#but i also need to finish that drama

[edorazzi]

Page 35 of my Miraculous Mentor AU comic A Matter of Trust! In which the cat's out of the bag, and it might break the two heroes apart! 😰🧨

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[pogzhellopart]

Hello EriKar nation

[torantuga]

uhhh sketchdumps AGAIN bcs i had to get them out of my system after this busy ass week

also hiii new mkulia redesigns dropped ^_^!!

[starryluminary]

It’s almost compulsive my need to draw noco as my favorite ships. Today it’s terusai! Tomorrow? Who knows!

Alternate with their original hair colors!

[juustozzi]

I could hear the sound Distant and thin Of our hearts caving in

kinda of a continuation to the previous galaxy piece, though I'm trying to not make this grow too much...

[marymekpop]

a daily dose of sunshine & wisdom

[brookiidookiii]

some blondes

[faragonart]

@1driedpersimmon I just thought it'd be neet if they meet hee hee~

with @pali-himbo 's Vatii Kiri~

[mengyan]

watching ajtl is like being told that you will be kicked down the stairs of a 500 story building, accepting that you will be kicked down the stairs of a 500 story building, then getting kicked down the stairs of a 500 story building, screaming crying and throwing up while tumbling all the way down, and finally arriving at the bottom to get a pat on the shoulder and a bandaid that says "congratulations for surviving" 😊

[appallinnballin]

MFM kiddos using Ruv as a mattress cuz he’s warm and soft :3

I feel demons are more susceptible to the cold.. he is the family furnace

[batsplat]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[put-them-thangs-away]

sooooo were any of yall gonna tell me the main character in kiseki: dear to me is underaged or was i just supposed to figure that out for myself

[blossoms-phan]

y’all got any good tv show recs 👉👈

[qilingxiong]

chewing glass someone else watch draw the line please please PLEASE it's such a smart show

[hiyokosha]

What if the Doctor did what Donna told him to. Travels around the world and universe but always coming back again for his friends. Eat Christmas dinner with the Nobles. Go see Rose's school play. Becoming a part of the Noble family basically. Watch people around him grow old but never saying goodbye. He watches as Rose grows into a fine woman and he watches Donna grow old. She's happy having lived such a great life, and she's content because her family and her best friend is there beside her. He attends her funeral the same place as he had attended her wedding. Then he finally lets go, having came to terms with all his sadness and regrets in the decades he have lived with his best friend, regenerating into the next Doctor.

[f-imaginings]

I have finally FINALLY got up to the dream scene at the start of the last mabelcorn in kmky and everything is flowing nicely finally, and the scenes and characterisation all are smooth and make sense and I am no longer going over the same establishing scenes like a pedant trying to make them perfect. SUCCESS!

Just have to knock out these next few bits then it's onto unicorn beatdowns, funny hats, pizza parties and loophole heists!