#he’s a sensitive little guy

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

hi ari :D (funnily enough people call me ari as a nickname heh) how are you today ?

HI ARIAAAA aka ari ….. we’re twinning 🫂🫂 always nice to find another ari in the wild hehe :3

i’m doing pretty well!!!!!! playing phanpara and finishing some uni stuff :3 drinking my silly little coffee and cozing up in bed… the usual…. how abt you ??? <33 i don’t know how different our timezones r but 😭 have you done anything fun today? i hope you’re resting lots and taking care of yourself!!!

here is a silly little sugu for you :33

[lyril]

you don't get it okay... you don't understand..... .

[your-subby-creature]

Tdick is literally a gift from the gods. You agree wholeheartedly and with gusto.

[fyllophobia]

cheep cheep

[mickedy]

I'm not really a fan of Evil Oswald AUS but eh i guess an idea ive been bouncing around is like, what if Oswald didnt back out on his whole "use the rocket to take Mickey's heart and leave the Wasteland" plan at the last minute and actually DID kill Mickey and Mickey's entire life his friends his job his namesake was all passed to Oswald as a result of owning Mickey's Heart...

so oswalds just kind of pretending to know what's going on but the reality is he just sort of murdered his brother and erased him from existence and took his life. and has to carry that memory and guilt. Forever Lol. Also Mickey is a snarky ghost that follow him around

[shitty-skyblings-doodles-daily]

today, the skyblings were poorly drawn in a whiteboard thing with friends!

also featuring a little snail that was mysteriously eating my friend’s art! the green one (the better one) is mine <3

[buttfrovski]

stan being a pussy about snakes

also cartman to the.. "rescue"?

[despazito]

I was making late night pancakes and the pan began to smoke so basil began trembling because he thought the fire alarm (worst experience of his life) was gonna trip so now we have the dog bed in the studio where he can stay next to me and process his trauma

[swiftcast-selene]

baby tsetse fresh from one of his first few hunts! he's about 15 here, two years before the accident that sheared off his horn.

i wanted a mix of grown-up and baby dotharli clothes here to symbolize how he was kind of at a transitional age at this point in his life, so he's in a mix of the big fluffy coats the children of the tribe wear, but paired with the dark blue top and skirt the adults are usually in. he's very bitter about it! he's a grown man now, he doesn't need his comfy clothes anymore! (he does. he's very cold.) since neither of his parents were around, i like to think the rest of the tribe would take turns helping him with his hunting paint, as well as giving him each little pieces of beading to adorn him as a way to include him :)

[langfield]

new vinh lang lore just dropped! man sells classified information for the fun of it, more at nine!

[daily-hanamura]

[soullessjack]

might I suggest stitch as a jack true form gang

[g1rlr0b1n]

Damian: I never know what to say to people at funerals.

Billy: neither do I, I'm terrible.

Jon: Just say "I'm sorry for your loss" then move on

Damian: oh ok.

*later at a funeral*

Damian: I'm sorry for your loss. Move on.

[batsplat]

casey saw this as patronizing or whatever bc he grew up pretty isolated and physical affection was not something he was used to past a certain point in childhood……

https://www.tumblr.com/batsplat/764372520458715136/qatar-2007-cheek-caress-arm-around-the-shoulder-as

(here, also here) I am always careful not to get TOO deep into making assumptions about the non-motogp relationships of these guys, especially when it's anything related to parental dynamics... have seen some interactions with his father on screen provide evidence for this thesis, but also don't want to read too much into those. but, well. in any case. there definitely is something to this idea that casey is just like... missing out on forms of socialisation that are basically second nature to valentino, to the extent valentino isn't even thinking about them that much. which probably gives us two rather contrasting experiences of that particular moment

we know for a fact that casey was a bit bewildered by how his competitors reacted after winning races... not that he necessarily has a PROBLEM with it but what's up with all these elaborate pre-planned celebrations when you haven't even won a title... and it's so telling that he frames it as a european thing. because it's not!! it's a valentino thing that then a bunch of other riders (including obviously jorge, one of casey's peers) adopted for themselves. but fundamentally casey has this tendency to interpret a lot of his general isolation and loneliness through the lens of cultural alienation, as a way of explaining to himself why he feels so separate from the rest of the paddock, and then he uses valentino as his primary frame of reference for what europeans are like, and there's just a lot of conflating going on here... and suddenly we're getting to the point where valentino becomes very relevant to casey's general feelings of isolation

and I do have like. a hot take about 2007. which I can't fully substantiate, but it's just where I'm at with the evidence and the vibes right now. and it's that valentino really isn't particularly hostile towards casey that year. casey does talk about valentino making some remarks about him in the press that he doesn't like - but it really isn't easy to find what those remarks actually were. like, actual substantial criticisms. if valentino made some remarks with nebulously bad vibes, sure, they might have gotten lost in the mists of time - but if he'd said anything more dramatic than some mildly snide remarks, surely there'd be some record of it. there's only really reporting of casey feeling that valentino's tone towards him in the press has gotten less friendly... which is probably true! but it's also worth pointing out that casey is... uh. a sensitive character. that season, he was reacting with rather a lot of hostility to any suggestion that the tyre difference between bridgestone and michelin might be helping casey out. which valentino did say! but he was consistently framing it not as casey winning because of the tyres, but the tyre different not allowing valentino to compete with him. and valentino does switch tyres at the end of the year, so crucially he does put his money where his mouth is - he's not just complaining for the hell of it, and it's also worth pointing out that subsequent events 100% vindicate that decision. it's completely understandable that casey will have been annoyed by that... and yes, plenty of fans will have gone further in suggesting casey really only was champion due to the bridgestones and some corners of the press were definitely very annoying... but like. in the grand scheme of things, this is still pretty restrained rhetoric on valentino's part, right? it's stuff you can take offence to, but you are setting the bar rather low there

which leads us to the next issue... valentino doesn't completely blank casey like he does some of his rivals at the height of those feuds, he's still willing to engage in small talk and all of that. yes, it's entirely plausible valentino cooled off a little interpersonally towards casey, but. well. they were title rivals. that's kind of... fine? controversial opinion alert, I suppose. it's at the very least expected, surely. obviously valentino had just gone through an unusually warm title fight with nicky hayden et al - but for the most part, consensus opinion is that you're not really going to be friends with the guy you're competing with for the highest prize in the sport. and you sort of wonder how many interactions they could possibly have had before 2007 for casey even to use as a baseline. like, sure, they'll have known each other a little bit... casey's spoken about how valentino would chat to him about stuff not related to motorcycle racing, which is very sweet and all. but presumably we're talking a few pressers and paddock run-ins, right? nothing all that substantial

and if you take those facts together, add in that casey had considered valentino one of his idols... you've got valentino not opting for open hostility in 2007. the lack of any valentino comments memorable enough to still be available today. casey's sensitivity towards criticism. valentino's tendency to cool off towards direct rivals. that they were still friendly enough towards each other at the end of 2007. how there probably weren't many significant pre-2007 interactions. casey repeatedly complaining about how valentino had cooled off towards him in 2007. and of course, casey's long-standing isolation... well, it does leave you with an interesting picture. at a certain point, I do feel like all of this raises an obvious question: if valentino isn't actively insulting casey and isn't just completely blanking him, then why does casey even care if things have gotten a little more interpersonally chillier between them? why does it bother casey that valentino isn't speaking as much to him as before?

and that leads us back to qatar 2007. because my best guess is that valentino wasn't deliberately buttering casey up as much as he just sort of overshot on his default charm and left a little bit too much of an impression on this lonely kid who was having things go his way at last. valentino wasn't being patronising... he just acts that way when he loses races, whether that's his personality or an awareness that charming your opponents can be a healthy approach or a combination of the two. and yes, whether you want to attribute that to his european inclinations or having had a healthy social life - valentino isn't a stranger to a caressed cheek here or there to show his appreciation. and... well, I reckon initially casey was just extremely charmed by the whole thing. by one of his heroes chatting to him as an equal, by the god of the sport warmly congratulating him for his victory - the full force of valentino's charisma crashing into this undersocialised kid who'd been written off as a surly crash-prone loner who was a bit of a handful to work with... all the while, the commentary is informing us that casey doesn't smile a lot. that he isn't known for his drinking prowess, even! we're being actively encouraged to read the moments in parc fermé in terms of how casey doesn't tend to be either particularly sociable or particularly happy. and, well, if you barely have any friends in the paddock (ed: apart from chaz davies who does warrant a mention here - notably mostly gone from the paddock from mid-2006 onwards), if you're not close to anyone, if you're kind of short on chemistry with other riders... it does take on added significance if the valentino rossi of all people turns on the charm in your direction. and it makes it all the more painful if valentino later creates a little bit of distance in response to your budding rivalry

there's an element of casey overthinking things because he can't quite reconcile the idea that valentino can be so vicious towards him with all the friendly interactions they've had, so he ends up retroactively assigning valentino ulterior motives for all the time valentino was perfectly pleasant towards him. but that's precisely BECAUSE these interactions held a little too much significance for him... more, certainly, than they did for valentino. what european hasn't caressed the cheek of a few of their future nemeses, right. valentino practically tackled toni elias in parc fermé two races earlier at estoril 2006, like he's all over the guy all the way to the podium. (elias is actually cradling his cheek on the podium, so valentino's certainly no stranger to the sensation.) valentino certainly can be a... tactile bloke, let's say. whereas there's a serious possibility that this is the first time casey has gotten his cheek stroked by one of his fellow riders in parc fermé

so yeah. my theory is that casey did take valentino's chilliness to him exceedingly poorly in part because of how those early interactions actually meant quite a lot to him. so to casey, valentino's behaviour towards him stood out in a positive sense... he wasn't necessarily suspicious of the qatar 2007 interaction while it was happening - but casey's a suspicious character, and he did quickly grow wary of valentino. and valentino was still charming towards him at times, and a little colder on other occasions... just playing the game, really, no complex or thorny emotions for valentino to deal with in this particular rivalry. and casey never quite managed to reconcile these different sides of valentino - and it made him revisit all of valentino's behaviour towards him in an attempt to try and establish some sort of consistency. it's easier to believe that valentino was only nice to casey because he didn't take casey seriously as a threat, rather than accept that valentino might still be able to warmly congratulate casey even while plotting to destroy him. if you caress casey's cheek, you'd better not be planning to be mean about him later

[brendathedoodler]

One of the Links from my Linkverse! This is Bunny, from alttp!

[xenomorphicdna]

Flames,, blanket boy, my beloved

I gotta draw more art like this of him, he's such an odd creature I love him so much

There's so much to his character that I never talk about aaa I'll make a lore post eventually