#but you can find some in some of my other posts if u want to dig on my blog

[truthinquotations]

While i absolutely love malevolent and everything about it from its insane concept to the fact that everything is done by one fucking guy i cant help but laugh at the fact that theres no difference between supernatural and malevolent in terms of queerbating 😭😭 i think I’m cursed to like homoerotic media made by straight men who wont ever commit to the bit they created

I’m not saying that i want them to be together like explicitly or whatever its just that i know that theres no reason to add certain things in the plot other than to create this kind of ambiguous state. And i know its not just me cos my bestie who got me into malevolent and recently watched all supernatural says the same thing😭😭 So now we’re just making jokes about how stereotypically “bury ur gays” or “make them go their separate ways” the ending will be lmao in true fashion of the best queerbait media

Top 3 are: 1) they get separated and go their separate ways cos John wants to “find himself” 2) they get separated and john goes to find lily (and don’t get me started on lily that whole thing is fucking HILARIOUS to me) 3) one of them dies and the other is forever in mourning

Again i love malevolent but the last seasons really r trying it in this department 😭😭😭

Edit. Lmao i know its a controversial take so not surprised at the comments. First of all i cant be “wrong” about a feeling I have its just how i FEEL about the show in the later seasons. You can say you disagree but to say that im wrong about my feelings just doesnt work lol im not here to defend a thesis. Secondly i know for a fact it’s not just me and my bestie feeling this way since yk this post also has ppl who agree with me🤷. If you get what I’m talking about you immediately understood my point, if you don’t, u don’t, its ok, I’m not advocating to change the podcast lmao

Pls stop with the whole “a lot of people see it as a aromantic relationship they dont have to be a couple friends tell ily to each other often” respectfully IN MY OPINION they have passed that line of friendship a long time ago. You can interpret it however you want same as I can interpret it however I want. But as a person who has a couple fandoms where i love the friendships and platonic relationships of characters i have never genuinely paid attention to to the amount of ily characters say bcos yk it would be a regular amount😭😭 Same as it never struck me weird if some characters been jealous in a friendship bcos it was clear that it was a friendship pure and simple. Which js why iI dont feel like jarthur is written as friends even if they never get together (which i dont even want lol i dont see how it would fit into plot atp). Honestly just how many times yall tell your friends that you love them or be ready to kill their other friends 💀💀

Some moments in malevolent feels eerily similar to supernatural and tw and if you get it you get. Two that come to mind is how in spn they had dean have sex with a female angel when everyone obvs been shipping him with cas. And how teen wolf brought dereks little sister that was practically his copy in every way on screen and alluded to stiles having a crush on her 😭. I get similar vibes when john brings lily out of fucking nowhere as his “light” (Or purpose or tether to humanity smth like that i forget the exact wording). I died laughing when hearing that like im sorry i get what he’s saying you don’t have to explain it to me but he brings her up so abruptly and i was just sitting there mentally asking myself “what do you know about her??? Who IS lily???” Like we’re suddenly meant to think lily is a bigger influence during those 2 months on johns humanity then arthur is😭😭 i mean come on even arthur was like ???

i wouldn’t be as surprised if they showed us some interaction like lily reading to arthur or smth like us hearing her voice or idk her last fucking name at least😭😭 something that would make it clear why he’s bringing up that character from fuck knows when other then its the only female character that can be considerably linked to john as his “light” in this scenario.

You can view their relationship however you want if you dont see it perfect then its not meant for you. I however genuinely cant view this as just friendship, the whole being jealous to the point of wanting to kill someone who seems as devoted to your partner as you are, refusing to be parted even when opportunity WAS presented and so on. If you can thats great, media is not meant to be interpreted in one way I can say its not friendly and you can say its your fav aromantic duo 🤷

I dont even think Harlan is doing it on purpose we just have very different definitions of what platonic means lmao. However the increase of these moments in the last seasons felt kind of purposeful to me lol which was what brought this on. And pls dont tell me its cos they got closer in the latter seasons arthur killed himself in s1 they’ve been close😭😭😭

I just don’t think that a person who hasn’t heard that harlan wont make them a couple, hasn’t heard a bit of discourse, listened to the podcast and certain moments of “ily” or their separation anxiety yada yada yada and would never think they have romantic feelings for each other or that its not where its headed.

Also if I feel like i experienced this exact same thing with media before and it was called queerbait and universally acknowledged as such I’m not gonna reinvent in my head definition of friendship and platonic love to fit what was previously labelled as queerbait there, Im gonna call it queerbait. Especially since it feels like every other media that was labelled as such before. Im not advocating to change the podcast or cancel it or whatever im expressing an opinion i have on my blog that i know other ppl even if not a lot agree with.

I stand with my cancelled take 💀💀💀

[flzrencent]

chris sturniolo ,, the seventh letter

! contents ! ; major character death, heavy angst!!! literally all hurt zero comfort!!!!! war (set sometime in the mid - earlyish 1900s??), probably soo historically inaccurate i tried to research i think.

˚　　　　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.　　　　　 . ✦　　　 　˚　　　　 . ★⋆.

#7 

July 28th Somewhere in Sicily.

'I hope this reaches you well. 

It’s cold here, Matt’s stationed elsewhere – somewhere warmer, safer, I hope. I worry for him. Nick is here. I miss you, how’s it at home? 

I didn't think it was possible to miss someone so much. To get on that train with the knowledge I wouldn't see you for what could be years? It’s still all too much for me to bear. Even here, where the wind is harsh and I'm still sleeping a layer away from dirt and a wall away from death, all I can really think about is what would’ve happened if I'd have kissed you before I got on that train.

Though I'm sure this won’t last long. I have faith. With you waiting for me, I will continue having it.

It won’t do us any good pondering. So I'll stay thinking about how I will kiss you the second I come home.

I don’t think I have ever been this tired. I hope tomorrow will be easier, and I hope all is well where you are. 

Don’t worry so much about me, I beg. Celebrate our birthday with my family, will you?

All my love,

Chris.'

The letter sat tear stained in your shaky hands. The pristine paper yellowed, dirt marks from what was undeniably Chris’ hands when writing it on the corners, scribbles of hearts drawn lazily where he could fit them.

The death of Christopher Sturniolo was, undeniably and undoubtedly, the most painful thing to ever happen to you. The news, revealed on a sunny day, air warm and laughter echoing through the streets as the family mourned and spoken to you by two men who’d knocked on your front door, brought you to gut wrenching sobs immediately.

“Ma’am?” 

You wiped at your eyes, ridden with sleep and stress, and nodded in confirmation as they clarified your identity.

“Were you … in any sort of relation to Christopher Sturniolo?”

Were?

“Yes,” you spoke, brows furrowed as you shifted your weight on your feet, leaned up against the doorframe with a tilted head and an accusing look, “I am,” you clarified, the look on your face showcasing the tell-tale signs of concern, the beating in your chest suddenly loudening.

“We really are sorry to be the ones to break this to you, but he’s tragically - …”

The ringing in your head interrupted the rest of what they had to say. Hot, salty tears welled up in your eyes as you shook your head,

A shallow and a shaky breath. “No, no, you’re wrong.” You pleaded, words small and broken by the sobs already slipping from your lips. This has to be some sort of misunderstanding, right?

“We truly are sorry,” the other spoke, voice low in remorse with his hat held low to his chest with one hand, the other outstretched with a worn out envelope and a sincere look on his face. The distant laughter lingered, the joy which only moments ago brought a smile to tug at your lips, and you selfishly wanted nothing more than for it to stop.

˚　　　　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.　　　　　 . ✦　　　 　˚　　　　 . ★⋆.

florence ,

most of my war knowledge is from 9th grade history! excuse the terrible inaccuracy probably. can u tell i tried to be vague

this is so short aswell literally like 470 words. but i am a sucker for angst and i fear its what i find easier to write </3 i also lowkey forgot i could post things that i've written so i have countless bits in my docs rn!

[hermitcraftx]

just got a dm abt one of my posts and y'all please don't try and show the hermits (or any minecraft youtuber or content creator for that matter) my posts, i'm uncomfortable with it and don't want any of my posts shown to a cc. if they stumble upon it naturally that's unfortunate but i can live with it since i do maintag a lot (something i REALLY need to stop doing tbh i already know i need to make a tagging system just for my blog that wont clog results) but going out of ur way to show a cc is entirely different and something i am not comfortable with.

no hate to the person at all but even if i wasn't a little silly and weird with it sometimes i wouldn't be comfortable with it, i want my blog to be a purely fandom only space with none of the creators involved <3 please respect this

[acourtofquestions]

Rowaelin Chapter 41 Kingdom of Ash:

She'd rebuild it—what she had been.

Perhaps one last time, perhaps only for a little while, but she'd do it. If only for Terrasen.

Rowan swooped from the mast, shifting as he reached her side at the rail. He surveyed the night-black sea beyond them. "You should rest." She slid him a glance. "I'm not tired." Not a lie, not in some regards. "Want to spar?" He frowned. "Training can start tomorrow."

"Or tonight." She held his piercing stare, matched his dominance with her own.

"It can wait a few hours, Aelin."

"Every day counts." Against Erawan, even a day of training would count.

Rowan's jaw tightened. "True," he said at last. "But it can still wait. There are ... there are things we need to discuss." The silent words rose in his animal-bright eyes. About you and me.

Her mouth went dry. But Aelin nodded In silence, they strode into their spacious quarters, its only decoration the wall of windows that overlooked the churning sea behind them. A far cry from a queen's chamber, or any she might have purchased as Adarlan's assassin.

At least the bed built into the wall looked clean enough, the sheets crisp and stainless. But Aelin headed for the oak desk anchored to the floor, and leaned against it while Rowan shut the door.

In the dim lantern light, they stared at each other.

She'd endured Maeve and Cairn; she'd endured Endovier and countless other horrors and losses. She could have this conversation with him. The first step toward rebuilding herself.

Aelin knew Rowan could hear her thundering heart as the space between them went taut. She swallowed once. "Elide and Lorcan told you... told you everything that was said on that beach."

A curt nod, wariness flooding his eyes. "Everything that Maeve said." Another nod.

She braced herself. "That I'm-we're mates."

Understanding and something like relief replaced that wariness. "Yes."

"I'm your mate," she said, needing to voice it. "And you are mine."

Rowan crossed the room, but halted a few feet from the desk on which she leaned. "What of it, Aelin?" His question was low, rough.

"Don't you..." She scrubbed at her face. "You know what she did to you, to ..." She couldn't say her name. Lyria. "Because of it."

"I do know."

"And?"

"And what do you wish me to say?"

She pushed off the desk. "I wish you to tell me how you feel about it. If…"

"If what?"

"If you wish it wasn't so."

His brows narrowed. "Why would I ever wish that?"

She shook her head, unable to answer, and stared over her shoulder toward the sea.

It seemed like he would close the distance between them, but he remained where he was.

"Aelin." His voice turned hoarse. "Aelin."

She looked at him then, at the pain in his words.

"Do you know what I wish?" He exposed his palms, one tattooed, the other unmarked. "I wish that you had told me. When you realized it. I wish you had told me then."

She swallowed against the ache in her throat. "I didn't want to hurt you."

"Why would it ever hurt me to know the truth that was already in my heart? The truth I hoped for?"

"I didn't understand it. I didn't understand how it was possible. I thought maybe ... maybe you might be able to have two mates within a lifetime, but even then, I just ….." She blew out a breath. "I didn't want you to be distressed." His eyes softened. "Do I regret that Lyria was dragged into this, that the cost of Maeve's game was her life, and the life of the child we might have had? Yes. I regret that, and I wish it had never happened." He would bear the tattoo to remember it for the rest of his days. "But none of that was your fault. I will always carry some of the burden of it, always know I chose to leave her for war and glory, and that I played right into Maeve's hands."

"Maeve wanted to ensnare you to get to me, though."

"Then it is her choice, not yours."

Aelin ran a hand over the worn wood of the desk. "In those illusions she spun for me, she showed me variations on one more than all the others." The words were strained, but she forced them out. Forced herself to look at him. "She spun me one dreamscape that felt so real I could smell the wind off the Staghorns."

"What did she show you?" A breathless question.

Aelin had to swallow before she could answer. "She showed me what might have been—if there had been no Erawan, if Elena had dealt with him properly and banished him. If there had been no Lyria, none of that pain or despair you endured. She showed me Terrasen as it would have been today, with my father as king, and my childhood happy, and..." Her lips wobbled. "When I turned twenty, you came with a delegation of Fae to Terrasen, to make amends for the rift between my mother and Maeve. And you and I took one look at each other in my father's throne room, and we knew."

She didn't fight the stinging in her eyes. "I wanted to believe that was the true world. That this was the nightmare from which I'd awaken. I wanted to believe that there was a place where you and I had never known this suffering and loss, where we'd take one look at each other and know we were mates. Maeve told me she could make it so. If I gave her the keys, she'd make it all possible." She wiped at her cheek, at the tear that escaped down it. "She spun me realities where you were dead, where you'd been killed by Erawan and only in handing over the keys to her would I be able to avenge you. But those realities made me ... I stopped being useful to her when she told me you were gone. She couldn't get me to talk, to think. Yet in the ones where you and I met, where things were as they should have been ... that was when I came the closest."

His swallow was audible. "What stopped you?"

She wiped at her face again. "The male I fell in love with was you. It was you, who knew pain as I did, and who walked with me through it, back to the light. Maeve didn't understand that. That even if she could create that perfect world, it wouldn't be you with me. And I'd never trade that, trade this. Not for anything." He extended his hand. An offer and invitation.

Aelin laid hers atop his, and his callused fingers squeezed gently. "I wanted it to be you," he breathed, closing his eyes. "For months and months, even in Wendlyn, I wondered why you weren't my mate instead. It tore me up, wondering it, but I still did." He opened his eyes, and they burned like green fire. "All this time, I wanted it to be you."

She lowered her gaze, but he hooked a thumb and forefinger around her chin and lifted her face.

"I know you are tired, Fireheart. I know that the burden on your shoulders is more than anyone should endure." He took their joined hands and laid them on his heart. "But we'll face this together. Erawan, the Lock, all of it.

"We'll face it together. And when we are done, when you Settle, we will have a thousand years together. Longer."

A small sound came out of her. "Elena said the Lock requires—"

"We'll face it together," he swore again.

"And if the cost of it truly is you, then we'll pay it together. As one soul in two bodies.

Her heart strained to the point of cleaving. "Terrasen needs a king."

"I have no intention of ruling Terrasen without you. Aedion can have the job."

She scanned his face. He meant every word He brushed the hair from her face, his other hand still clasping hers to his chest, where his heart pounded a steady, unfaltering rhythm.

"Even if I had my choice of any dream-realities, any perfect illusions, I would still choose you, too."

She felt the truth of his words echo into the unbreakable thing that bound their very souls, and tilted her face up toward his. But he made no move beyond it.

She frowned. "Why aren't you kissing me?"

"I thought you might want to be asked first."

"That never stopped you before."

"This first time, I wanted to make sure you were ... ready." After Cairn and Maeve. After months of having no choices whatsoever.

She smiled despite that truth. "I'm ready to be kissed again, Prince."

He let out a dark chuckle and muttered, "Thank the gods," before he lowered his mouth to hers.

"You're my mate." Her words were a breathless rush. "And I am yours."

The world might have been burning around them for all she cared, all he cared, too.

"Together, Aelin," he promised, and she heard the rest of the words in every place their bodies joined. Together they would face this, together they would find a way.

Together we'll find a way, their mingling breaths, the crashing sea, seemed to echo.

Together.

[zannolin]

real talk i actually do put like. an unreasonable amount of effort into my textpost memes behind the scenes so it's actually really rewarding to get to share them thanks for putting up with my antics

[shirogane-oushirou]

no promises anymoooooreeeee i'll appear online when i appear online 😭 every time i say "ooh i think life is almost done being overwhelming!" it. becomes even more overwhelming in the dumbest ways. all i can manage rn when i'm not stressing myself into a shut-down state is staring at the wall while listening to youtube essays + mindlessly crocheting.

i might queue up ppls art and fics w/o commentary in the tags... i want other ppl to see what all of my cool friends have made, but i genuinely can't think right now with this monstrous brain fog. i'm really sorry, just. yeah. maybe i'll think of some way to make it up later!!! once the dust has settled!!!! but until then i wuv u and miss u. smiles.

[venting in tags including familial manipulation and ableism. i. didn't mean to write all of that, thiss was originally going to be a main blog post but. aaaaaAAAAAA!!!!!

also no need for replies or anything, i'd turn them off for just the one post if i could kjsndkn, i just needed to get things out and go eep jsjndsfdn ok bye bye bye bye!!!!]

[atopvisenyashill]

do love how this is an asoiaf blog but i did not put either show in my top 10 this is the world we live in

[dizzybevvie]

"not pro-ana just using the tags" "pro-ana only for myself" Ok but you see how you're still hurting people right. you see how you're perpetuating this mindset for other people by posting about it right.

[harukapologist]

Milgrammies! The ever dreaded (at least by me and Haruka-fan friends) birthday tl is in less than 48 hours, Haruka's birthday tl. So

Expand on what you predict may happen in the tags if you want, I'd love to hear your thoughts. I put mine in the tags of the original post but in short, I think he'll talk/be talked to by Mikoto :3c

[batsplat]

oxley bom pod was talking about the friendly atmosphere in the paddock today and they brought up vale as someone who would make himself hate his opponents in order to beat them. they mentioned biaggi before saying vale didn’t need to make up a reason there lol, and the gibernau, stoner, lorenzo, marquez. thought it was interesting to hear them say that especially since oxley specifically had a particularly close working relationship with vale!

got around to listening to the podcast rather belatedly + had a chat about this general topic that helped me organise my thoughts on this a bit. I transcribed the most relevant comments - probably some small errors because of cross-talk and like... I'm a fast transcriptionist but can't be bothered to properly do it, here:

O: One is because racing is so fucking complicated now. [...] They've got so much to do, so much pressure - to have the negative energy of anger and hatred is actually - B: It's a waste. O: It's a bad thing, you're just wasting your energy. I mean it depends on the character, okay - B: So maybe Vale was the last who really needed to hate somebody to give him - and now even Vale invites Casey to his ranch to ride with him. But he really needed to - It was not difficult for him to hate, but he - Some riders he really looked for a reason to hate them even more, because then he could dig deeper in himself - because he was just a happy chap - in order to beat them. O: Max Biaggi. B: But it was easy to hate Max! That was not very difficult. Sete Gibernau, basically he needed to try - O: Casey Stoner. Sete Gibernau. Marc Marquez. B: He hated Vale probably before Vale hated Casey! But that's another podcast. O: Yeah, I think so. No, definitely, definitely, definitely. [...] Some people - they get fired up by hating other people, and that's fair enough.

so yeah. I mean, qualified agreement, I guess? they're definitely right about casey hating valentino before valentino hated casey lol. if valentino ever really hated casey at all. which is not necessarily a mainstream take, so it's nice to hear it!

I also agree with this general take about... y'know, the creeping professionalisation of the sport and how that affects how likely you're going to get fun drama. goes beyond just hours spent looking at data and also about... having a bit of a life, having time to actually form a personality. and as I've said before, it's the fans! clickbait news + social media featuring partisan fans, who aren't just going to read every statement but also react to every statement like it's life or death shit. pecco and jorge have gotten push back for some incredibly, deeply, ridiculously mild comments these last couple years. they HAVE to phrase everything they say as inoffensively as possible while still getting their points across, and even then they'll generally be jumped. like, forget valentino, how do you think casey would have fared in this current media environment? up against a fanbase as partisan as valentino's - or marc's nowadays? not well is the answer! I think to some extent you can get away with this stuff more depending on people's perceptions of you, so marc and increasingly pedro will generally be fine... but on the flip side, the pecco's, the casey's, the jorge x2's of this world... everything they say gets read in the worst possible light, but now everyone's just so much louder about it

but this ask was more about valentino than the current landscape, so I'll get back to him. I do think it is a bit of an issue if you frame it as a completely either-or issue - at the end of the day, most competitors will probably motivate themselves through their enemies at least a little. pecco definitely uses negative emotions to fire him up, people criticising him and the like. casey absolutely used them, often directed at valentino. all the comments from the haters to fire them up right, to show everyone how wrong they are. on a psychological level, there is not something *fundamentally* different between using your rivals or the fans or the press to motivate yourself - it's still the same underlying motivational process (and indeed the podcast references lawson's distaste for the press). casey signs off his first every grand prix win by saying how nice it was to beat a spanish rider sponsored by the circuit, like are we calling that pure love for the game? he and mostly martin and to a somewhat lesser degree pecco do share a tendency to... believe the world is out to get them, and use that to fire themselves up. idk if casey strictly needed to do that or if it was just ingrained at a young age and became a stable self-perpetuating way in which he viewed the world but also, it doesn't really matter, right. maybe in both valentino and casey there is a pure unpolluted soul who could have enjoyed winning just for the sake of winning, but in practise it's clearly more complicated than that. as has been recently discussed in quite some depth in this parish, late 2007!casey was getting sympathetic interview write-ups that described his mentality as informed by 'bitterness and rejection'. including bitterness at valentino, who at that point in time was not meaningfully reciprocating any of that stuff!

so I do have a bit of a bone to pick with this idea of 'the last guy'. valentino didn't 100% motivate himself by hating his enemies, the blokes after him didn't do so 0%. I think of the aliens casey is probably the most similar to him by this metric... some are definitely less inclined to do so. lorenzo's a bit of an odd case where at times it felt like he was better at making other guys hate him than necessarily hating them himself... complicated guy but I think he actually really did want to mostly fuel himself in a positive manner, except then for various reasons both external and internal he needed to also draw a bit more from. the darkness. marc is more likely than either valentino or casey to just fight to win for the sake of winning... then again you do have cute little incidents like misano 2019 where marc - off the back of two back-to-back last lap defeats - miraculously happened to find an extra bit of motivation through a spat in qualifying after duly harrying the yamaha's all weekend. again, it's a question of degree, right. marc is just inherently less restless than valentino and less inclined to think the world is out to get him than casey, which are all contributing factors

with valentino, I think I disagree a teensy bit in terms of framing more than I do in substance. first off, not to be a broken record on this, but obviously all of these feuds were very different, involving very different emotional landscapes. I don't think it's correct to say valentino needed an enemy to fire himself up, but he did always need something. some mission to dig his teeth into, some way of making the whole thing exciting. of making it fun! I'm not all that convinced of this happy-go-lucky characterisation of valentino - a lot of the time he had to go to an awful lot of effort to keep himself entertained, and when that didn't work he could get pretty miserable. he needed to keep himself stimulated, he needed to stop himself from feeling lonely, he needed to give himself a purpose to work towards. hatred did help him in a motivational sense, and he's talked in his autobiography about how anger has made him ride faster. it's useful... up to a point. it's just not a uniform thing across rivalries

my sense is that it comes down to two things. 1) he needs something to motivate himself and get excited, be it a rival or whatever. and 2) he needs some distance from his rivals. motivating yourself through a rival is not quite the same thing as motivating yourself through an enemy. for instance!! casey was only really his enemy once they were no longer on-track rivals - it was unrelated to actual competitive calculus, and was in some ways more about casey than it was about valentino. when valentino did that shit to casey at laguna 2008, he's not like... mad at casey. he doesn't hate him. he's gleeful at least in part because of how obviously pissed casey is, but he doesn't hate him. because he doesn't need to hate casey to want to beat him! casey is already so considerable a challenge that beating him is reward enough in itself - he's this super tricky puzzle for valentino to work away at... and when he comes up with the answer at laguna 2008, he's delighted. he doesn't really hate jorge in 2009 either - dislike, yes, hate, no. he's already plenty stimulated by the challenge of beating his feisty young teammate... he doesn't need anything else. he gets through 95% of the 2015 season with barely any animosity with his title rival - there, he would have seen it as distracting from his primary mission of winning his tenth in a way that was entirely disconnected from any particular rival. he also runs into the problem that it feels like any psychological warfare feels like it's getting aimed more at marc than jorge - but that's entirely accidental, he isn't TRYING to fuck with marc in the middle of the season. why would he!! and jorge refuses to be fucked with on the track because he's just never in the same postcode as valentino, and valentino isn't attempting to fuck with him off the track. he's barely even doing like,, mild mind games, like they're quite actively friendly the entire year

(I do sometimes think you can do a bit of displacement here where you don't necessarily need to hate the person you're actively fighting to get the job done - cf marc at misano 2019, also... tbh casey 2011-12 kinda had that vibe where he was getting all that energy out of his system in valentino's direction and could then keep things civil with his actual title rival. there's a LITTLE bit of that 2015 even pre phillip island but mostly valentino does have a more early 2008 'we move in silence' vibe or whatever that pecco tweet read. this is the restlessness thing, right - he kinda needs to fill his brain with SOMETHING)

which brings us to the second element: needing some distance. zero problem with biaggi, which is kinda the training wheels feud in that it takes a bit of a life of its own before valentino REALLY was intending it to. he's a kid (literal eighteen year old) who's kinda snarky about biaggi in the press and biaggi takes it EXTREMELY poorly and confronts him about it and it kind of spirals from there. with casey + jorge, valentino ensures that they never GET too close. I do think there is an element of... y'know, not wanting to be close friends with the guys who are your title rivals, because it's harder to beat people you care about and deprive them of the thing they want most in the world. which I actually think is pretty normal!! valentino's problem is that on a few occasions he has ended up in rivalries with blokes he was at some stage close in - and either he preemptively withdraws as with marc and... ? probably...? melandri...? - or the relationship deteriorates and then blows up as with sete and also marc. the 'preemptive withdrawing' bit does suggest a degree of self-awareness with regards to his own competitive process - and as has been previously argued in this parish, valentino's relationship with marc developing as it did was in large part due to his competitive situation 2010-14. the two of them falling out was probably always going to happen if they were competing, the two of them falling out that badly required valentino's stint in the competitive wilderness to let him lower his guard to such an extent

so that's the argument in broad strokes. yes, valentino can use enemies to motivate himself - he certainly enjoys having rivals, he enjoys fucking with them, he enjoys figuring them out and measuring himself against them and also a little bit of competitive edge. that doesn't mean he needs enemies per se, or certainly he wouldn't have seen some of his rivals in quite such extreme terms (casey in particular of course felt differently). he did need SOMETHING to motivate him... rivals, definitely - enemies, perhaps. and he also needed a bit of distance from those he was competing against. which post-sete he tended to preemptively enforce, except that one time when he didn't, and when it wasn't preemptively enforced it did have a tendency to blow up rather spectacularly. so in essence, you still end up at the same conclusion, right - valentino did get a lot out of having enemies, did motivate himself with them, did need to beat someone. but the working process is a bit different as I see it. sometimes making enemies is about emotional regulation, y'know. feuding as a healthy outlet for competitive tension. as it should be

[k8felge]

nothing hurts more than seeing ur fave character depicted in an official au story or elseworld where details ab them r different but it explores the character in a new way -- its good in a vacuum, but u know it isn't the Definitive Version of that character. Just a new exploration (cool!). but because the adaptation brought in so many new fans and/or was a huge success it ends up being treated like its the Definitive Version and all discussions of prev versions are overshadowed bc of it... even worse when studios / execs see the success and try to pivot to this New Version only and never try to explore new routes for the character ever again (can you tell this is about comics yet)

[itsalwaysdark]

i think itis funny in the past when i would list my interests as if i post abt them i donot post abt the shit im into rly Mainly bc im not rly Into Into anything anymore i occasionally watch or read or play something but i dont do fandom stuff rly much.... just sometimes i get brainworms

[lanayrutower]

being a child of divorce will make you conscious of things like 'bird misogyny' and 'bird grounds for divorce'.

[misterradio]

i love seeing fan art for stuff so much like its my favourite thing ever when it comes to Looking Up Specific Things On Tumblr and im so crazy abt the works but only me and dog have really posted abt it i think it makes me go crazy and i could just cry from wanting to see other people draw fanart of it. does this make sense

[acourtofquestions]

Dont be angry, Finnula said. Be smart.

[siobhanromee]

why does no one understand the importance of privacy any more (/nobody here)