#sorry brevity is NOT my strong suit I'll work on it

[topnotchquark]

I am new to motogp, but what the fuck is the deal with Uccio and the rosquez drama in 2015.

My brother in Christ are u stupid? Why don't you tell Vale to put all his stamina and mental games on f.ing Lorenze, the actual threat to the 10th? You could scheme the divorce in 2016 or sth you stupid Ipad stand!

Oh my god! An opportunity to analyse Uccio! Persona non grata and public enemy number 1 on motogpblr (btw, are there any Uccio shooters on Tumblr? My inbox is a safe space, I wanna hear your side of the story).

There is no way for me to know for a fact why Uccio ended up being the first domino to fall that led to Sepang 2015 but I did look around to see if I could find a bit more about the relationship between Vale and Uccio.

These two go all the way back to the crib, literally. Uccio mentioned in an interview that Tavullia is a small town and they were only a few months apart in age so they ended up at the only day care in the town together.

Uccio has been called a bumbling fool and a freeloader and what not (look at this post openly roasting him for being Vale's Lackey) and despite my dislike of him I won't do the same (for once lol). Vale shot to stardom at a young age doing the death sport that required him to travel extensively. What better way to feel grounded than to have your childhood friend near you at all times (the fact that Vale didn't leave Tavullia for flashier places like Monaco or wtv has been reiterated in so much writing about him, and Uccio has said the same). There is definitely an element of familiarity and comfort that both Vale and Uccio seek from each other. Uccio mentioned that they would come back from a weekend of racing, put down their suitcases and immediately get on the phone with each other, which, teenage bestie-ism is such a force lol it could power cities if harnessed.

Anyway, back to racing. The consensus is that Vale didn't have the best rivals in Biaggi and Gibernau, they were inconsistent and susceptible to mind games. Vale enjoyed the initial years of his career as an untouchable, peerless talent. And then..... the winds changed direction :)

Vale was 36 in 2015, most pro athletes are considered done and dusted at that age. He had been putting his body through years of premier class motorcycle racing. Add to that how bad the Ducati years had been and just, so much life had happened. I don't want to talk about Sic's death, but that too and while racing at that. Vale had already started working on the academy (Franky was signed in 2013 afaik). Vale had moved on from the glittering, ebullient, darling of every circuit personality. Imo choosing to be a mentor and doing that well is among the most impressive things Vale has done but when you mentally cross the rubicon to accept your youth is decidedly over, it changes things. For starters, it's a real question of whether you've already chosen to hang your boots. What I'm trying to say is, a lot was at stake in 2015 for Vale. The kind of, calm and bemused, quietly malicious as and when required public persona that Vale has honed over the years needs the solid bedrock of consistent winning to seem graceful. It wasn't just a championship at this point, it was a question of pride and cementing your legacy and being the architect of how the world perceives you when the odds have been stacked against you for a while.

Back to Uccio. He simply didn't trust or like Marc. Or anyone who was on the racetrack at the same time as Vale (he didn't even spare sweet nothings for Viñales). I have no concrete theory for said distrust short of just saying Uccio is a bit of a slimy character (this interview of Uccio when he's doing his best impersonation of henchman from an old Hollywood western). Uccio wasn't even happy when Marc made the infamous visit to the ranch in winter of 2014. Guess the whole "Marc is helping Jorge win" thing was Uccio's attempt at reminding Vale of his ruthless nature that he thought Vale was finding hard to tap into (Vale did say Marc was an updated model of him). A friend once said that a lot of time public facing figures aren't as cruel or rancid in their interpretation of the world as much as the followers of said people. So Uccio started talking shit and given the circumstances of 2015, it made an impact.

Ultimately the odds were stacked high and Vale made a mistake. I suppose Vale knows a thing or two about how pressure can make someone succumb to errors :)

So that's my take on the whole deal. Uccio, croney par excellence, used Vale's desperate title bid in 2015 to purge some of his misplaced blood lust. He made Marc his target because according to him the young ones on the grid were nothing but a nuisance. Vale fucked up and let it drive his paranoia and made a big fucking mistake.

[tritoch]

Have you got any thoughts to share about Sphene? I saw your post about how misrepresented FFXIV’s female characters are, and I’ve been hoping to see anything more than the typical “Evil AI colonizer etc.” or “Tragic woman who can never change ever” or “Wuk Lamat’s girlfriend”. Maybe our interpretations will differ but I’ll be happy if you can provide anything more complex than those.

Sure! Throwing all this under a read-more for anyone who hasn't finished 7.0 yet. I think I'll probably expand on this more later but wanted to get initial thoughts down. (Note after writing: I meant this to be brief but uhhhh brevity is not my strong suit sorry. This take just sort of ends abruptly because I realize I'm rambling.) Again, spoilers through the end of 7.0 MSQ.

I think Sphene is the sharpest work the game has done yet in casting the antagonist as the noble double of the protagonist (a well it returns to a lot with Emet, and Zenos, and Golbez, and...). But because the protagonist here is Wuk Lamat and not the Warrior of Light, that's also a much more defined and interesting role. To me, Wuk Lamat is, above all, the Righteous Queen, who rules thoughtfully, wisely, and justly, and whose claim to the throne is justified by her moral clarity. Sphene, in turn, is also a wise and good queen, one who undertakes all her actions with her people first in her hearts, a sense of compassion towards all, and a clear eye for the consequences and costs of her intended course of action. And it leads to utter disaster, for her, her people, and the people of Tural. That rocks!

The first half of 7.0 is about justifying the fact that Wuk Lamat's going to be Dawnservant. Wuk Lamat is compassionate, curious, wise, and open-minded. She wins over rebels and malcontents not by asserting her authority or by strength of force, but by taking her obligations to them (as her subjects) seriously. She knows many of her subjects personally and takes a great interest in their lives, and she respects even those who openly oppose her.

And everything Wuk Lamat does, Sphene does to 11. Wuk Lamat respects her subject peoples and is curious about their cultures? Sphene forcibly annexes Yyasulani, but goes out of her way and expends Alexandria's limited resources to enable the remaining Xak Turali to live in their accustomed way if desired (…to the extent allowed by the new permanent lightning storms and the internal conflicts caused by regulator adoption). Wuk Lamat cares about her people not just in the abstract but as individuals? Sphene visits sick kids, knows them by name! Wuk Lamat understands the burden of rulership is too great and cedes half her power to her brother? Sphene recognizes her own weaknesses and makes a deal with the devil to keep Alexandria's culture alive! Wuk Lamat is willing to die for her people? Sphene will forcibly traumatize herself into being a better queen, if that's what rulership demands.

For an expansion that spends the first half being like "wow isn't this perfect candidate for the crown so likable and humble? wouldn't it be nice to be ruled by a good king?," it sure is funny that the final boss is THE QUEEN ETERNAL and she hits you with attacks like LEGITIMATE FORCE and ABSOLUTE AUTHORITY and ROYAL DOMAIN. This, to me, is Sphene's role: she complicates and questions the themes we've developed in the first half. Most importantly to me, she makes us ask: what is devotion to a people or culture even worth?

There's a thing I kept thinking of constantly during Dawntrail, not because I think it directly influenced the game in any way but because the parallels were so stark and startling. It's Jonathan Hickman's New Avengers #18 (2014). Truthfully, I'm not a big comics guy; I only know this sequence because Ta-Nehisi Coates cited it as inspiration for his Black Panther run on Twitter once (I also didn't read TNC's run, I was following him for politics talk). Forgive me, comics people, if I get any details wrong. The parallels are almost comical, though. It goes like this:

A superhuman secret society formed of some of the smartest heroes (and villains) in the land re-forms to oppose an existential threat caused by incursions from other dimensions that threaten to cause literal collisions between Earth and its alternate dimension counterparts. Seeing no other alternatives, they undertake work on a weapon to destroy these other worlds. T'challa—king of a fictional hyperadvanced nation called Wakanda, and also the superhuman Black Panther—meets with his ghostly predecessors, the previous Black Panthers/kings, for he fears the moral stain on his soul and the souls of the people of Wakanda, if they survive explicitly by killing their alternate counterparts, will be too heavy to bear. His ancestors are not impressed.

To them, there is no question at all. A king's duty may be complex in the execution, but it is simple in its conception. Your people come before all others. Always. This is, must be, the fundamental ethic of a good king. To do otherwise would be a betrayal of the social order on which this imagined good monarchy is built. In a situation like this, the only option is to do what you must to protect them. "Will there be a cost? Yes. Might the universe burn? Let it. . . . You will kill them all if it means Wakanda stands. The golden city must never fall."

"I will do what I must" is Sphene's guiding principle. It is so important to her that when she recognizes that her sentimental attachments are making her waver in her duty, she severs them entirely, sacrificing her whole identity to the throne. It is also implicitly Wuk Lamat's position: she has no choice but to fight Sphene because to do otherwise would be to fail to protect her people. In fact, it's briefly even sort of the Warrior of Light's position, as when you tell Sphene before her trial that you understand what you must do, which is shut her down to protect others.

(One quick thought about the Warrior of Light: one cool thing about the antagonist this time being a double in a more exact way than Emet or Zenos is that it means other characters get a chance to relate to her differently than Wuk Lamat. The Warrior of Light, for example, is pressed into her service immediately upon your first meeting as the Queen's Champion, there to defend her if need be against all evil. This role is further affirmed by both robot Otis and Endless Otis, who essentially hand off their role as her knight to you, and reinforced when you flash back to the "might I call upon your aid" moment right before the end. Except, of course, you are loyal not just to her, but to the principles she represents, which her own acts betray, and so your ultimate act of aid is to essentially pass judgment on her and execute her. In a sense, you become the internal safeguard that a political system is supposed to have to protect against this very issue, and which Alexandria explicitly lost when it cast out/forgot Otis. Very Voeburt/ShB tank quests, it owns.)

But really, it's Sphene who embodies this sort of grim logic best. Aside from her transformation into the Queen Eternal, it's also why she suggests you simply become Alexandrians. It's the only way for her to reconcile her values and worldview, which have backed her into a corner where preserving Alexandria has come to mean a maximalist declaration of war on all life outside its borders because the kind of absolutely pain-free life she envisions for her citizens is completely unsustainable.

In this reading, one of Sphene's main beats is to unsettle what has preceded her in MSQ. In nearly all respects, she shares your values. She prizes life, is curious about other cultures, believes in the greatest good for the greatest possible number. But she is also a queen, and therefore irrevocably (in her eyes) tied to her state. Gulool Ja Ja and Wuk Lamat (and Koana) are the mythical wise rulers, thank god--but what if Wuk had inherited a Turali state that wasn't desperately in need of cross-cultural understanding, but one in a state of war? What value would her deep love for the people of Tural have held then? Sphene says, it would have held no value. If the survival of your people means harming the innocent, you harm the innocent. Kingship allows for no alternatives.

But she also concedes, in the very next breath, that she is still kind of wrong. Because what happened here was not inevitable, despite her programming (a brief note: to me Sphene being programmed is exactly the same as Emet being maybe-tempered, it's a fantasy gloss on the idea of social and cultural education. "I was programmed for this" is really no different from "I was trained and educated for this"), because the truth is that this kind of thoughtful, principled devotion to the state and its people is also a form of sentimental attachment, in the end. One that is maintained not because it is natural, and necessary, but because the monarch, too, likes it, and gets something from it.

In so many ways, in so many senses, the monarch is the state. Kings and queens may fancy themselves merely a reflection of their people's needs and desires, but of course even a cursory glance at history will tell you that far more often, states reflect their rulers. Sphene and Wuk Lamat both suggest that their conflict was inevitable, but was it? Or is the truth, as Sphene glancingly acknowledges here, that she turned her own fears and desires into the same policy goals that led to this tragedy? And if so...what does that say of our Good Queen, Wuk Lamat? Perhaps this could be different if they met earlier, says Wuk Lamat. But when? When did Wuk Lamat ever not love her people so dearly that she would not have sacrificed herself for them, or caused mass death for the sake of their survival? When did Sphene not believe the Endless to be people, or the preservation of Alexandria to be the most important thing? Maybe she means "had we met before you met Zoraal Ja," but of course, we the player actually saw their meeting. And we know that Sphene even then was not the hapless naif she'd like to pretend. She always knew exactly what she was doing.

We know the price of this kind of thinking, this Hobbesian view that states are engaged in a struggle of all against all. Living Memory lets you walk through it. To preserve Tural, we exterminate the Endless. We befriend them, learn about their lives, promise to remember them, and then we destroy them and their homes, leaving nothing but a bleak blank landscape and the sound of wind. This is what Sphene would have done to Tural and Eorzea. Indeed, it's what she's already doing to the people of Yyasulani, because no amount of well-intentioned aid can make up for trapping people under the dome for 30 years and systematically eroding their culture through the resonators.

To me, this is what makes Sphene really work, that way she has of forcing Wuk Lamat and the player to commit the same kinds of sins she has. We'd like to think ourselves better than her, but of course, we've already reconciled with and integrated Mamook's brutal eugenicist regime back into Turali society well before we ever met Sphene. At the end of our long "wow isn't having a wise queen cool???" expansion, we are met with "Legitimate Force" and "Absolute Authority" and see them for what they truly are: nothing but tools of violence. No longer does the idea of the Warrior of Light hanging around Tural as Wuk Lamat's advisor have the same attraction, now that we have been reminded of the way the putatively unquestionable logic of kingship can ultimately lock even the wisest and kindest rulers into a path of war and exploitation and destruction.

I think Sphene is FFXIV's most interesting and nuanced depiction yet of a leader. She really, truly, wants nothing more than to save her people and protect them from pain. But even seemingly loving and compassionate goals like these can readily lead us down dark paths. She's a "hard men make hard choices"-type character, a noble but misguided opponent, but as a loving and elegant fairy queen instead of a grizzled knight or extremely sad man. She fucking rocks.

[scoonsalicious]

hi pookie its meee🩷🩷

I just wanna tell im sorry that i havent been spamming lately😂. Part of it is because im busy preparing for my sis engagement day which is tomorrow (WHO KNEW ENGAGEMENT WOULD BE VERY CHAOTIC?!)

Unwanted updates has been my alarm clock early in the morning (around 6-8)😂. Usually I would wake up at 12 in the afternoon but since then, early it is.

Somehow my brain knows when you’ll update.

OKKAY Let’s rewind to chpter 23. Of all things… SHEAR A SHEEP?!😂😂😂😂 Thinking about it, I might actually do it too😂 Tony and Pocket clicked right away. I love their dynamic. He cares for her since the beginning and for someone like Pocket, she needs him. That chapter is wholesome.

Next, even if it’s only 1 part, we got to see Sam and Pocket in action and I can’t wait for more. Sam calling himself dark chocolate is just😂😂😂😂. Also a glimpse of Pocket’s childhood/backstory😔 She’s a tough one which makes me even more worried. The ‘plan’. Buying drugs from Kozlov sounds BAD. This makes me think that they will force her to take some kind of new drugs that made her really vulnerable and kidnapped her. (and i really REALLY think, will be the work of fucker cunthage).

Last but not least, I miss Bucket😂 I miss his stupid head. I cant wait for him to be the knight in shining armor, saving his beloved Pocket and beat the shit out of Jeremiah. I trust Pookie will build him to the manly man he needed to be.

Anyways, as always, loads of love for u Pookie. Ur work r the best.😭🩷 I cant wait for the upcoming new story.🔥

Hi, Bestie!!! I love getting your messages! And no need to apologize, because 1) they are *never* spam, and 2) you're busy! Congratulations to your sister, by the way! I hope she has a very long, happy, and healthy marriage! I'm glad I can be your personal alarm clock, lol; though, if I could sleep until noon, that's all I'd be doing! So, the shearing a sheep thing-- I was having a convo with @mrsbuckybarnes1917 and was talking about how I think RDJ and I could be besties, just hanging out and shooting the shit and going on ridiculous adventures, then I was like "he seems like the kind of guy I could shear a sheep with in the middle of the night." And BOOM! An origin story was born! It ended up working out better than I expected. I love writing them together so very much. He really is the solid foundation of her life, and if not for him, who knows where she'd be right now?

Sam calling himself 'Dark Chocolate' was loosely based on Marshall from How I Met Your Mother calling himself 'Big Fudge.' I dunno, as I was writing, I just saw Sam saying it, and I was like 'Bingpot!'

I miss Bucket, too. He has a teeny, tiny over-the-phone cameo in the next part, but they won't be 'on screen' again together until Chapter 25. I should have kept them apart for longer, honestly, but I couldn't resist.

Three parts coming out today, since they're all relatively short, and I'll be leaving you on a bit of cliff hanger to start your weekend. In the meantime, I'm off to work on With Friends Like These which, part way through chapter four, is already 19.5k words. Brevity is not my strong suit, apparently, lol.

As always, Pookie loves you so much, and the cat-kiss gifs give me life! There's nothing I love more than a kitten smooch!

[landwriter]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Tagged by @tiltingheartand <3 thank you!

How many works do you have on Ao3?

11!

What's your total Ao3 word count?

129,874. Brevity evidently is not my strong suit! Which is also why the rest of this is under a cut.

What fandoms do you write for?

The Sandman! I also just watched Dead Boy Detectives and think I might write a couple little things for it too.

Top five fics by kudos:

Saint Morpheus (11,882 words) - My first fic! Saints and worship

The Death of Translation (10,968 words) - the Language fic

Oaths (60,443 words) - Tam Lin AU and my precious baby. I'm so proud of this one. It's got so much of me in it. Def the first fic I would consider a full send

Border Country (6,100 words) - Clothing, the inherent body horror of being alive, and self-denial. Have always meant to do a sequel for this and may do for S2

Black Shore (3,962 words) - Monsterfucking :-) Weird little beast of a story that came out of nowhere fully formed

All Sandman, all Dream & Hob, haha. Doubt that will change with new fics unless I find a more popular pairing in a more popular fandom to write for

Do you respond to comments?

I do! I love discussing characters and theeeeemes and sharing enthusiasm with people. I love hearing what I've inflicted and I'll thank you for telling me <3 Once I started getting busier I found it a lot harder to keep up, but I treasure all my comments so if you suddenly get a reply like, a year later, you know why!

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

It's for sure The Many Lives of Hob Gadling. Everything else I've written except Border Country has ended, like, tooth-rottingly kind and optimistic and love-filled. But lbr Dream is a man of tragedies. There'll be more

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

It's such a personal thing, but Oaths has the happy ending I would consider most wonderful sort of happiness. It's not the fluffiest or most fairy-tale (having written just that also), but this specific flavour of joy and peace in terms of experiencing the beauty of the world around you and being just shot full of love. The happiness of growing things and sunrises. Or Just Like Love. From the Corinthian's perspective. He's so happy with the state of things at the end.

Do you get hate on fics?

Only the once! Fortunately everybody else who has hated a fic of mine has been able to find the back button and gone off to read something else or grouse about it in private, which is the correct way of things. There's no reason, ever, to tell an author you disliked their story. They will not be grateful for it no matter how certain and correct you feel in your criticisms. Nobody wins! Sorry! Go tell a friend instead.

Do you write smut?

You betcha I do! The first time I wrote it for Saint Morpheus it felt so unnatural and I was just making a :| face the whole time but now sex scenes are among my favourite things to write. I feel like I've really cum come into my own with them more than any other kind of scene.

Craziest crossover:

I've never done a crossover! I love reading them though.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so! I mean, not great, etc., but personally I also deeply don't care. I imagine having a job where what I am actually creating & selling for money gets stolen often sort of skews my perspective on my fic getting stolen. It's not a commercial product. It isn't paying my mortgage. I give these words for free and with love. If they end up places I never put them, so be it! Such is the internet.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! 【授權翻譯】翻譯之死 The Death of Translation by Ethiseth. Legitimately one of the highest honours I think a fanfic writer can ever receive <3

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No!

All time favourite ship?

Hob / the world :-)

What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

My very first WIP for Sandman! I started writing it then joined tumblr the next day, saw some of @messmonte's art, and was off writing Saint Morpheus in short order. Sorry 1989 canon divergence fic! Maybe one day.

What are your writing strengths?

Five dollar words. Long sentences. Big sweeping feelings. Instilling my personal values, i.e. love is real, you are surrounded by beauty at every turn, you deserve the things you want, monologues are a normal and practical form of communication, etc.

What are your writing weaknesses?

God, actually finishing and sharing things, I think. I haven't had enough time in my life lately and it kills me! But it's also such a me problem because I love to worry at and chew on WIPs forever. Writing fast would be so cool. Pew pew pew! New fics left and right. You guys would be buried in them. Man, I wish.

Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

Can run gimmicky but also I love multiple languages in one conversation as subtext so much - I'm torn. Same as accents in that I suspect it's most cases better to just note it in the speech tags, unless you're willing to go through the trouble of inline/hovertext translations, and then at that point it's a bit If You Give A Mouse A Cookie for me where I'll want translator's notes too, maybe some metatextual payoff, etc.

First fandom you wrote in?

Technically FMA, but that's a story for another day hahaha. Sandman, really.

Favourite fic you've written?

Oh golly. Oaths. I did so much for the first time with that story. But it's hard to choose, which is such a nice problem to have. I think it's easy when you've never written fic before for each new thing to mean something different to you!

No-presh tagging @wordsinhaled, @moorishflower, @tj-dragonblade and anyone who wants to do this too - just tag me so I can be nosy <3

[somedaylazysomeday]

Fanfic February 2024

I know this is hella early - sorry! Just wanted to announce that 2024 will be my final Fanfic February.

FFF is definitely a minor thing (as far as I know, I'm the only one who does it), but I'll post an explanation under the cut.

The short version is that I've met all the goals I had for starting it and that's a good thing! I still have other projects I intend to work on, so this is not a true going-away announcement.

I started this account because I wanted to try my hand at writing smut. As a writer who falls somewhere on the asexual spectrum, I wanted to see if I could write physical relationships in a way that didn't come off awkward or laughably bad. And, like a lot of writers, I wanted to use that writing to explore things about myself.

But I feel like I've gotten plenty of practice... A few of my series actually started from Fanfic February fics!

To be very honest, I don't find a lot of characters interesting enough to write about starting a physical relationship with. That's part of the reason I have so many ongoing works: there just aren't many characters I could imagine being interested enough in to delve into their personalities and motivations.

Finally, there's the time commitment. I post a chapter of a fic every day in the month of February. Since brevity has never been my strong suit (take this post as evidence), each of those chapters is roughly 5,000 words. I'm pretty busy IRL, so I have to plan and work on these fics really far out. I started working on 2024's fics in June and I'm still not sure if I'll have everything finished by February - especially since this year is a leap year and needs an extra fic!

In summary, Fanfic February has been a blast! I've enjoyed every year, and I've treasured the comments and messages I've gotten about my fics. This is simply a good year to end things.

I'll continue posting works here and there, and I'll try to get back on my Fic Rec Friday posting! If there is anything you see that I've left open-ended or cliff-hangery after February, let me know and I'll see if I can work on an ending to it.

Thank you to everyone who has read, commented, reblogged, or otherwise supported me with the fics I've shared here. I appreciate every one of you!