thought patterns are more human-ish than fae-ish. i find myself wishing to know what it would feel like to not be able to lie, and to make sneaky deals with humans — things like that.

there are some aspects about myself that i think are fae-ish, though: for example, i cannot say most absolute statements. i usually always have to allow for exceptions (i’m doing it right now, for goodness’ sake!). for example, i can’t say “i always stay up late” even though most people — from what i’m told — would automatically assume there are exceptions to that statement. they wouldn’t think i literally always go to sleep late every single night, they’d just assume it happens most nights. but implied exceptions aren’t satisfying to me. how would someone *know* an exception is implied? if they assume there are exceptions even when hearing absolute statements, then what if a statement truly IS an absolute statement? because then they’d assume an exception for something that had no exceptions (if such a thing even exists). and if they don’t assume there are exceptions, i don’t want to say an absolute statement and cause people to think i don’t know of the exceptions. so instead i’d say something like “i pretty much always stay up late.” the “pretty much” implies that there are some nights that i go to bed early, but there’s enough nights of me staying up late that it renders the exceptions nearly insignificant.

i have a lot of mashup shifts — aka when i have a bunch of unrelated phantom limbs at the same time. as i say in my intro post, i call these cryptid shifts, but sometimes “cryptid” just doesn’t have the right vibe. both my gender and my species can be heavily influenced by whatever my brain is hyperfixating on. when i’m hyperfixating on something like welcome to night vale, which is set in modern times in our universe (kinda), both my gender and species tend to take on a more cryptidish kind of hue since cryptids are associated with this reality. but if i’m hyperfixating on something fantasy, like tangled, my gender and species takes on a more fantasy-ish hue. (urban fantasy is kind of a toss-up.) my point: when i’m being more influenced by fantasy, instead of connecting to cryptids, i feel connected to fae and changleings. they’re kinda similar — mysterious, sometimes scary, can look like many different things — they feel like the same flavor in different colors to me, if that makes sense. and to be clear, it’s not just a fun name for mashup shifts. when i feel like a cryptid, i am a cryptid. i’ve had cryptid shifts where although it has elements of my other kintypes, i didn’t really feel like those kintypes at the moment. i was a cryptid. and although i haven’t consciously thought of my fantasy flavored shifts that way in regards to fae/changelings, it feels correct.

i’m a psychological otherkin. nearly anything is a possible kintype if my brain latches onto it hard enough. all the little moments of fae could have built up throughout my life until my brain is like “that’s YOU,” even if it wouldn’t happen to other people that way. this point isn’t exactly a reason, really just context as to how my nonhuman-ness works. (i wonder, would i be fae if one instance of learning about them didn’t happen? would i be a changeling if i didn’t read the oddmire books?)

welp, now that i’ve written all that out, here’s my reasons for having imposter syndrome

i don’t actually know much about the old legends and myths about fae/changelings. i went down a rabbit hole once of reading scottish(?) legends about them, and i’ve read over the changeling wiki a few times. i think i get the general gist of them, and i tend to want to learn more about them when the opportunity arises, so i’ll likely learn more in the future. but i don’t feel like i know enough. which, i know, you don’t have to be an expert on your kintypes to know you are one. but what if i’m missing some crucial information? or i have a big misconception about them?

now here’s a rebuttal to my imposter syndrome bc i have some good arguments:

while i’m not connected to the modern versions of fae, that doesn’t mean i’m connected to the very original versions of fae. there are some things about the original myths that don’t feel like me. i am probably somewhere in-between of “ye olde myths where your secretly changeling baby turns into an old bearded man” and “sexy brooding guy with wings.” the versions of fae/changeling that feel like me could have elements that are warped or made up in my head — which, hey, that’s kinda just what being a psychological otherkin is like sometimes. brains do weird stuff. whether or not fae and changelings were ever real, they’ve lived in minds for centuries, and the stories have changed over time. being one more small, personal change in turning wheel won’t affect much.

so,, yeah. i think i’m a fae and a changeling. maybe. or maybe i’m just autistic.

[littlebetesofeverything]

Welcome to Night Vale EP 10

It's back to Cecil time! My test was okay but definitely will be doing better on the next one. I took some time to recharge and got started on the next chunk of material. I'm pumped so let's gooo!!!!

Why does he sound so ominous? I love the openers but come on, laugh a little my dude, I'm sure Carlos would love it

A three-headed doggie? GIMME!! I want all the cuddles, maybe the kids started the shit, okay?

I think Panache is a made up disease, the others I had to learn for a test at the end of last semester

I will be a hench person for the dogs, give them all the scratches whenever they want.

I DON'T HAVE SPIDERS ON ME, GOD DAMN IT. I have no beef but no crawling on me please.

That sound change when he talks about carpal tunnel being sexual lmao

I would pay Lin to read that bit about Hamilton with Marx glasses. new intermission request.

Thank you Carlos, for reminding us that snitches get stitches. And that the dogs aren't gonna be sold out.

Firefighters have their priorities straight, love that for them.

I should tell my brother they added a rank after Eagle and see if he falls for it.

Carlos, there is something that doesn't belong on that list, bud.

I think the zoo director is actually a research scientist, they all talk like that.

Fuck you, I have a calculator in my pocket right now! I just happens to look like my phone.

I was gonna say, what the hell is this ad for? Next time do an ad for Goldfish, I would love to see how that one goes.

Listen, sometimes kids need to learn to ASK before trying to pet the doggy.

Why is it always Rico that is the weird one? Penguins, here, Hannah Montana...

Hey, I know exactly why I am going to hell. But it's not for looking up.

This music isn't too much my jam but I like the lyrics though

I love the City of Ba Sing Se vibes every time the mayor gives an announcement.

Gently coercing with pepper spray sounds like a fun time lol

Yeah, resilient is one word for it, Carlos.

As a future doctor, I would love to know how to remove the appendix without a surgery.

Had to take a break to have a call with my mom bc family news came up (mostly good, some not so nice, but overall happy). So just this one tonight, everyone. See ya tomorrow! :)

[chronically-enthusiastic]

HI ELIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

you like podcasts, right?

do you have any recommendations? so far i've been listening to all vampires are gay and it's pretty cool but you have a great taste in Things so i thought you might have some suggestions :D

i love you <3

A;S.DKLJFASKJDF SO MUCH EXCITEMENT RIGHT NOW AND i CANT COPE HEHEHEALKSJFHALJ AGAGGGGGHSDFSFFFFFFHHHHHHHHHHHHH

*dies*

Okay.......... *composes myself, adjusts blazer and tie, pulls out a briefcase and begins*

Hmm this post got a lil out of hand so here's a read break for anyone who doesn't want to hear me talk for *copies and pastes into google docs to count the words* 800 words about fiction podcasts :DDDD

Sooo! I have not listened to all vampires are gay, but have read the podcast description so I know a little about what you are looking for....

Audio dramas (In order of how similar to AVAG I think they probably are):

Where The Stars Fell is a dark supernatural podcast (I had to stop listening bc it got too dark....) that seems very similar? I don't remember much and didnt listen enough to get a proper feel for it.... check it out and see!!

I listened to a like 20 episodes of Welcome to Night Vale before that one got too dark - but it is very popular on this website and each ep is kinda like a news report. Its set in a weird town where lots of supernatural things happen and almost every conspiracy theory is true there.

The Unseen Podcast has a *very* cool format. Each episode is kinda a monologue from a different person each week. It talks about their individual experiences in a fantasy world and it has SUCH a cool magic system!! Please listen to this/do more research..... I've spent like 45 mins on this post at this point (I haven't written it in order, this is one of the last parts im writing) and I'm tired so can't really explain it properly.... Sorry!!! But I loved the non-dark episodes of that!!! (they had content warnings so I only listened to the ones with reasonable content warnings)

Civilised is an improvised science fiction dark comedy show about a ship stranded on a planet and strange things ensue. I listened to the first few series but then from what I remember it got a little too dark for me. (my threshold is very low fyi). I listened to that one a while ago so don't have much else to say, check out the first few eps if it sounds interesting!!

We Fix Space junk is again a dark comedy sci fi show (also a dystopia kind of) about scavengers in space! Again, listened to it ages ago so I don't remember much....

The amelia project is kind of a surreal (maybe?) show about a company that fakes people's deaths. Each episode is framed as an interveiw. So far it has 72 episodes, and it has just come to the end of the 2nd part of the 5th series! The first series is very much a collection of semi-unrelated stories but the plot begins to unfold in S2, and *lots* of things start to happen in S3 onwards!! My personal favourite!!!

Wooden Overcoats is a comedy podcast about a funeral home run by Rudyard and Antigone Funn, two probably autistic, probably a-spec, characters. Eric Chapman opens another funeral home and its kinda about their rivalry but also how they kinda cant live without each other and if any of that sounds even remotely interesting please please please listen because it is truly hilarious and excellently written and produced!!!!! It is finished with 4 seasons. My other favourite!!!!

Alba Salix is a fantasy show that is very very fun!! Again, I listened to it a while ago so I don't have much to say bc I can't remember, but it has quite a similar feel to BBC Merlin I think? With more fairies and magic though. I remember loving it very much. I should probably relisten soon!! This is from the website:

"Farloria’s Royal Physician has her work cut out for her. As head witch and the only regular staff member at the new House of Healing, Alba’s got an endless lineup of patients and a bickering King and Queen to please. Fortunately, help is on the way. Unfortunately, that help is from Magnus, a troublesome young ex-monk and aspiring surgeon, and Holly, an accident-prone fairy herbalist."

Forgive Me is a comedy about a father (the religous type, not a parental figure) who runs a church and each episode is framed as a confession in the catholic church. It's not very religous-y and does point out some of the problems with religion etc. Its quite lighthearted from what I remember? The amelia project did a crossover episode with them!

WOW this post got very long! I will put a read break to shorten it........ oops!! I like podcasts very very much.... heheeeee

These are all the fiction podcasts I have listened to (I think? there are probably more that I have forgotten about....) but if you want any non-fiction ones I have a lot more to talk about heheee!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love you too Echo!!! And thank you for inadvertently letting me infodump about a special interest for this long!!!!!!!!!!!!

[myrquez]

as a non italian I find u guy's relationships with marc the most fascinating thing on earth bc wasnt he literally like the Italian motorsports antichrist for a good solid amount of time

do you guys get shit for stanning him? Are people becoming more normal now?

I'm sorry this is just tooooo interesting is it/was it a cultural thing to hate him???

I've seen comments on stuff from peak rosquez divorce era and its...not fun but what are the vibes like now??

I'm so sorry loll

ITS OKAY ANON this ask made me laugh A LOT

he indeed was italy’s antichrist. most motogp fans were OFC vale’s fans. many of them still are, and vale here is kinda like.. idk, the pope. or something even bigger. so needless to say that yea… it was bad bad… even if motorsports isn’t really really popular where i live i can tell u that me and my vale obsessed uncle had beef every race weekend. we ruined (way too) MANY family gatherings but that was the vibes we used to bring to the function (chaos and rage) (now it got a lil better but we still have some bickering)

but as for today, yeah, it got better for sure! i keep seeing more and more marc’s fans, which good! people are getting more… quiet about him? at least they don’t put 93 shirt on dolls to burn them or build up mock graves for him so yea lmao

ofc you will always find people still talking about 2015 and say crazy shit everytime marc does something or something in general happen, many of them still don’t like him to this day but that’s okay! it’s okay to not like him. i’m just happy that people are not obsessing that much anymore and doing… extreme shit idk. in my perspective if some years ago the sentiment was something like 90%-10%, now it’s more like 70%-30%? 60%-40%?

[darling-i-read-it]

Staring

Eli Ever(Cardale) x fem!reader

Word Count: 2.7k

Warnings: vicious/vengeful spoilers, eli literally killing people (nothing graphic), mentions of elis horrific backstory, angst, pining 

Author’s Note: SHUT UP THIS WAS SO FUN. by the end of the duology I was so in love with eli, i cannot lie. I love victor as much as the next girl but damn i love an awful morally gray (morally black?) man. If anyone has any more request for either of these kings i would gladllyyyy write them <3 in the meantime i hope you enjoy this love!

Request: by anon, YOOOOO i read one of ur victor vale fics, and i am on my hands and knees bEGGING u to write for the villains duology more!! can i rq eli ever x reader where the reader isn't an EO but knew eli and victor in college? and the reader is working with victor against eli bc they don't agree w what eli's doing, and idk eli finds them or smth--sorry if that's too vague!! i am literally BEGGING for eli crumbs and pls include a lot of tension between reader and eli!! ur writing is stellar!!

Song: All I Need by Radiohead 

I don’t own these characters. They belong to author/director/creator

(not my gif)

Eli Cardale sat across from you at the table. You had your legs folded underneath you, tingling as they fell asleep. You had been here a long time. You could tell outside the window that the sun was starting to go down. The stained glass windows of the library were tricky like that, never quite revealing if it was as late as it seemed. Eli had his nose stuck in a book still. You wondered where Victor was, if he was studying somewhere. 

“Are you done?” Eli questioned. Your head snapped back towards him. He was staring at you through the thick rims of his glasses. You smiled, shrugging.

“I’m getting sleepy,” you admitted. Eli nodded once, tucking his papers into his textbook. 

“Is that code for you’re going to go find Victor?” There was a gentle edge to his voice, a slight jealous tinge. You shook your head, rubbing your eyes. 

“Truly sleepy,” you promised. “I’ve been reading about boring things forever Eli. I can only do that for so long. You should share some of your brain power.” He shook his head. 

Eli valued these afternoons with you. They were nice and peaceful. Life outside of these walls tended to be chaotic and with complications he could never quite grasp. In here, nothing had happened to him. It was just you and his books. He could spend forever with you and his books. 

Despite the calmness of the moment, he felt the most emotion here. 

“Plus, Victor is probably off studying.” 

“Alright,” Eli huffed, though there was disbelief in it. You smiled as he put your things back in your book bag. You could probably make some shitty coffee back at the dorms and stay up a little bit longer. Make the day last past schoolwork. Maybe even catch up on some of your own reading endeavors. “Are we still meeting up tomorrow afternoon?”

“Yes sir,” you promised. “Same time, same place?”

“Yes ma’am.” You gave him a nod as you pushed your chair under the table. Eli started to leave. You followed close behind him. “Have you studied for the test in Givens' class tomorrow?”

“Enough.” 

“That doesn’t sound like enough,” he admitted. You shrugged.

“What am I gonna learn in the next 12 hours that is actually gonna help me Eli?” He shook his head. He couldn’t believe you sometimes, though he enjoyed having you around. “You disagree.”

“We have different minds,” he said. The air was refreshing. You walked down the steps of the library, the sun hitting your face. It felt nice after being cooped up for so long. You passed other students, people cramming and holding large cups of caffeine. You weaved through them on the cobblestones back to the dorms. 

“What does that mean?”

“It means we have different ways of learning,” he suggested. You grinned up at him. He looked particularly handsome this evening. You knew he always teased you about liking Victor more than him but it was Eli you had always been in love with. It would always be Eli. His stoicism, his mind, his understanding without you having to say anything. 

“That’s not a bad thing,” you countered. 

“Did I say it was?” 

“You did not.” You lifted your leg dramatically as you started to go separate ways. “I’ll see you tomorrow Eli. Don’t work too hard.”

“You know me,” he called. There was a life in his voice he didn’t recognize when he was with you. You gave him a half wave, an adorable gesture, before walking the other way. 

He watched the back of your head for a moment. Your hair bounced in the sunlight. You looked gorgeous this afternoon, particularly distracting. He watched you go like you were taking a piece of him with you. Eli and Victor had decided not to tell you about their experiments, for your safety. That didn’t mean he didn’t want to. He wanted to hear your thoughts and your comments and your reserves. 

He had put his foot down. Victor was more likely to slip up than he was. 

He still wanted to tell you. 

You turned a corner and he lost you. He dropped his head down, imagining someone else seeing him standing alone, staring at a girl who didn’t once turn back to look at him. 

-

“Tracking him has never been easy,” Mitch grumbled. He was sitting on the hotel bed. The adjoining door was open, allowing Dol to come and go as he pleased. Sydney and you had your own separate room from the boys, at Victor’s insistence. 

“Well it’s never been so fucking hard,” you muttered. You looked out the window. Eli Cardale was out there somewhere, among the people and the cars. You had recently narrowed in on him to this city but been unable to get any closer. He was supposed to be obvious when you were close. “He’s killing people. What do you mean we can’t find him now that he’s so close?” 

You looked over at Victor. He was standing at the computer. He had a look of contempt on his face. You had never seen so little life in Victor. He had always been the stoic type but never as much as Eli. Now, years after college, he was almost dead in the eyes. 

“We need to split up.”

“And what? Scrape the streets to see if we find any rats?” you spat. 

You were different too. 

“He had typical haunts. We need to find an EO and narrow them down, knowing he’ll be around them.” Victor looked at Mitch. He nodded once, getting up to go to the computer. You were never quite sure how they were able to find people so quickly but you also could never understand how they couldn't find Eli. Victor walked over to you. 

“We’ll find him,” he promised. His voice was hard. You looked over at him. 

He looked so old. He looked weathered. He looked like a corpse. He had died. 

Eli and Victor had never let you die. They never would, not even after everything happened. You were a human, just like Mitch, and you were stuck here in this purgatory between people who had been your closest friends. 

After he got out of prison Victor sought you out. He knew that to find Eli he would have to find you first. He half hoped the two of you would be together, frolicking off into the sunset, like the ordeal had never happened. That isn’t what happened. 

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because he’s looking for us too.”

“Do you think he knows that I’m here?”

“I don’t think he ever lost you,” he said lowly. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Eli liked having his eye on you. I don’t think he would’ve let you leave his peripheral vision if it wasn’t for me.”

“What a rebel.” 

“Yes ma’am.” Dol walked into the room. He jumped up on Victor’s bed and did a couple circles before lying down with a huff. Sydney was awake. Victor looked back towards the dog, remembering he had a child to care for. “Do you want to go get food while Mitch looks?” He had a gentle tinge in his voice that he saved for you and Sydney. Those in this room were the closest thing he had to family, though he would never admit that. 

“Sure. I need some fresh air anyway.” You cleared your throat and walked back, grabbing some money. “Want anything Mitch? Going to the deli next door.”

“I’m alright. Filled up on protein bars.” You rolled your eyes. 

“Once a jock, always a jock,” you joked. 

“I don’t think-”

“Just go with it Mitch. Vic?” He shook his head. He would rather wallow and die than ask for anything he could get himself. “Syd, I'm getting food!” 

“Can you get me a sandwich?” she called from the other room. 

“What kind?”

“Tuna fish!” 

“Kay!” You opened the door and shut it behind you. The hotel was large but it was cheap. You were okay with the sketchy neighbors as long as no one asked questions. No one got into the elevator with you on your floor and you pushed the down button. You should’ve invited Sydney to come with you. She could use the fresh air too. Dol probably needed to go to the bathroom. 

You thought about how you weren’t that far. You could go back up and grab them, that way you had some company and extra hands for the two sandwiches. Maybe they had dog treats for Dol. You always loved places that thought of that because of how often Dol was around. 

The elevator opened on the second floor. You stepped aside, keeping your head down so you didn’t have to make eye contact. The man walked in and pushed the first floor. The elevator started to move again. 

He pushed the emergency stop button, causing the elevator to come to a harsh stop. You stumbled forward, grabbing the railing beside you. 

“Hey,” you said, annoyed. You glanced up at the floors that were highlighted at 2 still. You finally looked up at him. He was wearing a large black coat with a collar that covered the side of his face. “What the fuck?” you asked, louder this time. He tilted his head towards you so you could see his eye through the thick rimmed glasses.

Your mouth clamped shut. 

“Eli?” When he turned around it was like no time had passed. His face looked exactly the same, exactly the man you sat across from at the library. His eyes were the only thing different, a little less life in them. He and Victor were more alike than either cared to admit. 

The elevator felt too small. You were confined in a small space with someone you had carded as the villain of this story. 

But it was Eli. 

“I heard you were looking for me,” he said, quietly. His voice didn’t seem threatening. There was nothing there that felt wrong. 

“Yeah,” you breathed. “You’re killing people.” 

“They’re not people.” You narrowed your eyes at him. There was a difference. This was the Eli you had never seen, only heard about from Victor. “You…you’re people.” You looked up at him through your hair at him. Your eyes were big, doe eyed, he would say. 

“You’re people too.” He shook his head. There was a sly smile on his face. He had orchestrated his moment, he had thought about the second you would leave and that it would be just you. He needed to see you before he saw anyone else. He stayed in this town to see you. 

He was obsessed with Victor. 

But if he knew love, it was you. 

“I’m a God.” 

“Then what is Victor? What’s Serena?” You could tell you hit a hard note with Serena.

“Serena’s no longer an issue.” 

“She was an issue?” You watched each other for a moment. It was nice to be there with him, even if it hurt to know how different you were. 

“She was an issue.”

“Then what is Victor?”

“Victor’s a defect.” 

“What happened to you?” you asked him, borderline pleaded. You took a step forward and grabbed his hand. He looked down at it like it was a foreign object. He didn’t retreat. 

You didn’t do it to manipulate him. You did it because you had to, because he was right there, before you had to touch him. “What did they do to you Eli?” 

There was no way you could’ve known what they did to him but the question hit him where it would've hurt. It was a touchy subject. He had the sudden urge to hug you, to wrap his arms around you and engulf you in his embrace. To kiss you, to do what he never had the time to do when you were in college. He thought of Victor. He wondered if Victor was with you now, if his worst fear had finally come to fruition. 

“Eli,” you whispered. His eyes had glossed over, lost in thought. He came back, staring at you, studying your face.

“They cut me open. They took parts of me out. They couldn’t kill me.” His voice had no emotion, like he was talking about the weather. 

“I’m sorry.” You knew you should be using this time to convince him to change his ways. You didn’t have him for long. You should’ve been telling him that killing was never the answer and that no matter what happened to him, he should never be taking it out on others. 

But you couldn’t bring yourself to do that. 

Without warning, you wrapped your arms around him. 

His natural reaction was to tense up. He assumed you were hugging him to manipulate him, to get to the buttons, to try and hurt him. Moments passed and you stayed there, head pressed against his chest. You made no ill efforts. 

He wrapped his arms around you. He put his chin on your head. He closed his eyes. 

Why couldn’t it have been like this forever? 

Melancholy filled up the small space. It could never last like this. You had to go back to Victor and you both knew you would tell him that Eli had been here. There is nothing more special than a short lasting mutual agreement to set things aside to have some closure. 

You let him go. Your hands lingered on him as long as you could. 

“You have to go?” he questioned. The tinge of emotion was back in his voice. 

“They’ll come looking for me,” you said quietly. The act of going back assured him some time to leave. You were trying to help him, even now, even after everything. 

He nodded once. He pushed the elevator button to start moving again. It moved down slowly but not slow enough. You both faced the door. You linked your pinky with his, refusing to look at him. 

When the door opened you let out a deep breath. He let you go. You missed his touch already. He walked out the elevator doors. 

Without thinking you reached forward, stopping the doors from shutting. 

“Eli!” He turned back around. His cold face was back, haunting you with the differences in time. You swallowed. “It was always you.” 

His face softened.

The door shut. You watched him until they shut as he turned away from you. The elevator brought you back up to your floor. Like a zombie you walked down the hallway. You had forgotten your keycard and knocked on the door. 

Mitch opened the door. 

“Where’s the sandwiches?” 

Behind him Victor stood, watching your face. He read your numb expression and raised his chin, hardening his face. 

“Eli.”