#this one gets a bit conceptual but

[rawliverandgoronspice]

The Dondon Post (or: the bizarre TotK's side content counterpoints to its main quest's immuable binary morality)

Speaking of strange TotK Choices, I think I have one singe post left in me about this game; and it's about the Dondon quest, "The Beast and the Princess".

(and about other stuff too, you'll see, we'll get to them)

More specifically: about how... strange of a thematic point it feebly attemps to make in the larger context of the storyline, and how it seems to be yet another mark of a world that, perhaps, once tried to be more morally complex that it ended up becoming.

Buckle up: it's a long one, and it gets pretty conceptual.

(good gem boys notwhistanding)

The Princess and the Beast

So, a couple of things about the setup. We are investigating potential Princess sightings; but at this point, either because we have already completed a bunch and know the general gib, because we have met a couple of wild Fake Zelda shenanigans, or through the simple fact that we are completing a side quest, we know there's a good chance it won't lead to an actual Zelda information. So when we ask Penn about what is going on and he replies with the ominous "we saw the Princess riding some kind of beast --a frightening one with huge, brutal tusks-- that the princess seemed to control", we get Ideas. Then the sidequest is registered: "The Princess and the Beast".

So. You know me. And if you don't know me, here's what you should know: my brain immediately flared up with the thought there was no way in hell this wasn't some kind of wink towards Ganondorf's renowned boarish beast form, especially given tusks were given so much focus.

My first assumption was: that's a miniboss right? I will get to fight some small boar-like thing that Fake Zelda rides sometimes. Cool! I didn't hold too hard onto my hope that the relationship of Zelda and/or Ganondorf to the natural world, or to each other would be expanded upon, since I had already been burned before, but my interest was piqued.

You have to understand how starved I was for any hint of complexity or mystery or ambiguity at this point. I was extremely eager for the game to throw anything at me that would surprise me, enlighten something pre-established, make the exploration lead to a meaningful discovery or deepening of characters, world or themes (and not just slightly cooler loot, or a bossfight, or a puzzle devoid of emotional context --cohesion and depth is what motivates my play sessions, especially in an open world game that I want to believe is worth losing oneself into). This was about the most intriguing task on my to do list at the moment, and so I plunged in immediately.

After really REALLY misunderstanding what I was supposed to do (I stalked every corner of every forest surrounding the tropical area at night or during blood moons in hope to see something --which was very much the wrong call), I arrived to the other stable, then was guided to the other side of the river where Cima awaits and explains that these creatures are actually a new species discovered by Zelda; that they are gentle and kind and not at all scary ("Dondons aren't beastly, they're adorable!"), and even somehow digest luminous stones into gemstones. They like the company of people and liked Zelda in particular.

I was... I felt two different ways about this conclusion, and I think it's worth to explore both: disappointment and some sort of... "huh!" Hard to describe this emotion otherwise.

I'll get the disappointment out of the way first, because it's the least interesting of the two. While I think the little emotional arc I was taken on was not devoid of interest --I was indeed taken on by the rumor and intrigued by its implications-- I wanted, well. A little bit more. And if the creatures were to be Zelda's pet project, I would have loved for them to be actually terrifying and feisty, and for her to develop an interest for these creatures in particular regardless. It could have been very interesting characterization that veered out of the perfect princess loving the perfect world floundering around her, always bringing her clear, practical benefits from the interaction.

(I have made another post that speaks of my discomfort that Zelda does everything everywhere and everyone loves her for it --I get what they were trying to go for, but it either lacks conflict for me to buy into that dynamic at the scale of several regions, or they went on too hard for my taste, as she is, at once and in the span of a couple of years at most: a schoolteacher, a gardener, an animal researcher, a scholar, a traveler, a military expert, a knower of landscape, a painter, a horse rider, an infrastructure planner, a [...] princess --at some point it begins to sound made up, "Little Father of the people"-esque to rattle the hornet's nest a little bit, especially if it's not shown as either a clearly godly characteristic or, even more necessary imo, a negative trait; another expression of her killing herself at work to compensate for a perceived flaw she's trying to earn forgiveness for, like she did in BotW. But that's another topic, and the clumsiness of her character arc has been well threaded by basically everybody disappointed in the story already.)

But, if I decide to be a little graceful, I'd like to explore my "huh!" emotion, and take it apart a little bit.

I think there's something interesting to have such strong parallels to setting up a story about the relationship between Zelda and Ganondorf ("The Princess and the Beast", like come on guys that's the conflict of over half the series), or at least Zelda and the concept of Evil since Ganondorf pretty much represents it in this game, and then have it go: actually, there was a horrible monster that everyone was afraid of, but Zelda was wise and patient enough to approach it and realize its potential beyond the tusks, what beauty can be brought upon the world if one makes the effort to look for what exists underneath. It says something a bit deeper about the world and about Zelda in particular. It intrigues, at the very least.

Is it a reach? Probably! Is my first interpretation that the quest is actually about "eww you thought Zelda would be interested in *disgusting vile monsters* and not sweet and gentle and human-loving animals that literally shit jewlery when cared for? jokes on you, she never would feel any ounce of sympathy for anything that isn't Good and Deserving" uhhh definitively truer? Probably! But I also don't want to dismiss that the quest made me think about it. If I had completed it earlier, I might have even felt like it was (very clumsy, not gonna lie) setup about the main conflict.

But that's also a good segway into my next section: the arbitrary limitations between the animal and the creature, the monstrous and the human.

And the fact that TotK points directly at it.

A Monstrous Collection

(these two guys are just. doing So Much and being So Valid despite being massive weirdos the game wants us to be slightly repelled by. I, for one, respect the Monster kinning grind and their general Twilight Princess energy.)

So. These two guys. There is so much to say about these two guys. I don't think I have seen the Trans Perspective on Kolton on tumblr, and I would love to get it because. I feel like it's a worthwhile discussion (just, how gender and identity is handled in TotK overall, I feel like it's a very complicated conversation and I have not seen super deep dives and I'd be very interested in hearing more).

Beyond the throughline of voluntary consumption of magical objects to turn into less human creatures being a weirdly prevalent plot point in TotK (Zelda, Kolton and Ganondorf casually transing their entire species for funsies --Ganondorf being particularly relentless with Fake Zelda, mummy/phantom shenanigans, Demon King and then literal dragon), I want to focus on Kilton a little bit.

Kilton is genuinely the only NPC in the game willing to acknowledge the inherent personhood that monsters have (the game does showcase them picking up fruits, mourning their boss if you kill them, being cutesy and happy to identify you as one of their own if you wear the appropriate mask --and that's not even getting into creatures like the Lynels, who seem to really edge on the limit of being a conscious creature with a system of honor and property and many other things). He does encourage us to think of monsters as more than a species whose only worth lie in how fun it is to eradicate them; even more, gameplay-wise, he does give us a reason to interact with them in other ways than just our sword with his museum. He does encourage us to see that beauty for ourselves and then select what we think is coolest/most intimidating/cutest/eight billion ganondorfs in every pose imaginable

The fact that Ganondorf is considered a monster was a great win for this feature in particular, and is very funny, but it's also... A lot, if we dig at it a little more than warranted. Beyond all of the Implications and all of the things of representation and political conflict and values already discussed ad nauseum: when did he stop being considered a human? What does that mean about the flimsiness of what is a monster and what is a creature and what is an animal and what is a person and what is even a hylian, as sheikahs got absorbed into the definition in this game? Especially with the stones taken into account, how profound changes in nature are a huge part of the plot (even when reversed and ultimately pretty meaningless): how easy it is, to make that slip? Who decides when that slip has been made? What is acceptable to hurt without remorse? What is beautiful and worth preserving? What is both at once? What is neither?

And again, in a classic Zelda conundrum (appreciative(?)): who the fuck gets to decide that, when, and why?

The Bargainers and the Horned God

(major shoutout to these big guys for being the sole and only providers of actual depth to the Depths, and for looking cool as heck)

So. Let's move the conversation to the Depths.

Conceptually: what an interesting idea!! And so well executed (initially)!! A mirror world to the surface, dark and hushed and full of unknown creatures; haunted by gloom and sickness and the unknown. Not a first in the series, far from it: from ALTTP to ALBW, and even taking the Twilight world of TP into account, this idea of a Dark World acting as a deforming mirror to Hyrule and revealing many interesting aspects as we get to explore both is always a very interesting take on corruption and envy and fear/weakness and/or some sense of darkness looming under the perfect exterior. I'd argue even the Lens of Truth of both OoT and MM's serve a similar function, both gameplay-wise, but also in terms of theme: not everything is as it seems. In the world of Light, darkness must hide itself; but darkness also possess its own beauty, its own hardships, and will stare back at you without blinking if you go seek for it. It's, in my opinion, one of the series' most compelling conversation about the cyclical nature of fate, the coldness of godhood, and how small one feels in the face of a universe that is more complicated than it initially appears --which is why Courage must be invoked to push forward regardless.

The Depth's otherworldly ambiance is truy wonderful, whether in the plays of light and shadows, the creatures native to the environment we meet there (wish we met more!), the soundtrack, the strange aquatic/primordial plants, the fact that the dragons visit this place and connect them to the outside --invoking ideas of balance and interconnectivity, that the tree branches look like veins. The coliseums, the mines, the zonai facilities and the prisons do seem to poke at many things about what the relationship to the past was to this place; was it ever truly a place? Did it look like this back then? Why was it buried? Why did it come back? But in spite of it all, I think the Depths struggle overall to question or reveal anything about the surface that we couldn't already assume going in (that the only thing congealing there is Ganondorf's gloom, his lonely domain of Wrongness, only shared by Kohga and the yiga --the only naysayers of Goodness and Light, contemptful and blinded by self-importance and rage). The zonite is mined by gloomy monsters --why, what for?-- so any notion of greed and over-expansion that could have been associated to the zonai is now reabsorbed into Ganondorf's general evilness, since it needs to be reminded he is everything and anything bad with the world: darkness and conquest and greed and capitalism and pollution and bad weather and sickness and darkness and violence and war and death and betrayal and fakeness and lies and patriarchy and exploitation. No matter that he never does a single thing with zonite in the game; rather set up elements of conflict that never go anywhere than, for a second, let the foundations of absolute goodness and absolute evil risk becoming shaky --and you coming to this unwelcoming dark place that hates you, killing the miners and taking their resources for yourself is, on the other holy, royal fur-covered hand, utterly legitimate. The resources were once Rauru's after all, were they not?

And this is what I would say, except... except for the dead. The fallen warriors, the poes, and, most important of all: the Bargainer statues.

The Bargainers are, in-universe, godly creatures guiding the fallen to a place of final respite, regardless of moral alignment. The poes are all, fundamentally, cleansed of judgement: they are lost souls whose past reality does not matter anymore, and all deserve that peace regardless. In spite of the heavy paradise/hell parallels drawn in that game, with Rauru/Zelda/Sonia as the guardians of Light where Ganondorf gets to become a Devil-like figure, it is confirmed here that no such thing exists when you actually die in this universe.

It almost feels as if the fabric of Hyrule itself, in a brief moment that refuses to elaborate on its own point, goes: "yeah, whatever is happening here between Light and Darkness, it doesn't actually matter. This conflict is futile and doesn't understand the real nature of being alive, dead, a god, a person, a monster, an animal. The truth lies elsewhere --but you will never be told what it is."

It's: wild.

One of the game's most striking traits of narrative brilliance in my opinion --to the point where I'm wondering whether it's there on purpose or was effectively an oversight since every other aspect of reality breaks its own back trying to reassure us that everything is at its correct place, receiving the appropriate treatment by the universe in a way that is never to be questioned.

Another case of that ambiguity being allowed to exist without being immediately crushed and repressed is the case of the Horned God (interesting parallel to Ganon's actual horns that he develops in this game in case the hellish parallels weren't clear enough already): a demon Hylia sealed into stone and pushed far from humans in a clear case of questionable behavior since, while the Horned God isn't exactly nice, does propose a different philosophy you are not punished for exploring; and yet, a proposal that has seen itself persecuted in a very real sense by the goddess of absolute goodness, patron of hylians, Zelda, and many more. Pushed away from view.

Interesting.

And Yet, Light Must Prevail

Okay, so, after all of this, we're left to ask... What the fuck is up with morality in Tears of the Kingdom?!

What do we trust? These half-breaths in the occasional sidequests that Light and Darkness is just the wrong frame of reference, that nature cannot be this simple, is ever-shifting and can be recalled or reaffirmed by arbitrary forces, and might even not matter at all in the universe's fabric, despite having so much of its lore soaking in the dychotomy? Or... everything else about the game, this insistence that Good must not only be assumed as whatever tradition the kingdom has passed down for thousands upon thousands of years, but remain utterly unquestioned the entire time? That Bad is without cause, graceless and unworthy of investment?

Are the Bargainer's statues the only thing worth listening to, that morality is a fable the living tells themselves --or should we be moved when Darkness destroys Light, when Light suffers to preserve itself and the world --but not when the Other is rightfully slain?

Was Kilton correct to see beauty in the monstrous? Was Kolton onto something when he let go of his previous form because there is no clear distinction between what should receive an arrow to the face and what shouldn't? Or should we rather focus on Zelda losing her human form as a beautiful and tragic sacrifice --but something that never actually altered her nature as a hylian, the descendant of a lineage of Good Kings meant to rule forever?

Is the Dondon good because it always was, or was it worth Zelda's love in spite of the fear it initially provoked?

Either way, at the end of the game, evil is slain. Ganondorf is, not killed, but --like his angry BotW boar counterpart-- destroyed, as monsters tend to be. He explodes over the lands of Hyrule, freed from Darkness; freed from everything wrong, since the foreign menace that embodied it all was wiped out in one fateful sweep of a holy blade cradled in sacrificial love. Nothing wrong remains. The Sages reaffirm their vows to protect the kingdom forward, and a very human --hylian-- Zelda smiles: Hyrule now forever and ever basked in eternal Light.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

soon it'll be dawn again

transcript under the cut ⏬

page 01

Fig: no way? - you're still up?

Riz: Wh– yes?

Riz: Why'd I not be.

page 02

Fig: I me~~ean - that took.

Fig: whole day.

Riz: Yeah?

Fig: 'm beat.

Riz: you should sleep.

page 03

Fig: nah. my guy's still up

Fig: I wanna hang out.

page 04

Riz: That's really nice.

Fig: Hah! - Nobody ever expects an Archdevil rockstar to be nice.

Riz: … yeah. - 's just budget work tho. (the stuff I'm working on) - I've heard it's boring.

page 05

Fig: yeah, but you do it…

Riz: It keeps things going, right? - Nothing happens if nobody sits down and - does the thing.

Fig: That's right… - though. Yeah.

page 06

Fig: sometimes it's someone else who - doesn't want the same thing to happen.

Riz: … - mm.

page 07

Riz (off screen): …It took me a long time to get that not everyone likes doing what I do. - 's probably because you guys are so nice– - or. - kind.

Riz (off screen): to anyone too, not just. - the people you /love/.

page 08

Riz: that's not how it is elsewhere. - The world's– not. hostile. - but 's not like it's kind.

Riz: So I'm doing as much as I can now… 

page 09

Fig: Hey.

Riz: ?

Fig: Go dig some dirt with me.

page 10

Riz: [blank speech bubble] - oh you meant like - actual dirt. (not incriminating information)

Fig: o yea.

Fig: there's clay in the backyard soil. - sometimes when I'm sun deficient or something I go touch dirt for a bit.

page 11

Fig: here u go

page 12

Riz: uh

Fig: now we make a thing! - 'm pretty good at freehanding a bowl.

Fig: I'll show u

page 13

Fig: just– yep, flatten that out as evenly as u can, then–! - actually ur nails'd be so good at cutting out the strip. [larger than usual space] wait. - wait. wait u can carve patterns with them! we HAVE to try

Riz: uh - What. do I carve?

Fig: anything!!!

page 14

Fig: and– yep just seal the inside uh. seam?

Fig: yep that works - okay time's up! all contestant hands up

Riz: [blank speech bubble] - okay - wh. what's next?

Fig: haha - watch this.

(sound effect text): FWOO—MP

page 15

Riz: WH– DON'T JUST DO THAT???

Fig: Now it's fired!

Riz: THAT WAS NOT SAFE

Fig: (actually it's just dry. if u add water rn it'll dissolve)

Fig: ok catch!

Riz: [blank speech bubble] - careful!!

Fig: dw no need haha

page 16

Riz (thought bubble): oh - it's warm…

Fig: now I want you to throw this.

page 17

Fig: u gotta do it - c'mon

page 18

Riz: wh– - It's like 3AM right now

Fig: oh it's not /fired/ fired it's not gonna make a loud noise

Riz: And then just? leave a pile out here?

Fig: pour water over it & it'll be gone I told u

Riz: but

page 19

Fig (off screen): RIz.

page 20

Fig: I've done all this before.

Fig: Can you trust that at least?

page 21

Riz: no, I– - I do. - I trust you.

page 23

Riz: okay what happens now

(sound effect text): glob

page 24

Fig: we do it again!

page 25

Riz: wh. [larger than usual space] What do you mean. (this clay's too wet also)

Fig: see! you're already learning

Fig: [blank speech bubble] - there are flows that are futile to fight. - The world changes.

Fig: Things change.

page 26

Fig: I've learned my lessons with "forevers". - But - as an artist

Fig: I can give you one thing: - You can always do it again.

page 27

Fig: most of everything depends on the rest of the world, - but this. - making new. - that's yours as long as you want it.

page 28

Fig: So?

page 29

Riz: Yeah. - Yeah! - let's make another one.

[vaguely-concerned]

there's something so interesting about the way anaris' mind control mask doesn't work by him exerting his will on people directly or even by taking their own will away in any way; he dominates by demanding -- no no, not demanding, requesting, offering 🥺 as a gracious gift -- that his followers take on his emotions as a show of devotion, at the same time that he frames it as a mark of his favour and closeness. there's something so evocative of a certain and very precise kind of emotional abuse/manipulation there that I can't really put into words otherwise. the mask may be heightened fantasy nonsense, but the underlying 'if you really loved me you'd feel as I feel and be willing to take on all my pain so you would understand me, you wouldn't protest me vomiting all my emotions into you indiscriminately at all times' logic is... very recognizable and mundanely, viscerally icky. he bludgeons his followers with his own uncontrolled fear and pain until they all flinch with him, and then he tells them they're special for being able to accept this higher understanding (and inversely they're a disappointment and revealing their unworthiness and weakness if they want to take the mask off and breathe without 24/7 anaris angst getting piped into their neurons). the whole questline of course gestures at dealing with a family member joining a cult or extremist group lead by a charismatic figure, but within that I find the metaphor they build into the mask a really interesting angle to take on that.

...also sorry about your life cyrian lutare

[shroomerr]

Wham bam bam! Couple of Agent stuff!! I was initially just going to post the two images but then it felt a bit empty, so I decided to doodle an interaction between Agent and Mysterion.

More process drawings under the cut for those interested!!

[sunn-mechanic]

[ID in alt]

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to the AU I literally almost never talk about ;-;

anyway,, they make me unwell and they'll make you unwell too if I can ever get the fic written <3

[cursezoroark]

by luck I was already working on a geara page. so I cleaned it.

@emissary-of-dog (for the rq)

[ghost-proofbaby]

“I love you” “it’ll pass” okay but which one is Eddie and which one is reader bc I don’t think I’d be able to handle either outcome

okay. just. hear me out. listen. listen to this idea i don't know if i could ever put myself through the heartbreak of writing. (tw: i'm bringing up the cursed thing that is eddie's canon ending in stranger things as of right now. yes. his... very, very, very long nap.)

"i love you" = reader

"it'll pass" = eddie

...and how ironic it is, for him to have insisted so many times that it'll pass, especially after the canon events of season 4. in which you are left alone, with nothing more than a memory of him, and all you can think is how it'll never pass. the love, the grief, the pain - he lied. it won't pass. even when you finally crave it to.

[vaguely-concerned]

for various rl and depression reasons I haven't actually gotten to play da:tv for quite a few days now, and I cannot adequately convey to you the sheer hilarity of the effect hearing lucanis' voice again just had on me. I was fully in the deepest trough of a depressive slump, still breathing but by no means what I would describe as 'alive', heard him Say Something (as he does), and immediately something in my soul went 'oh yeah no this changes everything actually I just forgot for a moment there sorry for the inconvenience'. like my depression is not healed or anything (it never is :') ) but it did lift its crushing weight from my entire being by a significant amount and let discernible light in where there had been pitch dark unshifting misery before. this is so funny. no real life human contact or warmth, no high ideals, no wise words encouraging hope, no awe nor curiosity over the infinite complexity and wonder of the universe has managed to do what lucanis dellamorte breezily coming to terms with the grand necropolis by grasping its role in nevarra's financial system just did in an instant, 'what like it's hard' style. no one is more baffled than me to find that it's not even a bit he just does that to me. that literally just happened. mary kirby I unironically kind of owe you my life

[batsplat]

what press conference is that and what lies is Valentino telling 😭😭😭

I’m always obsessed w the Case - J Lo - Vale pressers bc I feel like Jorge actively dissociates anytime he’s not asked a question (bc he’s already internally mapping out his answers to the next 20 possible questions he could be asked), Casey simmers n stews n hates every second of being there, and Vale is just always having the time of his life

(side note but rly underrated skill of his!! to be able to pretend you actually enjoy the press element!! maybe he’s not pretending, maybe he really is just able to turn it On that often & that easily…but idk I’ve been a longtime f1 fan too & the way Vale is able to make press conferences ~fun, or at least project that he’s having fun during them, is incredibly rare)

((i recognize “underrated” is probably not the right term generally speaking for the guy who is widely recognized as like the greatest showman the sport’s ever had lol. just that i personally underrate it & then am always pleasantly surprised when i watch almost any press conference of his))

(text posts here) this is from aragon 2011, a point in their relationship where quite honestly casey didn't need much of an excuse to give valentino the stink eye

there's not anything in the presser you'd actively expect casey to want to kill valentino with his mind over (beyond valentino's terminal affinity for yapping at anyone in his vicinity in these things). maybe valentino commenting on how fast casey and ducati had been at aragon the last year somehow attracted casey's ire? maybe valentino reiterating he was going to race in japan (a major talking point throughout that year - valentino and jorge had initially been united in launching a bit of a riders' revolt on that issue, including meeting at jorge's motorhome at a time when relations between them were otherwise... uh, frosty; eventually it had been casey and jorge who were the final holdouts, with casey still not willing to 100% commit at aragon)... generally though, I reckon this is mostly just how casey looked at valentino those days

though that reminds me, there's one specific question where, if I were valentino, honestly I'd be tempted to off myself - but somehow it's casey who manages to look quite awkward while valentino just laughs

Q: Different question for you, Casey - any advice for Valentino this weekend? This is where you turned your season around last year. ... Ride faster? CS: Do something drastic, I don't know... (mumbles) [Same for me?]

absolute all timer dynamic idk, look at casey's little nervous tics while valentino is grinning at him

so self-conscious god bless

anyway, here's the presser photo

expression gets gradually more enthusiastic as you move to the right. not reflective of current competitive situation

and yeah I find their different styles of engagement v interesting!! jorge's also gone on a bit of an arc with this over the years... you've got these very early clips where he still needs a translator in the presser (not at all uncommon, dovi for instance was the same) and he's just deeply awkward but also quite enthusiastic, then you get to his first premier class years where... y'know, he's clearly not a natural at this, but he WANTS to be, he WANTS to engage with the process and be charming and all the rest of it... and then by 2011 he's kind of given up. 2010 was great for his career but less great for his popularity, and it's really when you can feel the disillusionment creeping in. he never quite loses that part of himself, still obviously wants to win hearts and minds... but yeah. he's never been particularly up for listening to his peers in these things, but by this point in time he did clearly want to fast forward through these things. default state is zoning out

casey might be a well-known sceptic of any kind of engagement with the public - but he's actually a self-professed people watcher, he likes sitting around quietly observing people. one of my fave lil autobiography nuggets:

I like to think I can read people very well, especially people I get to study a lot, and when I come in during a session to make changes to the bike that is exactly what I am doing. The mechanics might think that because I have got my visor down I'm just sitting there doing nothing but I'm observing everything and I could see they weren't coping well with the pressure of having the big bosses watching over them.

'my mechanics think I'm doing nothing but actually I'm sitting with my visor down secretly observing them' is such a. a deeply funny line, deeply casey line. not sure I'm convinced the mechanics would prefer to know that this is what casey was doing, but there we are. in any case, obviously casey doesn't SAY this but I don't think it's a massive leap to suggest he was doing the same thing in pressers. ofc I enjoy using these photos in text posts because they kinda tell their own story, but I should note that to some extent this is just casey's resting face. like,, if I'm sufficiently motivated obviously I can also make a 'casey doesn't fw dani' version

now admittedly, there are way fewer photos of casey staring at dani and jorge (or indeed anyone else) than there are of him staring at valentino... arguably even in the years where valentino is very much no longer casey's main on-track rival. but like, there's also relatively less photos of casey making heart eyes at those other two guys. whether this genuinely reflects how much staring casey was doing or is just the result of photographer bias (no criticism, I too would be documenting every look casey sends valentino's way) or a combination of the two... who knows. but I DO think that casey was very much committed to studying valentino, including by doing this little staring act in pressers. slightly clashes with his whole 'oh I don't care about my rivals' schtick, but, well, casey's no stranger to a bit of an internal contradiction. so he's quietly studying and quietly judging and quietly seething... LEARNING from the enemy by documenting every last detail of his side profile. or something

and yeah lol massive props to valentino not getting tired of this week in week out. admittedly in pressers specifically he does also frequently entertain himself by choosing the nearest convenient victim to yap at, which both jorge and casey very obviously found an annoying habit at times. (shout out to misano 2016 where jorge and valentino started bickering in the presser and jorge afterwards went HE NEVER SHUTS UP IN THESE THINGS, which, like, wasn't particularly relevant in that specific situation and clearly had just been something he'd been sitting on for years.) both jorge and casey have also actively turned to valentino on at least one occasion in a presser to indicate that they would like him to shut the fuck up - and both times valentino has complied, so theoretically at least they could have put a stop to this. so, y'know, it probably doesn't hurt if you're the type of guy willing to make your own fun in these pressers, even when it comes at the active cost of the sanity of the people around you. beyond that though, yup. I mean it's probably a good attitude to have if that's literally your whole life. I think it's always done valentino a lot of good that he's fundamentally a curious type of bloke who is curious about other people. journalists DO piss him off a lot of the time, but in theory it's a process he likes engaging with because he likes talking and he likes listening. honestly did miracles for the vibes of these things, like the f1 thing is a good point because I sometimes watch motogp pressers these days and go. man. this place could do with a yapper

[kakusu-shipping]

Okay it might

It might be a little more than a crush

[unproduciblesmackdown]

other day i was like "yeah virtually all my dreams are defined by anxiety / every goal/hope being Thwarted, but at least i never really have nightmares" but it's like well what's the baseline what's the reaction, b/c i also then have to be like "but does it count if yeah i had a fairly typical dream sequence that was like, 'uh oh, i'm on The Horrors Street and the monster is probably after me, which i'm staving off by hand but it's kind of difficult b/c it can dissolve its own corporeal form in a somewhat gory manner as it tries to gnash at My corporeal form' but i was like 'i mean this is some bullshit but typical tuesday' level reaction so it wasn't a big deal?" like i don't even know when In Real Life it's also typical to have stress reactions like, just now going "smh obviously this sucks. i know i'm stressed. i know this is unpleasant bullshit & somewhat alarming. but typical tuesday (on a thursday)" and only due to noting some physical tremors is it like oh right i guess i'm also having an adrenal response. i tend to bring the like "smoke grenade! disassociation!!" response to a dream in that i can kind of Respond to it by withdrawing / distancing myself, sometimes even like [pushing things into being: as though it's a video game. pausing, exiting, etc] & like it's My psyche & it's brief sequences melding into each other anyways so okay, we'll pivot. other times it's just like yeah this is bullshit but shrug guess we're doing this, until it pivots anyways. Outliers are usually like, "just had an unpleasant Worldwide Peril scenario premise :/" or that like yeah once in a blue moon like sometime the past year my dream was so stressful i woke myself up b/c often when Urgently Confronted w/ Alarming Dream enemy i launch into fight mode & that one was just so [!!!] >:((( that it pushed the urgency into "oh shit, wake up maybe??" response levels. get their ass!! but mostly it's like "ugh i'm at this Job & im not sure what i'm doing, didn't get enough training for this. thinking about getting food but can i afford it" like yeah thee horrors but not as urgent. but then sometimes it's urgent or at least threatening & it's still like literally zzz / well this isn't ideal clearly but it doesn't even occur to me like Do i have nightmares i just shrug off? idek man. call that nightmarinating

[horse-au-enjoyer]

Gonna start my rewatch of gen 4 today I think. Really hoping I stick to it consistently enough but the adhd has me in a chokehold. I’ve been working on this au for a second, and I wanna refine it and actually draw stuff for it. Praying this gets me to actually do stuff with it, but if it doesn’t I’m at least putting this here as a reminder that YOU CAN JUST POST NOTES AT THE VERY LEAST STOP FORGETTING THATS A THING YOU CAN DO

[mortalityplays]

This is a dangerous sentiment for me to express, as an editor who spends most of my working life telling writers to knock it off with the 45-word sentences and the adverbs and tortured metaphors, but I do think we're living through a period of weird pragmatic puritanism in mainstream literary taste.

e.g. I keep seeing people talk about 'purple prose' when they actually mean 'the writer uses vivid and/or metaphorical descriptive language'. I've seen people who present themselves as educators offer some of the best genre writing in western canon as examples of 'purple prose' because it engages strategically in prose-poetry to evoke mood and I guess that's sheer decadence when you could instead say "it was dark and scary outside". But that's not what purple prose means. Purple means the construction of the prose itself gets in the way of conveying meaning. mid-00s horse RPers know what I'm talking about. Cerulean orbs flash'd fire as they turn'd 'pon rollforth land, yonder horizonways. <= if I had to read this when I was 12, you don't get to call Ray Bradbury's prose 'purple'.

I griped on here recently about the prepossession with fictional characters in fictional narratives behaving 'rationally' and 'realistically' as if the sole purpose of a made-up story is to convince you it could have happened. No wonder the epistolary form is having a tumblr renaissance. One million billion arguments and thought experiments about The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas that almost all evade the point of the story: that you can't wriggle out of it. The narrator is telling you how it was, is and will be, and you must confront the dissonances it evokes and digest your discomfort. 'Realistic' begins on the author's terms, that's what gives them the power to reach into your brain and fiddle about until sparks happen. You kind of have to trust the process a little bit.

This ultra-orthodox attitude to writing shares a lot of common ground with the tight, tight commodification of art in online spaces. And I mean commodification in the truest sense - the reconstruction of the thing to maximise its capacity to interface with markets. Form and function are overwhelmingly privileged over cloudy ideas like meaning, intent and possibility, because you can apply a sliding value scale to the material aspects of a work. But you can't charge extra for 'more challenging conceptual response to the milieu' in a commission drive. So that shit becomes vestigial. It isn't valued, it isn't taught, so eventually it isn't sought out. At best it's mystified as part of a given writer/artist's 'talent', but either way it grows incumbent on the individual to care enough about that kind of skill to cultivate it.

And it's risky, because unmeasurables come with the possibility of rejection or failure. Drop in too many allegorical descriptions of the rose garden and someone will decide your prose is 'purple' and unserious. A lot of online audiences seem to be terrified of being considered pretentious in their tastes. That creates a real unwillingness to step out into discursive spaces where you 🫵 are expected to develop and explore a personal relationship with each element of a work. No guard rails, no right answers. Word of god is shit to us out here. But fear of getting that kind of analysis wrong makes people hove to work that slavishly explains itself on every page. And I'm left wondering, what's the point of art that leads every single participant to the same conclusion? See Spot run. Run, Spot, run. Down the rollforth land, yonder horizonways. I just want to read more weird stuff.

[therevengeoffrankenstein]

i understand that this drop is missing that zing piece bc they're holding off on releasing the next marauder hoodie but like. still.

[arolesbianism]

I've been passively watching an isat playthrough while twiddling my thumbs in my current oni save as I wait for my new power systems to be done and hey guys. I think one of these bitches is aromantic. Why did no one tell me one of these bitches is aromantic I would have played the game myself if I knew that

[thedevotionaltour]

sometimes it feels like v2+3+4 are harder to collect than one would think. considering how recent they are. actually v2 isnt that hard but v3 and 4 man... always considerably less in those sections than in v1+2. probably due to recency. but still. also theyre priced so much higher than i think any recent comic should be why the fuck are you charging me $6 for this comic that was $3 when it was coming out i should kill you in real time. this shit should be $2.