#psychological deep dive

[goodwomanbadlady]

So Aziraphale is in Heaven, Crowley is unspecified. The humans from S1 have vague fuzzies, Most of the humans from S2 have the same. But we know that Nina at least and possibly Maggie as well (not convinced one way or another on Maggie's humanity) have at least some more distinct memories of the situations they experienced. I'm basing that on Nina being aware of the party behavior of the shopkeepers. The control doesn't seem as strong with her.

Anyway, if Nina (& Maggie?) have more distinct memories of what went down, I'm wondering about their current existential crisis. Every story I've read so far seems to gloss over their acceptance of the situation with their personalities, but I'm guessing they wouldn't be the first humans (by a long shot) that our beings have revealed themselves to and left aware (at least in part) of their true natures and what that would mean for humanity. Confirmation of a Christian eternity, but oh wait, heaven's not great and hell is exactly as described. So eternal torment is a certainty in one form or another. Not to mention, bringing another element to the predestination vs. free will debate we already see in Aziraphale and Crowley.

It would be interesting to see a theological debate or simply a discourse on how (if it were real and as depicted in GO) that particular brand of knowledge would affect a living human, or two. I've seen a few where Nina does freak out but I'm curious that if neither Aziraphale or Crowley is there to answer any questions, what would that mental tornado look like? If Maggie does remember more clearly, like I believe Nina does, what would that do to their relationship? There are obviously multiple scenario possibilities. I've just not seen that being explored. Possibly because Aziraphale and Crowley are already written to be so human like that we are still playing with that, but there are some really interesting deep dives to be done with some other characters.

This just came to me, but the possibility of Mr. Brown (an admittedly very apt name) finding out he has a pash on an actual angel. And then a later reveal of Crowley's true nature. His reactions would be well worth the read.

If these fics are out there and I'm just not aware of them, please please comment fic recs!

[headspacedad]

Parasocial relationships in East Asia: A look into obsession

[handledwithgloves]

someone was all like 'it's so ooc that in fics harry is the messy one and draco is the clean freak bc harry was raised to clean up after himself and others while draco never lifted a finger in his entire life' and i completely agree!!

harry would keep his general living space, kitchen, and bathroom clean and then his bedroom (mostly his bed) would be a bit of an organized mess. like things would be placed what seems to be randomly, but to harry it makes sense. yknow what i mean lol

draco would hate mess but he wouldn't know how to go about taking care of it, so he'll just cover it up or ignore it. stain on the floor? put a new decor over it, problem solved. clothes not folding itself? hide it in the furniture. like yes he'll keep things neat and in logical places like his stationary is distinctly placed and memorized on his desk but don't ask him about his bathroom, bed room or living space. he doesn't use his kitchen.

[dremiruu]

ok theres some apple white discourse on here lately so as the self appointed biggest apple white defender i'm just gonna include parts of an unfinished essay i have sitting in my drafts and leave it at that

[yuseirra]

children

[queer-whatchamacallit]

Thinking about one Natalie “Sugar” Berzatto

How Mikey’s flighty, unreliable behavior and eventual exit from the family reflects their dad while Carmy’s temper and obsession with making something to be enjoyed by others reflect their mom, Sugar doesn’t emulate either of them

How Mikey, Richie, and Carmy all had careers in restaurants, but she just never understood it. Why would they want to be surrounded by the thing that made their mother so miserable and later surrounded by reminders of their dead brother?

How she tries so hard to reach out to everyone and make sure they’re doing okay and just try to help, but she doesn’t know how, and there’s some kind of disconnect there that she has no idea how to get past

She feels like she’s from a completely different world than everyone else, but she’s trying so hard to help and to understand, but it’s all blowing up in her face, and she doesn’t get why

[thechosenanubis]

Nina is actually a better person than people give her credit for. Like at the beginning of S1, I had the same scenario with Patricia happen to me: new girl at a new school, trying to make friends, and this other girl in my class didn't like my ~vibes~ or whatever and started saying nasty stuff and trying to isolate me. (thankfully in my case no close friends were kidnapped by secret societies in search for eternal life 💀 ) So not only i can sympathize with her situation, but even relate to it.

And what I don't see talked about enough is ( or if people did, I haven't seen those posts) calling out Patricia's behavior for what it really was: bullying. Keep in mind here, that I understand where Patricia's behavior is coming from, since she's being gaslit like crazy. But that still doesn't make her behaviour towards Nina acceptable or excusable.

And I wouldn't have blamed Nina if she refused to accept Patricia's apology, because is not a victim's responsability ( only their choice) to forgive their bully.

Still, Nina forgave Patricia because she's good like that ( and probably didn't want to break the already fragile ecosystem of the house with more hostility even if it was within her right to keep a grudge and refuse Patricia's apology. )

What i'm trying to say, Nina is a good person, flawed but good.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

[pluraldeepdive]

Results of a casual survey I hosted on reddit, discord, and uquiz. The majority of participants (54 out of 56) did not identify as a system or plural, so here's all the non-plural data. I will be hosting the same survey again later for only plurals/systems so we can get a nice comparison. Hope you guys find this info interesting!

[voidedgear]

HC: Emotional Dysregulation

Vanitas is an extremely emotional person. He’s literally made from the negativity and darkness that used to occupy Ventus’s heart. The Unversed are literally Vanitas’s emotions come to life and there are a WHOLE LOT OF THEM populating the worlds at the time of Birth by Sleep. He can’t control their creation, it’s something that happens spontaneously as he feels something.

And when he does try to prevent his Unversed from spawning, they find other ways to escape from him…

The moment he entered the darkness between, Vanitas dropped to his knees and clutched his chest. It hurts. Ugh, I feel awful. I’m gonna throw up. Vanitas tore off his mask and cast it aside. Beneath the mask was a raven-haired boy, his face twisted in agony as sweat beaded on his brow. Unable to bear it any longer, Vanitas vomited on the spot and spat out a black mass. The mass twitched, and a red eye rose up on it, glinting. It was trying to become one of them. Vanitas smashed it with a fist, and the inky lump splattered and dispersed like mist.

— (Birth by Sleep Novel, Chapter 9)

Feeling deeply is not a bad thing, especially within the context of Kingdom Hearts. Sora is able to save others precisely because he feels so deeply and openly for other people. But therein lays the difference between Sora and Vanitas. Sora feels for other people and Vanitas’s emotions are all self-centered. Sora will take on the burden of pain for others and Vanitas will stop at nothing to ensure that his own pain stops at the expense of harming other people.

Not that wishing for an end to one’s own pain makes someone a monster. It’s the fact that Vanitas does not often care what he does to other people.

Vanitas also struggles with impulse control. That’s the whole reason for that first fight he has against Ventus in BBS, and why he shows up in the Land of Departure. Despite the fact that he and Xehanort had planned to wait for Ventus to grow stronger in BBS, despite the fact that Xehanort wanted to use Ventus as one of the Lights in KH3… Vanitas saw an opportunity to get what he wanted and he took it. Xehanort even scolds him about it in the novel.

[Master Xehanort] noticed a disturbance in the air behind him and the masked boy, Vanitas, appeared. Without turning around, Master Xehanort reprimanded him. “That wasn’t part of the plan.”

— (Birth by Sleep Novel, Chapter 3)

Vanitas struggles with controlling his impulsivity, controlling his emotions, and controlling his circumstances. In fact, Vanitas spends a significant amount of time feeling as if he has no control over any part of himself. The negativity that creates Unversed is cyclical. The more Vanitas feels, the more Unversed he creates, and the less he feels in control. This lead to him lashing out at the Unversed early on, killing them as they were born.

But all this did was cause him to feel whatever pain he had inflicted on them, which caused him to feel worse and create more Unversed—and so the cycle continued. By the end of BBS, however, Vanitas has come to accept his Unversed as part of him.

Hate, sadness, fear, jealousy, panic, suffering, envy, anxiety, pain, despair. I embrace them all. Y’know, I may not have friends the way Ventus does, but I forgot about all of you. You were always with me, from the moment I was born.

— (Birth By Sleep Novel, Chapter 12)

Vanitas achieves a kind of self-acceptance with his Unversed. He no longer destroys them and accepts them for what they are.

However, just because Vanitas has accepted his Unversed and his emotions does not mean he is… regulating them very well. Vanitas’s mood swings are often powerful and he has virtually no control of them in the moment. They leave him feeling exhausted and irritable. Vanitas struggles to calm himself down and can be destructive toward objects and others when his anger is stoked.

He has trouble defining what he wants and separating it from how he feels. This comes up most consistently with Ventus, Terra, and Aqua. Vanitas is angry at Ventus for denying him the chance to become whole, he hates him, but he also feels lonely without him.

Wish I could be numb like [Ventus], too. We used to be one, so why did we have to get separated? I’d probably feel a little better, at least, if we were together again.

— (Birth by Sleep Novel, Chapter 10)

He hates Terra and Aqua for what they mean to Ventus because a part of him desires that they care about him, too. After all, he spent a very long time watching them all through Ventus’s eyes. He was bound to grow at least a little attached. A little jealous of the way Terra gave him that Keyblade, the way Aqua would bake them treats…

Vanitas also tends to oscillate between extreme self-aggrandizement and severe devaluation of himself (Vanitas’s feelings toward Ventus tend to follow this pattern as well). Vanitas is both the hottest thing since sliced bread and the most miserable creature to crawl out of the dusty cracks of the Keyblade Graveyard.

Of course I should hate my existence. You've hated yourself too, haven't you? I hated you, Ventus. I tried to merge with you, and for a moment I faded away. Did I really hate you? Or was that hatred really directed at myself? It doesn't matter anymore.

— KH Character Files (Vanitas)

In conclusion, Vanitas is…

A Mess.

Basically.

[batsplat]

so in assen 2004 comms talk about how valentino helped melandri with riding yamaha A Lot, and how they are two great friends. and indeed those two have known each other since childhood/or at least their teens right? (seen a lot of their photos w matching terrible dye jobs) but then fast forward to 2010 and melandri is going full conspiracy theorist about the freaking chair affghhhkgjk. like what happened here? is it any interesting or is it like mostly one sided bitterness from melandri or something. like that can’t really be about 2005 season for vale bc come on melandri wasn’t his main rival that year.

even if it’s not interesting feud or drama wise it is another friendship that vale had (and unlike w sete vale&melandri go way back) that eventually fell apart as a result of competing in motogp…….hm

yeah, we don't actually have a great sense of what happened there! it's funny the coldness seems to have crept in during the 2005 season specifically, because I'm very much with you here on the 'come on valentino why bother' stance - melandri was aggressively not a proper title contender that season and really not even the main on-track rival... but actually I do think this fits in rather nicely within my sete thesis, which we'll get to. the subsequent public bitterness has been entirely one-sided, with melandri occasionally saying something kinda mean-spirited about valentino in recent years and valentino... not doing any of that

anyhow, they definitely WERE close, which was hammered home not just through repeated mentions by the commentators but also when you read the columns he was dictating every race for mat oxley in his early years. here, from his 250cc days:

mugello 1998

I wasn’t so confident before Mugello because while I was at home I played football and lost, I played tennis and lost, I rode motocross and lost. The only thing I won was minicars – I am the champion! We got beaten in a five-a-side soccer match, six-one, then a friend beat me at tennis, six-one, then Marco [Melandri] beat me at motocross. I’m always fighting with Marco on motocross but he’s faster than me. I’m getting better though – at the start of the year he’d beat me by five or six seconds, now it’s only one or two. I have much fear when I ride motocross because I’m not good at flying. We don’t go crazy; it would be stupid to get hurt doing that. Motocross is great for my muscle power though. I don’t go the gym much in the summer because I want to be outside, so motocross is perfect.

paul ricard 1998

As usual, my break between Mugello and France was full of battles with my friends! First we played football and my team won on penalties. I scored the winner. I never make a mistake from the penalty spot. Next day I did motocross with Melandri and he beat me, as usual, but we had some very funny races. Then I raced with Melandri again, but with electric cars. He’s bought a Honda NSX – it’s fast. Before I left for France we raced minimoto at a track in Rimini. There were about 20 of us: me, Melandri and a load of fast, young Italian riders. We had a lot of really crazy battles. Lots of fun! I don’t think it’s dangerous because the bikes aren’t so fast, maybe 60kp/h. I had some big fights with Melandri, we hit each other all the time – BANG! BANG! BANG! – and we crashed together maybe two or three times.

madrid 1998

I’m doing motocross three times a week now to help build up strength, but Melandri is still faster than me, so I’ve started practising in secret. I get dressed into my motocross gear, then ring him to tell him we don’t need to ride today, then do a few hours riding in secret! Soon I will be faster than him! Anyway, I beat him in minimoto before we went to Jarama.

assen 1998

“Hooray, finally I am first on a 250! It was the day of the teenager at Assen, the Italian teenager! I was so happy when my friend Melandri won the 125 race, so it was fantastic to go out and win the 250. A perfect day, except Marco and me couldn’t party on Saturday night, because I flew home to celebrate with my friends, while he stayed at Assen. I guess we’ll make sure we have a beer together before Donington.

donington 1998

We had our own paddock World Cup at Donington on Thursday, which was really shit, because we played three games and lost three games. I played in the Italian team with Melandri, Boscoscuro, Scalvini, Locatelli, Borsoi and Carpani. First we played the Suzuki 500 team and lost, then we played Team Rainey and lost, and finally we played Dorna, and lost. Dorna were all Spanish and very good. But the games weren’t so much fun because the pitch was tiny and really bumpy. Last year we had the paddock World Cup at Imola on a full-size pitch, and I scored twice. Nice!

sachsenring 1998

Now we have a four-week holiday before Brno, but I’m going to spend most of my time on the beach near my home – it’s sunny and the girls are nice, that’s all I need! But I am going away for one week – a racers’ holiday with Loris Reggiani, Roberto Locatelli and Melandri. We’re going to Tunisia to mess about with jet skis and fast boats. Should be a lot of fun!

sepang 1999

The winter was fun. Usually I don’t like the winter because it’s too cold, but where I live, near the Adriatic coast, there are so many people in the summer. That didn’t used to be a problem, but now everyone recognises me, so it’s Rossi! Rossi! Rossi! all the time. I don’t like it! I spent a lot of time with my friends, as that’s when I’m happiest. We went skiing a few times, a big gang of us. Mad! Snowboarding is more fashionable nowadays but I’m faster on skis, so it’s better! Melandri came with me once, he’s my best mate in the paddock, plus Alessandro Brannetti, a new Italian 125 guy.

mugello 1999

Before Mugello I spent some time at home, riding my 250 road bike and going motocrossing. I have a new motocross bike at home, but I can’t tell you what it is, because it’s not an Aprilia! But it’s a lot of fun on the new motocross track I’ve built behind a friend’s house. I dug the ground myself with a JCB digger we hired. I have designed the track to be safe for me, because modern motocross tracks have near-vertical take-off jumps, which are very dangerous if you don’t have good control in the air. And I don’t! So I’ve built low and fast jumps which I can take in fourth or fifth gear and be safe. Big fun! I’m looking forward to racing my friend Melandri, who hasn’t been doing motocross since he broke his wrist in Malaysia.

sachsenring 1999

Now we have a four-week holiday, hooray! All I really want to do is sleep. During the break last year I went to Tunisia with a bunch of friends like Melandri, but all I want to do now is stay home and rest. My home is near a holiday resort anyway, near the Adriatic Sea, but to be honest I don’t like the sea so much. I prefer snow...”

argentina 1999

I already have some plans for the winter. The World Championship may have finished, but I already have two more races over the next few weeks. No rest yet! First is the X Race at Misano. This is a special event for GP and world Superbike riders. I’m racing go-karts, motocross and cars with [Carl] Fogarty, Melandri, Capirossi, Harada and a lot of other guys. They ran this event for the first time last year and I won it. It’s only fun of course but I want to win again because winning is always important. Then at the end of November I’m doing a car rally at Monza.

so yeah, clearly close buddies! I'm sure there's more out there about their friendship, but I've never been that invested in digging into the details lol. about the collapse of the relationship... well, there's this from the barker biography, which kinda lumps melandri into a generic section about valentino's rivals:

Marco Melandri, who had been a close friend of Rossi's for years before he started winning races in 2005, noted the same shift in attitude: 'When I started to race well with him he changed a lot. When we were growing up we were very good friends. Valentino plays games with everybody... the way he talked to the media - he tries to never say something good about you.'

in 2007, after valentino had finally lost a title fight (and was in the process of losing another), there's another oxley column where a few key figures like his teammate edwards, his rival hayden, and his crew chief jb were asked about what made valentino so good. and valentino's crew chief jb was kind enough to give his own take on the melandri dynamic:

“He only uses mind games when people make a serious challenge, then he pulls out that extra tool in his armoury, which he did with Max, with Sete and to a lesser degree with Marco. Then there’s Loris, who is also serious challenge, but there’s a different understanding between them, there’s a respect. When I first worked with Valentino he was mates with Marco. Whenever there was a dinner or a party, Marco was always there. When Marco came to MotoGP it was still fine, then when there was any sort of a challenge their friendship cooled off a bit."

and then by 2010 you get melandri be like. full yellow chair conspiracy theorist. now, he also mentions how his own celebrations were received, and we do actually have jorge himself give his review of said celebrations a few years earlier (x, x):

I don't really have a point here, I just think it's funny

whereas from valentino's side.... well, there's really not much. his autobiography goes until the end of 2004 and is published in 2005 - so if melandri was already a 'proper' rival when the book was finalised, it will have been a very recent thing... but there's literally one reference to melandri in the whole thing, and it's something generic to do with the yamaha's development. valentino himself has said pretty much fuck all about this friendship falling apart. it's a bit frustrating because... when melandri says that valentino tries never to say anything good about you in the media - look, that's probably referring to something substantive, but we don't really know what exactly valentino supposedly said. we just have to take melandri at his word.... when you go that far back, it's a lot trickier to hunt down specifics if it's not a big news story, if there's not been a major controversy

you do have this from mid 2005:

"No. I think this is not true," replied Rossi, when asked if he deliberately avoided friendships with his closest rivals. "With Melandri, when this year he start to go fast, especially the Italian journalists, try to put some bad things between us - to make fight like what happened between Biaggi and Doohan. "But I go to speak to Melandri after Shanghai, on the podium, because I say one thing and the Italian journalists they modify and say to him another thing - and also the same journalists come to me and make the same. "I know Marco from minibikes when we were friends - we've been friends for more than ten-years - so I try to keep a good relationship because I don't like a bad relationship with anybody," he insisted. "For sure I have had a bad relationship with Biaggi and Gibernau but I don't think that is the right result."

now, according to the article, there were already rumours at the time that the relationship had grown colder that year. which is mainly funny insofar as valentino had quite literally double melandri's points - and the latter still hadn't won a race. again. what's the point

which, well. I do think jb's mention of capirossi is kinda interesting, as another rival valentino had known forever and one who wasn't like. dramatically less likely than melandri to end up a serious challenger to valentino, beyond being a bit older already. jb mentions they have an "understanding", a "respect" between the two of them... it's also maybe worth bringing in what hayden, the man who had actually managed to beat him in 2006, had to say about valentino for the same oxley piece:

“I can’t say it’s just his approach that makes him good. Some guys take their racing real serious, others are really laid back, it’s whatever works for that rider. But regardless of whatever he does he definitely gets around the track fast, that’s what’s most important. “One thing I noticed when we were team-mates is that he looks like it’s fun, fun, fun, he definitely cuts up a lot, but once you’re in the garage that dude is so serious, so focused. Everything seems perfect, right down to the windscreen sticker and the colour of his boots. He doesn’t overlook anything and I think that’s a big part of it. “More than anything it’s the racer in him that makes him so strong, it’s obvious the guy wants to win. He’s got a lot of natural talent but I know a lot of guys with natural talent and it gets some guys in trouble. It’s the whole package that makes him strong: the desire, the focus, the talent. “I think sometimes maybe he’s not as laidback as he comes across. He knows what to say and when to say it to make it look like things aren’t really getting to him. He knows how to play it, on the bike and off the bike. “It’s hard to say what he’s like with mind games because I can only comment on how he’s been with me and I’ve never seen him play any games with me, especially last year when he was taking chunks out of my points lead. The guy didn’t really change, maybe he just knew that I wasn’t going to roll over. Maybe some of the guys he can break down mentally, maybe he knew it wasn’t going to get to me. “Him and JB (Jeremy Burgess) haven’t won all those titles just through his riding, they know how to play people, they know how to play their cards, when to show their hand, when not to show their hand. I don’t think he plays as many games as other guys – you don’t need to play a lot of games when you can ride like that.“ "On track sure he’s aggressive but he’s totally clean and he definitely has a lot of tactics. He knows when he wants to race just one guy, how to separate groups, how to slow down. Like Phillip Island in 2005 I was on him the whole race and he eventually saw that he wasn’t going to get away, so he slowed down, brought the next group up to us to get me caught up with them, then tried to make another break. He’s got a lot of race craft. “I’d say his biggest strength is that he can adapt. If the tyres go off and he needs to slide he can slide, when the bike need to be ridden in line he can ride in line, he can definitely adapt to situations. I can’t say there’s one area of his riding where he just kills guys. It’s not just braking or corner speed or this or that, I’d just say that when he’s in a rhythm and putting those laps down he can break a guy. Like at Jerez this year he broke Pedrosa by about half a tenth a lap, he just kept putting those laps down, riding on that edge. He doesn’t ride 95 per cent, he rides on that razor edge for a long time. “I don’t know about weaknesses, it’s hard for me to point out a guy’s weakness when he’s won all those championships. In fact I’m not going to say he’s got any weak points because I don’t need to motivate the guy! That’s why I don’t want to say anything negative, I’m a big believer in not motivating these guys anymore, that’s why I don’t talk trash.”

like, you do have to bring up the context that valentino had four title rivals in 2006 - melandri, hayden, capirossi and dani - and he really only seems to have cooled off towards one of them. I'm not saying it's melandri's fault! I think it's more... hm, it's a bit telling, isn't it? competitively, there's not really any reason for melandri to be singled out in any way. I mean, you'll note he didn't win the title - and the guy who did explicitly says he didn't think valentino was fucking with him. valentino says in 2005 that he's made an active effort to not let the melandri relationship get worse... which could be true insofar as he didn't want any drama, but clearly he did allow that friendship to grow cold. why do that? is melandri really such a threat? I feel like if valentino said something particularly egregious about melandri, we would have some kind of a record of it - but let's say he was just mildly bitchy about the guy. you'd want to take him to one side and tell him 'dude, you really needn't bother', right? like, no offence, but is THIS guy worth it?

except. well. it is a little interesting that in the immediate aftermath of 2004, valentino had another friend of his (who he had considerably more history with than his last title rival) head over to honda gresini, turn into a more serious challenger... and valentino went. 'hm, yeah, maybe let's not do that again.' whether consciously or subconsciously, he does seem to have drawn back from melandri a hell of a lot quicker than he did from sete - and let's not forget that sete was actually beating him in dramatic last lap duels, which melandri extremely did not do. now, look, of course there COULD have been some sort of private spat here that nobody involved ever talked about... or maybe valentino just decided for completely unrelated reasons he'd had enough of melandri. but isn't it just. a little noteworthy. that when it comes to the 2006 title rivals, valentino is on good terms with all of them, who he seemingly does not piss off too badly with any sort of off-track antics... except melandri. his coldest relationship is with his childhood friend. one might conclude that melandri was the one who had the most power to hurt valentino, if he had been allowed to remain close. one could argue that there the sete rivalry marked a bit of a turning point in terms of how valentino approached his rivalries, that after this point he really didn't want another rivalry that could affect him in the same way. one might point out that some of the details of the melandri rivalry sure feel like they could be used to back up this framing

all that being said. what valentino is doing here is... well, it's basically fine, isn't it. everyone and their dog agrees it's tough to remain friends with your actual close rivals. jb describes it as their friendship 'cooling off', which is also the kind of thing that can just... eventually happen with childhood friends, even when you don't have pressures of competition warping interpersonal dynamics. there's not all that much to suggest valentino was massively treating melandri differently from any of his other major rivals at the time - it's just that his prior relationship had been closer and melandri seems to have taken the shift poorly. given how little of a paper trail there is, it feels like any mind games on valentino's part were generally on the subtler side, perhaps just the occasional snide comment or insinuation or ambiguously shady line that never made it to an article we can still access nowadays. more in line with what nicky "I don't think he plays as many games as other guys" hayden is describing: how valentino knows how to play his cards without necessarily escalating it into full out war. when melandri's talking about the rivalry, at times he does seem less annoyed by anything valentino actually did than he is by the media pressure of being an italian rival of valentino's, of being subjected to a more hostile media environment tan valentino, etc etc. after a certain point, valentino was often a passive beneficiary of his own successes in that regard. it's not like he's telling the italian journalists to put extra pressure on melandri... but he's also hardly going to complain

in general, the timing of it does have a certain charm to it as useful evidence for my great big 'the sete experience changed how valentino approached his rivalries' thesis, but I'm always a tad wary of analyses that flatten valentino's rivalries and by extension valentino by treating the patterns of behaviour in each as identical. it's also worth pointing out that... well, melandri isn't exactly a neutral source here, and his 2010 great big yellow chair theory does maybe suggest his resentment was getting in the way of his judgement where valentino was concerned. in the end, people didn't enjoy melandri's celebrations as much as melandri would have liked. and at some point in 2005, valentino apparently decided he didn't like this guy's vibe any more. c'est la vie

[savagebisand]

I'm actually starting to be of the opinion that nick is the more manipulative mastermind one out of the lot once he's suspicious or hurt enough which means Boston is in some serious dangerous waters and I can't wait to see him taste some of his own medicine right back. I was of the belief nick was going to just fall apart in Boston's scheming cunning hands before but it actually seems like he's going to use some of Bostons own tactics to put him in the uncomfortable position for once.

Something I've wondered since the trailer is that everyone eventually finds out about Boston and Top but how? Whose responsible for making Boston face those consequences? I think it genuinely might be Nick with Sands help. Which would also explain why nick is upset at sand for something he's done to Boston which makes nick feel "embarrassed" and sand is so angry when he tells nick that Boston is a shit person anyway. He clearly has the context Boston doesn't value anyone's feelings let alone nicks by next episode and that's only episode four. So what on earth is Boston going to have done by further down the line to nick that makes sand that upset?

I'm tempted to believe that because nick wants to play a long game with Boston after finding out about Top, he starts getting suckered in again and Sand, being Sand, isn't about to let that happen to his friend so he reminds Boston that nick is more inexperienced or something which causes nick to feel like he's lost a bit of the equal footing he's gained through sitting pretty and silent with Boston's manipulations to Boston's face but in reality doing things like bugging cars, snooping into his personal belongings etc. All that confidence nick has gained by being sly and now he feels stupid and inadequate again.

[fanficfanattic]

Roy tells Jamie how much he means to him, to the team, to everyone that isn’t Jamie’s dad. But the thing is, none of those things are replacements for the dad he wants and deserves but doesn’t get. Doesn’t have.

But if he already doesn’t have the man…how do you get to knowing peace about the loss?

Excerpt:

When he looks up, Roy meets his own eyes. Jamie's still got his faded, torn Roy Kent Chelsea poster, fixed to the ceiling with peeling painter’s tape. Next to that, he's taped up a tattered piece of notebook paper.

My goals

by Jamie, year 4

- make a hat trick at the etihad

- get scouted by city

- play football with roy kent

- play for england in the euros and world cup

- score lots of goals for england

- be good enough for dad to come back

- get mum a big house and lots of food

Excerpt 2, emphasis mine: It is, however, unusual for him to stay late after training with Jamie Tartt. The two have been getting closer since the Spurs game, and especially since Wembley and the promotion back to the Premier League, which delights Ted. It's a stark contrast from the early weeks after Roy returned, when he refused to coach Jamie. The team is better for it. Ted thinks they're both better for it too.

[selkies-world]

Bullet journals - AKA “Bujos” - are everywhere now, and almost everyone knows what they are. Studyblrs, dozens upon dozens of blog pages and sites, and entire industries are all devoted to curating and showcasing the best of these journals. There are entire courses and communities, How-To books and tutorials and an ever-growing body of YouTubers, authors, bloggers and content creators all devoted to these books. Everyone, from highschool students to the business elite, could tell you how much using a bullet journal has changed their...

...maybe they started as a small idea in the middle of nowhere, or they were only popular among a certain group of people, then simply became more widely used because of social media. Or maybe they were started by doctors, and then became a trend. But in actual fact, the idea was only coined in the...

...the fact their history stretches much farther back than the modern era...

...To learn about the long history of these little books - and the techniques held within their papery walls - we need to go all the way back to the 14th century....

Read the full article here

[chikoyama]

not me realizing i might have accidentally made chiyori mildly neurodivergent, but probably high-functioning. she’s probably masking a fuckton to compensate.

she’s kinda sensitive to touch, so she’d always be careful to touch other people herself unless she feels 100% comfortable around them. if she needs someone’s attention, she’d normally she’d just grab their clothes (like sleeve) instead to avoid direct physical contact. she doesn’t randomly seek physical contact unless it has practical purpose (lovers might be an exception). if the situation isn’t urgent, she’ll ask: “is it okay, if i touch you?” because she thinks they might be as sensitive as her (she’s projecting). for people who are just naturally touchy-feely, she’d probably get startled at first, but might get used to it, or learn how to tolerate and respond to it.

she’s compelled to animals, especially cute ones. she’ll emphasize with them a lot. as a kid, she’d spend her pocket money on buying treats to feed street cats, or her pet rabbit instead of candy for herself, lmfao.

for people who aren’t able to get past her ‘mask’, chiyori will continue to appear timid when interacting, or she might expend a lot of energy trying to not appear unpolite. once it slips, she can be quite mischievous though.

she’s likely hyper-empathetic. she has a lot of compassion, even for strangers. it might be hard to actually offend her, because she’ll reason it by looking at the situation from their perspective. even in her younger years she might have been susceptible to being (ab)used.

a lot of emotional monitoring, which means she’ll be constantly scanning the moods of other people to understand how they’re feeling, so she can adapt her own behaviour. that’s why she might appear intense with her staring and gauging — she’s just analysing the other’s emotions and reactions. people who appear stoic or inscrutable in a way might make her incredibly nervous though.

things that might appear obvious to other people, might not be to chiyori, so she might ask questions that are considered dumb. usually, she’d try to conceal it by asking in an elaborate way. “so, uh, what’s your definition of [insert term]?”

hyper-observant. might be tied to being hyper-empathetic, but she notices small details about people and her surroundings. she’s good at listening, asking questions, noticing subtle social cues that makes it easier for her to appear considerate and blend in. i’m not sure she’d know how to channel it into something actually useful in her younger years.

in a larger social setting, chiyori would probably prefer to be hovering in the periphere to observe people and their behaviours. it’s easier for her to interact one-on-one rather than in larger groups of people, because the sensory input from multiple people might overwhelm her. she only has two eyes — can’t monitor the emotions of everyone at once.

chiyori might be oblivious to flirting or sarcasm, or like she’d understand it but not know exactly how to respond to it, even if she is interested? she’d likely learn as she gets older. in her younger years, she might take a lot of said things literally, but learns the meaning behind eventually.

a lot of these personal ‘quirks’ she finds a way to cope with, or learns how to apply to her own advantage as she gets older. in her younger years, people might just think of chiyori as naive, dumb, or adorable even. she usually gets away with it, because she’s… well, a girl, i think?

chiyori doesn’t feel the urge to share her interests with other people. most likely, she’d just do her own thing, but it doesn’t mean she doesn’t crave or enjoy company. she just doesn’t feel the need to share unless prompted, or she knows they’re like interested, or like there’s a specific goal to it?

i don’t really think she questions her own behaviour a lot? mental well-being, neurodivergency etc. isn’t a prominent focus in japan and might be considered a topic of taboo even. i think most people and chiyori herself just accept her as she is, because she’s not being brash or an obvious inconvenience to others. unfortunately, it might be more to her own detriment.

[yosshhyyoomm]

FIRST FIVE EPISODES OUT ON WATTPAD NOW!

Book description:

After her brother gets kicked out of her household for coming out to their parents, Calista Turner yearns for him to reach out to her while she moves into a new place. Feeling empty after cutting off her parents, Calista comes home from work to see a rent notice on her front door. Left hopeless, she resorts to settling into a place with a roommate. A woman named Talulla Faletulu reaches out to Calista hoping to meet up with her in person. They hit it off and become great friends. Five years later, curious about the experience, Talulla heads into a fortune-telling site to get her fortune read while Calista tags along. After the ominous session, one of the workers hands the girls an affirmation pamphlet. When they get home Talulla urges them to try it out and as skeptical as Calista is, she gives it a shot. After trying one of the affirmations nothing happens and Calista excuses herself to the restroom. As Calista leaves, Talulla is left witnessing how everything in their room starts to swirl as if a big wind came in. While Talulla is in shock she shouts for Calista to come back to their room and a portal opens up out of the blue. Out of the portal, a man dressed in a suit, top hat, and trench coat, enters their room. This mysterious man named Marvin Douglas, unlike any regular person in the current timeline, is from 1967. As the girls question how simply doing an affirmation ritual lead a man from 1967 to time travel into their room, they set themselves on a journey to get Marvin home. But, what happens when they get too comfortable with each other, especially Calista and Marvin? Is love really in the question for them when they're from two different lifetimes?

Like what you hear so far? Then why not continue reading?

Hello everyone, I am the author Yosh to the book “In Another Lifetime”.

I began writing this story around the beginning of last year 2023, after finishing an amazing book. It inspired me to write this story, and I have continued and finished ever since.

I put a lot of hard work into this, so I would greatly appreciate if you could check it out, and perhaps give it a read if you’re into the synopsis I wrote above.

The first 5 episodes just got published today on WATTPAD. So, check it out on that domain to continue reading.

I will work to get it published on other outlets, so if you have any recommendations, please let me know.

Thank you SO SO much for reading this far! I hope whatever I have written has piqued your interest.

[violent138]

Character Design: Masks

In The Batman (2022), masks are a recurring motif, (hello, the movie begins at HALLOWEEN) emerging repeatedly during the film. Masks are at the heart of the movie's themes of identity, purpose, and the past. I thought this motif and the characters it applies to are interesting so here goes:

Catwoman is the only person in the Batman whose suit doesn't represent who she really is. She is no more or less herself while donning it, hence all the scenes where she doesn't have it on. She takes her mask off to be her (and we see this when she loses her disguise while trying to kill Falcone and in all the rooftop scenes). Her outward appearance is always deception, wigs, her mannerisms, and her clothing. Her burglar suit is another tool, but it is not who she is. Merely looking at her outward appearance tells you nothing and misleads.

Gordon, Falcone, Alfred, and Penguin are examples of characters who don't wear masks AND are always fixed as themselves (personality/motivation-wise). This does not mean that they don't lie or deceive, but that they have no need to wear masks to achieve their goals.

Riddler wears a mask, but it's more like a crown. It's a symbol, but he's always in his identity and illness. Like Selina, Riddler changes his external appearance and name, but his suit is an extension of his most accurate, most free self. Riddler is not fully powerful without his mask, which disrupts his ties to weakness and cements him both as an everyman, an outsider, and an inspiration. So Riddler and Selina are contrary in that regard. However, the gang from the start of the movie, and several criminals do wear masks. And like the Riddler, these masks are unifiers that allow them to freely achieve goals and desires.

Batman or Bruce Wayne, is slightly boring, as there have been endless analyses on the man and the mask. But for completeness sake, Batman is a culmination of several of the characters listed above. His mask does partly showcase who he really is, but simultaneously, he's more or less always tortured Vengeance (mirroring the Riddler). Later, the mask parallels more of Selina's characterization, where it doesn't represent him fully, and is an object of fear, even as he becomes more symbolic of hope. His mask frees him to be who he really is, cuts him off from identity (unlike the Riddler), and puts him at odds with those who don't wear masks. The design of it also separate him from both Selina and the Riddler, as it is more solid and well formed, while theirs are suggestions right now, incomplete. He's in a middle ground of people, not able to be one or the other, both freed by and constrained by who he is.

Fin