#how little brain power goes into this guy racing

[lestappenwdc]

Not to say how STUPID you need to be to pull a move like that on a teammate while gunning for a red bull seat. Yeah, sure Red Bull are gonna see this and think that's exactly what we want from a teammate for our 3 time champion Max Verstappen. Sure 👍

[batsplat]

quick follow up to this bit

was also reminded of this valentino quote

He speaks about my shoulder like he was the best shoulder doctor in Melbourne Hospital.

what WERE they cooking

(I can't like. prove this because obviously we simply do not have solid 'evidence' for casey's thinking here either way, but given this is a speculative post about how I'd narrativise these rivalries.... do think the screenshot above is basically my theory for why casey had a thing about valentino's injuries. to such an extent that valentino picked up and commented on it! after laguna and throughout 2009, there were various waves of discourse about casey having been 'broken' by valentino - first due to casey's dip in form in 2008, then because he had to take some time off in 2009. the fact that it was an invisible illness that he himself could not explain in a sport that is all about the big, glaring obvious injuries - one that was treated as a sign of mental weakness, something he was ALWAYS susceptible to being accused of... very much the opposite of valentino's shoulder and leg in that sense, which was way easier to explain and was immediately taken seriously. my suspicion is that for casey, it was about not being extended the same grace as valentino was, being frustrated at how much leniency valentino was being granted when casey was always being harshly judged. of course, valentino (in classic demented rider fashion) was if anything downplaying the severity of the shoulder injury and only admitted after it was more or less healed that he'd been terrified by how long the recovery period had dragged on and had feared he would never be the same rider again. casey's lack of empathy on this count is completely justifiable and he does also obviously have a point, but it's still an interesting part of his character. it's what makes the rivalry with valentino so very interesting - there are lots and lots of ways in which valentino directly made casey's life miserable, but then there are other ways in which valentino's mere presence, his existence, someone whose treatment casey could compare his own to, that also contributed to casey's hatred towards him. firstly by getting more empathy than casey did and the general injustice in how the sport was 'always' on valentino's 'side' in a way it never was for casey, secondly by having this reputation of 'breaking' rivals that... well, y'know, valentino was presumably more than happy to be the beneficiary of the whole thing, but it's not like this was actually a line he spread himself, including with regards to casey. he didn't have to! it's kinda just... an awful coincidence that casey's 2009 absence was always going to be treated with suspicion and he HAPPENED to have a rival with valentino's very specific reputation?? the perfect storm! which gets you to this odd point where... if anything after that casey is the main instigator in terms of the sheer vitriol of the rivalry - but it's built on years of seething resentment that valentino at times almost seems taken aback by... and then reciprocates with interest because of course he does. because that's just how valentino ticks. fundamental lack of understanding for each other!! valentino kinda accidentally being casey's perfect foil!! casey having a million Legitimate Grievances against valentino but still somehow managing to project 85% of his other issues with the sport on valentino too!! they're soooooooooooooo. so!!)

if you were to direct a motogp movie (or make a one season of television) what season or rivalry would you make it about? and more interesting what artistic liberties would you take? it doesn’t have to be a straight up biopic bc imo those are often boring, instead it could be something like velvet goldmine (1998) aka fictional characters whose real life counterparts are pretty obvious, veering in like rpf territory. anyways👀

did you know. one time this guy put a curse on this other guy. and he never won a race again

anyway, look, I do feel like by this point that's the BORING answer from me, but obviously it's where my mind first went. I'm not sure I'd actually want it out there in film form because by now it's badly enough remembered that it's like, my cute little niche story, and I think there's something fun about the Wider World even within the motogp fandom not exactly getting how bonkers the whole thing was. (I know other humans have canonically watched motogp 2004 but I swear even journalists have forgotten some key key details and it's kinda annoying but also fun.) bold words from someone who's been blogging about it!! weird gatekeep-y instinct. but basically my job here is done as far as outreach is concerned - I wrote a very long post, now I get asks about it twice a week that allow me to think about it some more with the four other people who care, perfect balance. that rivalry doesn't need to go mainstream!! the whole point of it is that it's kinda cruel but narratively pleasing that it's gone under the radar, because it's another sign valentino won. but obviously, I cannot literally make a film about this, so the hypothetical repercussions I think maybe we can put aside for a moment here

okay I came back to this bit of the post after I increasingly got into of the spirit of coming up with dumb ideas, but it did make me flesh out what I'd even WANT from something like that. I'm with you anon, a lot of biopics are boring!! if you want to just know what happened, please just literally go and 'watch the races' and 'read books' like what are we actually getting here. you kinda want to give it a purpose for existing, right, a way of portraying real/mildly fictionalised events in a manner that is also taking some kind of stance on the material AND is doing stuff you can't do 'in real life'. thing is, look, you could make 2006 into a film, and I'm sure it'd be perfectly nice because it's fundamentally a solid underdog story (well, inherently winning a title with repsol honda is NOT being an underdog but you can write it that way), but also what are you doing beyond just telling people what happened? I feel like that generally about single seasons, they're not really doing anything for me. I was also turning around the biaggi/valentino rivalry in my head in part because that's the one valentino gave as his answer for 'rivalry he would turn into a film' (marc big wet eyes sitting right next to him), but like. a film about that rivalry from valentino's pov is fundamentally not something I'm interested in. you have all these isolated very memorable moments that make it work as a rivalry, like you can absolutely spin them into a dramatic yarn that goes through the genesis of their conflict to middle finger gate to punching gate to assen + donington + sachsenring + phillip island 2001 and it's basically *insert rousing music* successful coming of age. at most you can lean into the fact valentino became successful at being a dick. like idk it's fine but also what's the point? valentino is challenged in a sports context by biaggi, he's challenged because he realises his words have consequence and the press actually reports the words he says to journalists (the horror), but he is fundamentally not challenged on a personal level. that's the entire point, right? it's the ultimate comfort zone rivalry - biaggi is a dick who it is quite easy to hate and also reacts poorly to valentino's initial provocation. the animosity escalates and it is inherently fun to beat him. valentino is mean to him, but it's not like he even really crosses any lines to beat him. like you can make it into a film, and if you twisted the material a little bit you could make it satisfying, but I don't want to!

now the way the writing process of this post worked was that I was going to breeze through a bunch of non-sete/valentino rivalries and explain why I think some of them don't work for our purposes here, but then I ended up writing myself into changing my mind. so my take on the biaggi rivalry is that actually, you CAN make it work but it has to be from biaggi's perspective. basically, I think you've got to amadeus it (a web weave I have been thinking of making at some point btw). so,,, it's a meditation on talent and how unfair it all is, maybe minus the bit where salieri poisons amadeus (I know that doesn't happen in the film) or dresses up as amadeus' father to, y'know, make him write a requiem on his death bed. and it's not amadeus in that HERE, the clown prince gets a happy ending! but it's more like, in thematic terms, I think you have to zero in on this bit. biaggi didn't have parents who shoved him on a bike when he was three years old, he didn't have parents who were invested in his motorcycling career (or even necessarily particularly invested in him), he started the sport late and discovered that, yes, he did have a prodigious amount of skill in it - but one that he started honing far later than valentino did. he approached his career with a sort of grim resolve, surly and irascible and not interested in making friends with any of his competitors but very, very good. he goes away from the race track and dates all these models, he irritates fellow riders, he's not part of the gang and he's happy about it. he's very successful! four 250cc titles, wins his first ever race in 500cc at a time when doohan was very much winning everything. he's also just like,,,, an interesting and spiky enough character it's not hard to make him come alive

but then of course you have this gradual emergence of the amadeus character, the one who challenges his established position in the court of,, well... motorcycle racing, and also as the guy italians rooted for! and valentino's obviously, y'know, in so many ways the exact opposite from biaggi, and he's super young and cheerful and lively and is doing all his silly celebrations and is being a bit camp and goofy and treats motorcycle racing as a party (you really want to lean into the culture clash here, like in amadeus it's because you have stuffy austrian court vibes but here it's because everyone is having their bones broken every two minutes and just how... kinda grim a lot of motorcycle racing was). and he's also this innocent! yes, he insults biaggi, and yes, in retrospect we know valentino is kinda evil, but at the time he was a kid with a big mouth who was a little taken aback by how that biaggi feud sort of escalated beyond what he'd actually intended it to do! and biaggi just, hates him. and I think, sorry to the real man max biaggi here, but you've got to play with how once they're actually competing with each other, it's miserable how there's just this unbreachable gulf in talent. like, whatever biaggi does he cannot win! he isn't going to defeat valentino over the course of a full season! which is depressing and horrible and CRUEL, because there's this inevitability to the whole thing... and also! because valentino doesn't DESERVE it. and you don't have to go full salieri pleading with god to explain how god could give this CLOWN all this talent, but it's kinda the same vibe! how is it valentino, who is constantly just having a laff and canonically maybe wasn't the biggest gym-goer in the paddock and is just generally seen as, y'know, a bit of a dandy, this foppish clown who everyone loves and who doesn't have to work hard to be good - how is he the one who is winning so much!! it's miserable and unjust... and I think how you portray this is that you really emphasise the kinda, repetitive nature of the defeat. like, I think you probably want to make this into a non-linear narrative where all this biaggi backstory is communicated somehow but you don't just start it when he was born or whatever - you start it in 2001 when they're competing for a title and already hate each other. and then you heavy on the time loop vibes. the whole cinematic language and all that other shit should emphasise how all these weekends are structured in exactly the same way and if you're losing to this one guy, all these different weekends can start feeling the same. it bleeds into each other, it feels inescapable, you're trapped in this narrative you can't change... worst of all, you even return to the same places again and again - like play with that! biaggi keeps coming back to where they had the fist fight, to where valentino first insulted him all those years back. you play up the disorientation and the misery of it all, plus biaggi canonically gives us all this kinda messy freudian shit to play with like how he was dating 'valentina' and his relationship with her was falling apart because of how miserable valentino was making him. it's all there!!

ANYWAYS the way you conclude this story is!! welkom 2004!! so again we can artistic license this a little bit and, uh, ignore sete (though I do also think it's fun if you lean into biaggi being displaced as a rival and staring at them being friendly and happy with each other from the outside) - but the key bit is that valentino is finally making the big error. biaggi wasn't winning titles on a yamaha, since he left yamaha has gotten worse, now valentino is making this big mistake out of his own hubris. language of cinema that shit and make everything brighter and more hopeful.... the time loop is finally over, biaggi has escaped, this year will be different!!!! everyone in his circle agrees, valentino is fucked. step off the plane at welkom (pre season testing didn't happen in this universe) and it's literal dawn of a new day... staring out at the sun and finally, biaggi can move on, can live a new and different life. anyway. obviously we all know what's coming next - you have this big dramatic climactic race where biaggi throws himself at valentino again and again and again and he comes so close to winning it... but he doesn't. and you have valentino living his best life, being delighted, but the film is focusing on how like,,, we're bleaching the joy back out of biaggi's life, how actually he's returning to what he already knew. and it ends on the podium, with the camera focusing on biaggi on that fucking second step or zooming in or whatever (idk how cinema works) and it just finishes on this shot of biaggi dead-eyed in a bleak world, trapped again for eternity aka until the end of the 2005 season. done!! I'm not sure this is quite what valentino had in mind, but. well. that's how I'd do it

this is from the pushkin play from 1832 not the 1984 film but like. low key pushkin already kinda nailed the essence of sports rivalries in the 1830s and we just have to acknowledge that sometimes

right. so the casey rivalry is where I'm going to go completely off the wall. skip this bit to get to the slightly saner stuff. this is also one I fully admit to sometimes playing around with in my mind anyway, but. uh. I'm gonna be taking this one in just. well. places. I do have a vision here but I also don't quite know how to explain it in a way that doesn't make me sound like I've lost my mind, but well if you're still reading this then that's on you. so lemme get this out of the way: the classic sports biopic formula would work well with casey. if I had to point to a single rider I would sports biopic-ify, it's casey. so you have all this kinda,, obvious adversity that's easy to get across, and it's a narrative you can follow chronologically without too much trouble. you've got all the childhood stuff, the australian racing club not letting him join them, the move to britain, the rising through the ranks, it's also this very biopic-friendly 'nobody ever believed in him apart from like three people' stuff. and the premier class is also narratively satisfying, from the rocky rookie season to the kinda shock success to then all the lows of 2008 and 2009 and the physical ailments and the anxiety and then the switch to honda and the title and then him deciding to retire... that's all good stuff! you can absolutely biopic-ify it! gun to my head and sure, I can walk you through exactly what bits of his life I'd focus on and put in what order and so on, and I think ultimately you could make a very good sports biopic from that

[some mild gore to follow in this next section]

but also. thing is. that's fine. it's just not where I want to go here, because again I feel like at that point you can also pick up his autobiography and just read it - because what you're basically doing here is just filming that. and I get how this stuff works, you're bringing the story to a wider audience, you can show stuff in a different way in that medium etc etc, and that's all great but also I don't care about bringing stuff to a wider audience. I care about doing fun stuff in my brain. so what I'd actually do here is just, basically, go in the exact opposite direction and ditch all the realism. genuinely, ditch the live action stuff, we're going animated - what I'm interested in here is stuff where we need to be able to fully suspend our disbelief and lean into some surreal shit. I'm not going to bury the lede here: my idea is that you take that thing where casey said he hated how ducati was ruining the bike by letting valentino's yellow encroach on it and, basically,, just go all in on that bit. like come on, that is so singularly visually evocative, it truly captures a lot of what's going on thematically in that rivalry. (see also x and x for the most relevant casey posts.) casey sees valentino as the malevolent force, this infection! he associates him strongly with a specific colour, one that can be sickly or unnatural or just... evil. malignant, malicious, malevolent, all the m words. to casey, valentino is a personification of everything that is wrong with the sport. valentino is literally the walking manifestation for so many of his issues, from the dangerous riding to the lack of respect to the lying to the cult of personality to the obsession with image and the media to the backroom games to the politics to the injustice of how different riders are treated differently, like!! he's literally all of that! this is a topic for another post, but this plays out in a lot of kinda, weird and funky ways where it's a two way street and sometimes when casey talks about motogp you go 'actually I think that's just valentino?' (btw he also does this about 'europe' right I don't think those are europeans you hate casey that's literally just valentino) and sometimes when he talks about valentino it's kinda? this feels like it's about a little more than the bloke himself? and basically, right, I think you need to take this to its natural conclusion where casey used to admire him and look up to him and want to emulate him on track and then gets disillusioned when valentino's worshippers turn against casey and casey is the one to bring valentino down to earth and... listen, I think you need to play around with valentino being a literal god. and I think you need to have casey stab him to cover up the yellow on the ducati with blood

okay. look. the idea here, right, is that we're basically making the subtext text, and just digging into that process of 'bringing valentino back to earth', of taking on a god and having the audacity to succeed, and also treating valentino as this sort of. infection in his own mind. the bike is literally being infected!! casey may have left the ducati but he STILL has some fidelity and love for this project, those were his people he worked with, and now valentino is coming in and just twisting everything around himself!! but also I think how this functions is that, okay, so you have all this normal stuff that's the actual 'plot' in the 'real world', but the ISSUE with the real world is that there's a lot of stuff that just. isn't possible there. like the thing casey wants in that rivalry but is never going to have is... a captive audience. a big problem casey has in that rivalry is that he doesn't get the chance to actually say a lot of stuff to valentino. he starts using the media more and more and plays the game on valentino's level, but there's still this disconnect where mr straight talking is the valentino rival who valentino never really blanks or freezes out like... there's a disconnect! there's valentino the person, who casey never quite figures out how to just straight up hate, and then there's valentino the character, the racer, the rider, the god who casey DESPISES. but when they're doing small talk at pressers and podiums, casey doesn't get to talk to that version of valentino! he just talks to valentino the person, who obviously isn't literally a different person but is also not going to explain to casey where he's coming from, is he, and also isn't someone who casey can explain to where HE is coming from. and that gulf... it does bother casey. I don't think he can quite verbalise why either, but there's just... this creeping tension. I think it'd be easier for casey if valentino really were more of a caricature, just kinda a dick in all walks of life. and there's just these canonical hints of that... the way casey talks about how he's sure valentino as a guy is fine, but he never knew valentino like that, the whole 'I'd like to go with valentino for dinner to tell him where I was coming from in that rivalry' thing, like!! it's there

so basically EYE think what you should be doing is using the wonders of storytelling to actually. embrace that element. and just leave realism behind now and again. valentino is a god, he is literally worshipped, he's part of this pantheon that casey is trekking to reach. casey is brave enough to take him on in combat, he is the first one who is truly able to draw blood. he sees how valentino isn't just a god of joy or battles or speed or the SUN or any of that other stuff - he's a disease, an illness, a god who is also a false prophet... the worship never quite goes away, because who ever truly gets rid of their valentino rossi complex, but casey eventually is given the chance to face a chained valentino and kinda,,, ritualistically publicly humiliate him using the ducati as both this sick thing that has to be 'cured' and this symbol of valentino's failure. I'm sorry, visual language goes brr here, like chain him up, do weirdly eroticised torture idc!! (psst psst valentino's fucked up shoulder also extremely goes brr here, casey low key a teensy bit weird about valentino's injuries? his thing after the 2010 leg break where he goes 'why's everyone making such a big deal about this other people break their limbs too' and then after 2011 jerez immediately asking whether valentino's shoulder is okay in just a very obviously passive aggressive way. literally he opens with that, valentino isn't using it as an excuse or anything, for some reason it's already on casey's mind and I would politely contest it was out of genuine concern for valentino's wellbeing!! it's just kinda? I'm so compelled by it? I suppose it is kinda about how valentino's suffering gets taken more seriously than his own? how those absences are received differently by the motogp world? idk I find this fun because casey does know this is one thing valentino can't really be blamed for himself, so it just slips out a bit? but yeah, casey + valentino's injuries, nobody's talking about it but I sure will, let casey get weird and mean and a teensy bit sadistic about valentino's injuries in an artistic manner.) crucially I like animation as a medium here because I think it's easier to lean into surrealism when you don't have to hand hold the audience so much through the suspension of realism, also there's just some imagery you can do in cooler ways through animation where in live action it may just look. weird. (I think you can also do one of those things where you have a live action film with only those specific bits animated but also... why? it just feels like in live action you need more 'justifications' for things, like am I saying casey is having some weird hallucinations and is losing his mind? no I just want to have weird vision sequences ffs.) the colour stuff!! valentino/casey is big on the colour coding as a rivalry, to the extent casey is even, y'know, drawing attention to it in the literal text!! yellow and red are banger colours, valentino is big on imagery himself with all his sun + moon motifs, it's kind of all there to make the easy next step to kinda zany surreal imagery. ritualistic stabbing works better in animation, you can kinda get the blood to like. drip down and overwhelm the yellow illness that's slithered out across the bike

and. AND of course what this entire set up allows you to do is.... give them an opportunity to talk. they can't talk in real life! casey CAN'T give him his real thoughts on anything, and fundamentally valentino can't either. they're opponents. they're strangers who chat sometimes. it's not just that they aren't friends, it's that fundamentally they cannot be friends - because their ability to do their actual jobs depends on a certain level of professional distance. valentino of course does have a decent read on casey, and vice versa, because when you're figuring out how to defeat someone then (if you're valentino) you're looking to play the rider too. valentino's entire approach depends on focusing in on his rivals and attempting to throw them off, to make them unravel. he's watching casey closely!! the entire journey of casey's first three seasons in the premier class essentially becomes like, this god of their world focusing in on him. figuring him out. trying to gnaw away at him. obviously, animation also allows you to go big on the panopticon-y imagery which is kinda fundamental to their rivalry, because of their fundamentally oppositional stances to 'performing' for the ever present cameras where there IS a little bit of common ground in they have both struggled with it. but valentino isn't going to ever say that to casey! casey isn't going to open up to valentino! so if you give them,, you know, a different arena to express themselves, where casey actually has this external figure to talk to (as he's like, cutting him open I guess) whereas valentino actually is put in a position where he's allowed to respond, where he can taunt casey a little bit, where he can interrogate casey's approach and also the similarities between the two of them and how casey has been forced to become a little more like valentino to challenge him... because the thing is, right, valentino is so big on message discipline with his rivals and has completely stopped talking about that rivalry post mid 2013 that, first of all, you have this complete imbalance in who's been telling this story for the past decade, but second of all you kinda don't have a sense of what valentino would respond? idk!! I think this is mainly fun as a thought exercise for me specifically but also I do think it's kinda, digging into some of the bits that make this narratively work as a rivalry, how valentino in this rivalry is actually just kinda... removed. like he's not really emotional about it!! at most he's a bit bitchy, but even that just feels about The Game. it's the most extreme in this regard followed by jorge - but with valentino's other feuds you kinda... see a bit more an unguarded moment, see something a little more real there. the casey rivalry feels so uncomfortable precisely because valentino is a little... inhuman in this one. I mean, if you want to have valentino as some kind of cross between a deity and a monster in any of his feuds, this is the one. casey's just an obstacle to him. idk don't you think casey kinda wants to chain valentino down and stab him and make him see casey a little more... well, I think he should want it and I think it'd be fun to see and get them to talk to each other. ugh and also all the implications of making the faith vs non-believer elements more literal... casey the heretic!!!

there's some obvious stuff here you'd have to figure out, like 'how do you make this work as a narrative even to people who aren't familiar with casey stoner at all' and 'who the fuck do you think the target audience is here' and 'you do know this is not the kind of thing that would ever be made, right, go back to the casey stoner sports biopic like a sane person' but!! I do think it's material you can make work if you're just,,, efficient and smart in how you're actually telling the 'real life' version of the rivalry. also in my head this is. idk. an animated limited series not a film, which then brings in other stuff like 'episodic structure' because I'm fundamentally opposed to tv shows that think they're films. and look, I'm not going to write an entire film script treatment here, I just think a good writer can figure this stuff out. blood on the ducati is the framing device for everything else, simple. lots of animated floating eyes I reckon, first casey is watching valentino and then valentino is watching casey and the whole world is watching them... and it does bleed into real life just a little, where you're wondering whether casey is actually imagining/dreaming this stuff or valentino is or if they both know it somehow... you can get away with more ambiguity in animation. anyway, if you do want more thoughts on this one specifically for whatever reason, let me know because this one I do actually have more on

also laguna 2008 is a bit tortoise and the hare coded if you really think about it

[end of gore]

so. on to jorge. hm. the thing about jorge is that he was kinda writing a coming of age film in his own head, so like - yes, that's what you do go for? you can play it straight and follow how jorge has cast his rivals, or you can pin the whole narrative on the fact that jorge has cast them - the kinda artificiality of the narrative, the way jorge is this storyteller who isn't being recognised as much as he thinks he should be, isnt adequately appreciated. the way there's this three way discourse between what jorge thinks the story is and what the public thinks the story is and actual. you know. reality. I think this is a bit more light-hearted, like you know how the best stories about teenagers take their emotions seriously but also let them be kinda silly? because young people are silly! jorge was silly! he's got a lot of CHARM because he's so cocky and naive and full on and intense and awkward and kinda off-putting and tactless and a bit all over the place and so painfully, painfully young, like he's a good protagonist because that's a KID. but also, obviously there's also a lot of extremely not light-hearted bits of his story - everything about his father, his manager... idk this one's another one where, I don't just want to make it a generic sports biopic, and I'm trying to figure out the clear narrative arc here? I mean, you can point to the end of 2010 and really lean into him choosing victory on-track over popularity off it. the problem with 2010 is that it does not work as a dramatic season, yeah sure with the magic of biopics you can hack at it to shit but also. idk. what are we getting out of it. I think for narrative purposes you want to maybe narrow in, and end it at the end of 2008, with the switching of the numbers this kind of moment of emancipation? but also! this feels like we're straying a bit too far away from the fun sports elements and I don't want to REALLY suggest all the ways in which you could mine jorge's personal trauma in a jokey tumblr post, so I'm gonna move on from this one

the problem is 2015 just straight up doesn't work as a jorge-centric narrative, except in a very kinda comic way that leans into how absurd his role in that season was. 2012 as a season is a bit... y'know, it's fine. okay it's mostly terrible, but that's fine too. but it doesn't have a great narrative hook. which kinda leads you to the problem that I do think the valentino rivalry is more... juicy from jorge's pov, because for valentino, jorge is just kinda? an obstacle? idk he's more normal about it, it's just his job to destroy the guy, you know how it is. but also 2009 does work better narratively from valentino's pov, like it's the build up to catalunya specifically you can dramaticise... idk though, I do love catalunya but my heart isn't really in this exercise because I think valentino isn't really being... challenged here? it's a title fight where he's fundamentally using a set of tools he's already perfected, to beat a guy he doesn't really give a shit about. when the italian press is down on him pre catalunya, it doesn't spark any genuine self-doubt - it's just a handy source of extra motivation. there's no epic highs or lows that season, not real ones. and yes I know I was talking about making valentino who gets stabbed repeatedly to cover up an infection a moment ago, but that reflected real EMOTIONAL truths!! I'm committed to thematic fidelity more than I am to literal fidelity

genuinely I think the best way to tackle jorge is with the jorge/dani parallel journeys... what, film? tv show? maybe show actually - you don't have one coherent narrative Statement per se but you're constantly charting those journeys in reference to each other, really rooting it in their respective points of views, no neutral detached cinematic language like I want everything to be very much written to be from their eyes!! going from one to the other and back again. and you're charting these different journeys, right, and how they both captured different flavours of like... emotional successes and failures. I think it's actually about failure, yeah, about having to accept there's something you can't have and might never be able to get - whether that's universal love or a premier class title or whatever - but Actually, that might not be the end of the world. and during this process, they go from being enemies to tentative friends!! guys who realise they can maybe actually understand each other better than they thought!! this real moment of interpersonal connection. you have all these media narratives and the managers and so on and the fact they're competitors as these built in reasons why they've just been pitted against each other from the start... but y'know, again, it is also just a bit about maturing, about being able to set that aside, about making your peace with defeat and failure as an element of growing up. you can't win everything, maybe there's something you really really really want and you're just not going to get it, but at the end of the day it's kinda... yeah. self-acceptance. idk this is the nice one

so with marc you can go several different ways here I guess, and again he's also perfectly decent sports biopic material, probably second to casey in that category like yeah sure do the comeback story. but also, we do already have a very good self-produced documentary about what he thinks the narratives of his career are? idk this is also just a personal taste thing, I'll leave him to doing all the injury stuff himself, I don't have much to add there. we'll get to the obvious one in a second, but I was trying to figure out if there were other places I massively felt like you need the cinematic touch. and, again, the 2013 season is obviously very exciting!! but also, you have it covered in.,,,, multiple documentaries, I don't feel I have a take their either? his rivalries with dani and jorge aren't really substantive enough to sustain a bit of cinema. dovi... I mean, what are you saying there? what's the arc? I feel like if I tackled dovi, I'd go somewhere else and really go all in with the ducati stuff, and make it a bit more... you know, stark, stripped back, basically just the emotional component of how much he gave to that project and how he managed to beat away one rival after the next and how it all ended up falling apart in a kind of anti-climactic way? he's also good sports biopic material, but in a way I think the marc rivalry is the bit of his story I have the least to say on. so eg, 2017 is a dramatic season, but he's also kinda fine after it? he always knew it was a long shot, he tried his best and he got really close and then he lost. you can't amadeus it because dovi isn't (fictional) salieri. basically, I think what I'm saying here is that dovi is too well-adjusted to feature in this post. though I'd totally watch a film about his 250cc seasons, like it's a bit annoying because HE is the underdog who loses both title fights to jorge, but it'd still be kinda fun idk. I wouldn't really know what to do with the material but if someone made the film I'd absolutely watch it

right then. the thing about sepang 2015 is... yeah, sure, of course you can do it, it already exists as a narrative but... yeah, what are you adding!! idk I always think when you're adapting something, you kinda need to have a reason for it? I mean, what are you doing that's not already there in the footage? idk maybe this is just a sign of having been a fan of this sport for one too many years but to me the idea of sepang 2015 can get a bit boring (or maybe just repetitive) where I need a new TAKE on it to really get into the idea of fictionalising it. like where's the auteur's touch y'know, what can I still add to this!! but it also needs to WORK for someone who is new to the story, which kinda just makes you want to tell the story straight.... y'know the story is strong enough and COMPLICATED enough to stand on its own and it IS good but I don't really have anything interesting to say beyond 'yeah sure that'e be neat'. I can't tell you why, but I also don't think the casey approach quite works here? the idea of providing a framing device with which valentino and marc can actually talk to each other... eh. don't like that. hm. okay wait actually I just turned it around in my head for... a while and I think I've got an idea to make the worst motorcycle racing film of all time. so, my central stupid film-making gimmick here is just. centring the fact we're completely reliant on a few guys and what they're telling us in making up our minds, and our removal from that story and the imperfection of their perceptions and so on. so I think you kinda make a point of... not actually showing the motorcycle racing? like, you always show it by showing other people watching it, you're showing the tv screen rather than the actual racing. even in the cinematic medium, you're centring the theatrical aspects, where you drill it down to just a few characters. valentino. marc. uccio. marc's fuck ass manager. maybe a crew chief or two. keep it limited though, all the others are kept at a distance - you're constantly focusing in on the same few characters. and very early on you basically just like... get them to fourth wall break by telling you, the viewer, with their actual words how racing works for them, what meaning they take out of it - and again it's this remove because we're never allowed to actually feel the racing for ourselves (no helmet cams), and it sets up that as the tragedy unfolds, again and again we're just hearing from them what happened. it's all zoomed in on how claustrophobic the entire situation is, like doing the race direction room after the sepang 2015 is perfect for that kind of thing, and crucially they're only ever addressing the audience because they can't address each other. but fourth wall breaks also obviously draw attention to artificiality! I realise they are very much like, lame gimmick central, but also are these men not inherently about lame gimmicks... idk it's basically the same story but at least it feels like a kinda interesting way of telling it. kinda trite, but cinema allows you to get to the point and let valentino actually play with the camera... so literally take it into his own hands and lead it around and tell the story from his point of view. and you can play with how they do both change in what stories they think they're telling, how they're constantly revising their own stories, how their stories completely clash with each other... like. make them literal narrators. that's my pitch

so. one interesting pattern that has come up with my approaches to these rivalries is that with the exception maybe of the 2015 stuff, I feel like I'm more naturally inclined to treat valentino as a narrative device and centre his rivals. a big part of this is that valentino is a fantastic narrative device. he's kinda. this looming presence in every narrative in this sport where you can just sort of use him as a sort of way to poke away at all these other riders. the monster everyone loves who you are trapped with. BOO!! he's gonna eat you! which is fun! but ALSO, crucially, several of these rivalries aren't that emotionally challenging for him!! again, with casey right, he wants to beat him, but he's not having a crisis of faith over losing to casey. he thinks casey is annoying, he wants to beat him because he wants to win. valentino is casey's foil, but casey is not valentino's. valentino makes for an excellent personal antagonist to casey, but the reverse just isn't true. casey isn't forcing valentino to reexamine his approach except 'ramping up the levels of being a dick on-track' - like, yes, that's a serious competitive challenge, but also valentino is very comfortable in his own skin in that rivalry. sure, you could have valentino have some kind of massive revelation about the casey rivalry, but like. he doesn't in canon. he changes his behaviour towards casey in pretty predictable ways depending on what the relationship demands from his perspective at any given time. there's nothing more there

now, obviously you know where I'm going here. there IS a rivalry where you can make the argument he changes as a result of it, there IS a rivalry that tips him over the line and makes him to do stuff he hadn't done before that, there IS a rivalry that happens to coincide with a period of his competitive life that challenges him both personally and professionally. now, look, I have already talked about the sete rivalry. you know what I think about this rivalry - and if you don't, I really already have told the story here and here and here and here and also here. I think this works perfectly well as a narrative in its own right, and it's one you can tell from either perspective... but you kinda need both. I think again you probably naturally lean towards starting it from sete's perspective and that first proper meeting (I mean, idk if it is their first actual meeting, but it's the logical obvious place you start this story) with sete giving valentino advice during his first 500cc test and valentino just, y'know, ignoring him and being a cocky shit and then crashing. so you get to see sete being kinda exasperated by the whole thing. also, obviously ibiza is like, a key framing device here, like it's the most obvious in-your-face way of tracking their relationship with each other. I don't actually know how often they partied there together, but it must have been at least twice and if the commentators are to be believed it must have included 2003. artistic license and you can add one or two more times, but mainly you want to focus in on 2003 onwards right. so you've got this 2002 one where it's, y'know, high point of their friendship and in the name of narrative efficiency, you establish here that sete is looking to make the honda switch. the emphasis is on how valentino has been winning everything but on the flip side you're getting the first insight into his discontent. and there's a bit of a vibe of, what could you possibly have to complain about? like you are winning so much? so it's late one night where they've had this slightly unguarded alcohol-fuelled moment of genuine vulnerability but in the end it's actually characterised by how... unsubstantial the link between them is, because they wouldn't talk about this kind of thing with each other and they might both be similar in some ways but also don't gettttttt each other. it means you can return there as a location in 2003, where you've just had sachsenring and valentino's dramatic loss but they're still partying together and it's like. obviously In The Air that not everything is quite right... their relationship is already gradually altered and twisted because you're introducing this element of actual stakes and competition (obviously in 2004 they do NOT spend that time together, as far as we know anyway, and you can show them being very much not together at ibiza as a very obvious Oooh Things Will Fall Apart and maybe already haveeee)

and I do think basically I've already said what I think the themes here are,,,, several times by this point, so I'm not going to belabour the point. I think all of this fundamentally works as a narrative with like, minimal massaging and rearranging of the elements for dramatic effect. it's all there already, everything from sete's arc with the [insert non-tasteless way of covering a real life tragedy that fundamentally alters the course of sete's career] and how that leads to sete becoming the challenger and how he does want to win and his eventual downfall. with valentino, you have the element of liberation and self-discovery and... well, growing into your own but also kinda having the narrative drawing attention to how 'growing into your own' can involve becoming a fully realised character who is essentially quite cruel? you have this kind of... build up, right, towards this moment of revelation, where you lay bare who these two people actually ARE at sepang 2004, and then again at jerez 2005. valentino has gone his own way, he has freed himself from the chains of honda, he has embraced individualism and the chance to define himself and his own legacy and stand on his own two feet and not rely on the strongest bike or all this stuff within honda where they chose him as their flag bearer, for better or for worse... like he comes to his own here! he takes the step from 'great rider' to 'legend' because he gets to this dramatic moment of stepping into the unknown, he takes this massive risk that could have cost him so much, and it ends up elevating him. but it also puts him under duress, and in that moment he reveals himself - whatever sete did or did not do at qatar 2004, EVEN IF sete did all that shit, what you are left with is valentino vowing to ruin this man. valentino uses sete to make himself 'better', to fuel himself as a competitor. valentino turns sete into a tool in his own story. and again, thematically you've got all this stuff about how sete was managing the image of the rivalry and how valentino took advantage of that - how sete needed it to remain respectful and valentino was completely willing to abandon that. like, you have two protagonists who really are similar in quite a few ways, who think they have this shared understanding with each other, but when it comes down to it? they end up being super painfully different

now I can go on about this and how to play it straight, basically, you can just do that rivalry and I think it'd be cool and fun and very easy to arrange in a good narrative way. BUT I've kind of already. done that. like I don't want to suggest a film that is basically a nicer version of my tumblr posts. so I want to take this in a slightly different direction, and I think what we need to consider with this rivalry is this: what if you made the curse literal? basically, what's always kinda charmed me about this rivalry is that the curse should not work and all the misfortune that befalls sete after that is so comical that it's kinda... what do you do with that? and the answer is you just lean all the way in. my pitch is this: what if valentino sells his soul to the devil?

so, you know faust, right, and you know the bit at the start of goethe's faust where god and mephistopheles are basically making a wager over how corruptible this one human is. and faust is like... he's kinda disillusioned, he feels that everything he's dedicated his life to in academia is fundamentally hollow, gets very close to committing suicide. and faust has gone a bit new age-y, gotten into all this mystical shit and he's got this pentagram that ends up preventing mephistopheles from leaving his presence in their first meeting... and basically what the devil can give him is like, the chance to attain some true pleasure, and for that faust is willing to bet everything - so if faust can just have that, then maybe eternal damnation is worth it. and look, I'm not going to summarise the entire plot of faust here and it does go off the wall a bit with all the gretchen stuff, but the point is you have this version of the devil who is fundamentally a cynic and is attempting to win an argument with god by making this human succumb to his own nihilism. and what faust basically does is like, abandon his normal life where he's trying to live by normal virtues and goes off on this journey with the devil. and there's this little moment where mephistopheles,,, pretends to be faust and takes on the role of an academic adviser (you know how it is) and seduces this random student away from the word of god and sends him down a wretched path, which ends with this bit:

like, a big part of faust's tragedy is supposed to be about... well, hubris, of the relationship of god to man, of no longer being afraid of the devil... and obviously, this is all framed very much in terms of religion, but at the end of the day it's also about, you know, having purpose - faust is living a life that no longer has any meaning to him, all of his knowledge and studies now no longer fill the void inside himself. his nihilism opens the door for mephistopheles, and is what makes him willing to accept the devil's terms. now, and I am so very sorry to goethe here, I think we have some material we can use here to explore the valentino/sete rivalry. obviously, you can't do a one-to-one, you need to get rid of some of like, the depression and all that - there were times when valentino was feeling 'a bit low' in 2003, but not 'faust thinking everything he'd done in his entire life was pointless' low, yeah? also, unless you want to do a real long view here and even then it can't really be justified, there obviously isn't really a 'tragedy' here from valentino's perspective. like, he wins! this isn't valentino's tragedy, it's sete's! I was being a bit facetious when I said he was 'selling his soul to the devil', and you can kinda parse mephistopheles' motivations in different ways depending on what flavour and what interpretation of him you're dealing with here. you don't 'damn' valentino, you essentially just turn him into a tool of the devil!

so, this is how this works out in my head: the devil works more broadly as the manifestation of competitive impulses, the kind of 'how far would you go to win' question as a bloke who shows up and literally talks to the characters about it (magic of cinema). he's also engaging with valentino feeling like his victories no longer having meaning, with being disconnected from honda and from the entire culture there and just feeling like he's going through the motions. there's this element of like... opening the door to what is essentially a journey of self-actualisation, bringing him closer to being a 'god' but also allowing him to fully come into his own and become himself. to win on his own terms. I reckon ibiza is my preferred narrative device where the devil talks both to sete and valentino there (separately), first literally as a mysterious stranger and then... maybe not? he's talking to them at times of their lives when they're not at ibiza and it's not happening there in the physical world and they both end up kinda having to confront they're dealing with some potentially malevolent supernatural entity. but the important elements of the devil is that a) he's not going to do anything the humans don't actually ask for themselves, and b) everyone knows he's following his own agenda and you should be careful of the requests you make of him. so it's kinda like... essentially, the backdrop of this rivalry unfolding is they're constantly being challenged to decide what lines they're willing to cross. which culminates at qatar... and maybe you do have sete making like. a teensy mistake. a teensy error in judgement, one that is both real and deliberate but he could not have known would get that reaction and instantly regrets. and valentino, who is I think inherently sceptical of the devil coming to offer to help him and maybe does crank out the pentagrams (remember, the whole point of faust is that he was too arrogant to be scared of the devil, or one of the points anyway), in a moment of fury does decide - no, actually. I will take that step. I will curse sete. now the thing is, dramatically this is a teensy bit tricky because when you're talking about being damned by the devil, usually the consequences are a bit more severe than 'not winning a motorcycle race again' (yes, you can get into how sete did also seem genuinely cursed after that, cf his ambulance/bus crash situation, but again we are flirting with being in poor taste in this tumblr post). but the thing is, right, you have to lean into the silliness here! qatar 2004 is inherently silly, a CURSE is inherently silly, like real life is already silly here! you have to engage with the people where they are, and for these athletes all this shit is so heightened that the emotions are full on. like, valentino would've sold that guy to the devil! and to him not winning another race is basically the worst thing that can happen

so, obviously, you get to do the actual curse stuff. curses are inherently campy fun, the devil doing curses is campy fun, getting valentino rossi to crank out the pentagrams is inherently campy fun. you get to play around with this, right, like you know that bit in the brno 2005 race commentary where the commentators are talking about how valentino might as well have a little radio to talk into sete's helmet to remind him of how sete had fucked up at the sachsenring. OBVIOUSLY obviously obviously it is just so... idk scrunchy and fun to have this idea of valentino becoming a malevolent enough force to literally do that.... like damn the commentators did kinda eat with that?? ughhhhhh do you ever think about sete leading the qatar 2005 race for most of the way???? like that's SO fucked up because you literally have articles from about the race going 'hey maybe sete can break his curse' and then the commentators are talking about curses having one year expiration dates but obviously they!! do not!!!!! there's one race where sete goes off track and the commentators are talking about how valentino will surely have smiled into his helmet like that's so fucked!! it's so fucked!! but idk I think basically you have all this creeping curse-y stuff and devil stuff and then you get this twist and then it just becomes misery zone for sete until you sort of. compress the timeline and have him retire without getting into what happened at the end of 2006. and valentino just relishing in all his very worst emotions. and you've got sete who was the better man after jerez 2005, who took the high ground again and again and again and it did NOTHING for him.... and then he's cursed and his career is finished and the devil has had his fun getting mixed in with mid noughties motogp. and now obviously this is inherently kinda dumb and corny and silly but it's the devil!! mephistopheles to me is allowed to get up to dumb shit sometimes, let him have some fun!! idk I like curses being literal idc

I think the obvious critique here is 'this doesn't really feel like it gets the message of faust'. which, yes, is true - and obviously the way narratives are structured, a satisfying resolution isn't 'well selling your soul kinda slaps, actually'. and my statement to respond to this argument is as follows:

this is essentially canonically what happened. valentino DID do something kinda evil and it DID work out 100% for him and it DID kinda slap. at least when you add in the devil, you're making explicit the bit where it is a little bit bad. also, is sports not inherently about selling your soul for success... the story of valentino and sete is essentially about how we are twisted by competition, how pretending that we don't wish ill to our opponents is inherently dishonest. it is about lifting a facade for something that is already inherently there in the souls of men. this is obviously inherently a deeply cynical stance, but this is also a deeply cynical story beyond all the fun battles and camp dramatics. the devil is a cynic and he is basically the point of view character of goethe's faust - he's the one who is positioned closest to the audience. sports is all about living out some of humanity's worst instincts in a relatively low stakes setting, which means we get a free pass to have fun with a deeply cynical story that goes 'maybe selling your soul to the devil is fine, actually'

do I stand by this stance? not really, but the whole fun of storytelling is that sometimes you can just be kinda mean. I think goethe would get it... you can tell which character he enjoyed writing the most

the OTHER way you can do this is centre everything around qatar 2004 as like,,, the mystery box element...... okay look I have now made two posts that go WAY too deep on the 'what really happened' element but I do loveeeeee the whole thing like I would just make a film about that very end of the season and we show it from all these different angles as different characters narrate what happened... like fuck all the riders I want to hear from whichever mechanic used the scooter... the gresini mechanic who gave evidence to race direction.... various honda higher ups the crew chiefs like this is jb vs juan martinez it's war!!! obviously you still have the same emotional/thematic hooks as the general rivalry does but idk I would have a LOT of fun figuring out how to structure that, I loveeee mysteries... maybe I'd write it as a mockumentary yeah..... this one's just fun

anyway. a lot of stuff going on in this post, huh! you can probably tell I didn't edit this much. my classic tell when I edit my tumblr posts is I remember how 'paragraphs' work. unfortunately all I have energy for are like. a bunch of rants about things in my brain. I think when tumblr tells you that you've reached the maximum number of characters per paragraph and you need to figure out where to put a break, it's probably a bad thing? on the whole, my stance is I don't have anything AGAINST mildly fictionalised versions, but for me I'm always more of a.... well I want to take advantage of the full specificity of the events as they happened or just come up with a completely original story. kind of person. I know this ask probably wasn't looking for my 'what if you bled out valentino as he's strung up above a red motorcycle' vision but yeah. with a lot of biopics I'm always a bit 'well you could just read about this couldn't you' like I need stuff to take some kind of a stance on the material it's using... all my stuff takes a stance. that's all I've got. obviously all these stances mean that basically none of these things could ever be made. and I know what I said above but if they called me up to write the casey stoner biopic script treatment, I would also do that. if you've actually read to this point, give me a shout - you're a real one and I love you

[hijackalx]

Headcanon thingy, but how would the companions + Gortash react to their lover taking a blow meant for them? (Sweetheart survives, but they'll definitely need some time to recover)

this post would get realllyyyy long if i did all the companions so i did the male companions + gortash, but let me know if u want me to do a separate one for the female companions too 💗💗

GN!reader, small mentions of violence

GORTASH

he’d prefer for you steer clear of any conflict— he considers it beneath you to get your hands dirty— but he doesn’t like to argue. he imagines one of these times you’ll learn your lesson, meaning he’s fully expecting you to come crawling back after a good whooping while promising to never do it again

when he’s approached by an angry subordinate, shaking their fist and yelling profanities at him, he easily maintains composure— he knows his steel watch could reduce anyone to a skid mark on the earth with a simple command. his scrappy sidekick however…………… 👹

he’s only slightly embarrassed when you jump in front of the aggressor, telling them off for their disrespect. suddenly their anger is directed towards you, resulting in a nasty pop to the face that sends you onto the floor. his eyes widen at the sight of you injured for his sake, and with one sharp inhale, he orders his steel watch to destroy your attacker. (and their family. and their friends. and their acquaintances)

he stays at your side while you get bandaged up, threatening the healer’s life every time you wince. he asks what you learned from this experience, hopeful. you think “i need a thicker skull” probably wasn’t the right answer, seeing as his immediate response is “🗿” LMAO

WYLL

he loves to be the one who swoops in and saves you. it really gives him that “heroic” feeling (even if you have to pretend to be his damsel in distress). you guys are always giving your enemies the ick 😹😹

this all goes to his head though, and he can get a little too cocky— like when he jumps in to take on too many enemies at once, and is clearly having a hard time defending you both. he tries to maintain his heroic persona, but you can’t help noticing how you two are getting backed into a corner

while he’s distracted and putting on a show of chivalry, you see an enemy going straight for his blind spot. it’s too late to retaliate, but you do have enough time to jump out in front of the attack. he watches you fall to the ground in pain, HORRIFIED by the fact that he failed to protect you. he forgets his knightly act in a fit of desperation, fighting as dirty as he needs to so you two have the opportunity to scamper away

he criticizes himself SO badly over your injuries. the hit may have broke your face but his failure broke his soul... 💔 LMFAO. he vows to you that it’ll never happen again, and that he’ll be more vigilant than ever from then on out— cue his extremely rigorous and inspirational training montage

GALE

he usually stays toward the rear during battle, using long range magic attacks while you take care of things in the front. he’s not adept at wearing armor and his robes don’t offer much protection— it’s just smarter this way

now imagine how his feeble wizard bones begin to quake when an enemy sneaks past you and sprints his way with a melee attack LMFAO. he’s a planner, not an improviser, so his brain races a million miles a minute trying to think of which spell to use. he needs to cast something powerful, but your close proximity makes him hesitate

you notice his stutter and quickly reach out to off the enemy. unfortunately, this results in you turning your back to another and opening yourself up to a sneak attack. you’re hit hard, and it takes you out of the fight. luckily, the last enemy has 1 HP, so he can easily finish them off with a hasty bop on the head from his staff 💥

afterwards, he’s STRICKEN with worry, cradling your face and trying to get you to speak to him clearly. once he realizes that your injury is healable, you get whiplash from how fast he switches back and forth between admiration and concern. “that was absolutely amazing! 🤩 ” “I THOUGHT YOU DIED!!! 😵”

ASTARION

you guys are super playful in battle. seeing who can kill the most enemies, doing fun combos together, trash talking (it’s giving legolas and gimli). fights with him on your team are rarely serious

he’s quick and alert, so he’s an expert at dodging attacks— it just so happens that you’re standing behind him one of these times, and you end up taking the full force of the blow in his place. he’s used to teasing you for your misfortunes in battle, so his first instinct is to point and laugh 😭

when you don’t get up and give him a bloodstained grin, he realizes something is seriously wrong. a wave of panic washes over him, and the last thing he remembers is switching into feral vampire mode to get you two out of there safely— i’m talking ripping out throats with his teeth 👹

you’re immediately scolded once you come to; “imagine how bad that could’ve been!”, and “you scared me half to death!”— a.k.a he feels SO BAD for letting this happen LMAO, and he 100% blames himself for not knowing you were behind him. he admits it was his fault after you promise to be more careful, and he promises that he will be too (with a little leg room for fun, of course)

[writingsonsaturn]

lucy taking care of sick reader!!!

lucy and r aren’t dating yet, but they aren’t just friends either. when r doesn’t come into work one day, and no one (besides grey) has heard from her, lucy goes straight to her house when she goes out on patrol. she stops in throughout the day after finding out that r is like beyond sick.

maybe a little scene where r lays her head in lucy’s lap and lucy run her hands through readers hairrrrrr oh my

lovesick - lucy chen

{ masterlist }

🪐: im still trying to find my writing style, so hopefully this is okay and fits what you wanted!! <3

word count: 982

content warning: sickness (flu like), just fluff

⭒☆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☆⭒

You woke up with a throbbing head and a clogged up nose. Originally, you thought you could power through it and suck it up long enough to finish a shift, but the moment you stood upright your world became disoriented. 

Doing your best to breath through the dizziness, you reached over for your phone to call into work. Grey practically pleaded with you to stay home when you mentioned you would come into work if you needed to, “you have more than enough sick days, use them and keep your ass out of my station.” You just sighed and agreed, saying your goodbyes when he wished you to get better soon.

Without much thought to it you passed back out on your warm comfy bed, hoping sleep would rid you of the constant pain your brain was forcing you to endure.

Lucy checked her watch when she got in, thinking maybe you were just late or had been caught in some early morning traffic. As the time ticked away she decided maybe it would be best to text you, and when she didn't get an answer her thoughts ran around her head like an athlete competing in a race that would determine if they go farther into their season. 

She opted to check in on you when she was out on patrol, getting into her squad car and making you her first check up of the day, praying to whatever could hear her that you were there and okay.

Pulling up to your apartment she felt a ping in her chest, she wasn’t sure why she was so worried about you. You guys weren't exactly a couple, but the others would argue that you two were basically already married, you both would laugh it off and call the team crazy, still continuing the narrative that you two were just ‘friends”. 

Lucy knew better than that though, she knew you were the first person she called when she was having a rough night and needed a warm bed to share with someone, you were the first she told about good news, you are the only person she truly, and deeply loved with every living and beating part of her body.

She grabbed the key you had given her for the nights she needed someone, after the Rosalind situation you forced her to promise you that no matter the time of night or day she would come over whenever she needed to. Lucy wouldn’t say she now abused the fact she had a key to your place, but it was used more than her own key to her apartment at this point.

“Y/n?” Lucy called out, she heard the faint sound of a groan coming from your bedroom, alerting her of your presents. “Hey, are you oka-” Her words were paused by the sight of you, your skin was shining with sweat and you were cramped in a fetal position. “My love, what happened?” she quickly came over to you touching your forehead, flinching at how warm it felt compared to her skin.

You only groaned and rolled over, “i really don't feel good luce.”

You tried your best to explain all your symptoms, but your scratchy throat only allowed for so much irritation before you were in a coughing fit. Lucy rubbed your back gently, doing her best to coax you through your attack, “Here let’s get you out of this stuffy room, and on the couch, yeah?” she encouraged. You nodded leisurely and threw your arm over her shoulder, allowing her to help you to your living room.

Quickly, Lucy put anything and everything you could possibly need besides the toilet in arms reach. “Before I leave, do you need absolutely anything else, babe?”  you only smiled at her with droopy eyelids, “No, but i wish you didn’t need to leave” you pouted at her causing her to smile. 

“Call me or text me if you need me, I'll be here in an instant.”

And then she was gone, you continued to pout until her next check up with you during lunch. “Okay, love, i brought you some chicken noodle soup and some cough syrup” she set the soup in front of you with cold water and a pre-measured cap of medicine. “Thank you, love” you croaked out, “You don’t have to thank me” she replied while helping you get in an upright position so you could comfortably eat your food and take the disgusting medicine.

“I'll be back after my shift, and remember to call-” “call you if i need anything, i know, honey.” you finished her sentence, she left you with a quick kiss on your forehead.

After eating and forcing yourself to down the medicine you fell back asleep, you woke up a handful of times with the constant tossing and turning, and being too hot or too cold. You finally decided you had slept enough and reached for the tv remote, aimlessly flipping through channels.

You heard the door click and a smile began to grow on your face, “sorry i'm late! Traffic has been just awful today” Lucy explained, taking her shoes off and sitting her to-go bag on the counter. “It’s okay hon.” you looked at her as she sat down. 

“How are you feeling?” Lucy asked you, as you laid your head down on her lap looking up at her, “I've certainly been better” you joked. 

She reached her soft fingers to rake through your hair, massaging your scalp, aiding the headache that had been attacking your head all day long. “Well i'm here now, darling” she looked down at you, soothingly rubbing your forehead, lulling you to sleep. 

She gave herself an imaginary pat on the back at getting you to sleep so quickly, making a mental note that maybe when you get better she’ll finally take you on a long awaited date.

[mattzerella-sticks]

Y'know what would be a good storyline coming out of Bruce taking on the mantle of Nightwing (briefly)?

If he enjoys it a little too much.

Nightwing is freedom. Nightwing is light. Nightwing is fighting bad guys while smiling laughing throwing out a funny quip.

Things he never gets to do as Batman.

So what if, after things have settled in Bludhaven and Absolute Power has come and gone, Bruce decides to make a short visit and help out again.

As Nightwing.

"People are used to seeing Nightwing in Bludhaven. It makes more sense for there to be 2 Nightwings than for Batman to be here," Bruce argues. "Besides, this will only help you. Make it seem like Nightwing can be there at any moment."

And Dick relents. For now.

Barbara finds it strange (as does Dick) but he waves off her concerns with, "it's just an appearance here and there. Besides, I've never seen him so happy."

Except the odd appearance "here and there" starts to become a consistent thing. And it reaches an apex when Bruce diverts an emergency call from the Titans and makes an appearance in Nightwing's stead and hangs out with them afterwards (they are a little put off by the total 180 in Batman's personality but don't tell him to leave).

I think Dick stages intervention one telling Bruce he has to go back to Gotham and stop being Nightwing because Dick is Nightwing and Bruce is Batman.

"Maybe I don't want to be Batman?"

And the issue ends with Batman renouncing Batman. Saying that if Dick thinks there needs to be a Batman, he should take up the mantle. It wouldn't be the first time. Which leaves Dick speechless.

The next issue picks up in Gotham with Damian fighting crime, getting ganged up on, when Batman descends and helps him out. Except this Batman is Dick.

They debrief and we also get an update on what's been going on with Gotham in the weeks, perhaps months, of Bruce being in Bludhaven and how the rest of the Batfamily are picking up the slack in his absence. We also see Dick picking the Batfamily's brains about what to do about Bruce, if anything should be done about Bruce.

It takes a conversation with licensed medical professional Harley Quinn to give Dick insight into what's going on with Bruce ("trying to feel young again") and how to shock him out of it ("Bats is a stubborn guy. Even if all of you kids gathered around and said how this was affecting you, he'd say that you weren't seeing the bigger picture or whatever other excuse he can think of. What you need to do is goad him into giving up Nightwing and going back to being Batman.")

So Dick corners Bruce one day in Bludhaven and presents a challenge. Rooftop race across the city. First one to finish is Nightwing. The loser is Batman. Bruce, drunk off playing Nightwing, cocky, agrees.

Cue the night of the race Dick and Bruce, both dressed as Nightwing, stand on the rooftop with Barbara between them. She drops the flag and they're off.

It starts with Bruce in the lead, it's been a while since Dick has run these rooftops, but as the race progresses Dick slowly takes the lead as Bruce's stamina wanes.

It also doesn't help that Dick has been chatting the entire time. First nonsensically which Bruce tries to keep up with as well, but as it goes on it's deliberate strikes at the reasons why Bruce is clinging to Nightwing and, in his exhaustion, in his still existing in the 'Nightwing' persona, Bruce actually engages in the dialogue Dick creates between them and the rapport is strong.

Dick gets Bruce to admit how Dick is the kind of person he wants to be and that he thought it was Batman holding him back, and if he dropped Batman he could be the kind of person worthy of having the family he does now.

Dick tells him that it's because of who Bruce was that Dick is the man he is now, and that Bruce has the potential to be like Dick in those regards even while being Batman.

Then Dick brings up Alfred, at the exact moment they reach the statue of Alfred in Bludhaven. A statue Bruce has been avoiding since he arrived. A statue which Dick had been leading Bruce to in the guise of their 'race'. Dick has Bruce confront Alfred and what Alfred wanted for Bruce and how it's a) things he already has and b) he's never too late to change who Batman is and can be.

Bruce takes off the mask and thanks Dick for helping him out, and they hug as the race is over. Dick has won. He is Nightwing. Bruce will go back to being Batman.

However, the night before Bruce is set to return to Gotham, he and Dick are getting ready to patrol Bludhaven together one last time, as Batman and Nightwing, when suddenly another Nightwing appears. And another. And another.

The entire Batfamily drops in wearing their own Nightwing costumes. "What?" Damian says, "we heard that all we need to do to become Nightwing is win a race. Who wouldn't jump at the chance for something that easy." And the story ends with Nightwing looking to Bruce, saying "Fine. One more time." Cut to a full page panel of Dick Grayson leading a throng of Nightwings across the Bludhaven skies.

The Midlife Crisis event is over.

[fbfh]

older!logan x reader hcs

wc: 1.6k

genre: age gap, sort of sugar daddy logan

warnings: big (but legal) age gap, logan is early 40s reader is like early 20s, brief odette mention, logan is a killer lawyer, rory kinda traumatized Logan lol, I haven't finished gilmore girls or ayitl yet so don't come for me lol, logan is obsessedddddddd with reader, mildly smutty, mentions of marriage and proposals, your relationship progresses really quickly

summary: you were reading in a coffee shop when a charming gorgeous much older guy decided to strike up a conversation. little do you know that within a very short time that same charming stranger will know your dress size, your shoe size, and your ring size.

song rec: off to the races - lana del rey

a/n: the choke hold older logan has on me..... euthanize me at this point lmao

tags @yesv01 @magcon7280

As with all nsfw works, all characters are aged up to 18+ (like way over 18 in logan’s case lol)

That being said jesus christ let’s dive right into the brain rot

First things first, a little more about Logan

He’s in his early 40’s and aging like a fine goddamn wine

MEGA MEGA dilf vibes

After the whole millions of dollars sunken into a bad investment in his family’s massive media conglomerate mishap, he still faced a lot of pressure to join the family business

But with Rory rejecting his proposal, he felt so fucking down and beaten up by life

He just had two massive blows to his ego back to back

And he needed a win

Then the strangest thing happened 

He just got back from another late night of partying with his friends and switched on the tv so he wouldn’t have to fall asleep with his thoughts, and some random movie was playing

The girl in the movie is at dinner with her boyfriend and thinks he’s going to propose, but he breaks up with her instead

It hits a little too close to home and Logan’s about to switch it off

Then she decides to go to law school to prove herself

He finds himself getting more and more invested in this movie, relating more to Elle with every scene, and by the morning he confronts the idea he’s been shoving away for too long so he doesn’t rock the boat

He talks to his dad and they decide Logan will go to law school, but remain a prominent board member and shareholder of the family company

Mitchum is surprised by how responsible and well thought out Logan’s plan is

He’s forging a path to a very lucrative field - one Mitchum can tell he’s going to be very successful in - while still staying involved enough in the family business 

So Logan goes off to law school, and 20 years later he’s a total shark 

He’s a prestigious, expensive lawyer with a reputation for never losing and a long streak of killing it with really high profile cases

Now the Huntzberger name carries all the weight and power of his father’s media reach, and Logan’s success in the courtroom 

He’s excelling 

And he’s excelling enough to keep his family out of his personal life for a while 

He’s living the bachelor life until he hits 40

That’s when his parents decide it’s really unacceptable that he’s still not married 

So they tell him if he doesn’t get married soon they’ll arrange something

Some french heiress or something 

And Logan finds himself right back where he didn’t want to be

And then, like a gift from god, he sees you

Like I said in my initial drabble, Logan first saw you in a cafe reading some dusty novel no one actually reads like war and peace or crime and punishment or something

He's seen people your age do that before, reading complicated stuffy literature to seem smart and make some pretentious English class commentary that barely makes sense 

So he calls you on it

"War and Peace, huh?"

He’s expecting you to say something fake and pretentious

Some bullshit fake deep pseudo intellectual shit

But you look up at him, only pausing for a moment before you speak

You’re surprised to see such a gorgeous guy in a little cafe like this

Especially one that seems interested in talking to you

And god, the way you talk about it

The way your eyes light up

It takes him by surprise

He's not just interested

He's invested 

You start talking and realize that you've been talking for way longer than you expected to

And he wants more

He wants to know more about you, wants to see you sweet smile and hear your cute little laugh when he says something charming or compliments you

So he takes you out to dinner, his treat 

He guides you out the door and into his Porsche with his hand on your back 

It's a subtle gesture but it makes your stomach flip 

Then he buckles your seat belt for you

If you weren't sold before you sure are by now 

So he takes you to this nice fancy restaurant, wines and dines you, and he is laying on the charm thick

"Oh, come on. A pretty young thing like you must have a boyfriend."

"Really, you have excellent taste.”

You don’t miss the way he’s been eyeing you all night

And he doesn’t miss the way you squeeze your thighs together when he touches your face or plays with your fingers

One thing leads to another and after he pays the bill and leaves a generous tip, you find him ushering you back into his porsche

And yet again he closes your door for you and gets you all buckled in

This time when he drives his hand rests on your knee

He thinks he can handle this

He’s the biggest whore on the east coast /affectionate 

Then you grab his hand and move it up your thigh

There’s no going back now

He’s in just as deep as you are

Before you know it you’re tearing off each other’s clothes

His lips are all over you and motherfucker does he know what he’s doing

He worried for a moment he might have lost his edge

But as he lays you down into his big soft bed, your skin touching his silky sheets for the first time

But definitely not the last

As he finally touches you and feels how wet you are for him

He knows he didn’t peak in college

“Shh, listen,” he says between kisses that make you feel dizzy, “you’re gonna tell me if it’s too much for you, can you do that?”

You nod while he holds your face in his big hands

“You gotta say it,” he chuckles at how sweet you are, how well you respond to him, “use your words, baby…” 

You manage to choke out a desperate yes between kisses that makes his stomach twist

And that is the very beginning to your intense affair with Logan Huntzberger 

He’s desperate to see you again

He sends flowers and a dress and a gorgeous necklace to your apartment

And not the normal amount of flowers

The Logan amount of flowers

So a lot

And you can’t believe your luck finding a hot rich older guy that’s so into you 

You really like this attention

Your daddy issues are SCREAMING

And Logan likes having someone as gorgeous and intelligent and into him as you are

And he wants to do this right

But he’s rapidly approaching the deadline his family set

He doesn’t want to scare you off

GOD that’s the last thing he wants

But he is terrified of proposing and having it end up like it did the last time

Eventually he works up the nerve to talk to you about it 

He’s explaining everything to you while you pay your bills 

But it says they’re already paid

And your credit cards are paid off

And your debt has just disappeared

Even your student loans are gone

And there’s a fat deposit in your checking account 

He paid off all your debt and didn’t tell you

By the time he’s done explaining that you basically either need to get married asap or you can’t see each other anymore he still hasn’t brought it up

And you realize he’s not going to

He didn’t pay your bills to guilt you into anything

He’s not holding it over your head

He’s taking care of you

And all you’ve ever wanted is someone who will take care of you

Logan is surprised when you agree

But he’s even more surprised at how fast you agree

You sit in his lap and end up rambling about how much you love him, how you don’t think you’ll ever find anyone you like as much as him or anyone that treats you as well as he does

To no one’s surprise the conversation ends with him taking you on every surface of your apartment

Hours later you’re cuddling naked on your couch, resting your head on his muscular chest and listening to his heartbeat

“So like… are we engaged now?” you ask looking up at him

He laughs sweetly

“No, not yet. I have to actually propose first.”

You think back to your conversation earlier when you first said you’d want to marry him

“So that didn’t count before?”

His heart breaks at how little you ask for

“No, that didn’t count.” He kisses your head, “I’m going to take you out somewhere nice, give you a proper proposal, with a nice ring.”

You get butterflies thinking about it

You can’t believe how much he does for you

How much he wants to do for you 

You’re quiet for a moment, and he can feel you smiling into his chest

“...Okay.” 

Your voice is so small and bashful, and he can hear you suppressing a flustered giggle

Fuck he can’t get enough of you 

He laughs and pulls you closer, grabbing your chin and makes you look up at him so he can kiss you 

You fall asleep in his arms

And you think that you won’t mind being married so young if it’s Logan you’re marrying

Logan is looking at you with so much love and adoration

And right before he falls asleep 

He thinks that maybe it’s not too late for him to find love after all

[metalotaku-da]

Dcxdp Danny phantom and klarion are friends.

Danny as the ghost king who loves to prank loves teaching a younger appearance klarion all kinds of fun gags and tricks of magical nature. It's like the younger sibling he always wanted. And is a nice break from some of his royal duties. But things have been a little busier than usual they haven't gotten to really get out and have fun. Danny is 30 looks 20. Klarion is looking 14. But in the thousands for age.

Klarion is bored and upset. He wants time with Danny to himself. No interruption from clockwork or the eternal. Other ghosts. No one. It's not fair. He needs a plan to sneak Danny out of the infinite realm, hide him and not be the fall guy when they get caught. Because it's clockwork they will be caught it's the when. He needs someone else to do the summoning work. But who and how.

He lands on John Constantine. Clockwork doesn't like him much. And Danny inherited all the old kings claims. So he be able use that if things got dicey. And klarion is not a fan either of the jerk. To buddy buddy with nabou. So he has a fall guy to blame for the summoning. Just needs to setup a prank so good that John thinks he has no choice but to summon someone who could destroy the world.

Takes him a week to land on act like I'm gonna do it so he has to first. Easy. And he can brag to a bunch of villains to really drive the urgency. Perfect.

Plan worked like a charm. Maybe to good though. John got a bunch of heroes to help. No good no good. John is lieing to his super jerk friends. Klarion can see the seal. It will make Danny weaker and lock him to the jerk like a dog on a leash. Not to the artifact he said they could lock him away with. He's gotta fix this quick. He drops in the pawns he recruited to distract. While discreetly changing the ruin on the summoning without mucking it up so it doesn't work. All while fighting zantana, and racing the circle lighting up.

The summoning is completed. But something obviously went very very wrong. Klarion has teakle distract zantana while he goes over the summoning again to see what he shifted. Oopsie. The ruin for shrinking power turned to shrinking age. But thats ok. It can be fixed later. Maybe. Probably. He didn't get the teather changed before it set. But that's an easy fix by killing Constantine. But his friend is here. And now they can really play. So it's all good. Klarion is ecstatic. So much so teakle runs to him as he shrinks causing one of the supers to over swing on an attack on his familiar.

But Danny needs a minute. As he blinks wearily on his feet. Rubbing at his face. Ugh summoning. He hates summoning. And this had to be a strong one. Because he couldn't resist like most of them. Whatever once the brain fog clears he'll be good and can really give the jerks who did a real stern talking to. Or maybe he'll scare them. That sounds better. Standing infront of him is a blonde man looking like a dirty drunk cop dective from TV. Who is gapping at him as a cigarette burns on the ground at his feet. This guy has to be like a gaint too cause Danny has to really crane his head back to look up at his face. There is a bunch of commotion going on but he's to focuses on this weird feeling he has towards this weirdo. Who seems like he's confused. Maybe it was an accident. Whatever. Danny still isn't happy. He puts his hands on his hips. "Hey jerk face! What do you think your doing?" Then Danny's eyes went wide. "Oh by the ancients is that my voice! What's wrong with my voice!" Danny now clutched his throat before waving his arms wildly at the creepy man. "What did you to me you weirdo! I sound like a baby!"

"It a bloody fucking child."

"It's bad to cuss infront of kids Constantine." Someone else says outside the circle.

Danny's head snaps their direction. Danny's eyes widen as he puts his hand into view looking at himself panic taking over and he looks around at all these tall people looking at him or fighting. He opens his mouth to scream in fear or frustration he doesn't know till he hears a voice he recognizes.

"Don't wail, don't wail!" Danny closes his mouth and looks around for the source.

"Klarion?"

"Sorry my bad. I messed up change the circle so it wouldn't weaken you. And well oopsie " klarion rushed into the circle hugging little Danny tight. "But you are here. So now we can play." Klarion gasped as he pulled back from Danny. "I can be the big brother now!"

"Noooooo, klarion I was already a little brother. I wanted to be a big brother more." Danny whined. His white hair flopping over as he rolled his head in complaint.

"To bad. I'm the big brother now. We are gonna have so much fun. You just have to get rid of this looser so we can go do our thing." Klarion gestured towards Constantine.

[vladdyissues]

Danny Phantom, but Vlad decided to live forward without Fentons, so, they weren't invited to the party in tha castle, so, Vlad and Danny didn't meet that year. BUT they met when Danny was in Wisconsin college (19/20 years?). F.e. Danny has developed a strong ghost scenting system by this time, so, he felt the strange Vlad's ectoaura and decided to check who it is. There's no reason for them to fight. How do you imagine their interaction? Would it be a spark and storm of insanity, sex? What's Vlad's reaction to the information whose son Danny is?

Well, Vlad already knew of "the ghost boy" before the college reunion, and I imagine that Plasmius would either eventually a) challenge/destroy/neutralize Phantom or b) try to tempt him with the same offer he made Danny. I mean, this guy is so desperate to have a family that it makes him look stupid.

BUT supposing that he was never able to properly "introduce" himself to Phantom, and/or Phantom was able to avoid Plasmius for a few years, the idea of Vlad meeting a 19- or 20-year-old Danny is intriguing. How would it happen?

Perhaps a scenario like the University of Wisconsin wanting to honor their most famous alumnus with a ceremony—or Vlad makes a generous *cough* tax-deductible *cough* donation for a scholarship program, and maybe Danny is a recipient of that scholarship and therefore obligated to attend the ceremony.

But the minute Vlad takes the stage, he's distracted by a spectral signature emanating from somewhere in the audience. Danny likewise senses a powerful ghost aura, though less accurately, and wends his way through the crowd to find the source.

As Vlad absently stumbles and stutters through his speech, his eyes finally lock onto the young man who just appeared at the front of the crowd. At the same second, the two realize that the other is the source of the signature. Vlad proceeds with his speech more smoothly now while Danny racks his brain to figure out why this rich, smug asshole is positively radioactive with ghost energy.

When the ceremony concludes, Danny charges to the backstage area to find that Vlad has vanished. Danny hunts for him, even going invisible and flying to try to locate him, but no luck. The man is gone.

Discouraged and more than a little perplexed, Danny begins the long walk back to his dorm. Suddenly a stretch limo rolls up beside him. A dark window glides down, revealing none other than Vlad Masters.

"Care for a lift?" he asks archly.

At this range, the ectoplasmic frequencies radiating from him are so strong that Danny's ghost sense goes berserk. He exhales the coldest breath he's ever heaved, wobbles, and drops to the sidewalk in a dead faint.

He wakes up later (how much later? He has no idea) in a luxurious back seat, a cold gel pack on his head, with Vlad Masters, billionaire tech mogul and "philanthropist", sitting across from him, gazing at him with concern. A small smile breaks through when Danny sits up.

Wow, he's really handsome up close, Danny thinks.

"What's going on?" Danny asks, hoping his face doesn't look as red as it feels.

"You passed out," Vlad answers. "I couldn't leave you in the hot sun. Ice specters aren't exactly known for their heat tolerance."

Danny freezes—figuratively this time, and the rosy blush drains from his cheeks.

"Would you care for a drink?" Vlad asks, still smiling.

"Who are you?" Danny says, then winces and adds, "I mean. I know who you are, but—"

"Then you have the advantage." Vlad hands him a frosty bottle of expensive mineral water. "What's your name, young man?"

"Um. Danny. Daniel Fenton." He cracks open the bottle and drinks. Across from him, Vlad's eyes widen.

"Fenton, you said?"

A nod.

"You wouldn't happen to be related to a Jack Fenton, would you?"

"Yeah. He's my dad. Why, do you know him?"

Vlad ignores the question and leans forward. His eyes—blue, Danny sees, really dark blue—gleam with interest. "I presume you know a little something about ghosts, then."

Despite his racing heart, Danny's brain feels like sludge. He shakes his head and blinks a few times, finally pulling on a nervous smile. "Nah, uh, that's more my mom and dad's thing."

"I see." Vlad studies him for a moment. "Are you hungr—sorry. Silly question. Of course you're hungry. You're a college student." His eyes fall to the holes in Danny's jeans, the scuffed sneakers, the pilled hoodie with its faded graphics. Danny squeezes his legs together self-consciously and experiences a pang of embarrassment. Vlad's gaze returns to his face.

"Would you care for lunch, Daniel? My treat, of course. Unless you'd rather join me for dinner at my home? I could send a chauffeur to pick you up around seven. I make a fondue to die for. Well"—a chuckle— "half-die for, anyway."

Danny forgets his financial woes. And lots of other things. His brain struggles to process the past two minutes. A hot rich guy saturated with some of the most powerful ecto-energy he's ever felt is asking him to dinner. Maybe even a dinner dinner. Which, if Danny is honest, wouldn't disappoint him. He stares at Vlad Masters with his mouth slightly ajar.

"Uh... I, uh. Sure. Um, dinner sounds good."

[mecachrome]

What is the hype around jendo? I am trying to do research but I feel like they barely had any interactions?? Especially recently? Is there a primer or something cause I totally want to try to get into them!

OMGGGG well i wouldn't call myself a jendo expert or anything but i can briefly tell you why i like them!!! also soz for late reply 😭

tbh the very first thing that converted me was watching this interview forever ago because i remember being deeply intrigued by lando's demeanor + relative shyness + how hard he tried overall to appear Respectable and Mature in front of jense while answering his questions??? like the way jenson smiles at him during "are you happy?" "UMMM... kind of" wtheck T__T

jendo honestly have a lot of lore though! again i am not an expert but @cuthechicane has so many fantastic clips and gifsets if you're looking for interax that will rewire your brain chemistry ☝️ (the sheer giddinesssss of their miami interview 😭 also this is a classic moment). part of their thing is that they're both "somerset boys" (lando grew up in glastonbury / jenson is from frome) so that connection also kind of adds an extra layer to jenson having raced for mclaren / lando looking up to him and the general hero worship or cyclical nature of f1 that is palpable in their dynamic and a lot of other f1 agediff ships. ofc rossi was lando's real hero but... you know jenson is jenson

really though i think what i like most about jendo is how much jenson genuinely ADORES lando lmfao like their dynamic is so ridiculous but in a really absurdly sincere way!!! ofc it's super fun to go all in on the rancid age gap power imbalance vibes etc. and the way they flirt in public and fluster each other but jenson 100% RATES lando and hypes him up constantly to the point that it's almost embarrassing negl. lichr him going all in on lando like 4 hours ago... what's craziest to me is that he sincerely believes everyone else loves lando too like his brain can't comprehend the mere concept of someone not being obsessed with his favorite little british twink 😭 he's those innocent guys on reddit who still post comments like "lando is so nice it's impossible to hate him!!!" as if we're still in 2019 or something...... i want to live in that world

imo there's also an aspect to jendo where it's like...? jenson sees so much of himself in lando to the point of having preconceptions about lando's mentality that he projects onto him a bit which i think adds dimension to jenson's vulnerability but that goes into way more my own Meta and isn't really relevant to this post. but part of jenson's personality is that he is very charismatic and a natural speaker and also Usually Right so he loves to SAY shit and although he's not quite a nico-level professional shit stirrer he does kind of um... always speak like he knows something you don't. as evidenced by his time as lewis's teammate wherein he won the idgaf war by not acknowledging it going on in the first place. this is also why he and oscar should banter more because i feel like the comparisons between oscar and jenson are honestly so apt HLSDFH i have a jenson/oscar/lando post if that is of any interest

ok sorry i'm getting off-track but >>>all of that to me is why jendo is fun... jenson presents as very self-assured but if you do a psyche deep dive you realize he was quite sensitive growing up and Personally Victimized by briatore and has been quite open about his anxiety and the way f1 culture functioned at the time, and he's always been quite emotionally regulated but obviously there was... also a lot of glamour that accompanied that until later in his career LOL. so getting to explore those sides of him with a 20-something lando who very much mirrors him (self-reflective and sometimes overly critical and learning to live the "highly committed and industrious playboy" life) but also makes his façade crack in ways you don't often see is so fun & fascinating...!!! imo you can take them in a lot of different directions as a ship :3c

^ bonus bits i like from his book

[spidey29phangirl]

So, there’s a summoning in the League of Assassins base that pulls Danny into the dc dimension, where when he meets a pit mad Jason the guy pulls a knife against his throat and threatens him to get him out of the base. friendly glowstick was actually on his way out, so he just shrugs and goes sure what the hell turning them both invisible with just the briefest amount of wondering over why the guy didn’t do it himself because he’s a ghost too. anyways Danny only intends to drop the guy outside—but then outside is just a bunch of deserted mountains as far as he can see. okay, so maybe if he gets a better leverage point…

Jason only sees this as a faint stop, and then the pull of the ghost flying flash-speed up. It holds him only by the hand and while this power of his does seem to extend something of an anti-gravity sensation to Jason, training and instinct both scream at him he’s about to be reacquainted with death via free fall. …and so the non sense part of his brain scrambles for some bargain. the ghost— who god isn’t even looking at him,, must want something? what? souls? it’s just as unnerving as this glowing green eyes, but Jason manages to conceal the panic before it turns into a full blown attack, it goes something like; “wait, wait. if-if you want—souls i know plenty of bad people the world wouldn’t care to miss,” attention grabbed, the ghost just tilts his head to the side and stares, “it’s in this place where people go missing everyday, and powers like–like that go totally unnoticed, i mean you can totally pass as a living person. i can take you there if-if you just let me- it’s a little far but i swear it’s worth it. it’s in the United States?” the expression draws up a frown but also a glint of recognition. he sighs shakily. “you know it?”

“Yeah. I know it.” Danny doesn’t know why the ghost just started rambling about soul hotspots like he was a banshee, but whatever. “I thought… I was there actually. guess i always assumed I would never be summoned outside of the country… “ He looks around again, “where am I then?”

He looks back at Jason and abruptly realizes he is still holding his hand. “oh i’m sorry—“ he starts just as he lets go. the ghost probably wants to fly on his own.

…

he doesn’t.

the ghost plummets down. fast.

…

Danny hovers down a little because that’s odd. the ghost should’ve flown by now, grasp onto the instinct that is defying gravity and— still hasn’t, his core churns as he watches him keep falling —but why? does he not know how to fly? not to go invisible or …intangible? oh fuck. he hadn’t. back there the ghost had asked Danny to get him out. he hadn’t. Danny dives down rushing past the wind as the distance closed and the ground approached.

just as the realization sinked. the ghost couldn’t.

…

Jason latches on like a lifeline to the arms that close on him and start to descend slowly to the fast rhythm of his racing heart. it’s an iron grip he wishes to turn into a lock, but the ground is not in close range still.

“—g omg i’m sorry i didn’t—i didn’t know you couldn’t access your powers i swear like i would’ve never done that in purpose omg what the fuck i’m sorry—what happened, your core felt fine but I didn’t think and whatever’s it is that’s messing with your powers is something i can’t—“ it’s nonsense that’s half apology half rambling, that he tunes out after because now they are close enough and it only steals a sec to leaps down with a clean roll and in the process put distance between the teen ghost and him. The kid leans forward almost wanting to hover closer. but doesn’t.

He looks concerned. “Are you okay?”

Jason doesn’t answer, but his heart rate starts up again as the ghost waits and then raises both hands to approach him almost placatingly. “I didn’t meant that, i’m sorry, again I didn’t know you didn’t have your powers.”

Jason would like the guy to not get any closer. “I don’t have any powers. What the fuck are you on?”

The ghost’s aura dims.

And it’s like the world stills. almost like it turns into one big suffocating void.

“You don’t know?”

Jason has nearly backed up into a tree. His sleeve hides a knife.

The ghost looks sad.

“You’re dead.”

oh.

oh good god.

Jason swears his heart nearly jumps out of his chest because of the anticipation, but it’s okay, it’s nothing. Jason knew that already. …it still didn’t make sense with half the shit the ghost said but ghosts, uh they probably had a way to sense when someone died and so to think the that the ghost thought he was one too was plausible. is why the kid said he dropped him.

which in that case. honest mistake. maybe the kid is saying the truth. Jason looks back at him and the kid holds a mournful expression. And a little pity.

He huffs, “Not new news you’re giving me kid, honest.”

That seems to puzzle the white haired kid. He frowns. “Then why ask me what i’m talking about? is it that you don’t know who did this to you?”

His eyes glow just at the reminder. “no,” a growl rips out of his throat. “I know exactly who did this to me.”

“Then? Why can’t you access your powers? as a human the fall would’ve been fatal.”

again with this shit. Jason runs a hand through his hair, feeling only the slightest amount of frustration and pauses. …this is a normal amount of frustration, maybe even proportionate in a way he hasn’t felt in a very long time. He wasn’t getting worked up over something to the point annoyance turned into full blown anger. the pit wasn’t bothering him and that— felt weird. Jason did not choked up a little. “okay. kid, ghost …whatever. I realize you probably think I’m like you but no, I can’t just fly or–density shift my way out things. I am not like you.”

“is this like the five stages of grief?” the ghost muses, like he didn’t even hear him, and raises an eyebrow, “are you on denial?”

Jason runs a hand through his hair and almost closes his eyes because clearly the kid, god he was just a kid, young impling he was, didn’t want to see what was in front of him. “kid.”

He almost wants to be close enough to grab the ghost’s shoulders.

“I did die but I– I came back.”

…

Kid in question is doing a terrible job at hiding his smile. He nods back slowly too. The “and…?” inquire he makes is almost insulting.

Jason has no words.

At that the kid just inhales deeply and angles his body to the open gestures he begins to do with his arms, “this is what I meant when I asked if you knew?!”

“i’m not a ghost.” Jason cuts in, if only he could get it through the kid’s thick skull. “I know that much.”

True and only ghost scowls with suspicion for a moment before sighing.

“…you …you didn’t submit yourself to some kinda…experiment, right?” the dead teenager uncrosses his arms, “because even if don’t have powers you’re still very much a ghost.”

Jason looks at the floating being with probably an inane amount of disbelief.

The look he receives in return is dead serious.

….

and for a moment there’s only silence lazy and light.

“nope. no. no.”

Jason hesitates to turn on his heel and give his back to the ghost so he goes sideways instead. “I am done here. won’t indulge you any longer.”

The silence after is heavy.

And lasts only enough to remark the sound of soft sand paving away for boots to thump the ground. for the first time the kid is touching solid earth, Jason notes, and he does it with a solemn look on his face, glowing aura looking fainter.

“look, I’m just concerned.” kid’s voice tilts with a quiet echo that hadn’t been there before, “it’s never as simple as you make it out to be. one can’t die and come back without change. death on principle doesn’t just relinquish its hold for anyone. if you would just… let me explain.”

Kid sits down cross legged and waits. Seeing as Jason isn’t walking off he continues.

He doesn’t know why he stays.

“okay okay, so the thing is death loves change, right? embraces it as much as life does. it just doesn’t like to share it the same way,” kid smiles fondly at that, absently playing with the hem of his left glove. “So what happened to you was an exchange, those happen in the rare, very rare occasion life is willing to give wiggle room to chance a comeback token, on those death follows closely behind because like i said, she doesn’t like to share, she is gonna wanna try to take it away, and by that I mean all. the exchange is messy and chaotic—but it highly depends on circumstance— that is how violent and traumatic the death, frequency of the brushes with death if any, level of ambient ectoplasm around when alive—hell even the stability of reality plays a part on if and how many of you comes back. the amalgamation of factors is huge, believe me. it’s just to give you an idea. the point is they determine whether it’s total game over or not. and, and because death gets her chunk either way, she isn’t even mad if you do pass go and collect the money.”

Kid stops to scratch the back of his neck, dims his excitement a little and pauses. “I’m not losing you, am I? I’m—not the best at explaining, but what I am saying is that you did. You passed. you are alive. and dead. but that was what I was getting at earlier. You are a ghost, I mean maybe not as much as you are a human because your exchange feels like it ended up with more life than death in the mix but… you should have a ghost form. Haven’t you felt it? core, powers, the likes?“

The kid looks so earnest with a honestly genuine smile that Jason… wishes he could give him one back. wished him the kid wasn’t telling him he was still dead, making him run through his head and remember how broken he’s felt ever since he died.

Jason doesn’t want to be a ghost.

why had he come back at all if he was not complete?

He closes his eyes and tries to vanish those young glowing green eyes from his mind.

he wants to think.

It’s all green though, and he hates that color.

why did they have to be that color?

Jason shakes his head and ignores how he begins trembling.

it’s the pit color. the one he can’t feel and wants back.

grasping blindly and searching for it feels like a yawning empty space void that tells him there’s nothing over and over.

The ghost hums.

sounds optimistic even. “I’m saying it because you got them.”

yeah. power. potential. or whatever the ghost was selling. he got it but couldn’t reach it.

it was all the same.

there.

but only if little Jay puts efforts in. really wants it. just had to work harder. just be enough.

“You just gotta put from your part, I’ll help you.”

Jason stares at the outstretched gloved hand.

He doesn’t take it.

[pizzaqueen]

This has probably been done or thought of before and apologies if it has! But my brain gave me another idea and I had to share. Basically, this is kind of a Pushing Daisies fusion where Steve has Ned’s powers, but where everything else more or less happens as it does in canon. This is kind of a summary/outline, mostly of the backstory, that somehow ended up over 800 words lmao

Steve spent most of his life thinking of himself as an ordinary guy, in an ordinary town, where only ordinary things happen. If you pressed him for the weirdest thing that ever happened to him, he might have told you about the time he found a dead bird when he was a kid that came back to life when he touched it. As a kid, it seemed like a miracle. When he got older, he knew his mom was right—the bird was just stunned.

So, yeah, ordinary guy, ordinary town. And then it turns out the town is not so ordinary. Steve’s life gets really fucking un-ordinary when he fights a monster from a shadow dimension with Nancy Wheeler and Jonathan Byers. But he’s still ordinary. Yeah, he fought a monster, but that was a blip in an otherwise ordinary life.

And then the monsters come back. That’s when Steve finds out he’s not as ordinary as he thought. When he’s putting the dead demo dog in the Byers’ fridge (sorry, Mrs. Byers) he touches part of it and the thing comes back to life in his arms.

It must have been stunned, like that bird when he was a kid, or just maybe got a second wind because, in the confusion and chaos that ensues, he makes a grab for it, and the thing just falls to the floor. Stone cold dead.

If it wasn’t for Dustin Henderson, that’s exactly what Steve would have thought for the rest of his life. But Dustin saw the whole thing and he decides that Steve is some kind of miracle worker and he wants to experiment.

It takes a lot of convincing, but Steve gives in. He wishes he hadn’t. Because he finds out that, yeah, he can bring things back from the dead, but if they stay alive for more than a minute, something else dies. Something nearby and more or less equal. (So, a bird for a squirrel, a butterfly for a bee.)

And if he touches it a second time? Dead. Again. Forever.

So, Steve swears Dustin to secrecy and vows he’s never ever going to touch a person. If he can bring a bird back to life, but sacrifice a squirrel for it, what happens if it’s a person?

And he keeps the vow, though, thankfully, it’s not a hard vow to keep.

And then Eddie Munson dies.

Steve and Nancy and Robin find Dustin cradling Eddie in his arms and the bottom falls out of Steve’s stomach. The Upside Down starts going crazy and Vecna is still out there and they have to get out. But Dustin has a busted ankle and he won’t leave without Eddie and Nancy and Robin are trying to figure out how to get them all out and Dustin is saying, “Steve, please,” over and over and over.

And Steve tells them all to shut up and they do, surprisingly, staring at him. There’s no time so he tells Nancy and Robin to get Dustin out and they try to protest but he tells them again. Tells them to get as far away from the gate as possible. And, it’s a miracle, but they listen to him.

When they’re gone, Steve waits, and waits a little longer, and then he falls to his knees beside Eddie. There’s no one else in the Upside Down, no one else to be taken by the gift he’s going to give to Eddie, except maybe himself. But it wouldn’t work like that, would it?

He reaches out and he hesitates. What if it does take him? No. No, it wouldn’t.

And he reaches out again, saying “Sorry”, and he touches Eddie. There’s a little spark and Eddie gasps and he reaches for Steve and Steve jerks back. He tells Eddie he’ll explain later but he can’t touch Steve—not even the tiniest touch—and they have to get out. Eddie nods, goes along with it, stumbling to his feet.

They race back to the gate at Eddie’s with everything going crazy around them.

Steve sends Eddie through first and then it’s his turn. He makes it through the gate just in time to see it close up, which is weird, and then the earth shakes and there’s this booming and crashing and then…everything goes quiet. Also weird. But weird is par for the course these days.

Eventually, they make it to the others (who have a lot of questions Steve doesn’t know how to answer yet) and regroup and get cleaned up, preparing for the next fight. But they don’t know, yet, they don’t have to. There won’t be another fight.

Because Steve and Eddie weren’t alone in the Upside Down. Vecna was down there. And Eddie’s been alive again for more than a minute.

(Of course, that’s just the beginning. Eddie may be alive again but he’s a wanted man. As much as it sucks, it might be better for an alive again wanted man to play dead still for a while. So, he hides out at Steve’s grandparents’ cabin, which they conveniently never visit, and tries to figure out how to be alive again when he was barely dead. And he has to figure out how to deal with falling in love with Steve Harrington when he can never touch him.)

[samwpmarleau]

fic: around the shadows creep

whumptober day 8: sleep deprivation masterlist: tumblr, ao3 Daisy is captured by the Watchdogs after her quake in the storage facility isn’t as effective as she’d hoped.

All my power and training, and I still get kidnapped by these scumbags. Can I ever catch a goddamn break?

Is what goes through Daisy’s mind in various iterations as she slowly, groggily wakes. It’s little more than a blur how she got from investigating with Simmons to this. James’s betrayal, she remembers that, she remembers her arms breaking with the force of sending the Watchdogs to their knees, and she remembers the Watchdogs knocking out Simmons and discussing whether to leave her behind. Simmons isn’t Inhuman so her value is minimal, but she also is Daisy’s friend so perhaps she could be used as leverage, or so they argue amongst themselves.

But the in-betweens, what their decision was on Simmons, and what happens after she’s tased into unconsciousness, that she doesn’t know. None of it really matters, though. What matters is that she’s being dragged across gravel coarse enough to dig into her skin and wedge in her suit, then across a threshold onto frigid concrete. A warehouse, she guesses. She’s kind of offended at the predictability. Bigotry really has rotted their brains.

Then she’s abruptly yanked upwards into a cold metal chair and chained. Their shortsightedness is almost impressive. She can easily break out of the restraints with minimal power usage.

That is, if it weren’t for some sort of bracelets they slap on her wrists. As soon as the ends snap together, she discovers that her powers have been neutralized. Not so much as a tremor, let alone enough of a quake to get herself free.

Which sets her heart to racing. She’s a more than competent agent, but she’s not a super soldier, or even a gym nut like Mack. She can’t break through chains. Worst of all, no one knows she’s here. Even if the Watchdogs had fallen on the side of leaving Simmons behind, who knows how long it’d be before she woke up? And after that, how long it’d be until the team could figure out where Daisy is? Daisy doesn’t even know where she is. Her only solace is that she knows they will come for her. Regardless of how far she’s pushed them away, how much damage she’s done, they will come for her.

It’s just a matter of how quickly they can zero in on her location, and if she’ll be alive by the time they do.

“What do you want?” Daisy slurs. Her head feels like it’s filled with lead.

“What do we want? The extermination of your kind,” answers the man she decides to call One. His voice is slightly muffled. He’s probably hid behind one of the group’s ridiculous masks. Coward.

“Yeah, I get that part, dipshit. You guys are one-issue terrorists. What’s with the kidnapping? Why not ‘exterminate’ me?”

“Because we need information about where the rest of you are.”

“And because we want to have some fun,” chimes in another voice, Two.

“That, too,” says One. “We need to find the most effective means of making you talk.”

Great. Just great.

“Torture?” Daisy clarifies. “You want to torture me.”

“Or you can come clean right now. Tell us where you rats like to hide.”

“You guys hacked S.H.I.E.L.D.’s servers. Don’t you already have that information?”

“They changed the encryption. We can’t get in.”

Daisy lets out a laugh that echoes through the warehouse. “So you really were dumb enough to let Simmons go? Wow, you’re bigger idiots than I thought.”

One backhands her across the face. “We got you, didn’t we?”

“Yeah, unlucky for you,” says Daisy. She spits out a mouthful of blood. “I won’t tell you a damn thing.”

One sighs. “Don’t say we didn’t give you a chance to do this the easy way.”

———

Daisy’s made to wait so long that her legs begin to cramp from being forced into the same position. Her wrists chafe from trying to wriggle free. Her arms send constant shockwaves of pain through her body that it takes all the willpower she possesses not to cry. It’s part of their plan, of that she’s certain. They believe if she’s in enough pain and discomfort, she’ll give in. No doubt they’ll next offer some analgesics to dull it.

Well, joke’s on them. The last six months have been hell. There’s nothing they can do that’s worse than that.

———

They do their best, though. She gets both the carrot and the stick, questions and interrogation, bonds loosened for the session then tightened again once it concludes.

Still, she gives them nothing. Her silence is all that keeps the Watchdogs from siccing themselves on her fellow Inhumans, and she’s not about to allow that to happen.

———

She’s not sure how long they keep her in the chair. Another tactic, she assumes, depriving her of the time. They’re not entirely off on that; it’s unnerving to be in a room lit only by the lights overhead, neither windows nor clocks, not even a five o’clock shadow on her interrogators that could give her a clue.

Her silence is incredibly frustrating for them, she’s delighted to note; after several sessions, they remove her bonds entirely and frog-march her into a cell. It has a cot with the thinnest mattress she’s ever seen, a toilet, a conspicuously mounted camera, and nothing else. No clock, no distractions, no utensil with which she could try to Shawshank her way out. No painkiller, either, or even a roll of gauze to wrap her arms in. She wonders if she’ll be in this place for so long that once she’s rescued her bones will have to be re-broken in order to put them back together again. If they can be put back together again. She has no idea what kind of damage was done by her quake, nor what further damage was done by being tied to the chair.

No use dwelling on it. She’ll learn the extent eventually.

———

She does learn something in the interim — the Watchdogs’ next tactic. As she’s lying on her bed attempting to ignore the slight, irregular flickering of the bulb overhead in order to get some rest, music is suddenly piped into her cell. Not just music, loud music. Some sort of screamo, although she can’t place the artist. Maybe there isn’t an artist at all and they simply threw a bunch of sounds together. Either way, it’s deafening.

Her efforts to tune it out fail, as do her efforts to find some sort of pattern she can count. Best she can tell, it’s the same few bars repeated over and over and over again. She ponders the efficacy of this plan. How long until her hearing gets affected and she can’t even hear their questions? Or would hearing loss be a feature, not a bug?

Sleep, needless to say, is hard to come by.

———

They give up on the music after a few more sessions, for now. She’s tired enough to think that they might give her a short break.

They do not.

She celebrates the quiet up until she feels the temperature in her cell drop, and drop some more. Her suit helps at first, but it’s short-lived. While her sleeves and pants provide full coverage, they’re not insulated, built for movement and durability rather than warmth.

The cold does have one unintended benefit: Her arms go numb, which serves to finally lessen the pain.

She curls up onto her side, pulling her knees to her chest and ducking into her jacket to futilely utilize her body heat. A flaming head would be pretty useful right about now.

———

“Not getting enough sleep?” laughs Two.

She’s come to actually enjoy the sessions, for the interrogation room they bring her into is heated. Thawing out is uncomfortable, but is nonetheless a welcome relief. She has yet to develop any frostbite, which is nice. The temperature isn’t quite cold enough. Barely.

“You know I’m not,” Daisy replies. She tries her best to keep her voice even, clenching her jaw to prevent her teeth from chattering.

“You’ve lasted longer than some expected, but we’ve got time. You’ll beg for mercy eventually.”

Daisy leans back in her chair to get some more blood flow going. “You don’t know me very well. I don’t care how cold or loud you make my cell, I’m not going to talk.”

“We’ll see.”

“Okay, say I do break. Then what, you’ll kill me? What’s your endgame here?”

“We might kill you, yeah. We might not. That all depends on if you have any other uses.”

“Uses like what?”

“Whatever we want.” Two gives her a vacant smile. “Or whoever.”

———

Tactic Number Three is light.

She doesn’t think much of it at first. She’d gotten used to the flickering a while ago, and has learned to mostly dissociate from the cold and the music, which the Watchdogs decide to return to. But at least with their previous tactics they’d turn the light off for hours at a time.

No longer is that the case. The light remains on, bright and flickering and faintly buzzing. What she wouldn’t give to have her powers again. She could explode the bulb and finally get some darkness. But she doesn’t have them, the bracelets as tight as ever around her wrists.

———

When Daisy hears the banging and the screaming, she ignores it. Her brain has been sluggish for a while now, for one, and for two, she assumes it’s more of the same. Music, screams, what’s the difference? She hasn’t told the Watchdogs a thing, so they must be graduating to a new method.

When the door slams open, she prepares herself for another round of questioning. It’s hard to tell exactly how many interrogators she has, for they all wear masks and come in cycles, but from their voices, she’s pretty sure there are four. She wonders who it’ll be today.

Whatever. It’s irrelevant, because she will not break. She will not break. She will not break. She will not —

“Robbie?” Even as she says his name, she doesn’t entirely trust that he’s not a hallucination. They hadn’t exactly parted on the best of terms, and his face swims in front of her, unclear.

Well, not his face. Ghost Rider, more specifically, is what swims in front of her, fire spitting and raging from the cracks in his skull. When had her life gotten so weird that seeing a flaming skeleton would make her feel happy?

“Are you actually here?” she asks.

Ghost Rider merely tilts his head.

“Let me talk to Robbie. Now.”

She knows full well she sounds pathetic rather than commanding, but Ghost Rider obliges anyway. She watches as the fire extinguishes and skin and muscle grow in its place to reassemble Robbie Reyes.

“I’m here,” he confirms.

She feels tears well in her eyes. At long last, someone is here to save her. “Please tell me you took all of those guys out.”

“Yeah. Coulson’s probably cuffing them as we speak.”

“Coulson? Why the hell are you with Coulson?”

“Didn’t have much of a choice. Can you walk?”

Daisy nods and gets to her feet. At which point she promptly stumbles as the room spins, her lack of peace and sleep messing with her equilibrium. She manages to catch herself on the wall with a hiss as the concrete sends a shot of pain through her arms.

“Guess that’s a no. Come on.”

Robbie loops an arm around her waist to take most of her weight. Normally, she’d tell him to stuff it, that she’ll manage on her own. But her body is beat up more than it ever has been, her brain is fuzzy, she’s tired, and the only thing more mortifying than leaning on Robbie would be for him to have to carry her out, so she allows the help. Just this once.

“How did you find me?” she asks.

“Team effort.” He sounds irritated at that, not that she’s surprised. If there’s anyone listed in the dictionary under “loner,” it’s him. “Simmons mainly. She knew where you guys were separated and had some guesses on where they might take you from there. Fitz did some algorithm thing, Coulson came up with the gameplan. Mack’s cleaning up any Watchdogs I missed.”

Sounds about right. “They’re a well-oiled machine.”

“More than can be said for you. You look like a train wreck.”

“Gee, thanks. You win Biggest Flirt in high school?”

“Didn’t graduate. So no.”

“That was a rhetorical question.”

“Oh, like you have room to judge?”

She doesn’t, really. She didn’t graduate either. Still, “At least I don’t murder people.”

“That again?”

“Yeah, that again. Murder isn’t — it —” Words fail her as she devolves into a coughing fit. Apparently the cold and dirty cell hadn’t done her lungs any favors.

Robbie stops walking, and once the fit finally subsides, he asks quietly, “What’d they do to you?”

“The usual,” she grimaces. “Torture, threats. Creativity isn’t the Watchdogs’ strong suit.”

“Torture?”

“Some restraints here, deprivation there. Some unspecified ‘whatever we want.’ Never got around to that part, though.” She looks up at him and bats her eyelashes. “My knight in shining armor showed up.”

Robbie is not amused. “Is you making this all into a joke supposed to be for my benefit or yours?”

“It’s not for anyone’s benefit.”

“Still set on that death wish, then?”

“If you’re looking for a thank-you, don’t. I didn’t ask you to rescue me.”

“Holding on pretty tight for someone who doesn’t want help.”

Daisy looks down to see her hands clenched in his jacket. She hadn’t noticed. Immediately, she lets go and attempts to walk on her own, but gets only so far as to straighten before getting lightheaded as the ground sways beneath her feet. Robbie’s continued grip on her waist is all that keeps her from toppling over.

“I don’t want your help,” she says, frustrated that her body won’t comply.

“Well, tough shit.”

“Okay, so get me out of this building, but you don’t need to bring me back to S.H.I.E.L.D. You don’t need to go back to them either. Just disappear.”

“I told you, I can’t.”

“Why the hell not?”

“There’s this book. It’s dangerous and it needs to be destroyed. S.H.I.E.L.D.’s going to help me do that.”

“A book? You can’t find that yourself?”

“I could. It’d just take longer.”

“And rescuing me, how’s that part of a search for a book?”

“It’s not. You’re a detour. The sooner I get you to them, the sooner I can get what I came for.”

Daisy grits her teeth, knowing there’s no convincing him now. He’s singleminded, and even if Robbie were inclined to agree to her proposition, she doubts Ghost Rider would. Forcefully escaping is not an option. The power-dampening bracelets remain affixed to her wrists, and if she can’t even stand by herself, she’d be beaten in a fight against him quicker than she was the first time.

“These people care about you, Daisy. You should let them help.”

“Don’t preach at me,” she snaps. “You of all people.”

“Fine. I’ll deliver you then we’re done.”

“Great.”

As promised, as soon as they make it onto the Zephyr and she’s remanded into Simmons’s custody, Robbie strides off in a huff. Or maybe not in a huff, she can’t really tell. He’s just like that. She decides Most Moody would be his senior superlative, if he had one. She’s not sure the man even knows how to smile.

He used to, though. The handful of photos she’d seen in the Reyes home from before Robbie made his deal with the devil proved as much. It’s a shame he doesn’t smile anymore, she thinks. He had a nice one.

[veradragonjedi]

ok since i know you as the excellent writer mutual, i wondered if you had any advice for creating ocs? one of my other moots asked if i had any ocs and now i REALLY want to create one. but it looks hard af. so turning to a venerable author for guidance

OHHHHH GOD. First of all, I gotta thank you for the description (😭 seriously), I'm trying my best out here.

SECOND. I think I might be able to help, depending on what sort of OC you're trying to make, whether they're real world, fandom related, alien, D&D/Medieval Fantasy etc. Like. WOAH. There's a lot of freedom in making OCs!!!

Long-ish post below the cut!

Instead of actually wracking my brains rn, because evening is drawing in and I'm tired, I am gonna tell you a few things that no one told me! Plus some extra fun knowledge (and maybe tag you in OC dialogue prompts/creation advice in future if you want some help!!)

SO. 1. You can start whenever, wherever, and no one is allowed to tell you otherwise. I'm not sure how else to say this, but it's a game of creativity and a bit of love. To tell someone else what they're allowed and what they aren't allowed to put in their OCs is WRONG. Give them magic powers if that's the only thing you can think of at first, because it's a start and a start is always beautiful.

2. Art is art!! Even if it stays in your brain and never comes out. By this I mean, appearances: what do they look like? Is it what You want to look like? Is it nonhuman? Experiment with races, hairstyles, eyeshapes etc, especially if you're gonna end up drawing them!! More practise, and it's fun, because it's something/someone that You are Interested in. Hopefully I'm making sense here!

3. Names. Oh god, baby name websites won't help you. But fantasy generator names can! They are often much better and more exciting. Back to separate cultures ^ — looking for famous people of the culture/race of your OC can sometimes be of assistance, or sometimes unofficial Census sites. Names can also be objects, plants, celestial bodies, Gods, colours, metals/elements, etc. Maybe, with a few letters missing. Chair -> Chaise, Tablet -> Tebley (two I came up with a while ago and didn't really go into)

4. Clothes! I love researching clothes because they're always interesting to analyse, especially if they come from somewhere else around the world. Experiment with colours, what works/doesn't work with your character? Is your character neat, tidy? Show that through their clothes! Primmed and pressed suits and whatnot. Same goes for the opposite. If your character's main trait is that they're agreeable and friendly, show that through their clothes even slightly by making the colours blend, maybe make their favourite colour limited on the outfit as if they're moving it to make way for others. Think about shape, silhouette, etc. Do the clothes fit your character's particular body type? Their habitat? Their scene/time? :)

5. Personality!! This is always great. For a few of my OCs, I rolled them D&D stats with a twenty-sided dice. The five I ALWAYS take into account are: joy — what brings them it, romantic interest — or sometimes lack thereof, sadness — do they often fall into it? Are they easily emotional? Etc, fear — what are they afraid of and why? Etc, and lastly, charisma/charm — how easily are people to follow them, want to be friends with them, fall in love with them, want to listen to them speak?

(5.5) Flaws! Everyone's got em, aside from Mary Sue (who could be Your character. I'm not judging.) There are plenty of posts talking about character flaws. Here's one I saw earlier. It explains it better than I could, and OP leaves another link! Think about how much it grates against their defining 'Good' quality, think about whether you would see them as a good or bad person, and whether their flaws change how other people perceive them.

6. Hobbies aren't an important factor exactly, but it's always nice to plan your Little Guy some downtime. What do they do when it's quiet or when they're lonely? Do they have many friends, or do they keep to themselves? What's their favourite book? Their favourite video game? Their favourite film? And how is that shown through their appearance too? (Such as merchandise, tattoos, piercings.)

7. Things I didn't mention consist of:

— do they have any disabilities (mental or physical)? Were they caused by something (accident to be mysterious about)? Or were they born with them?

— do you expect people to relate to them, like them, hate them, fall in love with them, etc? Both real people who may come across your character, and other people in this characters setting?

— hero or villain material? This isn't a fine line, but it doesn't have to be a blurred line. Redemption arc/story? Tragic hero falling to..? Revenge? Lust? Hunger for power?

— how they fit into the scenery or area around them, where they live and how they interact with people who surround them.

But, finally, do what you want. OCs can be tricky, but as soon as you learn that it is — in the end — You who control both them and You, it becomes a whole lot easier.

Blogs I recommend are @develop-your-oc and @creativepromptsforwriting — they both help a lot. <33

My final tip? Enjoy. And, if you don't, stop! Do what you want, forever. :)

[blog-of-hubris]

Choujin X Chapter 42: Closed System

Ishida is ready for the next big arc of Choujin X... and so am I!!

Preface:

So, I am going to start doing metas on Choujin X every new chapter! Choujin X is currently one of my all-time favorite series to read ongoing, and I have been bottling up my brain rot a little too long!

So if you like Choujin X and want to read more metas like this, give me a follow or keep up with my tags! I hope everyone who reads enjoys, and feel free to send any asks about the series!

Ishida is eccentric in a lot of ways. He does very unconventional stuff with his manga, and of course Choujin X is no exception. Specifically, I am referencing,

The White Choujin

So, the beginning of this chapter was weird for me (lol). I'm African American, and the whole “whiteness” thing with this choujin automatically made me think race was being referenced. I quickly dismissed that notion because I feel like the racial perspective I have as an American would differ drastically from a Japanese man. Furthermore, I also have a hard time believing this was in reference to race, but instead deeper symbolism to the overall path Choujin X (tokio specifically) is facing.

I'll expand on this more in a later section (because they tie in together) but I just wanted to mention my initial thought just in case I'm completely wrong and maybe Ishida was doing something else.. Who knows.

Pressure on Palma

If you know me, or know my opinions on Choujin X (which i don't think anyone on here does) then you would know how much I hate Azuma. I quite literally hate him. I see his value in the story and as almost a foil (or better yet rival) to Tokio, but as a person I hate him.

This interrogation of Palma doubles down on my hatred. I understand that Azuma has to be stern to make sure Palma isn't an enemy but based on her answers, her past and who she was dealing with it is very obvious she was being used. I think even Ely picked up on this, and even said that it's better for the police to handle the specifics with her sentencing because of the common laws broken. I mean, damn, he was literally rephrasing all her answers to come off as possibly intentional evil. (very much something a police officer's son would do. fuck him and his lame ass pig dad).

For Azuma to call Palma a bad guy without self awareness, but he literally tried to kill his “friends” when he became a choujin is unacceptable. It's the pot calling the kettle black. Azuma, YOU are the bad guy without any self awareness, and that's what makes him so damn annoying to me. Ely realized how much Palma was simply being used, but Azuma believes his sense of justice is above all... just like an unaware bad guy, huh?

Palma is so precious, too, because she thinks to herself how she needs to now learn the laws of the land. She is only 16 (Tokio.. she is yours) and has such a genuine personality to her. I really hope we get more of her and Tokio because I think two of Zora's beasts becoming a couple or at least a strong duo would be a perfect twist. We'll just have to see where Palma's path goes.

Ember, Xember, and Fortunes Unseen

(this section will have multiple mini sections!)

Ishida,,, you beautiful man. When I tell you I was begging for this Batista backstory since we first got introduced to his character, I am not overexaggerating. Finally, seeing what caused Batista to be pushed to the edge (or more so a glimpse to it) is exactly what was needed to really send this manga into its next big stage.

But before we get to that, i wanna dive into Batista's conclusions from his experiment with Palma.

There are now two beasts for Zora: Tokio & Palma

Xember can be used on Choujin

Azuma could possibly become a beast with Xember

Now, these three things are extremely important to the pathways that can be taken in this series. We could see Palma take over the powers from Zora (might be cool to see), we could still have Tokio takeover, or Azuma could become a beast and take Zora's powers. OR, there could be a whole new beast created like Palma. Ishida basically is either giving us a red herring, or it is a strong possibility that he won't be taking Zora's power; (but I feel like he will be due to him already having such a high connection to Zora).

However, I do not know what this means for Batista. Does he want to create as many of Zora's beasts as possible? Is he trying to find the perfect vessel? Or is he just creating back up plans if Tokio doesn't take her powers? Or is he planning something else entirely? Maybe he wants to see if he can take Zora's powers, or maybe even just a part of them? I am not sure how deep Batista's loyalty really goes with Zora, and that leads me into his past.

Mado's Prophecy:

I do not trust Mado, I think she is shady as hell. Ishida showed us a glimpse of this scene, but now we get to see the full moment where Mado claims Sandek has to kill Batista. Apparently, Mado had a vision with Batista bringing rise to the destruction of Yamato Mori (I assume because she simply says “our destruction” who is “our”? I feel like this is a little ambiguous on purpose). She claims that he has to renounce his choujin powers in order to avoid that fate, and this brings about two questions from me:

What does it mean to renounce his choujin powers? Is he giving them away? Is he just swearing not to use them?

How does Mado know this will fix the future? If her prophecies always happen, what does renouncing his powers do except alienate him?

I feel like Mado has a lot of secrets, and once these secrets get revealed, things will flip on their heads. But, my main point is that she pushed Batista away from their group, ultimately alienating him from even his own brother. I think there is more to Mado, and possibly she is an unaware bad guy as well.

I liked that Sandek spoke up and tried to vouch for his brother. I loved that a lot. Not only that, but I think it was foolish of Batista to give up something that makes him who he is because of Mado's prophecies, but he even said it himself that they always come true. I feel like betting on Sandek's initial proposal would have given them a better chance, but instead the pieces were set in motion for Batista to become their worst nightmare.

Even If You Can't Lift A Hundred Tons:

Batista's life as a “human” separated him from his brother and made his connection to Mori drastically change. Apparently, this drug called “Ember” was the original core research Batista was working. There isn't much detail (that I can recall) about Ember, but it seems that it was something he thought would benefit everyone. I hate seeing Batista say that only those who contribute as Choujin are listened to by the Yamato Mori, and that fact alone leads me to believe they are not the same faction that Zora founded. It doubles down my belief that Mado changed Yamato for the worse, and is using them to get rid of Zora.

(I think Zora and Mado can alter each other's prophecies, and Mado is trying to take out Zora to make her visions absolute.)

Aside from that, Batista had to find happiness and satisfaction as a human, even though he was a trained Choujin. As a human, he kept researching to make the world a better place, and even found love. This love kept him going, gave him purpose, and I also believe was what allowed him to accept his life as a “human”. He may not be able to life a hundred tons, but he is still a great choujin. I think his lover, Hartley, was telling him this to remind him that he IS choujin, and that no matter what they cannot take that from him. Everything he is doing is as a Choujin, not a Human. I find this metaphorical usage to be very powerful, and it leads directly into the next subsection -

A Wonderful Future No One Has Foreseen:

I find Ishida to be a sick man for giving us such a beautiful love seen then going right into a spread of Batista looking like he hit rock bottom; giving up his hand for a new hand by the Chimera Choujin.

I find the fact he is giving up a hand really cool because it feels like a play on “the hand you were dealt”. Batista clearly lacked the power Sandek had, and he also didn't have the respect Sandek had. With going to the Chimera Choujin, he is now giving himself a new hand to play, literally being able to take other's powers for himself. I need Ishida to give us more info on Hartley and her marriage to Batista. What happened that caused Batista to resort to becoming the chimera choujin, and how does this all connect back to Zora?

One thing I do know, is that Batista is pursuing a future that is unseen. That tells me that he isn't as loyal to Zora as his constituents may think, and could just be using her to counter whatever Mado foresees. Give me more Ishida... please.

Sandek/Batista & Tokio/Azuma Connection:

Earlier, I brought up that I would be talking about the beginning of the chapter in a later section because it would tie in later, well here it is. When it comes to the beginning of the chapter with the Whiteness Choujin, I think this was ishida foreshadowing the “black” overcoming the “white”.

“Black” = Tokio & Batista. "White” = Azuma & Sandek

Sato already made mention that he made Tokio's overall goal be to surpass Sandek. In the fight against the whiteness choujin, he specifically calls Tokio black. I could be over analyzing this, but when you think about it, it makes sense. Why else would Ishida give us that choujin in the same chapter we get the deeper info on Batista leaving Yamato Mori? We even get more symbolization of Sandek being the “white” and Batista being the “black”. I think this applies to Tokio and Azuma too. I think there will be a big clash between Batista and Sandek (and Sandek will die). The death of Sandek will be the beginning of Yamato Mori's fall, and I speculate thast Azuma will try to take over Sandek's role while Tokio will be determining if he still wants to side with Yamato Mori.

I know this is a big theory, and is all based on my analyzing of Ishida's use of symbolism, but I think it holds weight. Even if this doesn't exactly happen, I see something of similar nature happening. I like that Ishida is adding complication to the usual symbolism of black and white, making it possibly for either side to be the face of good or evil.

Checking up on Chandra

I love that Chandra Hume hasn't been tossed to the side as a character. He still has so much loyalty to Zora, but since he doesn't have his choujin powers, he is useless to them. So we get to see him living his mundane human life... until he gets kidnapped in a bathroom by Ricardo and Ririka.

P.S I am madly in love with Ririka and Ricardo, and I am very desperate to see them every chapter, so thank you Ishida. Please keep them around forever. I love that they are independent contractors.

Also, before we get into the kidnapping, I found it very interesting that Chandra thinks about Ely while taking a smoke break in the bathroom. I think the concept of smoking reminds him of his choujin powers. It is his way of copping, thinking about flying in the sky with his smoke, like an old war veteran thinking about his past glories. That all gets interrupted though by R&R (Ricardo and Ririka).

I love that Batista and Chandra have never been on the same page, so when Batista thinks of a choujin test subject for Xember he thinks of Chandra. Even Chandra knows they were sent by Batista just from seeing the syringe in the Ice choujin's hands when he wakes up in the garage. With a quick exchange of words, Chandra accepts the syringe dosage. Batista talked about the possibility of Choujins blowing up, and seemingly thats what happens to Chandra. He yells that his heart was pounding, then his body busted into pieces.

Even Mr. Ice calls Batista a 'masked scoundrel' because he believed that Chandra would have been the choujin to survive the dosage of Xmber. Does this mean even he doesn't trust Batista, but has to listen due to a power hierarchy? When you think about it, it did come off like Batista and Chandra were on equal footing and had the other followers of Zora listening to them. This could have been Batista's way of getting rid of Chandra (possibly) but even if he survived it, it just proved the efficiency of Xember. It's a win-win scenario for Batista!

Even I for a moment was saddened to see Chandra go because I really enjoyed his character. He was an antagonist that served as a perfect catalyst for Ely and I think there is a lot more that can be explored with their dynamic. Of course, Ishida doesn't disappoint!!

Chandra is alive, bodyless. Just a head. He is being preserved by the extremely sexy Yubiko. I swear Ishida knows I love her because he drew her even thicker and sexier than when we first met her. This has me so excited because it seems the Xember worked! Chandra is just a head, but he is alive. He might need time to raise due to the heavy damage, he lost his eyeballs in the explosion, but has them now. So it is apparent that raise is happening, albeit a slower pace. I really wonder how this dynamic with Yubiko is going to unfold on the next episode of Checking up on Chandra (lol).

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed my ramblings about Choujin X chapter 42! I am going to try to keep up with every chapter meta as I can. Sometimes I just get lazy, LOL.

Please comment below with your thoughts, feel free to hit my ask box about anything and make sure you share if you enjoyed!

Tell me, how long do you think it will take Chandra to fully raise (if he does).

Hopefully new chapter soon!!

[boogerboii]

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Black fem reader

✩Amarande is the second oldest vampire. She is the sister of the most powerful vampire ever, Alreck. There was a time when they ruled the world together. But she convinced her brother to leave with her and live a normal life alongside humans not over them.

✩When she ruled with her brother she had countless lovers. Many were women of all races. She just loves all women of shapes and sizes.

✩She was a fighter and her brother the brains. Her brother didn’t have to lift a finger she was always ready to kill for him.

✩Amarande is a beautiful woman back in her early vampire years her beauty started wars between kings. She had a beauty that made any man or woman fall to their knees.

✩When people see Amarande they are frozen from her beauty. She has a strong sharp gaze and hovers over people because of her height. She looks stuck up and mean but is soft inside.

✩When you first met Amarande you where at the club with a couple of friends. You were dancing on the floor when you felt a pair of eyes on you. You look over to see a beautiful woman looking at you intensely. You feeling bold stare right back while still dancing. You look away for a second and she is gone. You look around looking for those intense eyes then you feel a strong presence behind you. You look up to see her staring down at you.

✩After that you and her have been inseparable. Amarande loves being in a relationship with you.

✩When she’s in a relationship she ignores anyone that isn’t you.

✩This girl loves to buy you things and not just regular things she goes big every time. She once bought you a whole house because you said that your room was cluttered.

✩She loves your body. Every time she walks by you she has to touch you intimately. She especially loves kissing you. It's her guilty pleasure.

✩Amarande is a funny woman. She loves to joke around with the ones she loves but she uses joking as a cover up. It’s really hard for her to be vulnerable but when she came close to you it was easier to do so. You became her rock.

✩This woman is dominating in life but in the bedroom she will submit to you. For you she’s a whimpering mess.

✩When you first met her brother you were surprised how taller she was than him. When she is around him she is carefree just like when she is with you.

✩She will make you feel like a queen. She has never had a woman that has made her feel the way you do. As cliche as that sounds.

✩Amarande loves to go out and travel. Even if she has seen the world many times it still amazes her every time.

✩Amarande loves to cook when her and Alreck left to live alongside humans she dragged him to many places to learn about foods and cultures then she would make him try it.

✩She owns many restaurants around the world. I mean she is quite the chef. Now that she has you to spoil she can feed you all her recipes she has learned over the years.

✩This woman’s body is so fit and beautiful. Even though her body will continue to look the same as the first few years of her being changed.She just loves to workout and move around.

✩Amarande house is straight out of a vampire movie. She has so many things from the past in there. It’s like a museum. If an archaeology came across the inside of her house they would faint.

✩ She is a possessive woman. She doesn’t like people touching you or looking at you too long because she feels just looking at you is a privilege.

✩She smells so good like a soft vanilla and sandalwood and she is very high maintenance. She loves to take care of herself and her lover.

✩When you are sad you better be bprepared for her to bother you. She will suffocate you with love and be very attentive.

✩She likes to stare at you while you do little things. It makes her warm inside. She loves that you are yourself with her and no filter

*Hope you guys like this I’ll be making more of supernatural partners. Ask me anything about them so I can bring my characters more to life.*

[mashithamel]

Rating the Elder Races series:

There are still some novellas I haven’t read yet, but my library doesn’t have them, so I’ll be stopping here for now while reading some other things. This was a superfun series!

17. Serpent’s Kiss (Rune/Carling): Rune can’t get me past the crusty, old vampire who’s trying to retire and die but is also a romantic lead 🤢

16. Peanut Goes to School: manic pixie dream kid gets the better of a teacher-bully. Good for him.

15. Devil’s Gate (Seremela/Duncan): zzzzzzzz I’m happy for them 😴

14. Hunter’s Season (Xanthe/Aubrey): I mean, I came around to them eventually, but kind of an outlier story, both in setting and social status of the leads

13. Dragos Takes a Holiday: it’s cute! But mostly a little filler story.

12. Wicked (Olivia/Sebastian): if this wasn’t fiction, their little workplace romance would have flamed out spectacularly and left their coworkers uncomfortable for months while stuck on a tiny island with them

11. Lord’s Fall: set up for the back half of the series, with great action and some new characters. And then a very silly birth situation.

10. Shadow’s End (Graydon/Bel): practically the definition of angst *chef’s kiss*

9. Midnight’s Kiss (Melly/Julian): I like how they have a lot of fun and laugh together. Shackles in a dungeon don’t hurt either

8. Pia Saves the Day: an amnesia love story between some old favorites

7. Dragon Bound (Pia/Dragos): this was such a great start to the series. Pia’s a great protagonist, Dragos is scary-sexy, and plenty of action.

6. Night’s Honor (Tess/Xavier): Xavier is one of my favorite types—strong, powerful, restrained, thoughtful. Tess is also an interesting character, and I like the slow burn.

5. Oracle’s Moon (Grace/Khalil): Grace, and how she cares for the kids as well as shouldering her financial difficulties, captured my attention as much as Khalil’s.

4. Natural Evil (Claudia/Luis): look, a tough woman and a sex-on-a-popsicle-stick-with-brains guy take out a slavery operation. What’s not to love?

3. True Colors (Alice/Gideon): I am a sucker for a sweet story about mating at first sight, between a rough-around-the-edges cop and a not-at-all-tough girl, where both realize they are home with each other

2. Kinked (Quentin/Aryal): this one single-handedly converted me about enemies-to-lovers, and I was there for every minute of it.

1. Storm’s Heart (Tiago/Niniane): I love everything about this one. It’s funny. It’s sexy. An extremely powerful male sets himself aside to support the woman he loves. It’s all very Lan/Nynaeve and I adore it.