#if that would've made you quit

[vaguely-concerned]

the fact that irving canonically survives through the end of asunder to be at wynne's funeral is so fucking funny to me. nothing but love and respect for MY unstoppable cockroach morally grey machiavellian mage dad!!! he's survived in his position through multiple attempted rites of annulment and blood mage plots popping up left right and center around him. the chantry keeps trying to stamp him out but his dodge game is simply out of this world, divine. civil wars, political machinations and minefields, chantry atrocities, this wily old motherfucker is dodging and weaving his way through it all, not-quite-no-hits-taken-running-it-but-honestly-close-enough-under-the-circumstances style. if solas does succeed in tearing down the veil I would fully believe that one of the like three people still alive at the end of it all would be a very weary 90 year old first enchanter irving going 'oh this shit again huh'. the maker has cursed him for his hubris and his paperwork is never finished (affectionate, it's fine he canonically loves paperwork)

[iristial]

[jinxed-sinner]

I was originally going to post an entire ramble on people saying Sallie May isn't good representation because she doesn't represent them personally but then I found out Morgana Ignis, Sallie May's voice actress who is a trans woman, literally wrote Hell's Belles

anyway Hellaverse fans stop saying representation is bad just because you don't relate to it challenge: impossible (this also applies to Alastor when aroace people are shipping him to explore their identities and Angel Dust btw)

[lucreziaces]

thinking about the dark side of cesare fanning the flames-- or at the very least just not doing anything to stop them-- of the unholy love/desire he and lucrezia felt for each other when he just playfully chased her around the garden after discovering she was watching him fuck another woman, or when he planted the idea that he'd be the only one to care for her heart, or when he implied the love between them was comparable to the love of God, calling it "as all-consuming and pure as the love of God"....an idea she later reflects in season 3 when she says "one touch of your hand and God comes rushing back" (also in the same scene "whatever it is, it overwhelms".) like, yes, okay I do believe lucrezia is probably the one that shifted their relationship into sexual terrority (not on purpose though!!), but cesare is older by a few years. he would've understood it to be wrong before she did, and he could've sat her down at any point in season 1 or 2 and told her "hey, this isn't how brothers and sisters are supposed to feel about each other. we can't lean into whatever this is, okay?" and then made an actual effort to let her go instead of just half-assing it before then immediately beginning the build up of the already thick sexual tension between them until it was unbearable and she was left thinking her husband didn't care about her because he wouldn't sleep with her, so she climbed into cesare's bed and convinced him they should just get it on because no one else could understand them and people already it whisper about them anyway, so "why deny ourselves the pleasure?" very sick and twisted of him. I kinda hate him for it actually. because if he hadn't gone and created this "ideal lover" in lucrezia's head that only he could fit the mold of, she might've found actual happiness with someone else!! 😡 😡

[batsplat]

casey also talks about sepang 2015 what do you think of that

oh in that podcast? uh... lemme listen again...

yeah idk it's not really anything new I'd say? he's said basically all the same stuff in more interesting and extensive ways elsewhere. I think casey inevitably has a very 'well feuding is bad and helps nobody' point of view, has expressed that before in the past, does it here again, and he's also drawn a parallel between himself and marc on several occasions. which... well, of course there's similarities in terms of public discourse or whatever, but the parallel really falls apart whenever casey argues the feuds cost valentino. like, I do think it's sometimes important to just. keep in mind. it's interesting that casey draws this comparison in his mind but that doesn't necessarily means he's right about this. I'm not sure how you'd argue that starting a feud with casey cost valentino anything competitively? you can argue it didn't help him I guess, and then we can have a debate about the ins and outs of the 2008 season. we can also have an argument that in a hypothetical world where casey isn't ill in 2009, valentino doesn't break his leg and casey isn't on a piece of junk in 2010, and valentino isn't on a piece of junk in 2011-12, then actually maybe valentino sparking open animosity with casey COULD have cost him. but we don't know that! didn't happen! I wish we could have found out, but we never got the chance! as it stands, the tally on this is pretty straightforward: casey won the title when things were reasonably civil between them in 2007, and valentino took control of the following season at the exact moment he worsened the relationship between the pair of them in 2008. obviously, it's all more complicated than that and casey would of course argue laguna didn't negatively affect his subsequent performances... but it certainly didn't help them. like, at the very worst valentino escalating tensions in 2008 is a complete net neutral. after 2009, them being bitchy to each other every other tuesday was completely competitively irrelevant beyond maybe affecting how they approached occasionally fighting for a podium position. hey, maybe casey used that feud to fire himself up through sheer spite throughout the later stages of his career, but that doesn't actually support his anti-feud stance - it's basically the exact same thing as what valentino does. they're both quite similar in that regard! always so hungry to prove a point, to show how someone else is wrong. kinda half the point with this feuding business is to get yourself going, get yourself motivated, yeah. he straight up openly admits to using yamaha's repeat rejection of him as a way of giving himself motivation, and at the end of the day that's really not all that different?

anyway, what else does casey say... oh yeah, that him and the other aliens were already kinda prepared for this and had learned vale's tricks. that valentino had only been able to get into the minds of the previous generation. welllllll *wiggles hand* sure, I mean, he did clearly have to change his approach... he couldn't just use the exact same playbook to get to them, either on-track or off-track. but that's why he did change up the playbook... again, whether you want to believe valentino won his final two titles 'in the head' rather than just through pure pace kinda depends on how you assess the evidence, but it is at the very least a debate. and, y'know, it's always worth remembering that valentino's most important mind games with casey didn't happen in a press conference... it was on the track. and the on-track stuff really is just embedded in how valentino approaches winning. speaking of aliens, this is what dani and jorge have said:

like, valentino's entire approach to his riding, even to the way he's setting his bike up, is deliberately about directly fucking with you... he's not actually always trying to be faster than you as much as he's trying to give himself the tools to make your life miserable, to pressure you into mistakes, etc etc... and again, especially with casey (if anything because he was so mentally sturdy), the off-track stuff was really just window dressing. (I know they bicker a lot after 2009 but it's just so fundamentally irrelevant to actual on-track competition.) so you can be aware of those tricks, but it also doesn't necessarily help you when someone's being nasty to you on-track in a way you just fully do not enjoy. which is what it was like for casey! for casey, a lot of this comes back to the truly unpleasant context of how he was perceived by the public, how he was treated as mentally weak or 'broken' or whatever partly because he had the misfortune of coming up against a bloke who had the reputation for breaking rivals. I think it's quite natural to end up with a bit of a hardliner 'actually I've never been mentally affected by a result in my life' stance - and of course casey is a lot tougher than a lot of people give him credit for. that being said. sometimes your rivals affect you, shit happens, it's part of the game. it's fundamentally a nice idea to think that valentino's tactics weren't just morally wrong but also ineffective, which is kind of the appeal of this narrative, right? you want to believe you're above that, you want to believe you were adequately prepared and wise to valentino's tactic. it's unsurprising and understandable that casey does tend to tell the story that way, but again it's *wiggles hand* also hard to describe it as completely factual

uh. what else. oh I'm thrilled casey does canonically know valentino and marc were friends, he has said he wasn't following motogp too much during that time period so you couldn't be sure of that. does this mean anything? does it tell you anything? well, no, but it's just a pleasing thought to me. I like that. oh also 'provoking particularly aggressive riders isn't a good idea' is kinda a funny take from casey? like, he of all people would hate the idea of being cowed by someone's reputation like that... casey's right that provoking fast riders can potentially be dangerous, but y'know I do think that's probably not news to anyone almost nine years later. um. that's all I've got I think

[anaer]

i really do hate jjk

[azems-familiar]

he's tired.

[nomairuins]

sry my beef eith that pastor is unending i fucking hate that guy like ugh . he soent maybe 5 minutes talking abt the actual ppl who actually died and then spent 2 hours just preaching and telling us we were all going to hell. is that how it is at all christian funerals. protestant i think if that means anything.

[jackredfieldwasmyjacob]

regarding felipe vi el kioskero, there's now an origin story for the name btw

english transcript: 'on june 19th of this year felipe vi, popularly known as the kiosk man, celebrated 10 years in the throne of spain. these days on tiktok his nickname is going viral, but well, as the good historian i am, don't worry, i will explain you where does [this nickname] come from. the truth is, although surprising, that at the beginning felipe vi didn't want to be king. when he was a kid he had no motivation to become a king, but he was the only son that his father, king juan carlos i the humble [additional text says 'also known as "the ivory searcher"], had. a real pity, as his sisters, the infantas cristina and elena, would have loved to be queens, especially cristina, who we all know is as humble as her father juan carlos [additional text says 'cristina de borbón sat on the throne of spain']. one of the main values that juan carlos taught to his son was humility, [and so] one of felipe's favourite activities was to escape from zarzuela palace on sundays to go to majadahonda, and his favourite thing to do, as it was for every kid, was to go to a kiosk to buy some football stickers / cards (no idea how to translate cromos honestly). felipe liked so much to go to a kiosk to buy his football stickers [additional text says 'felipe vi when he was 10 in a kiosk (1978)'] and the lemon flavoured calippo that a desire arose within him, that of opening his own kiosk. of course, you could imagine the scandal that that supposed for the royal family. according to the chronicles, the historical sources like the tabloids, this became so big that it became an issue of the state. it's even said that he was threatened to fulfill his role as the prince of asturias. he was forced to choose between the destruction of the sticker of maradona from '82, or the throne of spain. imagine how much he loved and how hard he had worked for that sticker, and still he accepted the throne, giving up on his dream to become a kiosker (is this a word?). however, according to popular rumours, on the first sunday of each month you can find him in majadahonda. however, they say he's always in incognito mode, but well, if you're lucky, you might find him at a kiosk. and, as always, history repeats itself, and the same struggles he made his father go through, now his daughter is doing with him. the thing is, according to some rumours, leonor doesn't want to ascend to the throne, and instead wants to be a tiktoker. it's become so serious that she's already been referred to as leonor i of spain "the tiktoker". whatever, that's why spain is doing like this (i had no better way to translate 'así va españa' sorry)'.

[roobylavender]

i missed that class what dont you like about starlins rendition of their relationship?

(and also like, DID you think he did something in particular well or was it all…meh

the crux of my issues in this regard stems from batman #416. in the post-crisis era you began to see this way more lopsided depiction of bruce and dick's relationship wherein the former was portrayed to be almost.. bitter that dick had moved on to establish his own life. and it stood in great, great contrast to the bruce of the pre-crisis era, who was certainly devastated at the realization that dick was growing up, but also very intent for him to find his own happiness and way in life. they would have their disagreements on occasion (e.g., bruce initially disapproving of dick dropping out of college, bruce immediately taking leadership of a situation where the titans were involved when dick was better equipped to handle it, etc.) but the outcome of those situations was never outright bad yknow. bruce was very much capable of recognizing where he might have overstepped and subsequently stepped back to let dick have his own space. and i think initially max allan collins expanded on that dynamic in the post-crisis era in interesting ways by juxtaposing bruce's desire to see dick flourish against his own constant fear for dick's life. so instead of mike w. barr's comedic and lighthearted backup stories in early 80s tec where bruce disguised himself to keep an eye on dick's shenanigans and assure himself everything was going alright, you got this more serious confrontation within bruce with regards to his position as a parent. i don't think a lot of people read it that deeply but i've always viewed batman #408 as one of the most sensible depictions of that dilemma. the general complaints tend to be that this issue robbed dick of his pre-crisis decision to retire robin on his own, and i'll concede that as a worthwhile concern. but i don't think it's esp damning what with the implication that bruce no longer wants to be the person indirectly making the decision for dick to continue to be in this line of work. their moment at dick's bedside is less about bruce robbing him of the decision and more about him saying, if i let you still be robin, that's a direct reflection on me, bc i'm the one who got you to do all of this originally. i'm the one who put you directly in harm's way. if you're going to do this from now on, you need to do it on your own terms. you need to decide for yourself that this is who you want to be, without your relationship with me even being a factor.

it's a moment contributive to that delicious dynamic between them wherein every decision bruce takes to service dick's agency is inevitably read the wrong way by the latter to imply that he's not valued or not worthy of being seen as bruce's equal (and before the hounds pounce on me this obv does not include the increasingly abusive depiction of their relationship as the 90s progressed). that is an unavoidable dilemma when you're simultaneously someone's ward/adopted son and also their partner-in-crime! dick wants to be bruce's son and to be entitled to all of the love and care and protection that that entails but he also wants to be bruce's brother, his equal, his confidante, the one person he trusts more than anyone else in the world, etc. it's a tough place to be! it is paradoxical! and i'm so, so open to seeing that explored and think the way collins attempted to approach it in #408 was marvelous. but the way starlin (and other writers as well) totally swerved right in #416 to create this sudden resentment in bruce that dick had grown out of needing him was.. so utterly bizarre. like completely out of left field in a way i don't understand why people don't question it anymore bc in light of everything in the immediate fifteen years prior to the crisis it makes so little sense. their relationship with each other was so valued, bruce was so anxious to see dick establish himself while nonetheless maintaining a protectiveness over him, but it was all very much in good will even if he could overstep on occasion. it had all of the potential to allow for a very nuanced, empathetic exploration into the dilemmas of parenthood and esp when you are someone like bruce who has to forever live and contend with the crime of taking kids with him out onto the streets. bc he has to feel guilty! there is no escaping it. this is history, done and dusted forever, can't go back in time, so on and so forth. whatever harm comes any robin's way he has to live with as in some part being traceable back to his own actions. and i frankly believe that would be far more likely to evoke grief and anxiousness and concern than it would be bitterness that his son is charting out his own life

[yakny]

ARE YOU READY TO LET YOUR HEART REST AMONGST THE EVERLASTING, MY LITTLE CHAMPIÑON FRIEND?

[piedoesnotequalpi]

The temptation to write a vent fic about the disaster that was how set strike was run is very strong

[timegears-moved]

hellooooo, totk rant anon here again! i'm not feeling so good right now so words hard, but i can't just not send in an ask when you've gotten to the terrako credits/true end and the dlc, both of which i love dearly!

fun dub fact: depending on which language you're listening to the terrako revival cutscene in, revali either chuckles at terrako's antics OR sighs in relief. honestly not sure which one i prefer because both options are really sweet?? good revali moment either way!

and yeah!! revali's part in the credits is still incredibly cute!! though i also love the champion's ballad reference at the end. it's got to be a reference because the characters' positions match the final champion's ballad cutscene almost perfectly. (except for all the other characters being there, of course. special shoutout to rudania climbing all over hyrule castle and no one doing anything about it. they're gonna wake ganondorf up 100 years early if they're not careful.)

and now... the dlc. it's got quite possibly The best revali content in the game (the ultimate proof that he's good with kids! and he glances at teba right before he starts laughing too so it seems like he might have caught on to the fact that teba was worried about tulin making a good impression with him and did it on purpose to lighten the mood...) but having played that prior to totk's release definitely made my disappointment about revali not being referenced at all worse. there was so much buildup in that one cutscene for tulin's role in totk ('someday i'll master the great eagle bow', 'it won't be long before you're master of the wind just like me', etc.) that it definitely felt like totk dropped the ball there in particular.

anyway, on a more positive note, there's actually a compilation on youtube of all dubs of that cutscene if you are interested in that! (or if you just want to hear teba awkwardly try to pretend he's coughing and not laughing and/or revali & company laughing their heads off in 6 different languages.)

aaaaaa i hope you feel better soon anon <333 take care of yourself!!

OH MY GOD??????? i just tried listening to the japanese version and it's a little hard to tell with the others laughing but i think???? i can hear it???????? you're right though regardless it's very sweet either way. revali being secretly nice is gonna fucking kill me.

and yeah when i was watching it i saw how the positions perfectly matched the picture from the champion's ballad perfectly!!! also what the fuck rudania hasn't hyrule castle been through enough recently jahdghdwohwhd

part of me wants to say that the reason revali is so soft on terrako is because he views it as a little kid. honestly shout out to aoc for making "revali has a huge soft spot for kids" canon because i saw it being tossed around in fanon a few times before aoc came out so to see it fully realized is kinda insane. also i noticed that he glances over at teba right after tulin thanks him and it comes across like a nervous glance?? like he's not used to the praise?????? and god i knooooow totk was such a huge disappointment in this regard. not mentioning him was already bad enough but retconning his legacy to be about a sage who you would literally have to hold me at gunpoint to force me to care about is actually horrific to me.

watching it rn!! teba trying to stifle his laugh is so goddamn funny (also i love how that aoc got writing young kids right with how funny and cute tulin is).

[outeremissary]

Ohh Balthazar and Daeran. Somone ask that already, right? 😂

(for the alternate love interest)

Well, someone did ask that... in 2021, two weeks before Wrath released. My college friends noticed some conspicuous similarities between Balthazar and what we all knew about Daeran at the time, haha. You'll have to forgive me for working with imperfect knowledge even now- you know about the status of me and Wrath.

Despite the obvious resonances, I feel like I don't have a straightforward answer! I do think there's a lot of chemistry there. Balthazar would enjoy Daeran's sense of humor and his lavish lifestyle, and I think Daeran would appreciate his playful wit and sharpness in turn. They both have a similar cynicism about the world that would be an easy point to bond over, and they're both beautiful people- surely there is attraction there (I say with asexual confidence). I can easily see there being a spark that drew them to one another very quickly. There's even some empathy I imagine Balthazar would feel with Daeran's position and struggle with the Other.

Balthazar prefers to be the one doing the courting, but he's no stranger to having admirers. When Daeran began to make his grander romantic overtures I think it would be generally amusing or flattering, so long as he didn't feel belittled or made the subject of a joke (and his moods on these things can be somewhat capricious). If nothing else, the scandal would bring a smile to his face. He might make a game out of answering with gestures of his own. The thrill and romance of such a game would, I think, be compelling to Daeran. But I think it might be unfortunate for Daeran if he did truly fall for Balthazar...

You see, Daeran is someone who would feel very familiar to Balthazar. His lifestyle, his style of romance, his way of seeing the world... they're all not far from the types of patrons Balthazar found for himself when he still lived in Absalom. He had a talent for insinuating himself into the lives of the idle young rich, latching onto people who were naive or morally curious enough to always be seeking exotic, scandalous, or dangerous thrills. Many of Balthazar's former friends and lovers did have casually cruel personalities the same way that Daeran does at times. So there's a script for dealing with these people, and there's a thing that one gets out of being involved with them: access to power and wealth. Balthazar's never been above using sex or romance to pull himself up the social ladder. A count who's already so careless with his position? That's an opportunity for anyone smart enough to find a way to use it. Even if he did have some genuine fondness for Daeran, that would always be lurking somewhere under the surface or at the back of his mind- along with the reason he was forced to leave Absalom for the north in the first place, and the dangers of being too close with people like the Count Arendae.

I have to imagine it would be terribly devastating for Daeran to learn of such schemes were he invested in the relationship. Learning the one you cared for was really only using you, that everything really was only a game? I'm sure the end of that would be devastating. Not that Balthazar would care all that much. Though at the same time, Balthazar's good at hiding, and he really would enjoy spending time with together. So perhaps he would never be discovered after all.

At any rate, I don't think it's a relationship that would significantly change either person involved whether it lasted or not (well, maybe it could change Daeran for the worse). Balthazar would love to encourage Daeran's worst impulses to see where they go, and he might break his heart along the way. It's all a game- he can be with Daeran and be fond of him and even kill for him without any particular remorse (Liotr would absolutely not survive this), but he could never be Daeran's true love, the person Daeran can rely on through everything. Perhaps something lesser can still be satisfying, but it seems a hollow satisfaction for all involved. And Daeran is so much like the sorts of people Balthazar has known and courted in the past- it would be more like falling back into old habits than anything. Daeran can be as loving and as lovely as you could possibly imagine, but without something more challenging than a romantic streak, he'll never reach be able to make something truly special with Balthazar. But it will be fun while it lasts, won't it?

[singsweetmelodies]

11, 5 and 21?

hiiii there! thanks so much for this ask :DD let's do it! <33

11. Do either try to hide their emotions if upset? Can the other still tell?

oh. the italicised oh, in fact. you see -- this question makes me feel very 🥺🫶 because i actually wrote my first-ever f1 fic more or less about this. i'm talking about this fic right here, and i think the fic says it better than i possibly could at 11pm in the evening, but here's the long and the short of it for you, anyway. i wrote that fic as a character study of pierre and charles after a shit race (*coughs in monaco 2022*) and i wanted to look at how they handle their disappointment post-race. specifically how they help each other handle it. what i came up with was this: charles prefers to live in the moment, and compartmentalise his emotions, and push them down very effectively. he hides his emotions, yes - from himself, as well. he doesn't let himself feel them, because he just wants to focus on the next race, and can't bear to be distracted. pierre, though. pierre overthinks, and gets too caught up and overwhelmed in his emotions, to the point where he can't hide them.

this is where i think they play off each other so fantastically. since they've known each other so long, they truly understand each other. pierre knows how charles gets when he's upset, and vice versa. so i feel like pierre would encourage charles to let it out, to let himself feel the anger and rage and disappointment, and actually process it instead of just hiding and compartmentalising. in contrast, charles would be there to pull pierre out of his head when he needs it - to let him know that no, it's okay now, he can let it go and just be in the moment with charles instead.

so yeah, to answer the question: i think that they both handle their emotions very differently when they're upset (charles by hiding it, and pierre by not being able to hide it.) and yes, they can both tell when the other is upset. for sure. what's more, they've known each other for long enough - and trusted each other for long enough - that they know how to help each other, and be there for each other, too. always. ❤️💙

5. Describe their cozy night in.

answered here 💕

21. Who would get into a fight to defend the other's honour? Who tends to the other's wounds?

answered here ⚔

(obligatory otp asks)

[helianskies]

oh my god interpreting is stressful what have i done to myself