OT3: casey stoner/his neuroses/the concept of valentino rossi that mostly exists in casey’s head
y'know I have this casey stoner... idk what it is. thematic mind map (literal), let's say, that I like fiddling with and adding things to when the mood hits me. and it does always strike me just how many of his struggles during his careers and issues with the sport can in some way be linked back to the valentino rivalry
casey's sense of isolation? super valentino related. casey's feelings of cultural alienation in a paddock dominated by europeans? even when it's not really related to valentino, casey is the one linking those two things together. casey's issues with other riders not being respectful enough on track? very obviously repeatedly about valentino. casey's discomfort with the performance and entertainment-related aspects of the sport? more valentino. casey feeling treated unfairly by the manufacturers, the media, the marshals, the fans.... keeps coming back to valentino. casey's mystery illness really shouldn't be as relevant to the rivalry as it is, but somehow through this combination of public discourse and whatever comparisons casey's brain is cooking up at any moment in time... there valentino is again
one of the most charming things about valentino's feuds is that in each and every single one, both participants end up being deeply weird about each other? just keep knocking off these banger quotes about the other where you read them and go. hm. what's going on there then. I don't want to make it sound like I think casey is the worst offender with this (not when marc and valentino have their whole thing going on, bidirectionally)... but I do think he's the most susceptible to conflating his valentino issues with like... everything else that was going on in his career. to the extent where his alienation with the sport as a whole, his extreme disillusionment from everything related to motogp, really cannot be meaningfully disentangled from the valentino rivalry. at times it feels like, to casey, valentino literally is the sport. and that's the thing casey dedicated his whole life to!! which means you do inevitably end up regularly going 'wow there's a lot to unpack'. add in a dash of neuroticism...
and yeah you're so right anon!! the neuroses are what end up creating the version of valentino that mostly exists in casey's head, a version that casey is just a touch obsessed with. I always think it's interesting how aware casey is that he doesn't know valentino as a person - and to the extent casey does know him, he gets on pretty well with him... but valentino the person isn't all that relevant to him. it's valentino the character who matters - and can you even really know a character? in the end, all casey can do is rely on his own understanding of that character, as imperfect as it is. and, well, in a way casey is trapped with that character forevermore. if one man comes to embody a sport to such an extent and if that sport has been your life's work, how can you not be a little bit trapped? as he tries to make his peace with the sport and his experiences within it, so too has casey settled on a narrative of valentino that helps him make sense of it all... a very specific understanding of his rival that casey has shaped in his mind and still trots out now when he sells his own version of events to the media. casey learned from valentino, casey learned to be a little more like valentino, casey learned to fight valentino with his own tools, casey tells himself a story of that fight. he still continues to do so - and in the end he will never be entirely free of valentino
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I truly think mxtx’s intention was to set up a romance where wangxian’s appeal was one being a righteous cultivator and the other being one that fell from grace and how society and perception
both their own perception of each other/themselves and how others view them
was the thing keeping them apart and how they were going to overcome both these things
very pride and prejudice
and that IS what happened
but I think what she ended up with was something more romeo and Juliet - where the story is toted as a romance but underneath that it’s a tragedy, and the ending of mdzs is just too tragic bc the only ones who are arguably happy at the end are wangxian when the cast is so FULL
and full of people who only got unhappy endings or death
that last ramble got me thinking maybe we, the readers, have been looking at mdzs the wrong way. maybe mdzs is meant to be a tragedy and it just got popular as a romance. but I think I read or heard somewhere once that that’s the appeal of Chinese romances - a tragic ending with the implication that the lovers will be happy together in the next life
I hope it's okay that I combined the two Asks since they're so closely related! (Also--and this goes to everyone--if you're messaging me not on anon and prefer an answer privately rather than on the blog, lmk!)
This is interesting to consider, because my own issue is the opposite, I think: it's not that there are too many tragic elements in the happy romance, but that there's too much silly goofy trope stuff in the tragedy! I love tragedy. All my favorite works are tragedies! My all-time favorite TV show is S1 of The Terror, which tells us in the title card that every guy on the expedition is going to die miserably. I don't want everyone to die miserably in every work of fiction, obviously, but it's tragedy and/or hard-fought happiness that sticks with me.
So with the novel... yeah, all this tragedy happens, but it feels to me that it's pushed aside whenever it's in danger of harshing Wangxian's squee. I've already talked a bunch about Novelxian's past not seeming to impact him overmuch, in which case: why do it? Why do any of the plot itself, really, since nothing involving NMJ's murder has anything to do with Wangxian beyond NHS's prodding of MXY? Why have this elaborate tragedy of conflicting loyalties and betrayal and emotional devastation if we're just going to go "huh! well, that wraps that up!" and not engage with the fallout?
R&J's a good comparison, not because R&J isn't a tragedy (it for sure is!), but because R&J also has a lot of stuff going on and people like to argue about whether it's REALLY a romance or not. And like... it is. Of course it is. Romeo and Juliet's relationship is the relationship the text prioritizes. We aren't really meant to question the two of them prioritizing each other above all else. There are other themes going on there--to me personally, the play is a tragedy of adults failing children, because none of this would have happened if literally ANY adult had responsibly supported these kids--but the play is a tragic romance first and foremost.
But unlike MDZS, R&J doesn't skip on past the damage to other characters. Mercutio's death singlehandedly switches the play's genre from comedy to tragedy. Juliet continually struggles with the fact that Romeo killed Tybalt, even though Tybalt started it and he and Juliet don't have a relationship in the text. The play even spares some moments of reflection for Paris, even though literally nobody cares about Paris. Contrast all that with WQ and JYL barely being mentioned after their deaths, or LXC's seclusion being a nonissue. MDZS feels more like one of those weird problem plays, where a ~happy ending~ happens after so much messed-up shit that you're left going ????
MORE EMPHASIS ON THE TRAGEDY SO THE HAPPINESS FEELS BETTER, BASICALLY
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falin and marcille are white women dgmr but sometimes you all are drawing them too white ykwim....
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Here's some drawn sketches of Energy Drink Cookies when they're first baked! They're usually artists right out of the oven, but they may indulge in paintball matches if they are particularly rambunctious. Huhu
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They honestly need to get rid of "delay wash" option on dishwashers. I doubt anybody actually uses it, and it's only there because Boomers will bitch if you take any feature whatsoever away (even bad ones).
Anyways, my mom keeps hitting "delay start" instead of "start" when she loads the machine, and I keep waking up to dirty dishes and wasted soap (since it leaks out of the receptacle). Despite the real start button being massively different from the other. And she has run thing thing enough before to know which is which by now, which only adds to my fear of her mental aging.
Maybe I should get some black duct tape and adhere it over the text? Although that just causes her to complain too, asking a billion questions why something like that is there, and then refusing to believe her own actions.
She said something the other day about a former co-worker who retired due to dementia, how it "must be awful to be slipping, but not even be able to see your own decline, not even when other people point it out to you, and everyone else has to suffer for it while cleaning up after you". Not realizing that applies to her perfectly too.
I know this is such a little thing, but it's also not something mentally healthy people do more than once, or more than on the rarest of occasions (like when drunk). And even then, you wake up the next morning and are like "oh wow I'm a dumbass lol", and proceed to run the missed cycle. Instead of nearly breaking into tears and having an actual anxiety attack (shaking, crying, ready to throw up) because turning the machine off and then back on again is too much for you to comprehend in that moment.
Yes, my mom's mental health is concerning me again. Last time it was her low thyroid hormone, but to possibly need another dose adjustment so quickly is concerning. If it's even that at all.
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