#why did they think the vale would make them straight

[kingcunny]

sisterkisser alyssa is real to me!!! i KNOW the timelines don’t work but mayhaps there was more than one reason why daella was sent to the vale

i Think the timelines might work out for that actually?

it was actually alyssas interactions with daella that gave me pause… her publicly humiliating vaegon Twice because he rejected their sister? literally putting on armor and fighting him while daella watched? defending her honor mayhaps…?

it says daella was scared of alyssa when she was younger but perhaps this event drew them closer. maybe a little Too close. maybe their parents were getting uncomfortable with alyssas new relationship with her sister. maybe they were afraid of alyssa being a bad influence on daella…

[melanieph321]

Ruben Dias x Reader - Not Ready Part 1/12

Part 2 and Part 3 are out on my Patreon for FREE!

This story is so beautiful, hopefully you'll think so too! 🥹

Readers sister dies in a tragic car accident, leaving reader and her boyfriend Ruben in the urgent custody of her niece and nephew. Readers life is suddenly flipped upside-down since having children hadn't been the plan for her and Ruben's life together. At least not now when his football career was reaching great new heights.

Enjoy! 💞

You could really get used to this life, because who else has an amazing girl boss who let's you off work in the honor of your birthday?

Well you did.

Instead of spending the last hours of the day sorting out paperwork, you were rushing off to see you your boyfriend who had surprise for you in the park.

"Oh my god, is he going to purpose?"

"I have no idea." You squealed, cellphone pressed to your ear. Your best friend Laleh was on the other end, helping you speculate why Ruben specifically wanted to spend the afternoon with you in the park.

"Do you think he had anything to do with you getting off work so early?"

"I really don't know. I would be surprised of he did."

"Yes, me too. If he did, what the hell was he thinking, leaving me to finish all this work by myself?"

You laughed. "I'm so sorry Laleh. I really owe you."

"Damn straight you do. Just make sure to send me a picture of the ring, okay?"

"I promise. Love you. Bye."

You hung up the phone and practically ran the last distance towards the park. Your heart pounded in your chest as you sighted it ahead. What if this was it? What if after three years together, Ruben, was finally ready to tie the knott. Lord knows that you were. Ruben was simply the man of your dreams.

"Y/N."

You spotted his tall figure amongst the trees. He stood with his hands in his pockets, hair stirring gently in the wind. The way your heart fluttered when you saw him could only mean one thing, no?

"Ruben, what is all this?"

He suprised you with a full on picknick. A blanket was laid out on the grass below. Beside it was a basket containing fruit, red wine and a fine collection of cheese.

"Happy birthday baby!" Ruben welcomed you to sit down.

"I can't believe you. Isn't today your rest day?"

Ruben lay down on the blanket, leaning forward to kiss you. "I can rest right here." He smiled.

You were perplexed. The amount of love you had for your boyfriend was simply too hard to grasp. He had gone so out of his way just for you. It made you giggle, how he cut you a slice of cheese with such caution, wanting it to be just the right amount to put on your cracker.

"Here you go."

"Well, thank you." You bowed with courtesy.

Ruben put down the cheese knife and licked the tip of his fingers. He licked them clean since his diet as a professional football player didn't allow him to have any dairy. Wine was also off limits. It was all just for you to enjoy.

"So..." He said, clasping his hands together as he rested on his side. "How does it feel to be twenty-five?"

"Old." You murmured through a mouth full of cheese and crackers.

"Old?" He frowned. "But I'm twenty-seven."

"Exactly my point. Twenty-seven is so old and now I'm getting closer to that age."

"Right." He snorted.

"Don't get me wrong baby. You look amazing for your age, but that's because you work out. I on the other hand...."

"If it's your fitness that you're worried about you can always come with me to the gym."

"Nah, I'm good." You chugged down the last of your cracker, dusting of the crumbs that had fallen into your lap. Ruben looked to you with admiration, the sun irritating his eyes.

"Did you know that my mom had my sister at twenty-one."

"Really?"

"Yeah, and me at twenty-seven."

"Interesting."

"Yeah and now my sister is trying to get pregnant again at thirty-one as if the two children she has isn't enough work already."

"How are they?"

"Emmy and Vale?"

"Yeah?"

"Oh, well they're great, I guess. Emmy has just started her forth year in primary school and Vale lost his first tooth the other day."

"Really?"

"Yeah. His dad forgot to slip him the money from the tooth fairy though. My sister totally freaked out."

"Tooth fairy?" Ruben tilted his head.

"Yes, the tooth fairy. Didn't you grow up with the concept of a wealthy winged midget sneaking into your bedroom at night, collecting all your teeth?"

"Erm...no. No, I didn't. " Ruben looked horried.

"Hmm.....I thought the culture in Portugal wasn't too different from the rest of the countries in Europe."

"It isn't." Ruben sat up. "But I guess my family wasn't into that kind of stuff."

"What stuff?"

"I dunno, make believe stuff. Fairytales etc."

"Oh."

"Yeah, my dad was the worst. When I first lost my tooth he made me stand in front of the bathroom mirror and pull the tooth out myself."

"Really? That's horrible."

"I still remember being hunched over the bathroom sink with blood pouring out of my mouth while hearing my dad flush my tooth down the toilet."

"Ruben, that's—"

"My dad for you." He smiled. It was obvioulsy a fond memory to him. A traumatic one to you.

"I just can't imagine myself raising children right now." You said, falling back onto the picknick blanket, a sense of peace washing over you. It was such a lovely afternoon. "If anything I'm still a child myself."

"How about a dog?"

You had gone to shut your eyes, but quickly reopened them. Ruben was standing up, hovering over you with a cardboard box in his hands.

You brought yourself to sit up. "Ruben, what is—"

Something shook the box. Followed by a low squeal. A frail attempt of a bark.

"Ruben....you did not."

His smile broadened. "I did." He lowered the box for you to see what lay within, and looking up at you with the most precious eyes was a brown sausage dog, less than four weeks old.

"Oh my god." You quickly reached for it and brought the puppy into your lap. "Ruben I can't believe you did this!"

"Happy birthday!"

You looked up at him, feeling how the dog nibbled at your fingertips. "What made you even want to do this?" It was such a commitment to get a dog. Ruben had never expressed the desire to get one before, although, you knew that he was good with them, seeing as his family had own several back home in Portugal.

"I guess I just thought it was time." He shrugged.

"Time for what?" You cried. Yes, actual tears were welling up in your eyes. Even more so when Ruben joined you on the blanket, petting the fluffy creature in your lap. He then looked to you with such a gentle gaze. "For us to start a family." He said.

"Oh, Ruben." You kissed him, apologizing for your wet cheeks. Ruben didn't mind, however, wiping them away with a stroke of his thumb. "I love you Y/N. I always will."

"I love you too."

It was the best birthday of your life, filled with wet kisses and a puppy. Hopefully it was the beginning of forever with Ruben. It's all you ever wanted

Part 2 and Part 3 are out on my Patreon for FREE!

[howi99]

Son of the blue lion chapter 2

In the middle of the night, someone is entering RWBY'S dorm

*poke poke*

Yang: Mghn.... zzzzz

*poke poke*

Yang: *mumbling* Ruby, stop it, it's too early-

???: *whispering* Yang, i need your help.

Yang: *still half asleep* ... Jaune? Why are you...

Jaune: You got a motorcycle, right? I need to use i-

Yang: *now fully waking up* Woah there! Bumblebee isn't something that i- mfhm!?

Jaune: *placing his hand on her mouth, making a silence gesture* Don't wake up the other.

Yang: ... *Slowly nod*

Jaune: *removing his hand* Now, i know Bumblebee is like your baby, and i wouldn't ask you for help if i didn't have to leave but-

Yang: *aghast but still whispering* You are leaving!? W-why?! *As her eyes get used to the dark, she can see that Jaune is in his complete armor.* Does it have anything to do with what happened yesterday?

Jaune: *looking away* It's... nothing any of you should be worried about. I don't want anyone else to be hurt.

Yang: ... *Shaking her head* I can't just let you go alone, just wait for me and-

Jaune: *fear in his eyes* No!

RWB_: *Waking up from the sound*

Ruby: *looking at the source of the sound* What the... Jaune?

Weiss: *taking her scroll to get a bit more light* Why are you here!?

Blake: *take one look at him* ... You know, if you wanted time alone with Yang, you should have told me.

Jaune: ... Shit.

_____________________________________

Team RWBY is now looking at Jaune, who is now sitting on a chair

Weiss: *massaging her temples* So let me get this straight; you enter into our dorm in the middle of the night in full fighting gear so you could get Yang motorcycle to go fight an evil man in Vale... *Look at Blake* Ever got an impression of déjà vue?

Jaune: *sigh* That's the best i can say, yes.

Ruby: But why don't you want our help?

Jaune: ...

Yang: Wait... Is that man..?

Jaune: *looking at the ground* He was one of them, yes.

Yang: *eyes glowing red* And you wanted to go fight him alone!? Didn't you warn Blake of the same thing?! That she would get killed if she tried going against the White Fang by herself?

Jaune: *shaking his head* It's not the same, nothing is the same.

Blake: Ok, that will be the kettle calling the pot black, but what do you mean it's not the same? I almost died at the dock and against the mecha. Had it not been for my team...

Jaune: We don't have the same goal at all. *Getting up* You want to stop the white fang, yes? Well, what *point to himself* ""I""wants is to murder the sons of bitches who tortured my best friend!

The room turn silent

Ruby: ... Murder? But... You are one of the kindest guys I know!

Jaune: *Turn to Ruby* Well guess what? I'm not! I'm a monster and all of you already know! You just all like pretending i never spoke about my past and what i did!

Blake: You were forced!

Jaune: Forced? I was forced to see a bunch of kids die while they drained me of my blood for that damn crest! But when it came to killing the slavers, you think i hesitated?! When it comes down to killing a man in cold blood, i highly doubt any of you could deal with the guilt! And look at me! I'm perfectly fine!

Yang: No you are not! You told us how awful you felt after killing them even if it was to save others!

Jaune: *punching the wall, leaving a hole* CAN'T YOU SHUT UP!?

Yang: *flinching, then goes to say her piece of mind before stopping, as she sees him cry*

Jaune: *trying to wipe his tears* I CAN'T LET YOU GET HURT DAMN IT! I-I CAN'T PUT ANYONE IN DANGER! I... I WON'T LET ANYONE ELSE LIVE THROUGH WHAT I DID! I... I...*Looking at Yang, tears falling slowly* i can't live with the thoughts of my friends getting hurt or killed...

???: *sigh* And what about us? Aren't we allowed to not see you hurt?

RWBY+J: *turning to the door, seeing the rest of team JNPR*

Pyrrha: *crossing her arms* Imagine how horrible WE would feel if anything happened to you.

Nora: *sniffling* I don't want to see more people go...

Ren: And even less our fearless leader.

Jaune: *sigh* Guys- *get slapped*

Ren: *looking at Jaune in the eyes* You really thought you were the only one who had it rough during the years? I saw my village get destroyed, the few survivors getting either kidnapped or killed. You think i... No, *point to Nora then himself* WE never wanted to avenge them? Nora also has a crest, what do you think we had to do so she wouldn't get caught?

Jaune: ... *Sigh* I just... I just wanted to protect you guys-

Pyrrha: *shaking her head* No, you wanted to die a hero, try redeeming yourself by fighting someone who is far above us in terms of power.

Jaune: ....

Nora: *goes to Jaune, hugging him* Please... Let us help...

Jaune: ... *Look at everyone, then back at Nora* Tsk, way to make me feel bad. Fine! You all win! I won't go get myself killed.

Nora: *hugging him tighter* That's not what we asked...

Jaune: ... *Sigh* Everyone, i need help.

Nora: *now looking up at him, still hugging him* Now we are talking!

[kingofthering]

obsessed with the bodyswap you just wrote!! sooooo insane making it would LOVE to know where you think it goes from there… are the wounds healed with the tenth under vale’s name… or is it WORSE because vale knows that He was not actually the one to win it… do they fuck nasty about it (kidding. mostly)

Also going to include @moonshynecybin's tags here because they made me pause, especially the first one. Fic in question here for additional context.

So, I thought about this a lot because I feel like this touches the Rosquez thesis a lot, and the many ways you can interpret it.

The damage to their relationship was done before they even raced in Sepang (let alone before Jorge won the championship). They were doing better before it all crumbled down in 2018. And then they once again appeared friendly before divorcing again in Misano in 2019.

All that to say that if we're being real, they were probably doomed in the long run, no matter the outcome of 2015.

In this little universe, though, I do believe that end result of the championship and Marc fighting for him can alter the perception and the understanding Valentino has of Marc, which is key to a better development of their relationship, I think.

(That and better communication but let's not ask too much of them. Anyway.)

From Marc's side, I believe that things are pretty straight forward. Contrary to what Valentino wanted to believe, Marc genuinely didn't have any reason to make Jorge win (they didn't even start looking friendly until 2019, Valentino please, anyway I diverge) and while the press conference definitely annoyed him and made him want to have Valentino pay in some way (cue him being a little more of a nuisance than usual irl), I don't think that's his final mindset in the body swap universe (which is why I wrote things the way I did with him doing his best and getting Vale the tenth, duh).

I've always tended to consider Marc has a person who doesn't hold a grudge (we have one point in common, yeah!) and to me it's always aligned with canon events and the way he's always talked about separating the on-track events from the off-track events. Of course there was some ignoring going on in the beginning of 2016 but then he was the one reaching out to him.

He's always cared about Valentino a lot and maybe he's turned a blind eye on things being a little weird in the months leading to Sepang while being just a little aware of them (like, they were still laughing together and holding hands two race weekends before Sepang, we've all seen the confused/lost expression on his face post press con, home boy did not see that one coming) but when he wakes up in Valentino's body that Sunday in Valencia? Yeah, deep down he still wants the best for Valentino. So he wins him the tenth.

On Valentino's side, though? Oh boy. He legitimately cannot understand Marc's brain process through this and it fucks him up a lot (story of his life, truly). And it's silly but his mind goes both "oh maybe he's not that evil after all" and "hm, he must have done that with an ulterior motive" (hashtag self sabotage). I don't think he believes in that second one much but it's hard to let go of it because it's also the train of thought that justifies his actions and words of the past weeks, so.

Anyway. Logistics now, because you all know I'm a very (too) practical person.

Valentino needs to be there for the celebrations of his title (watching Marc having to do the little gimmick they had prepared for the 10th after he crossed the finish line was painful enough) (I'm going to assume Marc got briefed / reminded about it by Uccio before the race, just in case) (I'm not gonna imagine what they could have prepared but it was definitely the most awkward moment of Marc's life).

If we keep going in the last scene of the first post, we can go like :

"You need to apologize for me, so we can be seen together without raising a billion questions."

"What?"

"We don't even need to organize anything because you'll have to talk to the press tomorrow after testing anyway. You can say that I got a little carried away because I'd been waiting on that title for a long time and I shouldn't have gone off on you like that. We talked and it's all fine now."

Marc's face is unreadable and it's disconcerting. Valentino has always been told that he wears all of his feelings on his sleeve and he very rarely sees himself on camera but being met with his face so guarded? It throws him off a lot.

When the silence stretches, Marc has a short laugh. "Oh you're serious? You want me to go out there and actually lie for you? Just so you can be there when all of Italy is at your feet again?"

On a corner of his mind, Valentino has to wonder if being in his body is giving Marc more confidence than usual because even Valentino can recognize that this is the most confrontational Marc has ever been with him. [which, this is just Marc fighting for himself because he's exhausted and he's in the wrong body —a stressful experience already— and he's just done the right thing and Valentino still isn't happy with him, he needs a break]

Marc's not looking at him. He's barely been doing so since they woke up that morning.

Valentino doesn't call him out on it.

"I think this would be good for you too. If you think about it."

And then Marc looks at him, murderous enough that Valentino feels uneasy and wraps his arms around himself. [How nice to finally worry about the influence of his words on the public's opinion of Marc, right?]

"No wonder you want me to do the apologizing for you considering how much you suck at it," Marc huffs. Valentino thinks he might see some tension releasing from his shoulders. [Because Marc, bless his poor 22 years-old soul, can recognize that this is actually good for him. Doesn't mean he can't give Valentino a hard time about it.] "You're sure you don't want to use my voice to make me apologize for things I didn't do? I'm sorry that my racing had an impact on the championship, I'm glad all ended as it should have."

Valentino can recognize the sarcasm dripping in Marc's voice. He still tells him to shut up but it doesn't sound mean. Not to his ears. Not to Marc's considering the half smile that pulls on his face for maybe one second.

The next day, testing happens (going relatively well considering the situation) and Marc apologizes on Valentino's behalf and he squeezes Valentino's shoulder when he passes by Valentino (while he's talking to the press) and both his words and the photo make rounds on Twitter and all over the Internet.

Then, Marc goes to Tavullia with Valentino. I don't care if that's too big and going to raise too many questions, it's happening.

Don't ask me more about that day but yes, of course they end up having sex about it. It's always sex fixing those situations, anyway. I'm not sure I can say much more about it because body swap sex fucks with my mind a little but yes to all the headcanons.

I do know that 22 years-old Marc exuding Valentino's confidence and boldness sure is a sight for sore eyes.

Okay and I just reread this original ask. I think that Valentino will forever feel a little weird about it but I don't think there is resentment, not really. Can he ever truly deconstruct the delusional thoughts he built in his head (with Uccio's help) in the second half of 2015? I don't know.

But I think he has enough clarity to know he wouldn't have achieved what needed to be achieved in Valencia without Marc's help, so there is that.

[formulapookie]

23 with rosquez

23. Did they hurt you?

When Vale learns about people breaking into Marc's home after what he said about it he feels like a meteor just hit him at full force.

He knows his fans are loyal and almost cult-like followers but this is definitely not what he thought could've happened after a press con.

Yes he was angry, fuming even, because Marc had just costed hima championship but - he never would've thought people could be this insane.

He wants to text Marc, tell him he's sorry that happened.

A clean, short message.

Just to get it off his chest.

But vale knows Marc, he knows his mind and how stupidly stubborn that boy is. He knows if he got hurt he didn't tell anyone and is probably still hurting.

And yeah maybe he shouldn't care, not after what Marc did, but something deep in his chest wants him to go, check on Marc, talk to him.

When he sneaks into Marc's motorhome that evening he thanks no one is inside, there was a really high chance Alex was gonna be there, and the younger never had a particular liking for Vale.

The only person present in the motorhome is Marc.

He's sat on his bed, shirtless and sad.

He looks - Vale doesn't decipher his eyes, there's a layer of something he cannot quite understand.

Even from the distance he can see the bruise, on his arm, ugly blue and purple fading to yellow on the edges.

Marc is wincing in pain as he applies what Vale supposes to be arnica or something similar.

There's a pack of ice on the nightstand, it's leaking, probably been there for longer than it was supposed to be.

He doesn't think about announcing his break-in, and he realizes a bit too late he's made a mistake.

He opens the door fully and he steps in, but when he does he's met with a terrified Marc, who curls up and hides his face.

"Marc it's me"

How fucking stupid can he be?

People just broke into his house and he comes in here like this.

When Marc notices he sits straight up, the twitch in the corner of his eyes a signal he's in pain, but doesn't want to show.

He's calming his breath down, trying to erase the moment that just passed.

"I uhm"

"What? You wanted to congratulate your dogs for entering my home and fucking it up?"

"No no Marc I-I wanted to say I'm sorry this happened"

"Mh. And why should I believe you?"

"Because I'm sorry"

"Yeah ok and if I tell you I didn't act on purpose to make you loose the championship what would yo say?"

"I wouldn't believe you, Marc this is a different thing-"

"What a fucking hypocrite. You want me to believe you but you wouldn't believe me if you had proofs in front of you"

"I - Marc this is not why I came here I just wanted to say I'm sorry about what happened"

"To say sorry? Sorry doesn't fix anything Valentino. They broke in. They broke things, they - they wrote on the fucking wall. Do you know what they shouted when I came back home, before breaking in?"

Vale's mind is running. No he doesn't know what they shouted, and he's not sure he wants to.

"They called me Lorenzo's little bitch. Reminds you of something someone else said? Oh yes. It's what you said to your journalist friends"

Vale is far again, heartbeat in his ears, Marc's eyes clearly full of tears but proudly holding them back.

His attention is brought back by the bruise.

it's still there, ugly as before, must be really fucking painful.

Then he notices another one, fading, and his stomach drops.

The one on the arm was bad already, it was done to hurt for sure but the second one.

It's. It's scary.

Around Marc's neck there's the faint line of a hand squeezing it with too much force.

He wants to get closer to Marc, hug him to reassure him but he knows he would scare him away if he did.

So he asks, because it's all he can do.

"Did they hurt you?"

The tone shakes something inside Marc. A weakness, a desire to be comforted and held. But he doesn't give into it. Because it was Vale's fault if that crazy man grabbed him by the hand and when he freed himself did the same at his neck.

He still feels the hand around it, the sheer panic he felt for the five seconds it lasted, before others got him far from that hold.

So he scoffs. Doesn't look at Vale because if he did he would meet his gaze, which guessing by his tone is of pity.

And Marc Marquez doesn't accept pity.

"Would you care?"

And Vale is stunned. He knows Marc thinks he hates him, because he's done everything to make it look like that.

But. He didn't think Marc thought he hated him THIS much. Not to care.

"Of course I care Marc they - they broke in and - the press didn't say anything about these"

Vale probably shuts his brain off, because he actually sits on Marc's bed next to him, and extends his hand to touch the bruised area.

And Marc, for the first time in his life, jerks away from Vale's touch. Like it's venomous, burning.

And Vale is sincerely worried now, hurt yes, because Marc gets away from him, but mostly worried for the fear he sees hiding behind Marc's pupils.

"Marc I'm not going to hurt you"

"No? Like you weren't going to leave me over racing results? You think I forgot what you promised me? Before the Ranch? Why should I trust you now Valentino?"

Valentino.

Not Vale.

"I - the racing it's different, it's a whole championship Marc! You helped him and -"

"I DIN'T FUCKING HELP HIM"

Marc is red in the face, he's stood up from the bed, and for once vale feels like the smaller out of the two.

"GOD! Will you get it in your fucking head I didn't help anyone to win? Huh? The fuck do you think that I manipulated the penalty system or what? That I faked to fall? That I've been mastering up this majestic plan to make you loose a championship since the Ranch visit? I didn't give a fuck who would've won last year because I wasn't in the run"

He wants to cry, so desperately would want that Vale wasn't the responsible of his pain so to look for comfort in him.

Because it doesn't make sense to ask for comfort to the person who's hurting you right? It's an oxymore.

"Marc please let me help you with those"

He'd ducking the question, Marc knows he is because he doesn0t have an answer.

And he wants to say no.

Wants to tell him to fuck off.

Instead he sits back on the bed, tilting his neck slightly, and it hurts.

He's scared too, his neck is there, ready to be sliced open if one only would.

He anticipates the sensation, hot blood running down his throat and staining his shirt, his bed, a river of crimson regret.

Instead there's gentle fingers grazing his skin, a thin layer of cream gently massaged on his bruised skin.

He wants to cry again, he also wants to get away, but he also wants Vale to stay and hold him.

He hasn't slept in days.

He wants to fall asleep with him.

God his head is a fucking mess. And Vale keeps on applying the cream on his neck, he can feel the softness and the carefulness of his touch. It's beautiful.

He wishes it could be like this forever.

Silence, softness and closeness.

Once Vale is finished he expects him to go, but he doesn't.

Marc doesn't protest, he slips under the covers and closes his eyes, tries to fall asleep.

Vale is still sat on his bed, like a guard, and Marc knows nothing between them is ok.

But maybe with Vale presence tonight he will be able to sleep.

And maybe in his dreams they're ok.

[moonshynecybin]

what would you consider essential marc and rosquez watching? i don’t mean races but the stuff happening around it, there seems to be so much and idk where to start 😭

BIG ass question. i think it depends what you want outta this and how you best interact with content slash consume information. for me (not to brag but. winner of multiple historical essay writing competitions in high school. for context on the kind of freak i am bringing to the table here.) the research is kind of the fun part ! like i just started googling shit! i would go to inactive blogs and just search 'marquez' on them to see what would happen ! a lot of the times that works ! but it also takes a lotttt of time lol so i'll chuck some good resources your way, why not...

okay im not sure how basic we're talkin here but um. background. so the documentaries are, i think. the best place to start. theyre entertaining and offer a good amalgamation of clips to provide context for the actual racing. and like i know you de-emphasized racing (which is fine lol who cares) but it really is like the most important thing in the world to these fools and its a pretty visual sport so i think its at least helpful. like yes sepang IS about the press conference, but its also about the conversation they have ON the race track using their motorcycles. which is also somewhat a conversation that they HAVE been having all year long...

i'd start with hitting the apex (2013), its a GREAT introduction to the "characters" that does a lot of legwork to contextualize everything. lays the scene for where vale is at coming into his relationship with marc (both personally, wrt to marco simoncelli, and career-wise concerning his flop at ducati), and also how insane marc's whole deal is in general. the second half is. materially a study on what him entering the premiere class did to the sport as a whole. the introductory chapter in many respects

marc marquez: all in. MY introduction and blissfully free online. marc comma in his own words, with all the implications of that. a self-produced documentary where he is giving feedback about the edit of said documentary straight to camera and no less vulnerable because of it which is very marc imo. revealing both intentionally AND unintentionally about his whole deal with injury, vale, and his image.

motogp unlimited. im gonna be real kind of boring. like i would still watch it ! but do it kind of later, once you know the major players so youre automatically more invested. it doesnt really give you more than marc says himself in all in tbh, and i get the sense him and vale were NAWWWT interested in doing more than the bare minimum for it.

marc's rookie doc. free and subtitled on the youtubes. the first half of this is deadass just him wanting to fuck vale so bad while every comment from vale has me saying GIRL. out loud because the foreshadowing would be genuinely shocking if this was fiction. anyways the laguna seca of it all....

next i would hit up PODCASTS ! i think it makes sense after the documentaries, because these are all podcasts that arent strictly about rosquez (even if they are in many ways the main characters lmao) and personally it helps to put faces to lesser known names that might pop up before i listen to a purely audio product and get lost in the soup of sounds. the paddock pass podcast has two retrospective episodes about the 2015 season that are really good at context, oxley bom pod has a fun recent episode on valentino that i love, again just poke around a lil

videos. these guys have never filmed a lot of content together tragically. what i wouldnt give for someone to make them do an escape room. anyways ranch visit HERE (post explaining the ranch visit here). sepang presscon (sowwy) here. vale unhinged podcast interview the month after marc's documentary came out here. vale retirement interview where he gets asked about marc here. vale talking about asking marc to the ranch here. vale postrace at argentina 2018 here. UCCIO postrace at argentina 2018 here. theres a lot moreeeee just go on my blog archive and filter for rosquez and vids its easier lol

journalism. hello. okay so you should genuinely spend some time reading through mat oxley's stuff he can write (theres a paywall but you can run that shit through wayback machine). he also loves an insane comparison which i do enjoy.... again this is one that can be solved by googling his name and tacking on 'marquez' or 'rossi' or a specific time period or race it will probably reap some dividends. in terms of specific ass articles this one is kind of load bearing in terms of sepang and some of the interpersonal competitive tensions at play. that being said there are manyyyyyy crazy interviews and snippents of articles from other journos floating around motogp tumblr (like literally too many to link) adn its fun to dig around to find them, but mat oxley gets a shoutout because i was reading this article TODAY !

other content. honestly one of the best resources I'VE found for plotting out the arc of their relationship is @kingofthering's everyrosquezpodium series. you can REALLY see it play out lol. also her tagging system rules she very neatly lays out years and races... so if something jumps out at you, CLICK ITTTT ! also all of @ricciardoes fave presscon moments series. insane.

all this to say a small little rpf fandom like this rewards some digging! i would just recommend following narrative threads that interest you ! its also a small fanbase that is pretty research oriented, so if youre ever confused about somethin, just shoot an ask or run a search on someone's blog (@kwisatzworld has endless vale resources and @batsplat is one of the most thorough researchers ive ever seen, for example) like for real theres so much... i also have a primer that i made forever ago that has some links on it so you can peruse that if you so wish. but frankly a lot of it is just using those research muscles and being sufficiently deranged enough to be screenshotting reddit threads at one am so you can post them to tumblr because they mentioned marc and vale in the same sentence and that lit up some of the neurons in your brain

(and i know you said outside of races but i think theyre good benchmarks as turning points soooo you should do some diggin on laguna seca 2013, jerez 2015, argentina 2015, ASSEN 2015, sepang 2015 obvi, argentina 2018, and misano 2019. those are the big tentpoles of insane rosquez relationship drama imo. i mean theres many more but. im limiting myself.)

[rachetmath]

Summer, Pyrrha and James

Ruby: Yes Ratchetmath is defending us today.

Me: Nah don't get it twisted ya'll still guilty but for once I am going to have to expose James for a minute. He's understandable but not innocent. Plus I made a promise and I'm keeping it so if you want to continue then go on. @arkosfan @expensiveeggplant

Okay, I do think it's time to keep my promise. Let’s talk about Summer and Pyrrha’s deaths and how they influence the characters. Then we talk about James's actions.

Both Summer and Pyrrha's deaths should matter. But, only to the characters that were close to them.

Summer's death was supposed to be or still is a mystery. Her death is assumed to matter to Ruby. Not only because she was a silver-eyed warrior and Ruby’s mom but because it goes back to Salem. After all, Salem met Summer and probably was the one who saw and killed her. And Summer was why Ruby became a huntress in the first place. An example is her fighting and clothing style. Now Summer’s death is being brought up more often and not knowing anything about her, Ruby sets out to uncover Summer's demise with each new detail dictating her next move.

Pyrrha's death should have mattered to Jaune. Pyrrha’s death serves as a reminder that not even the strongest can survive war like Summer. Jaune, realizing that he has to continue without her, rises to the challenge to become more powerful than herself. However, for him, how his partner and team are treated and how the world, mainly the ones in charge, react will determine Jaune’s next moves. This is due to Pyrrha’s death being very recent and so far the world has gone to madness. 

Now let’s discuss James Ironwood. James’s plan was debatable at best. I understand the overall goal was to use Amity Arena to broadcast to the entire world of Salem's existence. However the price- the means to get there was horrible. Not just for Mantle but the world.

First, Beacon; This man brought his army into Vale. Turned the Council against Ozpin. And is one of the people who saw Pyrrha and spoke of the maiden powers under Jaune’s nose. As soon as his army fails and Salem wins, he leaves. Leaving Goodwitch to clean up the mess.

Second, the world. I mean, James called in all of his troops, scattered around Remnant, to return to Atlas. This stopped trading routes. Businesses that relied on them to cease operations. Worse, lessens security around the kingdoms. Meaning more work for hunters and council members to deal with. So sorry, James’s fan but Nora and Jaune were speaking straight facts.

Speaking of Jaune and Nora, let’s discuss James’s effect on the two teams. 

For team RWBY James had more of a positive effect. James did more right for team RWBY than JNPR. Letting Ruby off with a pass and even praising her for her bravery. Giving Yang a pardon even though she struck a supposed student, breaking his leg, and not going to a holding cell. Giving Yang an arm. Backing up Weiss, even offering her a place at his school in Atlas. Blake though not receiving anything from Ironwood, hearing all his effort from her team would get her to side with him. So it’s insane why they're more against Ironwood than JNPR who he hasn’t done much for.

Team JNPR so far when it came to James had a negative effect. Mainly he’s the one halting their progress. He hasn’t done anything specially for them. And again, if he knew about Salem, the maidens, and relics, what makes you think he didn’t know about Pyrrha? Hence why I didn’t like Ren's development where he sides with Ironwood so easily, only because he reminds him of his dad. Nora had reason for Robyn was more understandable than Ren’s. Meanwhile, the only reason Jaune trusts him is because he trusts Roby. In my opinion team JNPR should have been the main ones against him. 

(Oh and let's not forget, team RWBY were the ones who missed up but James was willing to give them an option. I don’t recall him giving team JNPR any options at all. )

Now let’s discuss Mantle and Atlas. Mainly the difference between them. In Mantle, there are lower-class citizens living there. And thanks to James, most of the people have no jobs. Barely enough money to get by. And are attacked by Grimm every day. Meanwhile, Atlas has a barrier and ships defending them. The people are living peacefully and are throwing parties. Hell one kid, in RWBY Arrowfell, was sitting on the sidewalk to watch a fight. Minor but still this shows me Atlas is doing better than Mantle.

Yes, James does help Mantle with security. However, he sends a majority of robots to do the job. The same robots used to protect Beacon. The same robots that failed and nearly destroyed the kingdom of Vale. And another key detail about Mantle; it’s outdated. Everything from the Manlte’s homes and its street; which are in poor condition. To its wall; that doesn’t work cause Grimm can climb or fly over it. And its technology; which is from the military and the Schnee Dust Company. Not to mention the people of Mantle are being watched, killed, and/or arrested every few times a day. That includes the giant ships hovering over them while surrounding Atlas. 

(I don’t know about you, but if I was living in Mantle and saw not one, not two but thousands of ships above me and near Atlas, I would be scared. Because that’s giving me the impression that you are willing to destroy my home or that a war is coming that you don’t want me to find out about.)

But you know what makes this worse…. Amity Arena was James’s only plan. It was his ONLY plan, and the heroes took no processions to make sure the plan stayed on course. And when as Ironwood said,” The timeline has changed”, he was ready to lift Atlas into space. Abandoning not just Mantle, but Remnant as a whole. Someone once said, “The needs of the many matters more than the few”, let's ask this, “If you were to compare the two cities, which of them has the most people?” And I recall Mistral, Argus, and Vale have people too so… who’s the many and whose the few?

(Nah-nah. Let me say this. Let me say this. In volume 8, the first episode Pietro said Amity was almost ready in fact it only took a couple of hours. So this made me question something, how was Robyn slowing down their progress? Because it seems despite her interference she wasn’t causing too many problems. Yet Tyrian who works for Salem, has a criminal record and has been killing people left and right wasn’t on the main character’s priority list. Are you kidding me?)

So yeah, James undoubtedly had questionable methods. He had the right idea however the risk it took to bring this idea to life should not be overlooked, regardless of Salem's planned attack on Vale. James’s action only justified the world's hatred towards him and his military. Basically, even if his plan succeeded no one would have claimed done. No kingdom would simply give him their trust or aid. The sad truth is Atlas deserved to fall due to its own ignorance.

(And if you don’t believe me let me give an example. Adam who has an SDC mark on his face and mainly the mine workers are Faunues. Ilia’s parents died in a mining accident and Atlassian students just laughed about it. And then Cinder, who was a slave to her stepmom and her daughters when she was a kid and no one helped her. )

[batsplat]

Chad reed on always the entourages creating the drama. I cannot believe that is what caused rosquez downfall but also given the level of Vale's celebrity and the way he carried himself, I can totally believe that it was the entourage (iPad stand I'm looking at you) that brought the end

(about reed's 2020 quotes in this) yeahhh I mean the downfall was caused by a whole bunch of factors, not just any one thing... like all great tragic narratives, it feels inevitable from a global perspective and yet thoroughly preventable in its specifics, with loads of points where you think, 'oh, if things had just gone a little bit differently'... there's this tension in how, in the end, maybe it would've always gone wrong, but a lot had to come together for it to go wrong in quite such a spectacular fashion

reed's definitely correctly identified one of the factors - the entourages, and valentino's entourage specifically. though fwiw, I did cut off the article before reed predicted the marc/fabio rivalry was headed a similar way (this was from 2020, obviously before the arm injury):

for better or for worse, fabio has skipped the villain arc to head straight to the depressed frenchie arc

regardless of whether this rift would have happened or not, the idea that marc would have gotten a new appreciation for the situation valentino found himself in is at least an interesting one. though if anything, the rivalry with fabio would have more closely paralleled valentino's with the other aliens (new talent coming through, but with the previously dominant rider still a regular winner). now is the time marc's learning what it feels like to come back from a prolonged absence from being competitive at the highest level - and of course with a new superstar simultaneously making his debut

so yeah, anyway, tragedy, you can point to all sorts of strains and pressures and tension inherent to professional sport that were exacerbated by the personalities involved and the influence of the media and the passage of time etc etc. but never mind all that, let's get back to entourages! I know you mention everybody's favourite b-list shakespeare villain, but I'm going to basically mostly ignore him because it's well-trodden ground. yeah, it does help to have one guy who's whispering poison into your ear for a prolonged stretch of time before showing up at your motorhome doorstep with a bunch of telemetry and a dream. and yeah, there were people in valentino's entourage definitely encouraging this path to doom. but what I'm also interested in is the flip side - why nobody stopped him

I would like to submit into evidence this passage detailing the thoughts of vale's mechanic alex briggs. now briggs in this excerpt blames two groups for how things went down in 2015:

the yamaha side (specifically the press group) for not talking him down from the ledge before the presser

the crew chief and other assorted italians on the team for being too "yessy" and not standing up to him

let's briefly (for a given value of the word) focus on the first one. if you're a random yamaha pr person and you see the valentino rossi run to a press conference (given he was late) with a bunch of papers in his hands (well, he's not actually holding the papers in those gifs, but presumably somebody's got them), it's probably a tough ask to expect you to hold up the valentino rossi and ask him what exactly he's intending to do with those papers. also, is he really going to back off because you, random yamaha pr person, have asked him to please not accuse the competition of sabotage? added context is that some at yamaha were aware of what valentino thought about the race at phillip island (which we'll get to in a sec), but god knows if the pr people did. unless he confided in anyone on the yamaha side what the plan was, a lot of them would have been blindsided too - which does come back to the problem of how big a deal valentino is and how maybe you're a little more cautious about questioning what he's about to do with those papers than you would be with somebody else. it does feel like perhaps a bit too much to expect for them to have launched some last-minute intervention, or to even know what kind of intervention they could have gone for beyond low-level comedy hijinks to stop him from even getting to that room. why did nobody from yamaha place a banana skin in his path

but we do know that at least some in yamaha were aware of valentino's great big phillip island sabotage theory, because lin jarvis has very helpfully told us as much (from the post-sepang media scrum):

Q: Do you think it was a mistake for Valentino to [provoke?] Marc so much on Thursday with a very personal and hard attack? Jarvis: There are always many different ways of addressing different problems - Valentino chose to do it in that way. Perhaps that is what provoked Marc into being quite aggressive on the track. I really don't know, you need to ask Marc not me about that. Every action has a consequence. That's life. Q: And did you know before that Valentino was going to be so aggressive with Marc in the press conference? Did you know before? Did you discuss with Valentino about this decision or you didn't know until it happened? Jarvis: Personally, I was not aware of that. I was aware of Valentino's opinion of the race in Australia, but I was not aware... but I was not aware that he would - Q: Don't you think because Valentino at the end of the day is an employee of Yamaha he should discuss before with you about such an important decision, to attack a rider of another factory in such a heavy way [...]? Jarvis: You can't control every incident, everything that happens and you know, generally we have a very good [...] relation, connection with our riders, we talk to them before about things before, but anyway I think this is something Valentino felt strongly about and it was his decision and that's it.

note the use of the word "personally", which does leave the door open to others within yamaha (outside of valentino's inner circle) knowing what was going to happen. jarvis, unsurprisingly, comes down pretty firmly on the side of 'well what were we supposed to do'. given that jarvis admits he knew valentino's theory and is hardly a stranger to valentino's modus operandi - after all, he was already team boss at the time of another tense press conference in sepang eleven years prior that took place in the wake of valentino accusing a competitor of messing with him - you do have to wonder whether yamaha could not have tried a little harder to stop valentino. but again, accounting for the power of valentino's status and the power of his character, I'm personally unconvinced yamaha could've done much to convince valentino to change his mind

so then: the italians. a little bit of context - briggs started working with crew chief jerry burgess in 1994 and both of them were on mick doohan's team for all of his five 500cc titles. when doohan's injuries forced his retirement, valentino inherited his championship-winning team upon moving up to 500cc. jb was vale's very first crew chief in the premier class, and him as well as briggs have been working with vale since december 1999. understandably, this is a very tightly-knit group. it is one that made the jump to yamaha with valentino - here's just a quick excerpt (also from oxley's valentino rossi: all his races) about briggs' thoughts on that move:

When Valentino decided to defect to Yamaha, he was determined to have his crew go with him. Only one stayed at HRC. "We first got to know about the Yamaha deal in Portugal, I think [September 2003]," Briggs continues. "I wanted to stay with JB, because I hadn't finished learning what I wanted to learn. "I remember a clandestine meeting in the car park at Phillip Island, about salaries and how everything was going to work. It was really exciting. When I very first started working with Honda the whole group was very much a team. Towards the end we felt like it started to become a bit us and them: the engineers and management, then the mechanics and the riders. They'd sort of got too big for their boots - they'd designed this wonderful bike, so it was like it had nothing to do with us. That made it easier to leave.

and also about the move to yamaha, from the 2020 barker biography of valentino:

But with his trusted crew chief Jerry Burgess and most of his other team members from the Honda garage agreeing to defect with him, Rossi had the crew he needed, not only to win but also to enjoy his racing. It was a heartening display of loyalty and something of a risk for all involved. ‘When I announced to the mechanics that I was going with Valentino they said, “I’m coming too,”’ Burgess later explained. ‘Some of those guys were leaving very secure jobs and taking a big gamble.’

the group also survived the move to ducati (obviously a deeply frustrating two years not just for the guy riding the bike) and the move back to yamaha. but then, valencia 2013, valentino announced his decision to fire jb in a press conference organised for the pair of them. his 2013 season had been deeply frustrating - yes, he had gotten a podium in his first race beating both marc and dani, but after that generally speaking he couldn't come close to matching the other aliens when healthy. he was comfortably the fourth best rider that year, scrapping and clawing his way through midfield battles and having to rely on misfortunes befalling the three title contenders to achieve his podiums and his sole victory at assen. he was considering retiring at the end of the 2014 season once his current contract expired, but wanted to try everything he could to see whether he could be competitive again against the world's very best. and so, he made the decision to roll the dice and get himself a new crew chief, the italian silvano galbusera

now I have to say, personally I have a lot of time for this decision (even if it was maybe not... uh, enacted in the most graceful of manners, given how sudden it was). I come from a sports background where a certain ruthlessness in personnel decisions is encouraged and generally praised - if something isn't working, you should have the courage to make a change, even if it's deeply uncomfortable (including on an interpersonal level). also, while it was a sudden departure, it's not like burgess was that keen on sticking around much longer (again from the same oxley book):

Valentino ended his collaboration very suddenly at the end of 2013. Burgess was shocked but not too much, because he already knew that he was coming to the end of his own career. "When it ended for me I'd already been doing it 30-odd years and I'd told Valentino a few weeks earlier that I wasn't going to sign any more multi-year contracts. I was 60 by then, so I'd go year by year. I'd already signed a contract for 2014, but I would've thought if we hadn't had any more success by then that there wasn't much point in continuing. I felt we would win more races but I was more doubtful about championships. "I'd read enough sporting biographies to know that sportsmen change their coaches towards the end of their careers. It can give them a spike in results but it doesn't change the overall story. Looking back, Valentino's career went on longer than I expected. He enjoyed some success but no more championships and that's what you race for. Of course he was in the unique position of being able to get a factory bike until he retired. He was very special and deserved everything he got."

which, look. again, personal bias, but to me it's reasonable to part ways with somebody who doesn't think any more titles are plausible, because at that point it's just somebody who has a very different view on your career than you do and may well not stick around for much longer anyway. also, at the end of the day, jb was wrong! valentino came extremely close to winning another title, and just because he didn't, doesn't change the fact he could have. if it had rained on the 8th of november 2015 in valencia, we might be having a very different conversation. (or if they hadn't changed the bloody qualifying format post-2012.) honestly, if the 2016 and to a lesser extent the 2017 season had gone just a little differently - a working bike in mugello here and an unbroken leg there - he could have been a genuine title threat in two more seasons. in any case, what it does show is that valentino even at the end of 2013 was still as determined as ever, was ready to engage in what was a huge gamble (given how almost all his success had come with the highly decorated jb) on the off chance he might find what it took to win again. this will not have been an easy decision for valentino. here's a write-up of the presser at valencia, that stresses how uncomfortable the occasion was, how surprising a decision it was to jb, but how publicly at least there was a lack of recriminations (which, to be fair, wouldn't be much fun to do in a shared presser):

(you'll note that the phrasing in the presser about athletes attempting to extend their carrers by changing things up is echoed in what he says in that book interview where he adds that it doesn't change the overall story, again suggesting he didn't really believe valentino would be competitive. he also uses the same phrasing in ANOTHER interview that confirms as much, but I think you get the point.) valentino said at the time, "it was a very difficult decision for me because I have a great history with jeremy. he is not just my chief mechanic. he is like part of my family. my father in racing". this is somebody he'd been working with since age 21, somebody who is not only revered within the paddock for his work with several of the sport's greats but is also a man who valentino obviously has a close personal connection to. meeting for the first time when vale snuck into the honda pit to check out the bike he might ride next season, hitting it off immediately, countless rowdy dinners together, parties, jb and another older colleague sitting back when food fights started, watching valentino grow up, working with him throughout all his big manufacturer switches, all his successes and all his failures... as much as anything else, it's evidence of how strong vale's desire to win was, how determined he continued to be, to make this choice at this stage of his career. and jb was open to the idea (at least publicly) that it might end up being a smart call:

the 'dirtiest' part of the whole affair is how it was actually carried out - it's not great form to tell your crew chief the day before you end up doing a press conference together to announce your choice. for whatever it's worth, this is how valentino justified the timeline:

and lastly, which I think is the most key part, is valentino's belief. because at the end of the day, the only reason why he's doing any of this, and the only reason why what was to come was possible at all, is that he himself still thought that he could challenge for another title - as much as that belief had come under strain:

now what this piece also goes on to say is that nobody believes this will work. nobody believes that firing jb will lead to better results. people expect that this is going to lead to his retirement, quite possibly at the end of 2014. it's worth just remembering sometimes how extraordinary valentino's return to the top of the game post-2013 really was, how it went against how we expect a rider's competitive lifecycle to work, went far beyond the longevity exhibited by any top rider before or since - all while going up against riders who are widely believed to be some of the best to ever do it. valentino beat jorge in both 2014 and 2016, and remains one of two people to outscore prime marc marquez over the course of a season. not to engage in too much rossi prop here, but sepang 2015 can't really be understood without all the frustration that led up to it, to this one golden chance, this miracle that everybody had believed to be impossible (sometimes even valentino). this wasn't supposed to be happening. it was happening. and then, so so close to the finish line, valentino could feel it slipping, slipping, slipping away

but of course, we still don't know whether changing crew chiefs is the key factor that made him competitive again. maybe he just needed a bit longer to get back into the swing of things post-ducati disaster. maybe the bikes just started to suit him better. hey, maybe it was that nifty exercise regime he'd engaged in a wee spot of espionage for so that he could pinch it off his teammate. what we can say, however, is that valentino's choice both tells us a lot about his mindset, as well as (to finally bring us back to the actual point of this post) representing a massive shift in his 'entourage'. this is what briggs is referring to in his quote - the italians. the new crew chief. the people who couldn't stand up to valentino. now obviously, as mentioned above briggs had worked with jb for the better part of twenty years and can hardly be considered a neutral party. here were briggs' feelings on the matter (yeah it's from the same oxley book again, I got it new for eighteen quid which is a very generous price, would recommend):

When JB was out at the end of 2013 it was like losing my mechanic dad. I remember being in the garage when we found out about it. Then they arranged a kind of farewell, a kind of hodgepodge farewell. It was terrible, I didn't like any of it. I was just hiding behind one of the bikes in the garage, crying, going, what's going on here? It didn't seem right to me. I think maybe Valentino thought he would get faster again sooner, but I think it took at least a year to get the taste of the Ducati out of his mouth. I think if he'd stayed with JB we would've won the championship in 2015.

which. look. we don't have time to unpack all that. but. the point is that obviously briggs wasn't exactly a massive fan of the change within valentino's team, and his comments about the 2015 season do have to be read with that in mind. as to whether vale really would have done better in 2015 with jb at his side, your guess is as good as mine. all that being said, a part of me wonders how much losing that grounding presence enabled valentino's late-2015 spiral. maybe not in terms of talking valentino out of the great big fluctuating lap times treachery theory - to state the obvious, valentino got himself involved in plenty of drama during jb's time as a crew chief. jb himself occasionally helped add fuel to the fire in those feuds, like his infamous comment about how he would be able to fix the ducati's issues in 80 seconds that casey still brings up every three business days (the comments were poorly phrased but also somewhat taken out of context, in that jb was talking about a specific set-up problem). he's generally been pretty happy to be forthright about valentino's rivals, for instance this about casey:

My feeling at the time was that Casey probably only had one game plan, and having watched Casey over the years, he doesn't have a plan B. If it doesn't go his way from the outset, it's probably one of the weaknesses that he had through the youth that he had, through the lack of experience that he had. That's not a criticism of him per se, he was still only 22 at the time.

(this is about laguna seca 2008 and how he helped valentino win that race, including in plotting out vale's rather ruthless tactics - which casey was of course not exactly a fan of.) or these. uh. harsh comments about dani from spring 2010:

Q: Is that atmosphere or track knowledge? Is it like the Spanish finding something extra at the racetracks in Spain? JB: Well, therein we show the weakness, don't we? If you can get up on that weekend, on the technical racetracks of Spain, why can't you get up on the technical racetracks like Australia, where the Italians do? Lorenzo is a guy who will and does. Stoner has been able to get up on tracks all over the world. Unfortunately, Dani Pedrosa's into his 6th year in MotoGP, and he's won 8 races, Jorge Lorenzo's two months into his 3rd and he's won 6. It's night and day between those two, is the way I see it. Dani's an extremely fast rider, but a shockingly poor racer. Q: Were you surprised at Jerez [2010] when Pedrosa fought back when Lorenzo passed him? JB: When did Dani fight back? With two laps to go, and he didn't even get close enough to try to come back. Dani has never been a fighter in races, he's a lovely kid, don't get me wrong, but you can see that Lorenzo, having Pedrosa in front of him, it was never going to be the way he was going to finish that race. He was going to finish on the ground or he was going to finish in front of Pedrosa. That's the sort of race that we want, we had that with Biaggi and Valentino, and from history with Schwantz and Rainey. All the good riders have always had somebody they have had to put the target on the back of. It was Doohan and Gardner, and Doohan won that battle hands down, and I think Jorge Lorenzo's going to win this battle [with Pedrosa] hands down.

kind of a dick! so his attitude to valentino being valentino has generally been a) well having enemies is good, actually, with an added slice of b) good luck to his enemies :) - see also this quote (from the barker biography) in the context of the gibernau rivalry:

And that made Rossi even more dangerous, as Jerry Burgess pointed out: ‘Valentino is the sort of rider I wouldn’t want to get angry. He can take you apart on the track.’

so yes, jb is also perfectly brutal in his own right, as you presumably have to be to work alongside valentino so closely for so long. he is, however, also somebody valentino has a massive amount of respect for, somebody who helped turn him into a legend and is responsible for a lot of vale's success - not least, of course, in the pivotal move to yamaha. he was replaced by a man of a far far lesser stature in the sport, one who presumably would have been grateful to valentino for the biggest job he was ever going to get. if briggs is right and there was a shift in valentino in 2015, surrounded as he was by italians (derogatory) who could not stand up to him, who allowed valentino to insist on war and peace on the pit boards, to focus more and more on things that had nothing to do with riding... it would be going a little too far to say that valentino was missing an adult in the room given he was, in fact, in his thirties and should have been capable of being that adult. and who knows what jb would have said or thought or done about the great big childhood hero deception theory. but sepang 2015 was the culmination of a lot of things, including a pressure cooker of a season that grew more and more tense and put more and more stress on everyone involved - perhaps for none more so than valentino. maybe, just maybe, if he'd had somebody around him with fifteen years of experience in handling him, who could have just occasionally told him to knock it off, to concentrate on the racing, to keep things simple (always jb's defining philosophy), to maybe not get so wrapped up in the great big spanish collusion theory...

or maybe it wouldn't have mattered! maybe we're getting cause and effect all wrong here; maybe valentino was deliberately fashioning his entourage into one that was only going to give him positive feedback. maybe he would have just stopped listening to jb, maybe the very decision to fire jb makes it clear he was no longer interested in what jb had to say. it's a tragedy, after all! maybe it was always going to go like this. maybe it was always going to end like this

speaking of entourages, marc's manager played a bit of a cameo role in fanning the flames just a little further (article from marca, 26/10/2015):

alzamora obviously will be somebody valentino is familiar with, having raced him in 125cc and also having just coexisted in the paddock over the years. valentino could of course be lying, but idk, why would he? he's already made his case by this point, and what if alzamora were to contradict him? if it's true and this conversation did happen, you do have to say it's a spectacularly unhelpful intervention from alzamora. even if marc was mad at valentino, why the hell are you telling valentino this AFTER sepang 2015? what's the plan here buddy

^ 1999 world champions: alzamora in 125cc, vale in 250cc and alex criville in 500cc. people think motogp lore is complicated but if you know like, five guys, you're set for about twenty years of drama

which does get to the heart of the matter - a lot of these people have big egos and their own agendas and they love to run their mouths. they like talking a big game and getting involved in things they really shouldn't be getting involved in. is reed right that these people in the riders' entourages 'created the drama'? well, no, I think the two men at the centre of this particular tragedy were plenty capable of doing that themselves. nevertheless, you can point to how professional sports (and motogp in particular) forces you to rely heavily on a small group of people to keep you sane at the centre of the storm, and the risks that can emerge when that small group collectively unmoors itself from reality. you can point to the perils of fame, both in making your reliance on your inner circle so unnegotiable as well as in providing you with the status and power and ego to ignore anyone who might wish to change your mind. you can point to specific figures in this story who managed to incite the conflict between the two of them, as well as how the pressure cooker competitive environment they were operating within helped set up the ultimate catastrophe. you can point to how valentino lacked anyone with the power to stop him - both in the direct sense of forcing him to reconsider and the indirect sense of commanding his respect enough to make him see sense. maybe, just like in 2004, valentino had simply been "looking for an excuse" and he was always headed down this path. or maybe if somebody had just held him back a little that year, kept him focused on his riding, maybe if the right person had intervened at the right time...

maybe, maybe, maybe. that's why it's a tragedy

[saphronethaleph]

Vassalation

“Father,” Tyrion said, entering Tywin’s command tent. “How are things?”

Tywin looked up, his expression tightening slightly.

“I did not send for you,” he said.

“I know, I know, you didn’t want to break the habit of a lifetime,” Tyrion replied. “And nor did I, which is why I’ve finally had a cup of good wine after entirely too long abstaining. But I am curious, and I wanted to find out exactly what was going on.”

He twitched the thumb of his free hand back towards the door of the tent. “For example… where, exactly, is the rest of the army? Is the plan to have Uncle Kevan bring it, or is there some grand stratagem at foot? I mostly ask because I do seem to have some soldiers in my own force, and while I know that’s a novel experience for both of us I would like to know what to do with them.”

“This is not the time for your japes, Tyrion,” Tywin replied, his gaze returning to the map.

“What is it a time for, then?” Tyrion replied. “Because I really think I deserve to know… after all, I seem to be the cause of this war you have going on.”

He coughed slightly. “It’s… not really something I expected, to be honest. But as I was saying… you have called the banners, yes?”

“Of course,” Tywin replied, tightly. “As soon as the word of your capture came. I could not let the insult go unavenged. A Lannister always pays his debts.”

Tyrion closed his eyes for a moment, then took a seat by the map.

“Then what is going on?” he asked. “It’s been quite long enough, there should be, what, half the muster here? I didn’t count more than about thirty-five hundred foot and fifteen hundred horse, mostly the ones with the munition plate paid and equipped at Casterly Rock directly. It should be four times that at least.”

Tywin looked up, with a slight frown.

“This is the muster,” he said, the sound of a dark, thick anger simmering beneath his voice. “And I do not appreciate this.”

The theoretical Lannister heir frowned.

“You don’t appreciate what, father?” he asked. “My comments? Because someone has to make them. Or do you mean the lack of men?”

“Of course I mean the lack of men,” Tywin said. “You’re incorrect, incidentally, there should be at least twelve thousand foot here and about eight thousand horse. The horse is what matters.”

“Do forgive me for my estimate,” Tyrion replied.

He drained the rest of his cup, then put it down.

“Must you?” Tywin asked.

“This is positively abstemious for me,” Tyrion answered. “I’ve barely even got drunk since organizing my own exoneration. Admittedly that’s mostly a lack of good wine, but…”

He stopped talking, rubbing his temples, and Tywin’s attention returned to the map.

Almost a minute passed, in tense silence, before Tyrion spoke up again.

“Let me see if I’ve got this straight, shall we?” he requested. “So, you have called the banners, and this is all you’re getting?”

Tywin didn’t answer, and Tyrion nodded.

“All right, all you’re getting so far,” he amended. “So… let’s see, what could possibly be the reasons for that?”

“Tyrion,” Tywin warned.

“I have stared death in the face, recently,” Tyrion commented. “You do know how the Vale executes people? I would have had about… oh, maybe half a minute between going out the door and hitting the ground. I thought about it a lot.”

He raised a hand, and counted. “So. Firstly. Do consider how you treat me, Father – I know that you’ve called the banners for me, and honestly that might actually be the nicest thing you’ve ever done for me.”

“If this is going to be insults, then remove yourself from my presence,” Tywin said.

“I suppose I could always turn myself in to, oh, why not a Stark this time?” Tyrion replied. “It might make a difference. But that would only make the problems worse, Father. You might see some of your bannermen just go home.”

“Those who aren’t already,” Tywin growled.

“Quite,” Tyrion agreed. “But I actually do have to bring it up – you called the banners to rescue me. And, I don’t mean to mince words, but most everyone in Westeros knows what you think of me, and they know you think terribly of me. The- the incident with…”

Tyrion almost mentioned her name, but shied away from it.

“...in any case, they know,” he resumed. “And they’ve heard how you speak of me. That I’m by far the worst of your children, unlike Cersei and Jaime. And a man who’s called to war asks himself – why would Lord Tywin call his banners for such a man?”

He folded his arms. “And they decide – either he thinks less of me than the Imp, or he’s only really calling his banners because of the insult to him.”

This time it was Tywin’s turn to look aside, his lips working in silence.

“Then we must move on to how this whole thing began,” Tyrion went on. “Once you began to call up your men, that is. Now, to be clear, much of my information comes from a sellsword and from the Mountain Clans, so if they know something, everyone knows it. And what they know is that Clegane and his men were despoiling the Riverlands, burning and raiding, raping and pillaging, and that they then ambushed the force sent by the King to bring Clegane to justice. And that Clegane is a mad dog, but he’s your mad dog… and one who remains in your army.”

Tywin waited a moment.

“Are you done?” he asked.

“Not in the least, but do go on?” Tyrion invited.

“That Clegane raided the Riverlands is slander,” the Lord Paramount said. “The raiders had no banners-”

“The raiders included the tallest man in Westeros,” Tyrion interrupted. “Which, and I should know, is a position where there is significantly less competition than the shortest. Father, not everyone who is not you is a fool – that Clegane did not show his banners means you can pretend it wasn’t him, but everyone truly knows it was. The Wildlings know it. And they know the Mountain That Rides is exactly the sort of person to kill for pleasure, since he did do it in front of the King not very long ago – I should remind you.”

He ticked off another point. “Though, speaking of which… Clegane is certainly one of your most valued vassals, but I did think about this, and I think he’s one of the comparatively few who’s got anything significant out of working for you. All because he’s useful to you.”

“Explain yourself,” Tywin said.

“Well, my dear sister hasn’t been doing very much to help, despite being the Queen,” Tyrion pointed out. “There’s quite a few important families in the Westerlands, and very few of them have anyone who’s so much as a lady in waiting, let alone important positions in the council. Of course, I could have missed some appointments… but it goes beyond that. Everyone knows that Casterly Rock’s mines are deep, and that the Lannisters are the richest family in Westeros… but how rich are the other lords of the Westerlands? A Lannister is Queen and another sits on the throne, but how many of the other lords of the Westerlands have any honours? A Lannister always pays his debts, but how many of your bannermen feel they owe you?”

Tywin’s hand clenched and unclenched.

“You are accusing me of being a poor ruler,” he said.

“Oh, not at all,” Tyrion replied. “I’m saying that your lords have reason to ask themselves… questions. Remember, Father, I’m trying to explain why you have five thousand men here instead of over twenty thousand… and this is when we need to come to the matter of Robert’s Rebellion.”

He met Tywin’s gaze, challengingly. “I know why you did what you did, Father. I know it was a good move. I know it put Cersei on the throne alongside Robert, and eliminated the strongest possible base of resistance to the new royal line. But you sacked a city after it opened its gates to you, tarring all your bannerman with the sack to this day – they still speak of it in the Vale and Riverlands, and it is not highly – and then had one of your favourites kill two infants.”

“Now you are accusing me of things I did not do,” Tywin objected, his gaze hard. “I did not order their deaths.”

Tyrion raised an eyebrow, and Tywin frowned at him.

After about twenty seconds of silence, Tyrion shook his head.

“And did you want them dead?” he asked. “Did you know what Clegane was going to do?”

Then he shrugged. “Well – it’s irrelevant, because what matters is what your bannermen see. And what they see is that… you do know that most people actually believe in the Seven, correct?”

Tyrion flicked his hands in a dismissive gesture. “I know, it’s hard for me to fathom as well, but they do, and both of those things are offences against the Seven… speaking of which, there’s Jaime. Because I do love him, but I’m his brother. I know him. Your bannermen don’t, and what they know is different.”

“They should know he is my oldest son and will be the lord of Casterley Rock after me!” Tywin said, in a voice that was quieter than it sounded like it should be.

Tyrion nodded, very slowly.

“Yes,” he said. “They know that. They know you’re trying to make him heir – it’s not exactly subtle. But think about that, Father – really think about it, from the outside. From the perspective of people who don’t know Jaime as well as I do. You’re trying to break a sacred oath, to give an oathbreaker and kingslayer the position as your heir. As the one who will be the next lord, to your vassals. They will notice – they could hardly not.”

Tywin turned away, and spent a long moment looking at the map.

“Are you done?” he asked. “Are you going to go and continue with the drunken behaviour that has lowered the opinion of our House?”

Tyrion rubbed his temples again.

“Father, nobody cares about that,” he said. “Nobody really cared about Robert being a womanizer and drunkard – it might have made people laugh, but they didn’t care. Not nearly as much as they care about these things – it’s not as if I’m your heir or anything.”

“And you will not persuade me to make you my heir if you behave like this,” Tywin said, tightly.

Tyrion stifled a groan.

“That’s not what I’m trying to do,” he said. “The – the fact that I’m a possible heir is only as relevant here as that Kevan is a possible heir. Or Lancel, Tyrek, Willem… you have options and what people see is that you consider Jaime, the Kingslayer, as the best choice.”

He sighed. “But all right… there’s something else I haven’t mentioned yet. Something that… I heard from a different perspective myself, outside the Westerlands, and it made me really think about it.”

“Well?” Tywin asked, when Tyrion didn’t continue. “Out with it.”

“The Reynes and the Tarbecks,” Tyrion said, dropping the words into the conversation. “Forget any justification you might offer, Father – I know. I know it is more complicated than the way people see it from the outside, but people still see it from the outside. You called in debts, took hostages, went to war and destroyed two noble houses. Root and branch. While you were still the heir, and against your lord’s clearly expressed wishes.”

Tywin looked like he was ready to explode, and Tyrion raised a hand. “I know. I said I know, Father. But – this matters.”

“What do you propose I should have done?” Tywin practically snarled.

“Leave survivors!” Tyrion shot back. “That alone would have helped!”

He shook his head sharply, not trusting himself to speak any more, and closed his eyes for several seconds as he slowly leaned back in the chair.

“Loyalty is a two way street,” he said, eventually, in a quiet voice. “As soon as I got here I requisitioned arms and armour for the mountain men who followed me down from the Vale, and… you know, I think that’s what really got me contemplating all this. Because – it’s such a small thing but it made me realize. Fealty is a debt that goes in both directions… and a bannerman who doesn’t get the treatment they think they deserve, who doesn’t see a reason to fight for you, well, why should they?”

There were another few seconds of tight, tense silence.

“Leave,” Tywin said. “Don’t return before tomorrow morning.”

“As you wish, Lord Tywin,” Tyrion replied, all formal now, and slipped off his chair. “I’ll go and spend some time getting acquainted with wines… with the mountain men, for that matter. I suspect they’ll enjoy it.”

At the door to the tent, he paused.

“Side note,” he said. “Which I really should mention before I forget… you realize that Lord Eddard has a reputation for honour? Oddly, people trust him to repay his debts a lot more than they do us. It’s very peculiar.”

A moment later, Tyrion turned away to leave.

Tywin might as well have been carved in gold, for how little he reacted.

[danurso]

Sweet retribution

Yang: *kicks door open* Guys! I cracked the code!

Blake: *Reading on her bed* Oh, did you finally learn how to make good jokes?

R___/_NPR: *snort*

Yang: Ha ha, very funny, but you can't improve what's already perfect, can you?

Blake: *rolls eyes*

Ruby: Is that Weiss' cheesecake?

Yang: *with a little bit of cake on hand* . . . . . . .*shoves everything in her mouth* Doesn't matter! I need sugar to think! Now please focus on the matter here!

Ruby: Okay. . . . .what are you talking about then?

Yang: I'm talking about why Weiss is always getting late for stuff and disappearing for no reason!

Pyrrha: But we already know why, she's been overlooking the new SDC filial here in vale, she even registered us so we always get a big discount on anything there.

Yang: Well, that's actually just a front! It's what she wants us to believe she does!

Ruby: And why would she need to do that?

Yang: It's because she's hiding a huuuuuge secret!

Blake: Which is?

Yang: She's dating Jaune!!!

R___/_NPR: . . . . . .pfffhahahahaha

Nora: HAH! Blake, you're such a liar! Her jokes are great!

Yang: Why are you guys laughing!? I'm serious!

Ren: Well, forgive us if we were rude but. . . . .do you really believe that?

Yang: I saw them kissing at the docks yesterday!

Ruby: You mean after you came back pretty late from Junior's?

Yang: Yeah.

Blake: So let me get this straight. You, after a good few hours of drinking, came back when it was quite dark and saw a couple kissing in the distance, and you assumed it to be Jaune and Weiss?

Yang: It was them! It had to be them! I……i was a bit far but i'm sure it was them.

Nora: It would need to be a cooooold day in hell for Ice queen to even think about doing something like that.

Ruby: Yang, you know how much Weiss dislikes Jaune, i really thought they were going to get closer but there's no fixing how much she dislikes him.

Ren: Last time they were on amicable terms was during the previous vale carnival we all went together. . . .that was a year ago.

Blake: The closest I've seen those two lately is when She orders him to carry her things.

Pyrrha: *brows furrowed* He dropped one of her bags a few days ago and she kicked him in the butt. I'm sorry Yang, but I find it quite impossible that they are in such a relationship.

Yang: Well. . . .when you put it like that. . . .*sigh* Maybe I ended up getting one too many.

Weiss: *walks in* Oh good, you're all gathered here, saves me the trouble.

Nora: What's up Ice queen?

Weiss: Professor Goodwitch asked me to warn everyone that the cantina is having a special sweet day. They're serving Cakes, Parfaits, Pies, Pancakes, Cookies-

Ruby/Nora: *Zoom out the door*

Weiss: Aaaaand *looks at the clock* Seven seconds, honestly I thought they would be out by the time I said cake.

Pyrrha: Is this really today? We didn't receive any notification about it.

Weiss: It was supposed to be a surprise for the holidays, but the intern that was supposed to notify everyone messed up and busted the system trying to fix it, so professor Goodwitch has been asking students to notify their teams and colleagues about it.

Pyrrha: I see. Well, I could use some cake right now.

Blake: Been awhile since i got a parfait.

Ren: We better hurry before Ruby and Nora eat everything.

Pyrrha/Ren/Blake: *hurry out*

Yang: You don't look too excited

Weiss: I don't really have that much of a sweet tooth, most of the time i like to enjoy a bit of cheesecake which they unfortunately aren't serving today. I haven't had some in awhile, given how every time I buy some, it ends up disappearing.

Yang: *sweating* R-really? what a bummer.

Weiss: It's not a big deal. Now, what were you all talking about? I believe I heard my name being mentioned before I entered the room.

Yang: Oh, that, well. . . . .i thought I saw You and Jaune kissing yesterday, I was sure it was you two but I guess I drank a bit more than I should. You would never kiss Jaune of all pe-

Weiss: Oh, it was us.

Yang: . . . . . .wait, what?

Weiss: You didn't see anything wrong, he asked for a last kiss before going back to his room and I complied.

Yang: A "last"!?!? You two are dating!?!?

Weiss: Yes. It's going to be a year next month I believe. *Pulls out scroll, showing her a picture* This is during our first date, a week after the carnival where Jaune asked me out after winning me a polar bear plushie, he was so nervous that he only stopped stuttering halfway through it. *Swipes* This is the day i got covered with flour trying to make him a special meal, him being the sweetheart that he is, helped me clean everything up and guided me through the cooking. *Swipes* This is on a ferris wheel near his home after we had dinner with his family.

Yang: You met his family!?!?

Weiss: Of course, quite delightful people they are. I was not exactly pleased by how his parents thought i was a paid actress because their son quote "Could never get someone this beautiful to fall for him", but once that passed, it was great, his sisters were lovely and shared many interesting stories with me. *Swipes* This one was on the day we supposedly missed out the last flight back to beacon. We spent a day in the park, took several pictures in one of those booths that he quite likes, and as the sun started to set, we went to a nearby motel where we. . . . .i believe the slang you would use to describe it is "Swapped V-cards"

Yang: *chokes* You wha-!?!?

Weiss: It's been somewhat of a bumpy road so far, it took him awhile not to get nervous when I'm around, and also for me to learn how to do traditional "girlfriend" stuff for him, but I'm quite happy, this relationship honestly couldn't be better.

Yang: So you two really are dating. . . .HA! I KNEW IT!!! I WOULD NEVER DRINK TO THE POINT OF SEEING THINGS LIKE THAT!!! I KNEW IT!!!

Weiss: *smiling* Yes, you figured it out.

Yang: THEY SAID I WAS SEEING THINGS BUT I KNEW THAT. . . .that. . . . .wait a minute, why are you telling me all of this? With this much detail even?

Weiss: Because I know for a fact, my dear friend, that no matter how many times you repeat, or how many times you swear, scream, shout and yell the truth towards the others. *sinister look* No one will believe a word you say~

Yang: . . . . . . .*jaw drops*

Weiss: Now, if you excuse me, I'll take this little break from our friends and spend some quality time with my boyfriend. See you later Yang~

Yang: YOU EVIL MONSTE-!!!!

*Slam*

Weiss: . . . . . .*chuckles, holding the door closed*

Jaune: You really did it, didn't you?

Weiss: Of course I did. No one steals my cheesecake and gets away with it.

Jaune: *chuckles* If that's what you do with someone that steals something small like a cheesecake, I don't even want to know what you'd do if it was something more important. That's going to make her crawl up the walls.

Weiss: We're going clean on our anniversary in a few weeks anyways, let her deal with that for a bit.

Jaune: Alright. You're going to the cantina?

Weiss: Depends. Are you going?

Jaune: Don't think so. I quite literally got my ass kicked to help on a certain Ice queen's revenge plan so I was thinking that sitting on my soft bed would be nicer. I did just make a fresh cheesecake so I can enjoy it in peace, it's just sad that it's too big just for me to eat.

Weiss: Well, i suppose i could help you with that, if you allow me to accompany you?

Jaune: Are you going to kick me again?

Weiss: *chuckles* I just might if you keep talking, silly.

Jaune: *holds her close* Well, i think i found a way to shut it, just gotta be sure it works. *Leans down, capturing her lips in a warm kiss*

Weiss: *kisses him back for a few moments before pulling away* Huh, it works afterall.

Jaune: I'm not sure yet, can i try again?

Weiss: Cheesecake first, depending on how good it tastes I might give you a sizable reward.

Jaune: Then be my guest snow angel. *Takes her hand, guiding her to his room.* And Weiss?

Weiss: Yes?

Jaune: Yang is going to be fine, right?

Weiss: Relax, I'm sure she will be alright.

*A few hours later*

Ruby: . . . . .Yang.

Blake: What in the world is going on?

Yang: Look! I know this is gonna sound really crazy! But just hear me out here!

[herearedragons]

The Hanged Man (chapter 1)

Read on AO3

Notes: This fic relies on some plot points from the short story "The Reaping". If you want the full context for the fic without having to read the short story (which I do recommend, btw), see the AO3 notes or scroll to the bottom of this post.

Edér had imagined his own death way too many times.

There was the war, for one. He'd try not to think about it much, but sometimes things would happen and leave him wondering if that would be him, too.

Stabbing. Slashing. Arrows. Bolts. Broken necks, burned bodies. Slow deaths from wounds gone bad.

And besides your usual pick of deaths, there was Eothas.

Edér knew for a fact he wasn't the only one thinking about it. Lots of soldiers back then were going to sleep every night wondering if they'd just be... smitten out of existence, before they ever woke up.

Close your eyes, and the next thing you see is your god, and he goes well, Edér, you chose the wrong side, so welcome to being dead. No rebirth for you, either. Right into the void with you.

Not the most fun thought to fall asleep with.

Lately, though, it had all been the same thing. The rough, heavy noose around his neck, hands tied behind his back; the creaking of old barren branches above his head, and all of Gilded Vale staring up at him.

The funny thing was, now that he was there for real, it almost felt fake. The rope against his skin; the barrel that would soon be kicked out from under his feet; the silent grey crowd; there was a weird flatness to it all. It was all wrong, just a little off from how it appeared in his recurring dreams.

His dreams didn’t account for the rain, either. 

It was just a light drizzle, but Edér had been standing under it for a while, in the same shirt and trousers he fell asleep in the night before, and by now he was soaked and chilled to the bone.

Part of him was starting to wish they’d just get it over with.

And to think that he almost got out. He should have left as soon as the bell tolled three times yesterday, instead of putting it off until next morning.

Maybe he could have tagged along with that Watcher and the twitchy elf that had been staying at the Black Hound. They were strange folks, sure, but neither of them looked too sturdy; they could have used a protector on the road.

He almost asked to come along with them. Even now, Edér wasn't sure why he didn't.

Same reason why he’d waited this long to leave, probably.

A few feet away from his improvised gallows, Urgeat the magistrate was droning on and on about the "inestimable" Lord Raedric, his care for Gilded Vale, and his love for his wife.

His wife.

When his door got kicked in first thing in the morning, guards swarming in to drag him out of bed, Edér thought it was about Eothas. He figured maybe it was also about the rebels, or because someone saw him talking to that Watcher, and that was somehow also a crime now.

He didn't think they'd say that he murdered a woman.

Lord Raedric's wife. He still didn't know all the details of it - nobody bothered to tell him, since they were all thinking he did it - but what he gathered was that she turned up dead somewhere in the village, and it was close enough to his house to make them think he was involved.

Urgeat was just getting to that part in his speech, now.

Edér had never even seen her up close.

"...spreading dissent and worship of a dead god are, of course, far from the only crimes committed by this man. When words of deception no longer satisfied his foul goals, he turned to murder, and took the life or our beloved Lady Ygrid - "

"Didn't do it."

Even from this distance, Edér could see a sour grimace form on the magistrate's face as soon as he was interrupted.

"Silence, murderer," Urgeat said.

Edér shrugged; the noose shifted uncomfortably on his shoulders.

"Just setting the facts straight," he said. "Didn't do it. Ain't ever laid a finger on her. Sure, I’ve got blood on my hands, but last I checked they were all soldiers."

Not all of those soldiers were Readcerans.

Standing on that barrel gave him a great view of the crumbling shell of the temple behind the villagers' backs - and, standing just beyond it, the house that once belonged to Osgod Rask.

They did find the corpses, eventually. Some settlers moved in, took Raedric up on his offer of land; smelled something foul in the cellar, opened it, and saw what became of the two men in the years that had passed since Edér left them there.

Those settlers didn't stay.

"So you would like us to believe," Urgeat said dryly. "However, lies will not get you out of this noose. I would advise that you save your breath."

Edér couldn't hold back a snort of laughter; not that he was trying that hard.

"Right! 'Cause I have so much breathing left to do still."

Was it his imagination, or did he hear a giggle somewhere in the crowd?

Nobody liked the magistrate. Fact was, were it him in the noose instead of Edér, they'd all be clapping and cheering.

Nobody was cheering for his hanging, at least. He’d like to believe there were some people in the square doubting that he actually did it.

The problem was that it didn’t matter.

Three tolls of the bell spelled death. Before the lady’s body turned up, it meant death for a lot of people, and probably exile for just as many; by the time Raedric was done “appeasing the gods”, Gilded Vale would have been a ghost town.

But now… Now the lord’s wife was dead, and they had one person to blame for it. And, while they were at it, they could blame him for everything else, too.

Maybe there were some folks left in Gilded Vale who didn’t want to see him hang, but they would take it if it meant that he would be the last.

Something drew his eyes back to the empty Rask house.

Daeg's ma, Lifa, had this look on her face when the bodies were found. Whenever Edér was around, she'd get that same look again, like somehow she knew. 

Edér didn't regret what he did. Daeg raised a weapon against a woman and her child, which in Edér's book meant he got what was coming to him - but it didn't mean Lifa deserved to die without ever finding out what happened to her son.

Gods know he’d give a lot to find out what happened to Woden.

"Tell you what, Urgeat," Edér said. "You're gonna hang me, at least hang me for something I did."

He took a breath, preparing to confess to everything that happened with Elafa and her child and the two guards that night - and then the words never came out.

There was a figure walking through the ruins of the old temple.

"Well?" Urgeat inquired impatiently. "If you wish to add to the list of your crimes, I will not stop you, but, by the Wheel, make it quick."

The stranger was wearing a heavy black cloak with an unusually large, baggy hood. Edér couldn't see their face, but they were moving, quickly and purposefully, towards the gathering.

"I take it you have changed your mind," Urgeat said. "Very well. Let us continue - "

"Stop!"

The cloaked stranger had crossed the temple, and stopped at the foot of the tree. She was the one speaking; by the sound of it, she was a woman.

Urgeat let out a heavy, drawn-out sigh.

"Miss,” he said, "Perhaps you failed to notice that we are in the middle of an official proceeding. Whatever business you have, I am sure it can wait a minute longer."

"It cannot," she said. "By the duc's authority, I demand that you stop this execution right now."

"By the duc's - excuse me, who are you?"

In response, she simply reached up and pulled back her strange, heavy hood.

A murmur rolled through the crowd.

She was Ondra-touched. Blue skin the color of a clear sky; black eyes with no whites, two glowing dots for pupils; glowing white hair, a crescent moon-shaped growth on her forehead, and two curving horns, glowing also.

That last part explained the weird shape of her hood.

Edér had never seen this kind of godlike before, but he had heard of them.

During the war, word was that there was one of them in his division. Edér had never met the guy himself, but heard that he could fly, and that any wounds he received would heal right up. Whether the rumors about his blessings were true or not, it was impossible to say now; a few weeks in, the godlike took the brunt of a spell from a Readceran priest and died.

"Agent Selene Moonborn of Dunryd Row," said the Ondra-touched woman. "You may address me as Agent Moonborn, or Selene. Do you need to see my credentials?"

Moonborn... She sure was.

Wait - Dunryd Row?

"I would greatly appreciate that," Urgeat said, but his tone was no longer as snide as it was a moment ago. In fact, Edér was pretty sure that he heard a tinge of fear in his voice.

No wonder. If this was an actual Dunryd cipher, something serious was going on.

Selene approached the magistrate, her cloak swaying silently, and held something out to him. The drizzling rain didn't seem to bother her much.

While Urgeat was inspecting the item she handed him, she looked up over his shoulder. Her eyes met Edér's for a moment, and almost immediately moved on, taking in the rest of the hanging tree.

Was he just a part of the scenery to her, dead already?

"...Very well," Urgeat said, finally. "Welcome to Gilded Vale, Agent Moonborn. As you can see, you find us at an unfortunate hour; we have just lost our lord’s heir, and now our lady as well. Fortunately, her murderer has already been apprehended, and we are in the process of bringing him to justice."

Selene's eyes returned to the magistrate standing before her.

"That man?"

"Edér Teylecg. A troublesome individual. Eothasian." 

Urgeat spat out that last word like it was a curse.

"I see," Selene said. "Unfortunately, you can't execute him."

What?

"...What?"

That was probably the first and last time he and Urgeat had ever agreed on something.

"The murder of a thayn, or a thayn's immediate family, falls under the duc's jurisdiction," Selene explained matter-of-factly. "In the absence of a representative of the duc's authority, the local authorities may investigate and persecute the crime; however, with a Dunryd Row investigator present, that is no longer the case. In other words, you can't execute this man until I have conducted a thorough investigation and determined that he is guilty; in fact, if you do hang him right now, it will be considered a crime and I will have to arrest you."

Something mesmerizing was happening. The longer she spoke, the more Urgeat seemed to shrink away from her; at no point did she raise her voice, but there was an underlying pressure to the calm, even cadence of her speech that seemed to have a nearly violent effect on the magistrate.

Even with a noose around his neck, Edér found that entertaining to watch. Judging by what he was seeing in the crowd, he wasn't the only one. Though, the villagers weren't exactly on the agent's side, either; many of them were smirking, but just as many were eyeing her with suspicion.

Urgeat made one last feeble attempt to resist:

"Lord Raedric - "

"I would be very grateful if you could arrange an audience with the lord for me," Selene said. "Tell him that a Dunryd Row agent has arrived to investigate the murder of his wife, and would like to hear his testimony. I would like to see the body, as well."

There was a long moment of silence.

"I will relay your message to His Lordship," Urgeat said, finally.

Then, the magistrate turned around. His face was even more grey and dead-looking than it usually was.

"You heard the agent," he said to the surrounding guards. "Take him down."

If Selene's appearance earned a murmur from the crowd, the sound they were making now was more like the distant rumble of thunder.

Something was happening that had never happened before, and now every mind in Gilded Vale was feverishly working on the same question: what does this mean for me?

Every mind except for Edér's, that is. He was a little busy trying to come to terms with standing on solid ground again.

Still cold, still with his hands tied, still accused of a murder he didn't commit - but, somehow, alive.

The same guard that took the noose off his neck walked him up to where Selene and the magistrate were talking.

The crowd around them was beginning to disperse. Urgeat never gave an explicit dismissal, but the guards had stepped away from the tree and started giving the rest of the villagers move-along-now looks.

Most folks got the hint, and those who didn't got pulled along by those who did.

Selene glanced at Edér again as he approached; this time her gaze lingered. It felt as though she was assessing something about him.

Eventually she nodded to herself, seemingly having reached a conclusion, and said to the guard standing beside him:

“Untie him, please.”

The man just shuffled in place awkwardly and looked at Urgeat.

"I don’t know if this is wise," the magistrate said. "He may become violent."

Only if you keep talking, Edér thought; usually this kind of thought would come right out of his mouth, but not this time.

He wasn't in a hurry to go back to the tree just yet.

"If he does, I'll protect you," Selene said. 

Her voice and expression were dead serious, but she was definitely taking the piss at Urgeat here.

Edér decided that he liked her.

The guard unsheathed his sword and began to saw at the rope at Edér's wrists; meanwhile, Selene turned to him and began speaking.

"Edér Teylecg, by the duc's authority, I am placing you under arrest. No harm will come to you unless you attempt to resist or flee, or your guilt is proven."

The rope fell off.

"Noted," Edér said.

It was as if she didn't hear.

"Is there a jail in Gilded Vale?" Selene asked, turning to Urgeat again.

The magistrate smiled thinly:

"There are the lord's dungeons."

"Understood," she said. "House arrest it is, then. Please inform the vilagers that they are not to visit the suspect while the investigation is ongoing."

And, just like that, Edér’s fate was decided.

☀︎

The walk back to his house was silent.

Edér was leading the way, the agent following behind. He could barely hear her steps; a couple times he even got the urge to turn around and check that she was still there.

He didn't. Wouldn’t want to do anything that she could interpret as "trying to flee or resist"; Edér had a funny feeling that, despite not having any visible weapons and being a head shorter than him, Selene had her ways of making him regret that.

His mind was still all over the place, trying to work out what his current reality looked like.

He didn't die. He was walking the path back to his house, which, about half an hour ago, he was never going to do again.

There was a Dunryd Row cipher walking behind him. She somehow knew about the murder that happened just this morning; she couldn't have come all the way from Defiance Bay, could she?

Where did she come from?

Why did she stop the hanging?

It was fun watching her have a go at Urgeat, but, now that the magistrate was gone and Edér was alone with her, he did very much want to know what she was planning to do with him.

Now that he thought about it, he didn’t really know what a cipher could do.

There were plenty of folks who came to Gilded Vale saying they were one, and claimed all sorts of powers: some said they could see the future, some that they could read minds and souls. Most of them turned out to be a fraud, and at least a few of them ended up on the tree.

Nothing he could remember about them gave him a frame of reference for what a real Dunryd Row cipher was capable of.

Killing him, probably. Whatever else they taught their agents, Edér was pretty sure they had that part covered.

He was still thinking about that when his house came into view.

Suddenly, Selene's voice sounded behind his back: 

"Stop."

He stopped.

"Is that your house?" she asked.

"...Yeah."

"Do you live alone?"

"I do."

"There's someone inside."

…Well, that wasn't right.

"It's just one person," Selene said after a moment. "We can approach. Stay behind me."

Before Edér could ask how she could tell, she walked past him and headed straight for the door.

The only option left was to follow her.

Up close, Edér could hear it too: something was happening inside. There was a heavy scraping noise, like something was being dragged across the floor.

The door gave no resistance when Selene pushed it open; the bolt got broken earlier that morning.

She stepped inside.

The room was a mess. There were drawers open; his clothes were in a heap on the floor; the tools that were supposed to hang on the walls were laid out on the big dining table.

The scraping noise was coming from the far end of the house, where a man was trying to drag a chest out of the corner.

The chest was heavy. Edér knew that, because that was where kept his Saint's War armor; his sword and shield, too.

There wasn't much left in the house worth keeping under lock and key, but his armor and weapons were two of the things he did think could be stolen.

Turns out, he was right to worry.

"Excuse us," Selene said.

The man stopped struggling with the chest and froze.

"...Who's that?"

The shadows made it hard to recognize him, but, as soon as Edér heard the voice, he knew.

"Algar, you sheepfucker! Couldn't wait 'til I was dead?"

At the sound of his voice, the man jumped and straightened up at once, turning around to look at them, white as a sheet.

Sure enough, they were looking at Algar Bramweg: reedy, thin-haired and watery-eyed. Came back from the war with burns on his face and left arm, but he came back. 

He was a meek guy, but Edér used to think he was alright. Until that moment, that is.

"Edér!" Algar nearly squeaked. "Wh-what are you doing here? Aren't you - "

"Hanging on a tree?" Edér asked grimly. "Matter of fact, I was. They let me down so I could see who was in here, stealing my stuff."

"Well, I - I thought you wouldn't be needing it anymore!" Algar glanced around with the look of a cornered animal in his eyes. "...I'll put it back. I'll put it all back. I - what happened? Who is this?"

With that last question, he gestured wildly at Selene, who was just standing there the entire exchange.

"Agent Selene Moonborn, Dunryd Row," she said. "I take it you weren't in the square when I arrived. All you need to know for now is that the hanging has been postponed, and this building is now off limits. Please return everything you may have taken from here; it could be evidence."

Algar looked completely lost, now.

"...Evidence?"

"In the investigation of Lady Ygrid's murder," Selene clarified. "Like I said, this is all you need to know right now. If you're confused, ask one of your friends who were present for the hanging; I don't have time to repeat the details."

Algar looked over at him.

Edér shrugged:

"I'd do as she says, if I were you."

When Algar was done emptying his pockets, it turned out that he had picked up a couple of smaller tools, Edér’s entire whiteleaf stash, a handful of copper pands - and the book of prayers that survived year after year of purges in spite of Raedric’s efforts, safely hidden on top of one of the ceiling beams.

That last one puzzled him.

Algar didn’t just take the book - he was looking for it. There was no way for him to stumble upon it on accident.

“Alright,” Edér said, “The coins and the whiteleaf, I get. Tools, too. What did you need that for?”

Algar didn’t quite meet his eyes when he answered:

“Well, so many of those got burned or thrown away, I figured - the right folks would pay a fortune for one that’s still intact.”

So he was going to sell it. Made sense; more sense than Algar secretly being a devout Eothasian, anyhow.

Once Algar had left, Selene shut the door behind him. She regarded the broken bolt for a moment, then said:

"This will have to be fixed."

It wasn't clear whether she was talking to herself or to him.

Then, she turned around and addressed him directly:

“Please, take a seat.”

It was damn weird to be invited to sit down in his own house. Felt like an insult more than anything else; Edér had half a mind to say something about it, but thought better of it.

He pulled a chair out from the dining table and sat down.

As soon as he did, he regretted it. His body realized that he was no longer on his feet, and took it as an invitation to crash; immediately, his limbs felt heavy, and his head began to spin.

The entire morning was now catching up to him. Waking up to guards in his house; being dragged to the square; standing in the rain, counting the seconds left until his last breath.

How long had he been awake for? An hour? Felt like two entire days, at this point.

Black bones of Eothas, he’d almost - 

No, wasn’t the time for that. He’d think about that later, or maybe never.

He kind of liked that second option better.

His hands were shaking just a little; probably because he was still really cold.

Edér looked up at the agent.

“Mind if I start the fire?”

“...Oh.” It was as if she’d just realized the same thing he did. “Not at all. If you want to change your clothes, I’ll wait by the door.”

Well, that was nice of her.

He took her up on that offer.

Once he’d gotten a fire going in the firepit and changed into the clothes Algar so kindly left out for him, it was much easier to believe that he was, in fact, still alive.

Algar was going to take his whiteleaf, but he’d left the pipe right where it was. Figures; he had his own.

“You smoke, agent?” Edér asked, just as she stepped back into the room.

“I don’t, but you can go ahead.”

And so they sat down at the table, the fire in the middle of the room casting their shadows onto the far wall, the smoke from his pipe rising like a sheer curtain between them.

He was at home, now, and a little more certain that he could handle whatever Selene was about to throw at him.

“Suppose I should thank you,” Edér said. “If it weren't for you showing up when you did, would have been one more corpse on that tree - and Algar would’ve been smoking my whiteleaf just about now.”

For the first time since she walked out into the square, he saw Selene’s expression become something other than a distant, observing look.

Her eyes narrowed just a little, her pupils twinkling like twin stars in the night sky; she didn’t really smile, but her face softened in a way that made him think that maybe it was her way of smiling.

“It was a close call,” she said. “I’m glad I could stop them from hanging an innocent.”

Whatever Edér expected her to say, that was not it.

He didn't think he'd feel that much relief at hearing her say it, either. Of course he didn't murder the lady; he knew that.

But how did Selene know?

"...You figure that out with your cipher powers?"

The only other option he could think of was that she killed the lady, and Edér really hoped it wasn’t that.

“Good guess,” Selene said.

Her eyes drifted away from him for a moment, like she was considering something, or hesitating.

Finally, she said:

"I'll get straight to the point: I wasn't sent here to investigate the murder of Lady Ygrid. As far as I know, no one outside of Gilded Vale even knows that she’s dead.”

It took him a moment to process what she was saying.

“...Wait, so… what’s all this for?”

Selene sighed. Something was gone from her voice and her posture now - that invisible pressure she used against Urgeat. It was as if an act had been dropped.

“I came to Gilded Vale on Dunryd Row business that had nothing to do with Lady Ygrid. I happened to arrive just as an execution was happening. I read the mind of the man about to be hanged and knew that he didn’t commit the crime he was being accused of, so… I intervened in the only way I could think of.”

…By lying to Urgeat.

Wait.

She read his mind?

So that was true about ciphers, then.

Oh gods. How much did she see? Did she know about - no, she couldn’t. She wouldn’t have helped him, had she known.

Was she listening right now?

“I’m not reading your mind right now,” Selene said.

Edér couldn’t help but laugh nervously:

“You’re not really helping your own case here. How’d you know I just thought that?”

She shrugged:

“It’s the first thought people have when they realize I can do this.”

Oh.

“...Well, alright, that’s fair.”

“Sometimes, I can’t help but overhear the thoughts of others,” Selene said. “Usually, those thoughts are surface-level and charged with intense emotion. Feelings of pain or anger, for example. In your case, you were thinking pretty loudly that you didn’t do it.”

Well, now he had to ask.

“Was I… thinking about anything else?”

Selene met his eyes, unblinking.

“You were cold. And you wanted the magistrate to shut up.”

“...That sounds about right.”

She didn’t hear about the bodies in the cellar. He must have had some unbelievable luck.

Better not waste it.

“From now on, I’ll always let you know when I’m listening to your thoughts,” Selene said. “I’m saying this because I would like us to be allies.”

She leaned forward, cutting through the protective curtain of whiteleaf smoke and bringing her face just a little closer to his. The glowing markings on her cheeks, a dot and an upturned crescent moon under each eye, stood out starkly against her skin.

“I want you to help me find the real murderer of Lady Ygrid.”

That answered the question of what she wanted from him, at least.

"Why do you think I can help?" Edér asked. "If you really did read my mind, you saw that I don’t know anything."

"About the murder, maybe, but you know Gilded Vale," Selene said. "I could use the help of a local. And, for better or worse, you're the only one in town I trust right now - seeing as you're the only one who wasn't almost an accomplice in another murder today."

"...Wait, what?"

She gave him an amused look.

"I'm talking about your murder, Edér. What do you think that hanging was?"

Well, that was a charged question, wasn't it.

He glanced over at the Eothasian book of prayers, still resting on the far end of the table. Was there even a point in trying to hide it again?

"Some folks 'round here would call it justice," he said, finally. 

Selene followed his gaze to the book, gave a little nod and withdrew, putting some more distance between them again.

"I wish I could say it's not the same in Defiance Bay, but I'd be lying," she said. "Where you have Raedric, we have the Dozens. They don't have nearly as much power, and that's the best thing I can say about them."

"Seems you don't like them much."

"I don't. Like your magistrate, they like to point fingers, and make my work - finding the truth - harder."

She paused for a moment, then asked:

"You fought in the war, didn't you?"

"I did," Edér said. "On the right side, mind you. Got any doubts, you can read my mind about it."

Selene shook her head.

"I believe you. I just wanted to say - that’s another reason you’re a good ally to have. You did the right thing, even if it meant standing up to your god; that takes more than bravery."

Edér nearly choked on the puff he'd just taken from his pipe.

Gods damn. Would he ever figure out what she was about? Every time it felt like he was starting to get a beat on the conversation, she'd hit him with something else.

"Now here’s something you don't hear a lot these days," he said.

Now Selene smiled, but there wasn't an ounce of joy to it.

"I dedicated my life to digging up things others desperately want forgotten," she said. "Maybe I haven't gone to war against Ondra, but I can't imagine she's too happy with me, either. You had to go even further. I think that calls for respect, not persecution."

Edér stared at her for a moment.

"I've got to ask," he said, finally. "Are all of you Dunryd folks like this, or is it just you?"

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know. You're getting real involved in something you've got no stakes in. Sharing all kinds of opinions. Round here, that's how you end up on the tree; trust me, I know."

Something in her expression shifted; it became cold and pointed, and, for a moment, Edér was sure that he had fucked up.

"I don't like seeing people be disposed of," Selene said. 

And then her expression smoothed out again.

"...Besides, solving crimes is what I do. I wasn't ordered to investigate this one, but I don't think my superiors would mind, as long as I completed my original mission as well."

Edér decided that it was probably safe to start breathing again.

"You're goddamn weird, agent," he said. "I don't know what exactly I can do, but - I think I wanna help you."

Again, that smiling-without-smiling look.

"I'm glad," Selene said.

"Well... What's our move, then?"

She regarded him for a moment.

"Take a minute to recover. Clean up, eat something," she said. "Then, we'll go see the crime scene."

Notes (spoilers for The Reaping):

In The Reaping, Edér and his ex Elafa end up killing two of Raedric's soldiers, who were threatening Elafa and her Hollowborn child. Edér hides their bodies in an abandoned house; Elafa leaves the town with her child the same night.

[anitalianfrie]

San Lorenzo ||| pecco/luca, 680 words

Pecco remembers well that night. They are fifteen or sixteen - no, they're fifteen, because when they were sixteen they went out clubbing. They're fifteen, and it's Luca's birthday. Everybody has already left- Luca's garden full of abandoned chairs and scraps of wrap papers that they used as ammunition to throw at each other.

It's late, but not that late. It must be around ten, half past ten at maximum, and they are sitting on the side of a hill, on the grass, a few meters from the road, where they left Luca's scooter.

When Pecco arrived in the morning, a heavy backpack on his shoulders and his dad's hand pressing against his upper spine, the scooter was the first thing Luca showed him. It has a hole in the silencer and it gets up to 130 kilometers per hour. Him and Vale worked on it together for a couple of days, while he was home from the races.

Pecco isn't sure where they are. Luca took turn after turn, the engine roaring under them, avoiding the holes in the asphalt and opening the throttle every time the road got straight for more than twenty meters. Pecco still remebers how he didn't know where to place his hands to hold on, and on how he settled to grab the metal side bars that kept slipping under his sweaty hands.

It's hot. Not as hot as it get back at home, in Turin, where the air gets unbreathable and sticky in his lungs, where sometimes he has to lie on the bed only in his underwear to catch a breath. But it's still hot, and sweat runs down his arms. Pecco wonders if his deodorant will hold.

They're sitting there, and the grass is green and soft, even if it shouldn't be in the torrid hotness of August, no rain to be seen. Maybe he doesn't remember it right, with all the times he went back to this memory, wore it down and stretched it thin. Maybe he does.

There's barely any light, and Pecco sinks his hand in the dirt, hot and burnt by the sun. Luca's hand is near his, the skin dark and tanned, the fingers long.

They're supposed to be there to see shooting stars.

Pecco looks to his right, out of the corner of his eye, without turning his head, and Luca's nose is tilted up to the sky. He looks lost in it. Pecco can feel his heart beating in his throat. He doesn't know why.

The only thing he can hear is the sound of crickets. It feels like they are alone in the world, the scarce and few lights of the houses lighting up the horizon, far away.

"Do you think there's something up there?" asks Luca, breaking the silence.

Pecco shughs. "I don't know", he says, Luca making a small noise in agreement, or pondering maybe, as a reply.

The silence returns, and with it the sound of crickets. Pecco's skin feels sticky with sweat and the autan that Luca's mother forced them to spray on themselves before letting them go out.

Pecco scratches the dirt under his hand with the bitten nail of his index.

"Look!" exclaims Luca, breaking the silence once again, one hand up in the air pointing to the sky, to the stars.

Two small twinkles of light are running in the sky, one following the other.

"Come on, make a wish! What do you want?"

What does he want?

He wants to be a champion.

He wants to win and feel the champagne running down his face on the podium, like Valentino did.

Pecco looks dow again, to his hand in between the blades of grass, near Luca's, at the contrast between their skin. Their fingers are so close they are almost touching. It would take only one, single, small move, and they would be.

He wants-

When they get back, Pecco drives, even if he doesn't have a license. Luca circles Pecco's waist with his arms to hold on.

Pecco still remembers the pressure of Luca's knees against the back of his own's.

(in Italy the night of tenth of August, or "la notte di San Lorenzo" is traditionally the night where it's easier to see shooting stars. The stars were believed to be the tears of the saint, or the embers of the pire on which he was burned alive)

[toni-peperoni]

And a week later, I am back with the next one!!

Kinktober day 14 prompt: Costumes

Ship: Marco Bezzecchi/Francesco Bagnaia

This one is for @dickinfectionbez who gave me the ship and also the prompt, which was in my prompt list anyway!!

You can read it here on ao3 or under the cut

You wanna try it, ride it, lick it, spit it

"Mig I'm not sure if I should go through with this", Bez whined for the sixth time this hour. Mig huffed and shook his head. The last five times Bez had decided that he in fact should and this time would be no different. There was so much to win after all. And very little to loose.

Sure, they wouldn't let him live it down, probably not ever, but at the same time, the pictures of him in fishnet tights and the dress resurfaced every now and then too and Bez really couldn't find he minded.

"It's not like I have ever done this before. There is a big difference between what I did that halloween compared to just straight up going in lingerie."

"And cute patched dog ears", the other man supplied not very helpfully.

"That's not helping", Bez whined seemingly in complete despair. He even buried his face in a pillow to underline his point. Migno thought he was overreacting a bit, but Bez sometimes needed his wet dog moments, so this was just another moment of that.

"You've been practically begging to jump on Pecco's dick for weeks, no month now. If you wear that, he is going to jump you. No doubt", Mig said, decidedly too serious of the context.

"You really think?", Bez asked, looking up at the other Italian with his best puppy eyes.

"I don't think. I know. Pecco has a thing for lingerie. I really don't want to elaborate on why I know that, let's just say I'm scarred for life, but not only that, he also has a thing for you."

"Yeah, would be nice if he'd act on that and forget his gentleman 'I respect you as my friend' attitude just once", Bez grumbled and Andrea couldn't agree more really. Usually, he really liked that about Pecco, because it kept a lot of idiocy away from them, but in this aspect his aim was miles off.

"It'll work trust me", Mig said, squeezing his shoulder.

________________

"What will the others say?", Bez moaned, throwing his hand in front of his eyes, as if he had just now remembered that there will be more people present, than just Pecco and him. And poor Mig of course.

"No matter what they say, you know none of us is all that innocent. Sure, you might traumatise Celestino a bit, but the rest? They deserve it for what they made us hear. Or see."

"The old man will get a heart attack", Bez joked.

"He deserves it the most to be honest. What Vale has put us through, there is not enough bleach in the world to get those images out of my head."

"Don't think I forgot what you did with Franky and Luca those months ago. Not something I particularly needed to see. Didn't think you were so flexible", Marco countered and Mig went beet red.

"Fucking hell, why am I doing this? Why did I agree to this?"

"You make it seem, like it was my fault, but you were the one that brought up the idea with the tail", Mig reminded him.

"It just wasn't complete without the tail! It wasn't a costume with just the ears!"

"Yeah and that's why normal people get one to clip on, which would have worked perfectly with the lace, but no, Marco Bezzecchi, had a butt plug with a tail laying around in his home, which I too don't want to think about too long, so he decided it had to be that."

"It fit the hole in the panties for it!"

"But you only bought those panties, because they would go with the tail", Mig groaned.

"Yeah so what?"

"You are a very odd human being sometimes."

"You only notice that now?", Bez asked, shrugging. The conversation seemed to be over from his side now, but Mig couldn't help himself and needed to deliver another little blow.

"At least that means, that you and Pecco can get straight to it, when the plug keeps you ready and open."

Bez groaned. "Why did I think you out of all of the people are the one I should tell about this."

"Because while you act like you want someone that'll keep you from doing it, you don't actually want that and I match the unhinged energy the best. Also, when have we ever not talked about our escapades to eachother. I vividly remember falling into your bed the day after I did it with Luca for the first time. You wanted to know everything", Mig stretched the last word out and Bez found that he had no defense. Mig was right.

"Vale wanted a riders academy to keep his legacy up and we took it too literally. The entire legacy."

They both laughed.

Mig parked the car up against the wall of the old farm house. The other cars were there already, they came fashionably late as always. Bez put on the slippers that looked like dog paws and the finger less gloves that also had toe beans painted on the inside of them.

"That you were able to sit suprised me", Mig muttered, as they walked to the front door.

"As long I have something else to concentrate on it's fine. Mostly, as long it doesn't press straight, you know."

Mig did know and just nodded understandingly. He himself was dressed as Goku, including his still blonde dyed ends styled up with so much gel, it should be a crime and the orange robe.

It got him a 'fucking weeb' when Bez saw it for the first time, but it had just been light hearted teasing. Mig and Luca had agreed to both dress out of one of their favourite animes and it ended up being the tallest of them all, that opened the door for them, a straw hat on his head, a red vest hugging his frame nicely and working great with the blue trousers.

Luca laughed out loud when he saw Bez and could barely contain it.

"Fucking hell, Pecco is getting lucky tonight", Luca laughed.

"Admit it, I look good."

"Never said anything else", Luca winked and held up his hands in surrender. "Good costume."

Bez smiled satisfied with Luca's praise.

"Can we go in now? It's getting cold!"

They all agreed and quickly closed the door.

Mig and Luca went into the room first, drawing most of the attention away from Bez, immediately starting up conversations again. With their back to Pecco, who was the only one, that noticed Bez stepping in.

It was comical, how Pecco's eyes widened when he caught the first glimps of Bez. His eyes trailed all over his body, taking it all in, staring in a way he had never seen Pecco do before. Oh this ought to be good.

"Hello Pecco", Bez whispered in his ear as greeting, leaning down to hug him. The other Italian hadn't yet shaken out of his stupor and barely was able to put his hands around Bez and when he did, all he felt under his hands was soft skin and the clasp of Marco's bralette.

Bez got back up, but lingered at the arm chair Pecco was sitting in, putting his arm on top of the back rest of it to stand more comfortably.

The motion drew attention from the rest of the room and Vale, Franky and Celestino were staring at him. "Hi", Bez smiled his brightest smile.

"Look at you", Franky shot back, whistling through his teeth. Bez just winked in response.

Celestino matched Luca's first reaction of laughing and went to high five him. "Go tiger", he said, voice low, that only Bez could hear it.

"Oh please, I'm obviously dressed as a dog not a tiger", he quipped back, making Cele only laugh harder.

"Why am I seeing this?", Vale asked, obviously the most distraught of them.

"It's revenge for what you have put us through", Mig said, lips quirking up in a smile.

"Ah fair point", he conceded.

Pecco very pointedly tried not to stare at the tattoo on Bez's thigh. Sure, he had seen it a hundred times before, but it's rarely been so close to his face. So he stared straight ahead, right into Vale's soul.

"What's wrong with him?", Vale asked, leaning over to Luca.

"He tries not to eye fuck Bez, because he for some reason he thinks he can't actually fuck him."

"Why would he think that?"

"I don't know either."

Vale shook his head. Sometimes he wondered what they learnt from him that he hadn't wanted to pass on.

"Why don't you sit down?", Pecco asked, giving Bez a pressed smile, fingers digging into the armrests. He definitely was affected by it. But how could he not be, when he could basically lick the salt from Bez thigh and bite into the lemon he had tattooed there right afterwards. He was getting drunk on it anyways.

"It's not that easy you know", Bez whispered to him before spinning around half way and showing Pecco the tail.

"Is it...?", Pecco asked letting the 'a butt plug fall away, face heating up at just the thought, fuck he shouldn't want his friend like that.

"Yup", Bez confirmed, popping the 'p'.

"Okay", Pecco answered and nodded heavily. This evening would be the death of him. Through the lace of the bralette, Pecco could see the shine of Bez's nipple piercing, tempting him, to swirl around it with his tongue.

He grabbed the cane that he brought with his costume tighter. He was dressed like someone straight out of Peaky Blinders, looking like a 1920s gentleman. Somehow Bez wanted him even more. Pecco as it stood, was good, great even. But Pecco in a suit? Yeah Bez didn't want him, he needed him.

"But maybe it's better when I sit in your lap?", Bez suddenly suggested and plopped down, before Pecco could say anything against it.

The younger man shifted a bit around until he was comfortably sitting on and against him. With every movement, Pecco could feel the tail move around on his leg and Pecco nearly died at the thought that that meant the plug was moving inside Bez too.

He wanted to spread his legs open, get rid of the plug and fill him up himself. He wanted to make it good for Bez, make him moan and whine and beg for more and he wanted to give it to him and then some more.

Pecco couldn't help but put his hands on Bez exposed hips, his fingers digging into the soft flesh with how tight his grip was. He tried to control his breathing, because he was feeling himself get hard – how could he not with a lap full of Bez – and the other man would feel it soon enough too.

Bez was meanwhile smiling at Mig, mouthing 'it works'. Mig gave them a look up and down and answered. "I can see that."

They took up conversations as normal, drinking some kind of Halloween punch and eating some snacks that were made to somehow look creepy. All in all it was a successful evening. The others got over his costume pretty quickly and Bez could feel Pecco's half hard dick press against his thigh. Every now and then, he would shift as if to get comfortable again, but really, he just wanted to hear the gasps Pecco couldn't quite manage to keep in.

What he hadn't calculated, was that Pecco could, albeit unknowingly turn the tables and give it right back to Bez. When he shifted the next time, Pecco, in a desperate try to distract himself, went to touch the tail, the soft brown furr a different sensation to concentrate on.

Maybe it had slipped Bez mind, or maybe he was just that stupid, but he had completely forgotten, that intentional touch to the tail, especially caressing it, like Pecco was doing right now, made the plug vibrate inside him.

He squinted his eyes shut, trying to stop the moans from leaving his mouth.

Pecco seemed none the wiser at it, but Mig looked at him quizzically from across the room. Bez took his phone from the side, Pecco still caressing the tail like some kind of fidget toy while talking to Luca, didn't see, when Bez typed out messages to Mig.

help me, the plug vibrates when Pecco touches the tail!!!!!!!!

He put an absurd amount of exclamation marks behind the message, this was a crisis situation after all.

Mig had the audacity to laugh at him. Out loud. Through the room. Bez glared at him, about to say something, when another spark jolted through his body and he barely caught the yelp, that threatened to come out of him.

Because of that, he didn't notice, that Mig's laughter drew Pecco's attention, who over Bez's shoulder had the perfect angle to read his message to Andrea.

He only realised, when Pecco whispered in his ear: "Is that so?" All while he continued on stroking it, causing Marco's breath to hitch. Need was bubbling up in him, like boiling water.

He turned his head into Pecco's neck and closed his eyes for a second. "Fucking hell", he breathed against the soft skin. Pecco just chuckled and kept on doing it.

"Oh get a room", Mig yelled at them in fake annoyance. He was happy for Bez, that I worked out as imagined, yet he also didn't particularly want to see them fuck in front of all of them.

"Maybe we should", Pecco smirked, giving the tail a last hard tuck, not only making the plug vibrate hard, but also making it move inside of Bez.

That moan, he couldn't suppress. Pecco picked him up bridal style. The little bit of lace did barely anything to hide how hard Bez was. He had the decency to blush.

"Well, if you'd excuse us", Bez said, trying to sound calm and collected, before Pecco carried him out with swift steps, up to the room they shared most of the time they were at the ranch nowadays.

He was dropped on the bed shortly after, Pecco immediately climbing on the bed too, looming over him. "What do I do with you now huh?"

"Well you could begin with taking my clothes off", Bez shot back.

"What clothes?", Pecco laughed, ridding himself of his jacket and waist coat. "Those are clothes Bez, what you are wearing barely even classifies as underwear."

"You like them", Bez said smugly.

"Never said I didn't, did I now?" He had the audacity to wink at Bez while saying it. His hands wandered onto the lace of the bralette, that barely covered any of his chest. Pecco gave the gleaming metal of Bez piercing a flick, waking him groan. "Though I like even more what it tries to hide."

With that, sneaked his hand under Bez's back and undid the clasp with skilled fingers and took it away, while also letting his hands wander over Bez's arms in a way that set his skin on fire.

Pecco was about to return his attention back to his chest, but Bez had different plans, drawing him down with his hands around his neck and kissing him. Finally actually kissing him. More than a stupid dare they did when they were teenagers. More than one of the drunken kisses everyone was bound to share with a friend at least once in their life.

It was a real kiss. One were your head begins to spin and your heart skips a beat. He smiled into the kiss, not yet ready to let go of it again. When they finally parted again, they took the time to look at eachother for a moment.

"Fucking hell I should have done this sooner", Pecco muttered under his breath, prompting the other man to laugh.

"Yeah you should have. Would have saved me turning up in underwear to the halloween party."

"But that would've been a shame with how good you look in it."

Bez blushed and cussed Pecco out in response. The older man just laughed and turned back to pressing kisses all over Bez body, working his way down from the chin all the way to where the lace did little to cover his growing erection.

Pecco smiled up to him from down there, grin seeming wicked, when he took the thin fabric between his teeth and pulled it away from Bez skin. He let go off it again and it snapped against Bez soft skin, making him yelp, not having expected it.

He placed kisses along the younger man's thigh, moving to the inside of the leg quickly and up again, until he got his teeth on the lace again, this time drawing it down completely, leaving Bez naked and exposed.

When it was finally discarded to the side, Pecco came back to Bez dick, which was laying heavily against his stomach now, already beginning to leak cum all over it. The tension mixed with him being constantly stimulated by the plug for so long all came crashing down on Bez and he needed Pecco to do something now.

"Pecco please", he whined, looking at his friend – hopefully after this more than friend – and motioned for him to do something.

"I've got you", Pecco soothed and resumed with placing kisses on the inside of Bez thigh, working his way up to his dick.

He licked a broad stripe along the underside, from the base all the way to the top making Bez moan loudly, the noise only intensifying, when he wrapped his lips around the head, sucking at it gently.

One of Bez hands found its way into Pecco's hair, grabbing ahold of it quite tightly, but not controlling the pace the older man was now moving his head up and down Bez dick.

It was drawing increasingly more needy noises from Bez throat, the other hand grabbing into the sheets, trying not to come embarrassingly quick. It bothered Pecco, that Bez was holding himself back, wanting him to tip over, wanting him to let go. So he put in even more afford, adding his hand to further stimulate him.

"Fuck Pecco", Bez moaned. It was the only warning the other man got, before cum was shooting into his mouth. He swallowed it down, like water on a hot day.

Bez was breathing heavily, trying to come down from the high, his muscles were clenching as the ecstasy shot through his body. Pecco layed down next to him, smiling at him gently, pressing a kiss to the side of his chin.

"That was probably the best blowjob of my life", Bez whispered.

Pecco's smile only got wider and he gave Bez another kiss, this time on the lips.

"Now it's my turn", Bez announced trying to move around to where Pecco's trousers were still strained.

"No rush. You should rest for a moment. Besides, we have the entire night to ourselves. They certainly won't interrupt, to scared of what they'd see", Pecco stopped him gently.

"Why do you always have to be such a gentleman", Bez protested, not actually annoyed. "Where's the fun in it?"

"Trust me, I can be different. And a lot more fun", Pecco whispered into Bez ear, making the younger man squirm. "But we have time for that later."

"Then let me at least", Bez began and snuck his hand under Pecco's trousers and underwear, jerking him off quickly and without much finess it was too tight and too much friction, but Pecco was so close anyways, that it was enough to have him spill all over Bez's hand, when he gave the head of his dick a swipe with the thumb.

Bez took the hand to his mouth and licked it clean, pointedly looking at Pecco. When he was done, he smiled brightly.

"Better!"

[formulapookie]

!!!

Under the cut to read on Tumblr, here to read on Ao3 chapter 1 ; chapter 2

Moonlight kisses ch.3 bezzetti, 1.9k words

He decided it was time now, to do it, to break up with the love of his life, with the boy who’s made his life better, since they met back all those years ago, the boy he wanted to live together with, to marry one day, to hold forever in a hug, unmelting, just the two of them.

He had pushed this moment along too much now, back when he started thinking about how not to hurt Cele with his thoughts two months ago, when he started going out more, smoking and drinking a lot more than he was used to, more than he actually wanted.

He had spent two straight days being completely drunk at Edo’s house, weed and alcohol just flowing his way non stop, drowning him in a spiral of loneliness.

He gets up from the couch were he’s sat with the other academy boys, Vale is not there with them right now, has some business out town apparently for a couple days.

He walks to the kitchen and his - he can’t say or think boyfriend right now, he can’t because if he does he will end up not doing what he wants,no, needs to do

Cele is looking at him with stars in his eyes and fuck it’s difficult.

it’s fucking difficult to act unbothered and cold when he’s got Cele looking at him like that.

But it’s for him, he’s doin this for him, and for the academy.

“We should break up” 

silence

“Marco what the fuck are you saying”

Bez is suffering internally, he wants to cry and scream and yell but he remains unreadable on the outside

“I met someone else, I cheated on you”

there’s a stop, he needs to collect his thoughts, be strong just for a bit more

“I love him”

It’s cold, mean, cutting, fucking cruel, but he knows he has to do it to let them free from his torments.

He looks at Cele and he almost breaks his facade, the hurt and disappointment in the boy’s eyes is something he’s never seen in Cele.

He opens his mouth to speak, closes it, opens it again, tears already streaming down his face.

He can’t form words, he’s too shocked or hurt or both to do it.

Meanwhile the academy has gone silent, background noise by some videogame being the only thing filling the silence 

“You - you cheated on me?” 

“Yeah”

“what do you mean yeah”

“means I fucked another guy Celestino, I want to be with him”

Bez has never called him Celestino, not even in the earliest years of their friendship, he’s always been Cele, Celin, then amore.

“Why” and Bez wants to fucking die, there’s no coming back from this now, he chose to do this and he’s going to do it.

Still incredibly able to keep his facade of an uncaring asshole.

“Because I like him more, I got bored with you, and he’s not boring” “No I don’t believe you” “God than you are more stupid than I thought” “Stop that Bez” “Stop what? You asked why and I told you, maybe if you were less boring I would’ve stuck around”

He’s being too mean, he knows he is, but he needs Cele to hate him, needs the whole damn academy to do the same, needs Cele to forget him.

Cele is crying, and he doesn't cry often, Bez knows Cele hates crying in front of people, he already thinks he’s considered weaker, crying only fuels that lie. 

He doesn’t speak anymore, just turns around and goes to his room, Mig and Franky running behind him to make sure he’s ok, for how much ok he can be.

He hears Pecco getting up the couch and he knows he’s in for something bad.

Cele is the youngest between them, they all feel the need to protect him, and that’s exactly what bez is doing, protecting Cele from him, because he’s too fucked up to be with Cele right now and make sure everything’s ok.

“What the fuck did you do?” Pecco is angry, really angry, Bez has never seen him like that. “WHAT DID YOU DO?” He’s yelling, he’s red in the face, he probably wants to punch Bez in the face, and Bez thinks it would hurt less than whatever he did now. 

“Oh fuck’s sake it’s not that deep, he took it too seriously, I cheated on him but seriously, did none of you expected it? We spend all our time together, it’s boring after a while, I needed something new, he should’ve understood I was getting bored with him and-”

Next thing he knows he’s being pushed to the ground, his back hitting the fridge, magnets falling down, the one him and Cele brought back from a holiday in France a little hourglass with sand in it, it breaks, his hand ending up on top of the glass splinters, it burns, Bez doesn’t care.

Another magnet has fallen and hit his collarbone, right where he got surgery last year, it’s one Bez gifted Vale years ago, he bought it in Bali.

It hurts like a bitch, but again, Bez doesn’t say anything.

“Pecco no”

Luca’s voice, he’s holding Pecco back, probably from hitting Bez in the face, and Bez thinks he may actually want Pecco to do it, make it hurt as much as possible, feels like it would still hurt less than what Cele is going through.

“If you show up here again I’m making sure you leave looking like a fucking dead body”

“Pecco let him, he’s not worth it, let’s go check on Cele, we have to stay with him, don’t waste your time”

Luca has the most disgusted and hateful voice Bez has ever heard him have.

And it hurts.

Luca hushes Pecco out the kitchen, telling him again to go see if Cele was feeling better.

“Go away. I won’t tell Valentino but I can’t assure you the others won’t. You better only show up at races and don’t get into Pecco’s range of action or next to Cele, I won’t be there to stop him every time”

he turns his back to Bez, then turns back, a thick veil of hate and disgust over his eyes.

“You really did the worst thing you could do, especially to someone like Cele”

Bez doesn’t answer, he knows he’s fucked up everything, but it’s for the best.

He gets up, wincing in pain for the splinters still stuck in his hand.

Doesn’t say a word, only collects his phone and the suitcase he already prepared next to the couch, puts on a beanie and the protective jacket and gets out.

He climbs onto the bike, turns it on and rides away.

His hand hurts as he clenches the handlebar, so he clenches more and more until he’s at an alcohol shop. He gets in and buys some of the stupidest strong shit he can find, absinthe, straight liquors, everything strong enough to make him black out and sleep, knowing he wouldn’t be able to do so otherwise.

Hops on the bike again and drives until a decently-looking hotel nearby Tavullia. 

Bez climbs down, turns the bike off, he didn’t even wear a helmet he realizes. 

As he gets inside the receptionist eyes him, he recognises him, of course, but he just asks for a room for the night, pays and goes upstairs with the few things he brought with him.

It’s gonna be a long night, he just needs to drink his thoughts away.

Meanwhile Cele is inconsolable, he’s crying, he feels so stupid and weak. “I don’t understand” he’s been saying it for ten minutes now, on loop, like a broken record. Pecco is furious, wants to go out, find Bez and punch him so hard he forgets his name.

But he doesn’t want to leave Cele alone, not like this.

“Cele you have to get up from the floor, please, you’ve been there for half an hour already, you need to get up”

It’s Franky, he’s the only one stable enough to actually speak without insulting Bez, and that’s what the boy needs for now.

“He left Franky, he left because I was boring and he found someone else. He - he went with another guy do you understand? He -” Cele can’t continue the sentence, too fucking hurt, he keeps on sobbing and crying, only one person could help him back up right now, and that person just hurt him like no one else ever did before, he’s God knows where, probably with the new guy, laughing about him and his reaction, in his - their bed, tangled up in the sheets they shared up until yesterday.

“I’m gonna kill him I’m not joking” “Pecco shut up fucking hell. You’re angry, we all are, but you can’t act like this right now, we need to be here for Cele you get it?” Mig is speaking in a hushed tone, trying to not make Cele hear.

Pecco nods, but his eyes are burning with hate. How could Bez do something like this? To Cele of all people. Cele who’s always looked up at him like he hung starts in the sky, Cele who loved him since childhood, Cele who wanted to go live with Bez permanently, Cele who was fucking talking to Pecco about wanting to marry Bez.

And Bez had done the same, saying he loved Cele more than life itself.

He doesn’t get how Bez could cheat on Cele. He truly doesn’t. It doesn’t make fucking sense. 

Bez is currently trying to think of anything but Cele, imagining him hurting, crying even, for something he did it’s unbearable, more than the sharp pain in his palm, splinters still there, he doesn't think he’ll remove them.

Maybe he can just let them there, become a part of him, a payment for what he did.

Even if his payment has already been given.

It was losing Cele, losing his friends, losing his second family. 

He glues himself to the liquor bottle, chugging down as much as he can of the liquid before feeling it burn too much, breaking away from it coughing.

If he’s lucky enough none of the guys will tell Vale, and since Vale is not at races that much maybe he won’t even notice.

Afterall why would he notice?

He truly must be ashamed of the rider he is.

Maybe even of the person he’s become.

He tries to hope in another universe, under another set of stars, he and Cele aren’t separated by his stupid idiot brain.

He tries to think of a world where he and Cele are together forever, where his insecurities don’t exist.

And he realizes something.

In every other universe he’s thinking of he’s never himself.

He’s someone else.

More beautiful, more caring, more loving, less childish, less clingy, less annoying, less weak.

Not even in other universes him and Cele seem to be the true happy ending of their own story.

 And so he tries to fill the void once more, drinking again, another bottle corked open, he doesn’t even know what it is, just that it tastes terribly.

But for how much he tries there’s never gonna be a Celestino shaped bottle capable of replacing the true one.

There’s never gonna be something warm enough to match his love’s warmth.

He will never find another Celestino.

And hopes Cele will never find another Bez.

[invested-in-your-future]

What do you think the mistakes with White Fang story were?

The biggest mistake was not having that plotline at all beyond lipservice.

I think the "no no, any sort of actual resistance instantly makes you bad guys" is such a flawed and stupid position for a show to take.

The show's failure is highlighting WF motivations and WHY would anyone feasibly go down that route - HOW do Mistral, Atlas, etc treat Faunus or even Vale.

JFK once said - "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

If he existed in MilesWBY the quote would be "Only peaceful revolution is possible and anything else is evil"

We never see WHAT the Faunus have to deal with or how the society changed, (and if it did) since the Great War. We never see HOW Blake becomes the person she is (and if anything, have her regress by making her a runaway princess of tropic paradise)

The result is honestly quite racist - the show silently suggests (through the combined force of Blake's awful monologue and how Ilia's storyline ends) that the problem with The Faunus is their own "destructive" tendencies and their "unwillingness" to compromise or "wait for things to get better by being model minorities" - if only they waited a bit longer all the bigots would recognize how wrong they were!

With what the show presents, it's literally impossible to delve into the intricacies of the nature of extremism or why Adam's approach is flawed - because the show posits that the only right way forward is via complete no-exceptions peaceful resistance of… being nice and docile even when threatened with death?

We are straight up EXPECTED to see Ilia beating up bigots who laughed at people dying in the mines as BAD - the narrative EXPECTS the viewer to be horrified at her revelation rather than feel catharsis for her doing the right thing. The writing wants us to "feel like Blake" by being horrified at how violent and unhinged her friend is while completely ignoring the context - because any resistance beyond non-violent slogans is instantly a slippery slope into blowing up schools.

And where does that argument end up? In Twitter posts about how all those people shot by the cops "deserved" it by "doing something to aggravate them" - that's where.

Adam IS abusive, and Adam IS in the wrong and it's pretty clear that he has long since been addicted to power, BUT there's no possibility to even begin discussing what's right or wrong with the way the show handles the WF plotline as a whole.

We don't know what position Blake can take nor what position she had on the matter before because we don't get a sense of how WF could function beyond the two completely absurd strawman extremes of whatever sunken place nonsense Ghira's WF was in and whatever slippery slope cult-like strawman his successor created (nor how that progression happened).

What is his "vision"? What does he hope to achieve? How did he, according to Blake, "change"? We know nothing about White Fang beyond "Ghira's Non-Resistance White Man's Strawman of MLK" WF being good and his successor's WF being a slippery slope argument.

No wonder the show defaults to the most rudimentary aspect of Adam's flaws in the final confrontation, refusing to give both Yang and Blake a chance to refute him thematically while also refusing to give them proper character arcs that would lead to that confrontation - because the narrative never thought things through beyond that.

The show jumps around random and nonsensical gods subplots and religious imagery being all daring about what needs to change, but the moment actual themes of discrimination and human nature are at play, the narrative instantly becomes just so in love with status quo.

The WF began as "angry redshirts to be beaten up" and when the show decided to move on to all the "exciting"(it's really not) Brother Gods nonsense, the subplot got thrown away in the most racist way possible.

[wrenanigans]

SAW A SKYRIM POST YOU REBLOGGED. SKYRIM FAN???

YES! New skyrim fan! I finally started playing the game 12 years after its release and I am HOOKED! I’m gonna use this ask as an excuse to ramble so uh, long post beware xD

Okay so my first ever run has been the most chaotic shit. I just finished the main questline, but it was a JOURNEY to get there.

I’ve been playing with my gf @bucca2 who introduced me to the game. The first thing she did, as soon as we got out of the tutorial (and got mods working, including multiplayer), was take me to a little farm up north to meet somebody. “You liked Kefka, I think you’ll like this one,” she said. Cryptic and concerning! And I found this wagon and met Cicero.

To quote Aby, “Yeah, honestly, it was like taking a kid to Disneyland for the first time. There was this quiet wonder in his voice like he was discovering magic was real...honestly, I wish I had been recording. It was very adorable. He was hooked from Cicero's first voice line.”

Dude, when I say “blorbo at first sight” I mean I was down bad in an instant. I was writing fanfic based on that interaction alone (with some helpful hints from Aby). I had dreams about the bastard on night one. I got obsessed.

That feral enthusiasm did not wane as the game went on, because I went straight for the Dark Brotherhood questline. I was the Listener before I had even spoken with the Greybeards. I even updated a mod from an old Skyrim edition myself so I could marry Cicero. I was all about that wretched little fool and it was making a fool of me.

With Cicero as my first companion, I went onto the Thieves’ Guild quests next. Did you know that you can fail the tutorial pickpocketing quest? Because that’s what I did! They recruited me anyway. I got up to the Sepulcher quest, but never finished it, so I just have the skeleton key xD

When we assassinated the vampire in the DB questline, I got infected, and decided “eh, why not!” So I became a vampire. This made the inheritance of Bloodchill Manor extra fun — I simply sat back and watched the bloodbath! I only had to lift a finger when the Dawnguard came knocking xD

I went to the Bards’ College next. We’d “acquired” an expansion mod for it (do not get me started on other modders who charge for their shit. i have strong 🏴‍☠️ opinions) so that was a fun extra questline.

Up next was some Daedric prince shenaniganry. I got the Ebony Blade and did some light murderizing to buff it, then met Sanguine for some debauchery. My stealth archer build got even more broken when I stopped by to pick up Barbas from Clavicus Vile. Immortal dog to tank for me? Yes please!

Then I did the Dawnguard questline! I accidentally-on-purpose cheesed the pilgrimage to go fill the ewer. I got so lost in the Vale that I found the palace treasure room when I was only on shrine two. Seeing Serana shove the snow elf bastard off the cliff was fun, though I did miss the loot…

After that, I decided it was time for some warmongering, and signed up for the Imperial Legion. Which was a little awkward, considering I’d assassinated the Emperor already, but what they don’t know can’t hurt me! I had great fun in the battles where I simply perched up high and picked Stormcloaks off, like some sort of nefarious gargoyle. Also, General Tullius? would. He also saved my ass when I got lost in the Whiterun battle and found by 7 or so Stormcloaks, and he tanked while I shot them down. Sometimes the game’s mechanics make for great story :P

Finally, it was time for the mainline quest. I tolerated Delphine until she was no longer useful, at which point I turned to Parthurnax for guidance. Being told to go on a grand quest to find the Elder Scroll I already had was pretty entertaining, especially considering I’d done the same thing with the dragonstone from the first dungeon (which I’d gone to early to retrieve the golden claw). It was also funny as hell when I tried to talk my way into heaven and the only faction dialogue choices I had where the two that the dude didn’t like xD

After that, I went, “well now what? …probably lunch.” So I went and munched on somebody, as a vampiric treat. That’s where I last left my playthrough! I’ve had an absolute blast with the game, even if I am playing it ass-backwards. I may go do the Dragonborn DLC content next. If you have any recommendations for more shit to get up to, I’d love to hear it! Especially if it involves murder xD