#bc it could have real life repercussions

[lucifersdickriderdotnet]

Sick and Tired

Summary: you can't say that anything about having a chronic illness is fun, but at least you have friends who care about you. 2.7k words

Disclaimer: GENDER NEUTRAL READER I wrote this in one go at like 3am. So. All of the brothers are in this but it's more platonic than anything else? If you want you can read it as romance because I did imagine kissing several of them on the mouth while writing it. also shout out to the author on ao3 that called Asmo "Momo" and then pointed out that it means "peach" in japanese. I did steal that nickname. lmk if it was you though bc I will credit you.

Notes: This is based on my own personal experience with a mystery disease that has been plaguing me since I hit puberty. I'm going to be very real, I wrote this for myself as a way to cope because I got #sad. it sucks, for sure, but there are some things that make it more bearable and isn't that how life works anyways?

The cool thing about being a human in what is essentially hell is that when diseases happen, you are more or less immune to them. The bad part about being a human in what is essentially hell is that you’re human and it’s essentially hell. Because of this, there are some things that you’ve had to explain to your housemates, or to an overeager Diavolo, or to a concerned Luke. You had to talk Lucifer down from renovating the whole House to put in an elevator because he was “worried about your flimsy human joints.”

“I have bad joints, regardless.” You remember saying, “I’m a human, it comes with the territory. Don’t put an elevator in the House, I don’t like them anyway.”

You’ve had to explain that while you’re grateful that they managed to find vitamin D supplements, they’re meant to be just that, a supplement to spending time in the sun, something the Devildom doesn’t have. So while your symptoms have been alleviated, they have not been fixed. Levi fixed this by buying you something like a heat lamp.

“Where did you even find this?” You’d said after he’d forced you underneath it.

“You’re gonna hate the words that are going to come out of my mouth.” His hands stilled from where they were busy attaching it to the wall by your bed.

“Just tell me.”

“Some demons used to, emphasis on ‘used to’, own humans as pets. So they made these little lamps to mimic the sun or whatever.” You blink at him, rapid fire before shrugging a little.

“Humans used to own each other.” He turns his head to gape at you like a fish.

“What?”

“Yeah it was a whole thing. There are still lasting repercussions that echo through our modern society.”

“That’s insane.”

“I thought I told you before that human cruelty knows no bounds.”

Solomon of course, is no help, because while he may be human, he is old. You’d complained of jaw pain once, something about your teeth aching.

“It might be a demon.” He’d said this confidently at the one dinner a month he’s allowed to have with the brothers. As per the dating-Asmo-agreement he made with Lucifer.

“It might be a what?” Satan’s head whipped towards Solomon so fast you thought he broke something.

“A demon. Tooth pain is caused by little demons in the teeth.” You stared at him like he grew a second head.

“No, it’s not. It’s caused by bacteria eating away at your teeth. And that’s just for cavities. This could be something completely different. Also, I don’t think humans have believed the demon teeth thing in forever. God, you’re old.” Your frustrated rebuttal of Solomon’s “wisdom” had not stopped the brothers from checking you up and down for curses or signs of possession.

So, for the most part. It’s fine, and you don’t mind explaining these things to them just like they don’t mind explaining demon culture to you. This though, you’ve never been able to explain to anyone, so you can’t explain it to them either.

—

“I’m so tired,” it’s noon and you woke up from sleeping two hours earlier. Asmo has dragged you out of the house for some shopping spree, and while you were excited to go, your energy levels have quickly depleted.

“But darling! We just started!” Despite saying this, he’s walking towards the register with the clothes he’s decided he likes, willing to cut his trip short if it’s for you. You shake your head.

“No, no, keep shopping. I’m always tired, Peach.” He hums and goes back to perusing the shelves while you stay seated by the dressing room for his mini fashion shows.

You don’t just get tired while hanging out with Asmo, it happens everywhere. Beel has to catch your head when you almost faceplant into your lunch. You spend a Devildom History class fighting to keep your eyes open while Satan takes twice the amount of notes as usual so you don’t fall behind. Levi asks you to watch a special livestream of a Sucre Frenzy concert and you have to sit down halfway through because you’re suddenly dizzy. You even fall tired while driving Mammon’s car, once.

He’d been in the passenger seat, fretting over your every move, and you’d understood despite the fact that it was incredibly annoying. This car was his baby, something he was incredibly proud of, something he worked hard to get. Still, having someone freak out over your driving usually makes it worse.

You’d been gently reassuring him of your skills when you felt it, the familiar pull of your eyelids, the way your brain seemed to slow down. It takes you a second longer than it should to register the red light and you have to slam on the brakes to avoid running it. It’s not too soon after that when you decide to pull over and have Mammon drive you home. You fall asleep on the way back.

—

This all comes to a head when you manage to outsleep Belphie.You aren’t sure how you did it, honestly. You went to bed on Friday afternoon and vaguely remember being woken up because a meal was ready. You remember making some sort of affirmative noise and then going back to sleep. You have hazy memories of stumbling to the bathroom and chugging down bottles of water, but mostly it was just sleep. Then, Belphie is shaking you awake. He’s saying something you can’t quite hear and Beel is picking you up and carrying you to the living room and the lights are so bright it turns your brain back on.

“Belphie, did you do somethin’?” It’s Mammon’s voice, accusatory. Someone pokes your cheek.

“So you kill a guy once and suddenly everything that happens to them is your fault?” His reply makes you snort.

“Did you or not?”

“No. This is… this is something else.” He sighs and then one of your eyelids is being manually opened so he can make eye contact with you before he lets go and your head drops slightly. “I know what my sin feels like. I know what Sloth feels like. It’s a choice, mostly. It’s the action of choosing to do nothing rather than something. This is something else. Something completely different.” You yawn and scrub at your eyes, finally opening them to stare at your posse.

“Did I get a fanclub while I was napping?”

“You’ve always had a fanclub,” Levi says quietly.

“Napping? You call that a nap?” Asmo pokes your cheek and you assume he’s the one who did it the first time.

“How do you know they have a fanclub?” Satan turns his head to Levi and his brother turns a bright shade of red.

“I’m the president.” He says. Beel raises his hand.

“I’m VP. We hold meetings every Wednesday. Lucifer pretends it’s stupid but he’s always in the club room ‘doing student council work’.”

“Can we get back to the matter at hand?” Lucifer finally interjects, not wanting to deal with his brothers’ needling. Satan grumbles something about him being a loser under his breath. “Are you aware of how long you were asleep for?”

“I mean, I dunno,” you stretch your arms above your head and almost hit someone in the face. “I remember someone coming to me about dinner, so probably a while. Why?” Lucifer sighs and rubs a hand down his face.

“It’s Sunday afternoon.” You stare at him blankly.

“This is the worst joke you’ve ever told.”

“I am not joking,” he says and Levi shoves his D.D.D under your nose. Sure enough it says that today, the day you are finally awake, is Sunday. It says that it’s 2pm. You’ve slept for almost a full 48 hours. The thought brings tears to your eyes immediately and Levi freaks out.

“No wait, don’t cry. I don’t know what to do when you cry!” His hands are flapping around your face uselessly and it makes you laugh and choke on a wet sob.

“You can back the fuck up, for starters.” Satan bodily pushes his brothers out of the way to get to you, placing a box of tissues on your lap and sitting next to you. Not close enough to touch, but enough so you know he’s there.

“Sorry,” you take a tissue and blow your nose. Beel holds out a trashcan and Asmo pretends not to be disgusted. It’s sweet. “Crying in front of people is so cringe.”

“Being vulnerable and crying is not something you should be ashamed of,” Lucifer says and it’s weird to have your own words parroted back at you.

“Why’re you apologizin’ anyway? ‘S not like you did anythin’ wrong. We’re just worried is all.” Mammon runs a hand over your hair as he says it before remembering himself and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Because it’s never been this bad before. I’ve never slept for damn near two days.”

“So this is a recurring problem?” Satan has procured a notebook from out of nowhere and has his hand poised to write down what you’re saying. Presumably to go scour his books for a solution.

“Yeah. It’s … I’m tired a lot. Always, really. I’m tired right now, actually. Sometimes it’s worse than others but … I don’t really know what’s wrong.” You huff, “I was actually in the process of getting tests done to figure it out when I got magic-ed here. Isn’t that funny?”

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Asmo is resting his head on your shoulder and you tilt your head so it rests on his.

“Not really. ‘M sorry, Peach. I’d tell you if there was.”

“I always wondered why you had such deep eyebags. I thought it was something in your skincare routine.”

“It’s also genetic.”

“Humans have genes for dark under eyes?” He sounds horrified at the prospect.

“Sure do.”

“That’s miserable.” You laugh at him and he squeezes your hand gently.

“So, yer just… tired.” Mammon asks.

“Mhm.”

“Chronically.”

“Also yes.”

“I didn’t know you knew the word ‘chronic’, Mammon,” Belphie ribs Mammon from his spot on the floor. You kick him slightly.

“Don’t be an ass.” He sighs dramatically and flops over onto his back.

“It’s good to know it’s not a freaky demon thing.” He peers up at you from underneath his bangs.

“Yeah. I’m kind of tired of dealing with freaky demon things. No offense.” There’s a chorus of agreement throughout the room and you can see everyone relax a little now that they know.

“It is a shame though,” Lucifer says, “that it is not demon related.” His brow furrows. “Those I can fix.” You shrug and slightly jostle Asmo’s head.

“Eh. That’s life. Thank you for being concerned though, I appreciate it.” Your stomach grumbles. “I guess I should eat, huh?” Asmo graciously lifts his head off your shoulder and you head to the kitchen, Beel on your tail.

“There’s nothing we can do?” He looks sad, and he’s rubbing his wrist in that way he does when he’s nervous. You’re struck with the realization that Beel is the defender of his family. He’s physically the biggest and the strongest, and he’s been looking after them and taking care of them physically for basically forever. It must be excruciating for him to not be able to help you.

“No,” you shake your head sadly, “I’m sorry, Bug.” You step forward and give him a hug. He returns it and you pretend you can’t feel him cry.

—

Things are different after that. Asmo tries to hang out with you in places closer to the House or in his room. Lucifer pulls you aside and tells you both his room and his study are always open for you if you need them. Beel takes you to the gym with him so you don’t stay too sedentary, but is always willing to stop working out if you need to go home. Satan almost gets into a physical altercation with a teacher over you sleeping in class and you find out later that Belphie gave him nightmares for a week. Levi doesn’t make you sit through as many anime binges anymore, instead separating them up into something more bite sized so you can properly enjoy it. It’s nice, you think, that they’re trying to take your needs into consideration.

Diavolo catches wind of it and sneaks his way over to the House to ask you questions. Walks into Lucifer’s study where you’re trying to do assigned reading like he owns it, and you think that he probably does in some way.

“Diavolo–” Lucifer stands up and Diavolo laughs.

“Don’t worry! There is nothing wrong! I just had some questions for our lovely exchange student.” He sits down in the armchair across from you and you set your notebook down.

“What’s up?” You can hear Lucifer mumbling prayers to a God who will no longer listen to them and it makes you snort.

“I have learned of your condition.”

“I gathered.”

“There is nothing I can do?”

“Do you have several degrees and a shit ton of fancy machinery?” Lucifer chokes at your language. Diavolo smiles at you.

“Can’t say that I do.”

“Then, no. There isn’t.” He hums thoughtfully and you busy yourself with trying to figure out Lucifer’s Demonus organization pattern. It doesn’t seem to be by age, so maybe it’s by color?

“What does it feel like?” Diavolo’s question draws you out of your comparison of two almost identical wine reds. You think one has a brighter undertone but that could be the color of the label.

“Have you ever been tired?”

“Indeed.”

“Have you ever not slept, for like, a whole day, and you can feel that your brain isn’t working at maximum capacity?” He nods. “Have you ever felt like you were trying to run in a swimming pool?”

“I can run in swimming pools.” You roll your eyes.

“Can you run through slime?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“It’s like that. It’s being so tired that you know you aren’t operating at your best and being able to do nothing about it. It’s like moving through water. It’s never getting enough sleep. I could sleep the perfect amount for a human my age and I would still be down to take several long naps throughout the day. And it’s not something I can ignore, either. I can’t just power through it. Because after a while, it starts to hurt.”

“Hurt?” He frowns, and it’s weird to see him not smiling.

“Yeah. It’s. When I get too tired my eyes will hurt. It feels like they’re grapes and someone is squishing the life out of them. It feels like a thousand tiny needles poking at my eyes. It feels like someone is squishing the bridge of my nose in their fist and refuses to let go. It makes my stomach hurt, it makes me nauseous and sick, and it makes me dizzy and it’s awful.”

“I see.”

“So, I have to sleep. I have to sleep because if I don’t it hurts and if I manage to get through that my body will make itself sleep, anyway. It’ll just turn off, regardless of if I want it to or not.”

“That. That is miserable. I am sorry you have to experience such a thing.” You shrug a little and stare at your hands.

“What can you do?” It comes out sarcastic and dry. There’s a silence, tense and weighty, and you know what he’s going to ask before he does.

“Do you need to go to the human world?” You can hear Lucifer’s sharp inhale even though he was pretending to not listen.

“Maybe. But, if it is what I think it is, it won’t go away. I’ll just know and get medication. Probably.” Diavolo stands and nods.

“At least you will know. I will figure something out for you.” He nods again, this time to himself. “There is no reason for you to suffer this way.”

“It won’t go away, Diavolo. I’ll still have it.” You need him to know this. You need him to know that it won’t be permanently fixed. You don’t want him to be disappointed when everything’s said and done and you’re still sick.

“Yes, but things will be better, no? Some progress is better than no progress, no matter how small.” He pauses and smiles at you, warm and comforting. “And we will all be there for you. Regardless of the outcome.”

[karliahs]

bnha fic recs!! gen with a hurt/comfort theme

i've read such good fics lately and you should too! these are all gen, mostly midoriya-centric with lots of aizawa, lots of hurt/comfort and quite a lot of shinsou also.

also i limited myself to reccing one fic per author bc otherwise this would be so unmanageably long. i recommend checking out all their other works too!!

hold onto nothing (hold onto me) by starburstsunshine

"Young kid, powerful Quirk he can't control, so they think it currently only works in extremes. So his Quirk makes someone feel the same as they had felt during their best memories. Or, rather, at their worst." That's funny, Izuku thinks. He doesn't feel anything at all. Izuku gets hit by a wayward Quirk during a rescue, and is left to deal with the repercussions.

goddddd this author's aizawa...it was so so hard to choose one fic to rec bc they have so much incredible stuff, but i really really like the dissociation depiction here!

like stained glass by SpiritusRex

“It hurts,” Izuku whispers to no one, voice thin and choked. Letting the words out makes it all feel real, and the tears he’d been holding back finally break the dam and roll down his cheeks. Wrapping his own arms around himself as he trembles in the storm of his despair is as close as he’ll be able to get to comfort right now. “It hurts, it hurts.” He doesn’t want to have to do this alone. He’s so tired of having to push through pain alone. It’s something he’s been doing all his life, but can’t he, just once, have someone to hold him up when he stumbles? Just once. That’s all he’s asking for.

i feel like this fic was designed in a lab to make me specifically go insane. such incredibly powerful hurt/comfort & exploration of how it feels to never let yourself have comfort

Jumping on Grenades by DemyxDancer

Shinsou once told Class 1-A that he didn't intend to make friends. He didn't realize that: 1. Midoriya took that as a personal challenge; 2. Midoriya always achieves his goals no matter what; 3. Becoming friends with Midoriya inevitably involves bonding over surviving villain attacks. The school gym is being attacked by a villain whose Quirk makes you hallucinate your worst fears, and it's somehow come down to Shinsou to save the day. Welcome to the Hero Course!

this author has so many incredible shindeku fics, platonic and romantic (this one in platonic). i adore their shinsou and this thoughtful exploration of his integration into 1-a and the world of real villain attacks

parallaxis by yamadadzawa

Even through the haze of panic, the feeling of glass in his lungs and throat as he struggled to breathe when he saw his name in 20th place at the end of the quirk test, Izuku still knew one thing with brutal clarity. It’s not possible that he was in last place. And if Aizawa-sensei was willing to tamper with his score on the quirk test, then he’s probably willing to do the same with Izuku’s grades. And if Aizawa-sensei is willing to do it, the other teachers at Yuuei probably are too. Hence his now established practice of checking his graded work against Iida’s.

i love this author's aizawa so so much and it was hard to choose one fic to rec, but i adore this creative manifestation of how izuku's history with schools/teachers could manifest

some bridges should be burnt by orkestrations

Sir Nighteye doesn't think Izuku has what it takes to be a hero. He especially doesn't think Izuku should have been chosen to wield One For All. That's okay! Really! It is! It's hardly the first time Izuku has had people trying to stop him. He'll be fine. He can handle this. Tsuyu and Ochako think differently. They watch his stress levels rise and his self-confidence fall, and they don't like what they're seeing. Perhaps, it's time for an intervention.

such good tsuyu & ochako & izuku friendship. tsuyu especially really shines here and i am always so here for dismantling izuku thinking he just has to take whatever bad thing is thrown at him

Voices by SquirrelWriter

Hitoshi has a thing about voices. Part of it's because of his Quirk, probably. He's always listening for that reply. It's the opening, the chink in a person's armor that lets his own voice slip in and hijack their brain. But part of it is that most people are wary around him, so when someone does talk, particularly to him, it stands out.

really thoughtful shinsou character study and exploration of him joining 1-A & making friends, plus some lovely emotional hurt/comfort at the end

Things that Haunt Our Hallways by ghostwriterofthemachine

“It was a kid,” Yagi gasped out. He had his hand balled up into a fist and the fist pressed to his lips, as if to remind himself that he could not start screaming. “Or. Young person, maybe 20. Homeless, I think. Activated their Quirk on reflex and then ran. The kids—” Here, he pressed his fist harder to his mouth, sucked in a wheezing breath, as if the air itself was pushing down something with physical weight. “The kids—” “Scattered immediately,” Aizawa finished for him, and Yagi managed a nod.   Yagi’s eyes were so dilated that the blue was almost invisible. He shook violently. He looked like a scarecrow in a windstorm.    Someone activated a Fear-Inducer Quirk so powerful that it reduced All Might to this— of course Aizawa’s class had bolted.  Or: A Fear Gas fic, BNHA style.

such a juicy excellent premise with really satisfying exection

The Fine Jar by BrightShadow

Aizawa has had it up to here with his class claiming to be fine when they're not. Desparate times call for desparate measures. Enter the Fine Jar.

this one is so cute and funny with such memorable lines, and then it dove deep into addressing some of my fave topics in a really satisfying way!

[batsplat]

if you were to direct a motogp movie (or make a one season of television) what season or rivalry would you make it about? and more interesting what artistic liberties would you take? it doesn’t have to be a straight up biopic bc imo those are often boring, instead it could be something like velvet goldmine (1998) aka fictional characters whose real life counterparts are pretty obvious, veering in like rpf territory. anyways👀

did you know. one time this guy put a curse on this other guy. and he never won a race again

anyway, look, I do feel like by this point that's the BORING answer from me, but obviously it's where my mind first went. I'm not sure I'd actually want it out there in film form because by now it's badly enough remembered that it's like, my cute little niche story, and I think there's something fun about the Wider World even within the motogp fandom not exactly getting how bonkers the whole thing was. (I know other humans have canonically watched motogp 2004 but I swear even journalists have forgotten some key key details and it's kinda annoying but also fun.) bold words from someone who's been blogging about it!! weird gatekeep-y instinct. but basically my job here is done as far as outreach is concerned - I wrote a very long post, now I get asks about it twice a week that allow me to think about it some more with the four other people who care, perfect balance. that rivalry doesn't need to go mainstream!! the whole point of it is that it's kinda cruel but narratively pleasing that it's gone under the radar, because it's another sign valentino won. but obviously, I cannot literally make a film about this, so the hypothetical repercussions I think maybe we can put aside for a moment here

okay I came back to this bit of the post after I increasingly got into of the spirit of coming up with dumb ideas, but it did make me flesh out what I'd even WANT from something like that. I'm with you anon, a lot of biopics are boring!! if you want to just know what happened, please just literally go and 'watch the races' and 'read books' like what are we actually getting here. you kinda want to give it a purpose for existing, right, a way of portraying real/mildly fictionalised events in a manner that is also taking some kind of stance on the material AND is doing stuff you can't do 'in real life'. thing is, look, you could make 2006 into a film, and I'm sure it'd be perfectly nice because it's fundamentally a solid underdog story (well, inherently winning a title with repsol honda is NOT being an underdog but you can write it that way), but also what are you doing beyond just telling people what happened? I feel like that generally about single seasons, they're not really doing anything for me. I was also turning around the biaggi/valentino rivalry in my head in part because that's the one valentino gave as his answer for 'rivalry he would turn into a film' (marc big wet eyes sitting right next to him), but like. a film about that rivalry from valentino's pov is fundamentally not something I'm interested in. you have all these isolated very memorable moments that make it work as a rivalry, like you can absolutely spin them into a dramatic yarn that goes through the genesis of their conflict to middle finger gate to punching gate to assen + donington + sachsenring + phillip island 2001 and it's basically *insert rousing music* successful coming of age. at most you can lean into the fact valentino became successful at being a dick. like idk it's fine but also what's the point? valentino is challenged in a sports context by biaggi, he's challenged because he realises his words have consequence and the press actually reports the words he says to journalists (the horror), but he is fundamentally not challenged on a personal level. that's the entire point, right? it's the ultimate comfort zone rivalry - biaggi is a dick who it is quite easy to hate and also reacts poorly to valentino's initial provocation. the animosity escalates and it is inherently fun to beat him. valentino is mean to him, but it's not like he even really crosses any lines to beat him. like you can make it into a film, and if you twisted the material a little bit you could make it satisfying, but I don't want to!

now the way the writing process of this post worked was that I was going to breeze through a bunch of non-sete/valentino rivalries and explain why I think some of them don't work for our purposes here, but then I ended up writing myself into changing my mind. so my take on the biaggi rivalry is that actually, you CAN make it work but it has to be from biaggi's perspective. basically, I think you've got to amadeus it (a web weave I have been thinking of making at some point btw). so,,, it's a meditation on talent and how unfair it all is, maybe minus the bit where salieri poisons amadeus (I know that doesn't happen in the film) or dresses up as amadeus' father to, y'know, make him write a requiem on his death bed. and it's not amadeus in that HERE, the clown prince gets a happy ending! but it's more like, in thematic terms, I think you have to zero in on this bit. biaggi didn't have parents who shoved him on a bike when he was three years old, he didn't have parents who were invested in his motorcycling career (or even necessarily particularly invested in him), he started the sport late and discovered that, yes, he did have a prodigious amount of skill in it - but one that he started honing far later than valentino did. he approached his career with a sort of grim resolve, surly and irascible and not interested in making friends with any of his competitors but very, very good. he goes away from the race track and dates all these models, he irritates fellow riders, he's not part of the gang and he's happy about it. he's very successful! four 250cc titles, wins his first ever race in 500cc at a time when doohan was very much winning everything. he's also just like,,,, an interesting and spiky enough character it's not hard to make him come alive

but then of course you have this gradual emergence of the amadeus character, the one who challenges his established position in the court of,, well... motorcycle racing, and also as the guy italians rooted for! and valentino's obviously, y'know, in so many ways the exact opposite from biaggi, and he's super young and cheerful and lively and is doing all his silly celebrations and is being a bit camp and goofy and treats motorcycle racing as a party (you really want to lean into the culture clash here, like in amadeus it's because you have stuffy austrian court vibes but here it's because everyone is having their bones broken every two minutes and just how... kinda grim a lot of motorcycle racing was). and he's also this innocent! yes, he insults biaggi, and yes, in retrospect we know valentino is kinda evil, but at the time he was a kid with a big mouth who was a little taken aback by how that biaggi feud sort of escalated beyond what he'd actually intended it to do! and biaggi just, hates him. and I think, sorry to the real man max biaggi here, but you've got to play with how once they're actually competing with each other, it's miserable how there's just this unbreachable gulf in talent. like, whatever biaggi does he cannot win! he isn't going to defeat valentino over the course of a full season! which is depressing and horrible and CRUEL, because there's this inevitability to the whole thing... and also! because valentino doesn't DESERVE it. and you don't have to go full salieri pleading with god to explain how god could give this CLOWN all this talent, but it's kinda the same vibe! how is it valentino, who is constantly just having a laff and canonically maybe wasn't the biggest gym-goer in the paddock and is just generally seen as, y'know, a bit of a dandy, this foppish clown who everyone loves and who doesn't have to work hard to be good - how is he the one who is winning so much!! it's miserable and unjust... and I think how you portray this is that you really emphasise the kinda, repetitive nature of the defeat. like, I think you probably want to make this into a non-linear narrative where all this biaggi backstory is communicated somehow but you don't just start it when he was born or whatever - you start it in 2001 when they're competing for a title and already hate each other. and then you heavy on the time loop vibes. the whole cinematic language and all that other shit should emphasise how all these weekends are structured in exactly the same way and if you're losing to this one guy, all these different weekends can start feeling the same. it bleeds into each other, it feels inescapable, you're trapped in this narrative you can't change... worst of all, you even return to the same places again and again - like play with that! biaggi keeps coming back to where they had the fist fight, to where valentino first insulted him all those years back. you play up the disorientation and the misery of it all, plus biaggi canonically gives us all this kinda messy freudian shit to play with like how he was dating 'valentina' and his relationship with her was falling apart because of how miserable valentino was making him. it's all there!!

ANYWAYS the way you conclude this story is!! welkom 2004!! so again we can artistic license this a little bit and, uh, ignore sete (though I do also think it's fun if you lean into biaggi being displaced as a rival and staring at them being friendly and happy with each other from the outside) - but the key bit is that valentino is finally making the big error. biaggi wasn't winning titles on a yamaha, since he left yamaha has gotten worse, now valentino is making this big mistake out of his own hubris. language of cinema that shit and make everything brighter and more hopeful.... the time loop is finally over, biaggi has escaped, this year will be different!!!! everyone in his circle agrees, valentino is fucked. step off the plane at welkom (pre season testing didn't happen in this universe) and it's literal dawn of a new day... staring out at the sun and finally, biaggi can move on, can live a new and different life. anyway. obviously we all know what's coming next - you have this big dramatic climactic race where biaggi throws himself at valentino again and again and again and he comes so close to winning it... but he doesn't. and you have valentino living his best life, being delighted, but the film is focusing on how like,,, we're bleaching the joy back out of biaggi's life, how actually he's returning to what he already knew. and it ends on the podium, with the camera focusing on biaggi on that fucking second step or zooming in or whatever (idk how cinema works) and it just finishes on this shot of biaggi dead-eyed in a bleak world, trapped again for eternity aka until the end of the 2005 season. done!! I'm not sure this is quite what valentino had in mind, but. well. that's how I'd do it

this is from the pushkin play from 1832 not the 1984 film but like. low key pushkin already kinda nailed the essence of sports rivalries in the 1830s and we just have to acknowledge that sometimes

right. so the casey rivalry is where I'm going to go completely off the wall. skip this bit to get to the slightly saner stuff. this is also one I fully admit to sometimes playing around with in my mind anyway, but. uh. I'm gonna be taking this one in just. well. places. I do have a vision here but I also don't quite know how to explain it in a way that doesn't make me sound like I've lost my mind, but well if you're still reading this then that's on you. so lemme get this out of the way: the classic sports biopic formula would work well with casey. if I had to point to a single rider I would sports biopic-ify, it's casey. so you have all this kinda,, obvious adversity that's easy to get across, and it's a narrative you can follow chronologically without too much trouble. you've got all the childhood stuff, the australian racing club not letting him join them, the move to britain, the rising through the ranks, it's also this very biopic-friendly 'nobody ever believed in him apart from like three people' stuff. and the premier class is also narratively satisfying, from the rocky rookie season to the kinda shock success to then all the lows of 2008 and 2009 and the physical ailments and the anxiety and then the switch to honda and the title and then him deciding to retire... that's all good stuff! you can absolutely biopic-ify it! gun to my head and sure, I can walk you through exactly what bits of his life I'd focus on and put in what order and so on, and I think ultimately you could make a very good sports biopic from that

[some mild gore to follow in this next section]

but also. thing is. that's fine. it's just not where I want to go here, because again I feel like at that point you can also pick up his autobiography and just read it - because what you're basically doing here is just filming that. and I get how this stuff works, you're bringing the story to a wider audience, you can show stuff in a different way in that medium etc etc, and that's all great but also I don't care about bringing stuff to a wider audience. I care about doing fun stuff in my brain. so what I'd actually do here is just, basically, go in the exact opposite direction and ditch all the realism. genuinely, ditch the live action stuff, we're going animated - what I'm interested in here is stuff where we need to be able to fully suspend our disbelief and lean into some surreal shit. I'm not going to bury the lede here: my idea is that you take that thing where casey said he hated how ducati was ruining the bike by letting valentino's yellow encroach on it and, basically,, just go all in on that bit. like come on, that is so singularly visually evocative, it truly captures a lot of what's going on thematically in that rivalry. (see also x and x for the most relevant casey posts.) casey sees valentino as the malevolent force, this infection! he associates him strongly with a specific colour, one that can be sickly or unnatural or just... evil. malignant, malicious, malevolent, all the m words. to casey, valentino is a personification of everything that is wrong with the sport. valentino is literally the walking manifestation for so many of his issues, from the dangerous riding to the lack of respect to the lying to the cult of personality to the obsession with image and the media to the backroom games to the politics to the injustice of how different riders are treated differently, like!! he's literally all of that! this is a topic for another post, but this plays out in a lot of kinda, weird and funky ways where it's a two way street and sometimes when casey talks about motogp you go 'actually I think that's just valentino?' (btw he also does this about 'europe' right I don't think those are europeans you hate casey that's literally just valentino) and sometimes when he talks about valentino it's kinda? this feels like it's about a little more than the bloke himself? and basically, right, I think you need to take this to its natural conclusion where casey used to admire him and look up to him and want to emulate him on track and then gets disillusioned when valentino's worshippers turn against casey and casey is the one to bring valentino down to earth and... listen, I think you need to play around with valentino being a literal god. and I think you need to have casey stab him to cover up the yellow on the ducati with blood

okay. look. the idea here, right, is that we're basically making the subtext text, and just digging into that process of 'bringing valentino back to earth', of taking on a god and having the audacity to succeed, and also treating valentino as this sort of. infection in his own mind. the bike is literally being infected!! casey may have left the ducati but he STILL has some fidelity and love for this project, those were his people he worked with, and now valentino is coming in and just twisting everything around himself!! but also I think how this functions is that, okay, so you have all this normal stuff that's the actual 'plot' in the 'real world', but the ISSUE with the real world is that there's a lot of stuff that just. isn't possible there. like the thing casey wants in that rivalry but is never going to have is... a captive audience. a big problem casey has in that rivalry is that he doesn't get the chance to actually say a lot of stuff to valentino. he starts using the media more and more and plays the game on valentino's level, but there's still this disconnect where mr straight talking is the valentino rival who valentino never really blanks or freezes out like... there's a disconnect! there's valentino the person, who casey never quite figures out how to just straight up hate, and then there's valentino the character, the racer, the rider, the god who casey DESPISES. but when they're doing small talk at pressers and podiums, casey doesn't get to talk to that version of valentino! he just talks to valentino the person, who obviously isn't literally a different person but is also not going to explain to casey where he's coming from, is he, and also isn't someone who casey can explain to where HE is coming from. and that gulf... it does bother casey. I don't think he can quite verbalise why either, but there's just... this creeping tension. I think it'd be easier for casey if valentino really were more of a caricature, just kinda a dick in all walks of life. and there's just these canonical hints of that... the way casey talks about how he's sure valentino as a guy is fine, but he never knew valentino like that, the whole 'I'd like to go with valentino for dinner to tell him where I was coming from in that rivalry' thing, like!! it's there

so basically EYE think what you should be doing is using the wonders of storytelling to actually. embrace that element. and just leave realism behind now and again. valentino is a god, he is literally worshipped, he's part of this pantheon that casey is trekking to reach. casey is brave enough to take him on in combat, he is the first one who is truly able to draw blood. he sees how valentino isn't just a god of joy or battles or speed or the SUN or any of that other stuff - he's a disease, an illness, a god who is also a false prophet... the worship never quite goes away, because who ever truly gets rid of their valentino rossi complex, but casey eventually is given the chance to face a chained valentino and kinda,,, ritualistically publicly humiliate him using the ducati as both this sick thing that has to be 'cured' and this symbol of valentino's failure. I'm sorry, visual language goes brr here, like chain him up, do weirdly eroticised torture idc!! (psst psst valentino's fucked up shoulder also extremely goes brr here, casey low key a teensy bit weird about valentino's injuries? his thing after the 2010 leg break where he goes 'why's everyone making such a big deal about this other people break their limbs too' and then after 2011 jerez immediately asking whether valentino's shoulder is okay in just a very obviously passive aggressive way. literally he opens with that, valentino isn't using it as an excuse or anything, for some reason it's already on casey's mind and I would politely contest it was out of genuine concern for valentino's wellbeing!! it's just kinda? I'm so compelled by it? I suppose it is kinda about how valentino's suffering gets taken more seriously than his own? how those absences are received differently by the motogp world? idk I find this fun because casey does know this is one thing valentino can't really be blamed for himself, so it just slips out a bit? but yeah, casey + valentino's injuries, nobody's talking about it but I sure will, let casey get weird and mean and a teensy bit sadistic about valentino's injuries in an artistic manner.) crucially I like animation as a medium here because I think it's easier to lean into surrealism when you don't have to hand hold the audience so much through the suspension of realism, also there's just some imagery you can do in cooler ways through animation where in live action it may just look. weird. (I think you can also do one of those things where you have a live action film with only those specific bits animated but also... why? it just feels like in live action you need more 'justifications' for things, like am I saying casey is having some weird hallucinations and is losing his mind? no I just want to have weird vision sequences ffs.) the colour stuff!! valentino/casey is big on the colour coding as a rivalry, to the extent casey is even, y'know, drawing attention to it in the literal text!! yellow and red are banger colours, valentino is big on imagery himself with all his sun + moon motifs, it's kind of all there to make the easy next step to kinda zany surreal imagery. ritualistic stabbing works better in animation, you can kinda get the blood to like. drip down and overwhelm the yellow illness that's slithered out across the bike

and. AND of course what this entire set up allows you to do is.... give them an opportunity to talk. they can't talk in real life! casey CAN'T give him his real thoughts on anything, and fundamentally valentino can't either. they're opponents. they're strangers who chat sometimes. it's not just that they aren't friends, it's that fundamentally they cannot be friends - because their ability to do their actual jobs depends on a certain level of professional distance. valentino of course does have a decent read on casey, and vice versa, because when you're figuring out how to defeat someone then (if you're valentino) you're looking to play the rider too. valentino's entire approach depends on focusing in on his rivals and attempting to throw them off, to make them unravel. he's watching casey closely!! the entire journey of casey's first three seasons in the premier class essentially becomes like, this god of their world focusing in on him. figuring him out. trying to gnaw away at him. obviously, animation also allows you to go big on the panopticon-y imagery which is kinda fundamental to their rivalry, because of their fundamentally oppositional stances to 'performing' for the ever present cameras where there IS a little bit of common ground in they have both struggled with it. but valentino isn't going to ever say that to casey! casey isn't going to open up to valentino! so if you give them,, you know, a different arena to express themselves, where casey actually has this external figure to talk to (as he's like, cutting him open I guess) whereas valentino actually is put in a position where he's allowed to respond, where he can taunt casey a little bit, where he can interrogate casey's approach and also the similarities between the two of them and how casey has been forced to become a little more like valentino to challenge him... because the thing is, right, valentino is so big on message discipline with his rivals and has completely stopped talking about that rivalry post mid 2013 that, first of all, you have this complete imbalance in who's been telling this story for the past decade, but second of all you kinda don't have a sense of what valentino would respond? idk!! I think this is mainly fun as a thought exercise for me specifically but also I do think it's kinda, digging into some of the bits that make this narratively work as a rivalry, how valentino in this rivalry is actually just kinda... removed. like he's not really emotional about it!! at most he's a bit bitchy, but even that just feels about The Game. it's the most extreme in this regard followed by jorge - but with valentino's other feuds you kinda... see a bit more an unguarded moment, see something a little more real there. the casey rivalry feels so uncomfortable precisely because valentino is a little... inhuman in this one. I mean, if you want to have valentino as some kind of cross between a deity and a monster in any of his feuds, this is the one. casey's just an obstacle to him. idk don't you think casey kinda wants to chain valentino down and stab him and make him see casey a little more... well, I think he should want it and I think it'd be fun to see and get them to talk to each other. ugh and also all the implications of making the faith vs non-believer elements more literal... casey the heretic!!!

there's some obvious stuff here you'd have to figure out, like 'how do you make this work as a narrative even to people who aren't familiar with casey stoner at all' and 'who the fuck do you think the target audience is here' and 'you do know this is not the kind of thing that would ever be made, right, go back to the casey stoner sports biopic like a sane person' but!! I do think it's material you can make work if you're just,,, efficient and smart in how you're actually telling the 'real life' version of the rivalry. also in my head this is. idk. an animated limited series not a film, which then brings in other stuff like 'episodic structure' because I'm fundamentally opposed to tv shows that think they're films. and look, I'm not going to write an entire film script treatment here, I just think a good writer can figure this stuff out. blood on the ducati is the framing device for everything else, simple. lots of animated floating eyes I reckon, first casey is watching valentino and then valentino is watching casey and the whole world is watching them... and it does bleed into real life just a little, where you're wondering whether casey is actually imagining/dreaming this stuff or valentino is or if they both know it somehow... you can get away with more ambiguity in animation. anyway, if you do want more thoughts on this one specifically for whatever reason, let me know because this one I do actually have more on

also laguna 2008 is a bit tortoise and the hare coded if you really think about it

[end of gore]

so. on to jorge. hm. the thing about jorge is that he was kinda writing a coming of age film in his own head, so like - yes, that's what you do go for? you can play it straight and follow how jorge has cast his rivals, or you can pin the whole narrative on the fact that jorge has cast them - the kinda artificiality of the narrative, the way jorge is this storyteller who isn't being recognised as much as he thinks he should be, isnt adequately appreciated. the way there's this three way discourse between what jorge thinks the story is and what the public thinks the story is and actual. you know. reality. I think this is a bit more light-hearted, like you know how the best stories about teenagers take their emotions seriously but also let them be kinda silly? because young people are silly! jorge was silly! he's got a lot of CHARM because he's so cocky and naive and full on and intense and awkward and kinda off-putting and tactless and a bit all over the place and so painfully, painfully young, like he's a good protagonist because that's a KID. but also, obviously there's also a lot of extremely not light-hearted bits of his story - everything about his father, his manager... idk this one's another one where, I don't just want to make it a generic sports biopic, and I'm trying to figure out the clear narrative arc here? I mean, you can point to the end of 2010 and really lean into him choosing victory on-track over popularity off it. the problem with 2010 is that it does not work as a dramatic season, yeah sure with the magic of biopics you can hack at it to shit but also. idk. what are we getting out of it. I think for narrative purposes you want to maybe narrow in, and end it at the end of 2008, with the switching of the numbers this kind of moment of emancipation? but also! this feels like we're straying a bit too far away from the fun sports elements and I don't want to REALLY suggest all the ways in which you could mine jorge's personal trauma in a jokey tumblr post, so I'm gonna move on from this one

the problem is 2015 just straight up doesn't work as a jorge-centric narrative, except in a very kinda comic way that leans into how absurd his role in that season was. 2012 as a season is a bit... y'know, it's fine. okay it's mostly terrible, but that's fine too. but it doesn't have a great narrative hook. which kinda leads you to the problem that I do think the valentino rivalry is more... juicy from jorge's pov, because for valentino, jorge is just kinda? an obstacle? idk he's more normal about it, it's just his job to destroy the guy, you know how it is. but also 2009 does work better narratively from valentino's pov, like it's the build up to catalunya specifically you can dramaticise... idk though, I do love catalunya but my heart isn't really in this exercise because I think valentino isn't really being... challenged here? it's a title fight where he's fundamentally using a set of tools he's already perfected, to beat a guy he doesn't really give a shit about. when the italian press is down on him pre catalunya, it doesn't spark any genuine self-doubt - it's just a handy source of extra motivation. there's no epic highs or lows that season, not real ones. and yes I know I was talking about making valentino who gets stabbed repeatedly to cover up an infection a moment ago, but that reflected real EMOTIONAL truths!! I'm committed to thematic fidelity more than I am to literal fidelity

genuinely I think the best way to tackle jorge is with the jorge/dani parallel journeys... what, film? tv show? maybe show actually - you don't have one coherent narrative Statement per se but you're constantly charting those journeys in reference to each other, really rooting it in their respective points of views, no neutral detached cinematic language like I want everything to be very much written to be from their eyes!! going from one to the other and back again. and you're charting these different journeys, right, and how they both captured different flavours of like... emotional successes and failures. I think it's actually about failure, yeah, about having to accept there's something you can't have and might never be able to get - whether that's universal love or a premier class title or whatever - but Actually, that might not be the end of the world. and during this process, they go from being enemies to tentative friends!! guys who realise they can maybe actually understand each other better than they thought!! this real moment of interpersonal connection. you have all these media narratives and the managers and so on and the fact they're competitors as these built in reasons why they've just been pitted against each other from the start... but y'know, again, it is also just a bit about maturing, about being able to set that aside, about making your peace with defeat and failure as an element of growing up. you can't win everything, maybe there's something you really really really want and you're just not going to get it, but at the end of the day it's kinda... yeah. self-acceptance. idk this is the nice one

so with marc you can go several different ways here I guess, and again he's also perfectly decent sports biopic material, probably second to casey in that category like yeah sure do the comeback story. but also, we do already have a very good self-produced documentary about what he thinks the narratives of his career are? idk this is also just a personal taste thing, I'll leave him to doing all the injury stuff himself, I don't have much to add there. we'll get to the obvious one in a second, but I was trying to figure out if there were other places I massively felt like you need the cinematic touch. and, again, the 2013 season is obviously very exciting!! but also, you have it covered in.,,,, multiple documentaries, I don't feel I have a take their either? his rivalries with dani and jorge aren't really substantive enough to sustain a bit of cinema. dovi... I mean, what are you saying there? what's the arc? I feel like if I tackled dovi, I'd go somewhere else and really go all in with the ducati stuff, and make it a bit more... you know, stark, stripped back, basically just the emotional component of how much he gave to that project and how he managed to beat away one rival after the next and how it all ended up falling apart in a kind of anti-climactic way? he's also good sports biopic material, but in a way I think the marc rivalry is the bit of his story I have the least to say on. so eg, 2017 is a dramatic season, but he's also kinda fine after it? he always knew it was a long shot, he tried his best and he got really close and then he lost. you can't amadeus it because dovi isn't (fictional) salieri. basically, I think what I'm saying here is that dovi is too well-adjusted to feature in this post. though I'd totally watch a film about his 250cc seasons, like it's a bit annoying because HE is the underdog who loses both title fights to jorge, but it'd still be kinda fun idk. I wouldn't really know what to do with the material but if someone made the film I'd absolutely watch it

right then. the thing about sepang 2015 is... yeah, sure, of course you can do it, it already exists as a narrative but... yeah, what are you adding!! idk I always think when you're adapting something, you kinda need to have a reason for it? I mean, what are you doing that's not already there in the footage? idk maybe this is just a sign of having been a fan of this sport for one too many years but to me the idea of sepang 2015 can get a bit boring (or maybe just repetitive) where I need a new TAKE on it to really get into the idea of fictionalising it. like where's the auteur's touch y'know, what can I still add to this!! but it also needs to WORK for someone who is new to the story, which kinda just makes you want to tell the story straight.... y'know the story is strong enough and COMPLICATED enough to stand on its own and it IS good but I don't really have anything interesting to say beyond 'yeah sure that'e be neat'. I can't tell you why, but I also don't think the casey approach quite works here? the idea of providing a framing device with which valentino and marc can actually talk to each other... eh. don't like that. hm. okay wait actually I just turned it around in my head for... a while and I think I've got an idea to make the worst motorcycle racing film of all time. so, my central stupid film-making gimmick here is just. centring the fact we're completely reliant on a few guys and what they're telling us in making up our minds, and our removal from that story and the imperfection of their perceptions and so on. so I think you kinda make a point of... not actually showing the motorcycle racing? like, you always show it by showing other people watching it, you're showing the tv screen rather than the actual racing. even in the cinematic medium, you're centring the theatrical aspects, where you drill it down to just a few characters. valentino. marc. uccio. marc's fuck ass manager. maybe a crew chief or two. keep it limited though, all the others are kept at a distance - you're constantly focusing in on the same few characters. and very early on you basically just like... get them to fourth wall break by telling you, the viewer, with their actual words how racing works for them, what meaning they take out of it - and again it's this remove because we're never allowed to actually feel the racing for ourselves (no helmet cams), and it sets up that as the tragedy unfolds, again and again we're just hearing from them what happened. it's all zoomed in on how claustrophobic the entire situation is, like doing the race direction room after the sepang 2015 is perfect for that kind of thing, and crucially they're only ever addressing the audience because they can't address each other. but fourth wall breaks also obviously draw attention to artificiality! I realise they are very much like, lame gimmick central, but also are these men not inherently about lame gimmicks... idk it's basically the same story but at least it feels like a kinda interesting way of telling it. kinda trite, but cinema allows you to get to the point and let valentino actually play with the camera... so literally take it into his own hands and lead it around and tell the story from his point of view. and you can play with how they do both change in what stories they think they're telling, how they're constantly revising their own stories, how their stories completely clash with each other... like. make them literal narrators. that's my pitch

so. one interesting pattern that has come up with my approaches to these rivalries is that with the exception maybe of the 2015 stuff, I feel like I'm more naturally inclined to treat valentino as a narrative device and centre his rivals. a big part of this is that valentino is a fantastic narrative device. he's kinda. this looming presence in every narrative in this sport where you can just sort of use him as a sort of way to poke away at all these other riders. the monster everyone loves who you are trapped with. BOO!! he's gonna eat you! which is fun! but ALSO, crucially, several of these rivalries aren't that emotionally challenging for him!! again, with casey right, he wants to beat him, but he's not having a crisis of faith over losing to casey. he thinks casey is annoying, he wants to beat him because he wants to win. valentino is casey's foil, but casey is not valentino's. valentino makes for an excellent personal antagonist to casey, but the reverse just isn't true. casey isn't forcing valentino to reexamine his approach except 'ramping up the levels of being a dick on-track' - like, yes, that's a serious competitive challenge, but also valentino is very comfortable in his own skin in that rivalry. sure, you could have valentino have some kind of massive revelation about the casey rivalry, but like. he doesn't in canon. he changes his behaviour towards casey in pretty predictable ways depending on what the relationship demands from his perspective at any given time. there's nothing more there

now, obviously you know where I'm going here. there IS a rivalry where you can make the argument he changes as a result of it, there IS a rivalry that tips him over the line and makes him to do stuff he hadn't done before that, there IS a rivalry that happens to coincide with a period of his competitive life that challenges him both personally and professionally. now, look, I have already talked about the sete rivalry. you know what I think about this rivalry - and if you don't, I really already have told the story here and here and here and here and also here. I think this works perfectly well as a narrative in its own right, and it's one you can tell from either perspective... but you kinda need both. I think again you probably naturally lean towards starting it from sete's perspective and that first proper meeting (I mean, idk if it is their first actual meeting, but it's the logical obvious place you start this story) with sete giving valentino advice during his first 500cc test and valentino just, y'know, ignoring him and being a cocky shit and then crashing. so you get to see sete being kinda exasperated by the whole thing. also, obviously ibiza is like, a key framing device here, like it's the most obvious in-your-face way of tracking their relationship with each other. I don't actually know how often they partied there together, but it must have been at least twice and if the commentators are to be believed it must have included 2003. artistic license and you can add one or two more times, but mainly you want to focus in on 2003 onwards right. so you've got this 2002 one where it's, y'know, high point of their friendship and in the name of narrative efficiency, you establish here that sete is looking to make the honda switch. the emphasis is on how valentino has been winning everything but on the flip side you're getting the first insight into his discontent. and there's a bit of a vibe of, what could you possibly have to complain about? like you are winning so much? so it's late one night where they've had this slightly unguarded alcohol-fuelled moment of genuine vulnerability but in the end it's actually characterised by how... unsubstantial the link between them is, because they wouldn't talk about this kind of thing with each other and they might both be similar in some ways but also don't gettttttt each other. it means you can return there as a location in 2003, where you've just had sachsenring and valentino's dramatic loss but they're still partying together and it's like. obviously In The Air that not everything is quite right... their relationship is already gradually altered and twisted because you're introducing this element of actual stakes and competition (obviously in 2004 they do NOT spend that time together, as far as we know anyway, and you can show them being very much not together at ibiza as a very obvious Oooh Things Will Fall Apart and maybe already haveeee)

and I do think basically I've already said what I think the themes here are,,,, several times by this point, so I'm not going to belabour the point. I think all of this fundamentally works as a narrative with like, minimal massaging and rearranging of the elements for dramatic effect. it's all there already, everything from sete's arc with the [insert non-tasteless way of covering a real life tragedy that fundamentally alters the course of sete's career] and how that leads to sete becoming the challenger and how he does want to win and his eventual downfall. with valentino, you have the element of liberation and self-discovery and... well, growing into your own but also kinda having the narrative drawing attention to how 'growing into your own' can involve becoming a fully realised character who is essentially quite cruel? you have this kind of... build up, right, towards this moment of revelation, where you lay bare who these two people actually ARE at sepang 2004, and then again at jerez 2005. valentino has gone his own way, he has freed himself from the chains of honda, he has embraced individualism and the chance to define himself and his own legacy and stand on his own two feet and not rely on the strongest bike or all this stuff within honda where they chose him as their flag bearer, for better or for worse... like he comes to his own here! he takes the step from 'great rider' to 'legend' because he gets to this dramatic moment of stepping into the unknown, he takes this massive risk that could have cost him so much, and it ends up elevating him. but it also puts him under duress, and in that moment he reveals himself - whatever sete did or did not do at qatar 2004, EVEN IF sete did all that shit, what you are left with is valentino vowing to ruin this man. valentino uses sete to make himself 'better', to fuel himself as a competitor. valentino turns sete into a tool in his own story. and again, thematically you've got all this stuff about how sete was managing the image of the rivalry and how valentino took advantage of that - how sete needed it to remain respectful and valentino was completely willing to abandon that. like, you have two protagonists who really are similar in quite a few ways, who think they have this shared understanding with each other, but when it comes down to it? they end up being super painfully different

now I can go on about this and how to play it straight, basically, you can just do that rivalry and I think it'd be cool and fun and very easy to arrange in a good narrative way. BUT I've kind of already. done that. like I don't want to suggest a film that is basically a nicer version of my tumblr posts. so I want to take this in a slightly different direction, and I think what we need to consider with this rivalry is this: what if you made the curse literal? basically, what's always kinda charmed me about this rivalry is that the curse should not work and all the misfortune that befalls sete after that is so comical that it's kinda... what do you do with that? and the answer is you just lean all the way in. my pitch is this: what if valentino sells his soul to the devil?

so, you know faust, right, and you know the bit at the start of goethe's faust where god and mephistopheles are basically making a wager over how corruptible this one human is. and faust is like... he's kinda disillusioned, he feels that everything he's dedicated his life to in academia is fundamentally hollow, gets very close to committing suicide. and faust has gone a bit new age-y, gotten into all this mystical shit and he's got this pentagram that ends up preventing mephistopheles from leaving his presence in their first meeting... and basically what the devil can give him is like, the chance to attain some true pleasure, and for that faust is willing to bet everything - so if faust can just have that, then maybe eternal damnation is worth it. and look, I'm not going to summarise the entire plot of faust here and it does go off the wall a bit with all the gretchen stuff, but the point is you have this version of the devil who is fundamentally a cynic and is attempting to win an argument with god by making this human succumb to his own nihilism. and what faust basically does is like, abandon his normal life where he's trying to live by normal virtues and goes off on this journey with the devil. and there's this little moment where mephistopheles,,, pretends to be faust and takes on the role of an academic adviser (you know how it is) and seduces this random student away from the word of god and sends him down a wretched path, which ends with this bit:

like, a big part of faust's tragedy is supposed to be about... well, hubris, of the relationship of god to man, of no longer being afraid of the devil... and obviously, this is all framed very much in terms of religion, but at the end of the day it's also about, you know, having purpose - faust is living a life that no longer has any meaning to him, all of his knowledge and studies now no longer fill the void inside himself. his nihilism opens the door for mephistopheles, and is what makes him willing to accept the devil's terms. now, and I am so very sorry to goethe here, I think we have some material we can use here to explore the valentino/sete rivalry. obviously, you can't do a one-to-one, you need to get rid of some of like, the depression and all that - there were times when valentino was feeling 'a bit low' in 2003, but not 'faust thinking everything he'd done in his entire life was pointless' low, yeah? also, unless you want to do a real long view here and even then it can't really be justified, there obviously isn't really a 'tragedy' here from valentino's perspective. like, he wins! this isn't valentino's tragedy, it's sete's! I was being a bit facetious when I said he was 'selling his soul to the devil', and you can kinda parse mephistopheles' motivations in different ways depending on what flavour and what interpretation of him you're dealing with here. you don't 'damn' valentino, you essentially just turn him into a tool of the devil!

so, this is how this works out in my head: the devil works more broadly as the manifestation of competitive impulses, the kind of 'how far would you go to win' question as a bloke who shows up and literally talks to the characters about it (magic of cinema). he's also engaging with valentino feeling like his victories no longer having meaning, with being disconnected from honda and from the entire culture there and just feeling like he's going through the motions. there's this element of like... opening the door to what is essentially a journey of self-actualisation, bringing him closer to being a 'god' but also allowing him to fully come into his own and become himself. to win on his own terms. I reckon ibiza is my preferred narrative device where the devil talks both to sete and valentino there (separately), first literally as a mysterious stranger and then... maybe not? he's talking to them at times of their lives when they're not at ibiza and it's not happening there in the physical world and they both end up kinda having to confront they're dealing with some potentially malevolent supernatural entity. but the important elements of the devil is that a) he's not going to do anything the humans don't actually ask for themselves, and b) everyone knows he's following his own agenda and you should be careful of the requests you make of him. so it's kinda like... essentially, the backdrop of this rivalry unfolding is they're constantly being challenged to decide what lines they're willing to cross. which culminates at qatar... and maybe you do have sete making like. a teensy mistake. a teensy error in judgement, one that is both real and deliberate but he could not have known would get that reaction and instantly regrets. and valentino, who is I think inherently sceptical of the devil coming to offer to help him and maybe does crank out the pentagrams (remember, the whole point of faust is that he was too arrogant to be scared of the devil, or one of the points anyway), in a moment of fury does decide - no, actually. I will take that step. I will curse sete. now the thing is, dramatically this is a teensy bit tricky because when you're talking about being damned by the devil, usually the consequences are a bit more severe than 'not winning a motorcycle race again' (yes, you can get into how sete did also seem genuinely cursed after that, cf his ambulance/bus crash situation, but again we are flirting with being in poor taste in this tumblr post). but the thing is, right, you have to lean into the silliness here! qatar 2004 is inherently silly, a CURSE is inherently silly, like real life is already silly here! you have to engage with the people where they are, and for these athletes all this shit is so heightened that the emotions are full on. like, valentino would've sold that guy to the devil! and to him not winning another race is basically the worst thing that can happen

so, obviously, you get to do the actual curse stuff. curses are inherently campy fun, the devil doing curses is campy fun, getting valentino rossi to crank out the pentagrams is inherently campy fun. you get to play around with this, right, like you know that bit in the brno 2005 race commentary where the commentators are talking about how valentino might as well have a little radio to talk into sete's helmet to remind him of how sete had fucked up at the sachsenring. OBVIOUSLY obviously obviously it is just so... idk scrunchy and fun to have this idea of valentino becoming a malevolent enough force to literally do that.... like damn the commentators did kinda eat with that?? ughhhhhh do you ever think about sete leading the qatar 2005 race for most of the way???? like that's SO fucked up because you literally have articles from about the race going 'hey maybe sete can break his curse' and then the commentators are talking about curses having one year expiration dates but obviously they!! do not!!!!! there's one race where sete goes off track and the commentators are talking about how valentino will surely have smiled into his helmet like that's so fucked!! it's so fucked!! but idk I think basically you have all this creeping curse-y stuff and devil stuff and then you get this twist and then it just becomes misery zone for sete until you sort of. compress the timeline and have him retire without getting into what happened at the end of 2006. and valentino just relishing in all his very worst emotions. and you've got sete who was the better man after jerez 2005, who took the high ground again and again and again and it did NOTHING for him.... and then he's cursed and his career is finished and the devil has had his fun getting mixed in with mid noughties motogp. and now obviously this is inherently kinda dumb and corny and silly but it's the devil!! mephistopheles to me is allowed to get up to dumb shit sometimes, let him have some fun!! idk I like curses being literal idc

I think the obvious critique here is 'this doesn't really feel like it gets the message of faust'. which, yes, is true - and obviously the way narratives are structured, a satisfying resolution isn't 'well selling your soul kinda slaps, actually'. and my statement to respond to this argument is as follows:

this is essentially canonically what happened. valentino DID do something kinda evil and it DID work out 100% for him and it DID kinda slap. at least when you add in the devil, you're making explicit the bit where it is a little bit bad. also, is sports not inherently about selling your soul for success... the story of valentino and sete is essentially about how we are twisted by competition, how pretending that we don't wish ill to our opponents is inherently dishonest. it is about lifting a facade for something that is already inherently there in the souls of men. this is obviously inherently a deeply cynical stance, but this is also a deeply cynical story beyond all the fun battles and camp dramatics. the devil is a cynic and he is basically the point of view character of goethe's faust - he's the one who is positioned closest to the audience. sports is all about living out some of humanity's worst instincts in a relatively low stakes setting, which means we get a free pass to have fun with a deeply cynical story that goes 'maybe selling your soul to the devil is fine, actually'

do I stand by this stance? not really, but the whole fun of storytelling is that sometimes you can just be kinda mean. I think goethe would get it... you can tell which character he enjoyed writing the most

the OTHER way you can do this is centre everything around qatar 2004 as like,,, the mystery box element...... okay look I have now made two posts that go WAY too deep on the 'what really happened' element but I do loveeeeee the whole thing like I would just make a film about that very end of the season and we show it from all these different angles as different characters narrate what happened... like fuck all the riders I want to hear from whichever mechanic used the scooter... the gresini mechanic who gave evidence to race direction.... various honda higher ups the crew chiefs like this is jb vs juan martinez it's war!!! obviously you still have the same emotional/thematic hooks as the general rivalry does but idk I would have a LOT of fun figuring out how to structure that, I loveeee mysteries... maybe I'd write it as a mockumentary yeah..... this one's just fun

anyway. a lot of stuff going on in this post, huh! you can probably tell I didn't edit this much. my classic tell when I edit my tumblr posts is I remember how 'paragraphs' work. unfortunately all I have energy for are like. a bunch of rants about things in my brain. I think when tumblr tells you that you've reached the maximum number of characters per paragraph and you need to figure out where to put a break, it's probably a bad thing? on the whole, my stance is I don't have anything AGAINST mildly fictionalised versions, but for me I'm always more of a.... well I want to take advantage of the full specificity of the events as they happened or just come up with a completely original story. kind of person. I know this ask probably wasn't looking for my 'what if you bled out valentino as he's strung up above a red motorcycle' vision but yeah. with a lot of biopics I'm always a bit 'well you could just read about this couldn't you' like I need stuff to take some kind of a stance on the material it's using... all my stuff takes a stance. that's all I've got. obviously all these stances mean that basically none of these things could ever be made. and I know what I said above but if they called me up to write the casey stoner biopic script treatment, I would also do that. if you've actually read to this point, give me a shout - you're a real one and I love you

[whywouldyoudothistua]

ok im talking abt diego and lila

their relationships this season was so gross to me i'll start with the biggest thing but the whole "yknow she said u couldnt get pregnant while breastfeeding, you can" was WEIRD, it was WEIRD and while it could have been in character for Diego to be stupid and a jerk and view it that way them never correcting this line of thinking really just paints Lila as some conniving evil woman that tricked Diego into having more babies. Which if its meant to be true is just about the most foul way you could have written her character bc sure turn all strong-headed women into evil people thats fine that has no repercussions on feminism. But also bc realistically Lila also didn't fucking know. And not coming to any sort of conclusion on if she did or didn't is kindof crazy bc people that took that as her genuinely tricking Diego into having babies are rightly pissed bc thats a fucked up thing to do but also when it happens in REAL LIFE (i give diegos twins a little handshake) the woman usually just doesn't fucking know either, its misinformation given by doctors and the woman are usually also not fucking aware of it and are not running schemes to trick men into having babies with them and I feel like portraying it that way is just gross and unnecessary Also generally why did they have to make them hate being parents to such extremes, I really really understand how a "diego and lila struggle to be parents to 3 children after being actual superheros their whole life" plotline could've been good and I was excited when they started it out but they ended it awfully and it just makes diego and lila look like kinda shitty parents???? literally the entire show they are complaining about their children, they act like they're a burden and it never gets turned around, Diego has like one moment of realizing he needs to be more present but it's mostly put in the context of him and Lila's relationship not either of their relationships with their kids, I don't even know 2 of their kids names I'm pretty sure they call them "the twins" the entire show. And the whole thing was completely overshadowed by the weird ass Lila/Five so they never got to have a moment of realizing their marriage is a good thing, or figuring out a way to go about their lives if they really didnt want to be married anymore. I really do understand they were trying to go for a good plot where Diego and Lila are struggling and it's so reasonable that they would be! But they could not fucking fit it all in 6 episodes with the amount of screentime it was given, and I rlly just think they should've dropped it cause its such a nuanced plot to throw and them rushing through it honestly just makes it seem like diego and lila are shit parents who ideally would've never had kids Idk I'm gonna watch those last few episodes again cause I admit my eyes were fucking glazing over trying to keep up with Diego and Lila's plot while Lila was w Five and I HOPE it was handled better than I realized the first watch but I really just feel like they fumbled it and the line making it seem like Lila was tricking him into having kids never getting resolved REALLY makes me feel like umbrella academy season 4 hates women

[neopuppy]

i follow both your nct and enha blogs, so i saw your reply to an ask on your enha blog which also mentioned renjun and it felt wrong messaging you abt him there so i will just message you abt him here haha. hope you don’t mind!!!

have you seen renjun’s message on bbl where he exposed a sasaeng’s twt account? that was bravery right there. i hope that’ll serve as an example to idols and warning to crazy fans

I was going THROUGH it last night bc of this jcjejcjdjd I genuinely dont know if I’d be as concerned if it was anyone other than Renjun only given the circumstances(SM ent. and their long history of torturing idols- plus what was also happening with cbx/exo yesterday)

going to say this as someone who is on my 3rd SM group that I’m watching fall apart in real time once again, this is likely Dreams last run(the irony) as a properly promoted group. the only reason they even still get so much is because they are huge in Asia and have always been(PROBABLY BC SM HAS NEVER ONCE TRIED TO BREAK THEM INTO THE WESTERN MARKET THE WAY THEY DID WITH 127 BUT THATS BC 127 WAS SUPPOSED TO BE FOR US FANS- we know how that went). its so hard to watch your favs literally cry for help and you cant do anything when its their own company working against them.

sasaengs are kept alive by INTERNAL staff that have access to information such as private schedule locations, hotels, flights, etc. why else would the SAME people always conveniently ‘show up’ to unannounced events that were never for ‘fans’ to begin with?

Renjun is one of the handful of actual talented idols we have in the age of 2024 where all kpop idols need to do is buy an entirely new face to debut and be deemed “it boy/girl”, makes me sick to my stomach that he cant do his job peacefully bc of people who relentlessly stalk him, purposely sit by him on planes, call his phone day and night.

I’m fr just a normal person, not famous just living my life and my anxiety is BAD. way worse when I was younger and would have physical panic attacks to the point of throwing up. I got help(therapy, meds, etc) fortunately and learned how to calm my anxiety but I always think abt how idols have to deal with this especially when I’m at the airport. like INTL travel is so fucking stressful and taxing on the body, I cannot imagine camera shooting at me the second I step off a 16 hr flight where weird ass ssngs followed me to the bathroom and took pictures of me SLEEPING the entire time! only to run after me in mobs after going through customs.

like idfk why anyone would defend this animalistic behavior. if an idol feels desperate enough to share their mental health issues with us as fans- coming from a place and industry where this is very stigmatized- WE NEED TO LISTEN, AS FANS WHO RESPECT AND TRUST HIM. I wish I could do something, but I cant, and I would beat up every ssng to exists if it held no repercussion bc famous or not these are HUMAN BEINGS, and they dont deserve this.

I really worry given the kpop track record of idols choosing their exit instead of finding help. I am so proud of Renjun for putting himself first and taking this time off to heal himself. like there is just so many things and I am worried abt all of Dream, they debuted so young and have some of the worst ssngs out of all of kpop with a company who wont lift a finger to protect them. in this case they truly only have us(the actual fans)and Renjun going public with this proves that.

I hope anyone who has invaded their privacy feels ashamed, and this goes for ‘fans’ that follow them around the world/are constantly in fan calls/fan signs etc- you are weird. period. nothing normal about that one-sided parasocial relationship that you brag abt online, and instead of spending $1000’s upon $1000’s on bothering an idol who will never fuck you, maybe consider investing in a much needed grippy sock vacation.

I think these people are beyond help, and unfortunately they have the funds or limitless credit to endorse their madness. I need more idols to see this and start calling out these weirdos. NO ONE SHOULD ALLOW THIS BEHAVIOR TO BE NORMALIZED, end of story.

[burningvelvet]

More thoughts about The Tenant of Wildfell Hall after finishing it…

1 good movie adaptation WHEN?

2 the themes of universalism and the idea that everyone can change if they want it bad enough and nothing is permanent and we have the ability to make choices and self-destruction has social repercussions bc it affects the ppl around you… yeah, my heart is full!

3 helen successfully microdosing her own child with poison to give him a pavlovian response to alcohol so he wouldn’t end up as an alcoholic like his father and grandfather because she intuitively knew he had a genetic predisposition to addiction despite having no modern knowledge of science or psychology. excellent.

4 the shit helen goes through in this novel is unreal. our girl is basically trapped in a frat-house — complete with the booze, drugs, laughter, fraternizing, sportsmanship, anti-intellectualism, infidelity, and rape culture.

5 as a sad aficionado of the romantic era & byronic studies i can 100% without a doubt say that not only is arthur based on some popular victorian conceptions of lord and lady byron and their marriage, but the brontës must have been familiar with biographical writing on byron’s life! i’ve found several academic texts to support this and it’s 100% true.

6 also, as a person who grew up with relatives who suffered from severe substance abuse and mental illness, i’m pretty confident in saying that the brontë sisters must have had some inside knowledge to spark their sustained interest in writing about these subjects. there are specific details and feelings pertaining to these topics which are documented with so much acuity it must have been personal to them. it seems a lot of academics theorize this as well — however, i still don’t know enough about the brontë family biography to form my own opinions on this topic yet!

7 helen is such a progressive mother (considering her circumstances and level of education, and the non-harmful drugging aside which is questionable today but within the narrative understandable) and her theories on education and parenthood are so advanced.

8 i think arthur’s friends (especially mr. hargrave and annabella) are as bad as he is, considering the fact that they enable him and they could easily use their influence to try and sway him considering but they choose not to — only partly because he’s the “leader of the pack,” but partly because they also have zero respect for helen and enjoy openly bullying and abusing her in her own household

9 big shoutout to the servants in this novel who are the real heroes. all throughout the novel (especially starting from Gilbert’s POV considering he and his family are a little poorer off than those of the Huntingdon circle) we see the lower-classes and smaller owners gradually triumphing against the upper-classes, gentry, and larger land owners. i love the line about rachel having to sell helen’s fine gowns for cheaper ones, and how helen notices that rachel still looks decent while dressed like a more common woman.

10 the very ending with everyone’s resolutions was a bit choppy and rushed but i don’t mind because everything went how i wanted it to go lol. but the ending for arthur/helen — the fact that he never repented, but helen still believes in universal salvation nonetheless, and still took care of him even though she didn’t have to, after everyone else abandoned him — the person he treated the worst still cared for him when no one else did — she fulfilled all her marital vows and he fulfilled none of his — his fear of death — her letter of december 5th, her holding his hand until the very end — his last words, “pray for me!” don’t leave me!” — all the unspoken words on her part, her feelings of helplessness, her telling him that she cannot save him, his crying and cursing the world — her fainting from exhaustion — him continuing to act like a brat on his death bed — her taking control, her cleverness with the contract — her lack of closure — aahhhh! just so heart wrenching and frustrating and angsty yet also cathartic and realistic.

[azullumi]

do u have any tips on how to get ideas and form thoughts 🚕 i love ur fics !!! how do u get inspired :O

i will try my best to answer your question in a comprehensive way nonnieeee!!

a few tips that i can give in getting writing ideas and forming thoughts are:

write all of the your ideas down in a notebook even if u think they are cringy or corny (sometimes those ones turn out the best). i have a notebook of ideas and i’ll show a page of how mine looks like; it doesn’t have to look organized haha i like mine messy and cluttered. basically, you just put everything you want there and you can look through it when you’re running out of ideas or when you want to look for a certain something

read a lot!! i know it can be kind of cliche but reading books will help you more in writing. trust me, i swear.

don’t be afraid to use prompts or tropes for your ideas. that’s all yeah.

you can use your experiences like real-life interactions, events, and such!! (i do it all the time and it really helps in creating somewhat realistic situations that feels so real and fleshed out bcs its what happened to you). also you could twist it into your narrative like how you wished the situation should have happened and ended and what you wished you heard or said. writing gives you the freedom of imagination and lets you express your thoughts and feelings without repercussions

just let it all happen. just write, vomit those words out, let your thoughts spill into your writing, just let it happen. you don’t have to worry of the grammar as you write, you can check that later.

challenge yourself in writing!! you are free to write whoever and whatever you want. you have the freedom in your hands but you must be aware of the boundaries or lines that you must not cross ^^

keep on writing (never back down never what!?) ignore the grammatical errors, the mistakes, everything, it’s all part of the experience. as long as you’re enjoying what you’re doing and you love it (learn to love the art of writing)

anywaysss!! i’m glad that u love my fics AUGHHH <33 it makes me happy gosh and to answer your question, honestly i get inspired mostly by song lyrics!! listen to music as you write, it will help i swear. it helps set your mood and give you more ideas toooo!! i tend to get inspired through many things so there’s that ^^ I THINK THATS ALL? I HOPE I WAS HELPFUL AND I MANAGED TO ANDWER UR QUESTIONS 😭😭 pls dont hesitate to ask for clarifications and such bcs i can be confusing at timessss MWAA TAKE CARE AND STAY HYDRATED

[autogynocrat]

So what’d it take to accept yourself as being trans and stop giving a shit about the potential repercussions that might’ve come out of that?

LONG POST INCOMING! PLEASE BARE WITH ME! IT IS VERY RAMBLY! BUT I HAVE A TL:DR AT THE END IF YOU DONT HAVE THE PATIENCE TO READ IT ALL!

i had been grappling with the existential dread for years that "one of these days you will be too old to be a femboy, people won't think it's cute for a 35 year old man to dress feminine, they'll think its creepy. you're getting older and aging like a man more every year and soon you will be just like the sissies boomers in poorly fitting dresses that make you so uncomfortable.

you're going to have to give up and become a regular man soon" in 2019 i thought i had accepted my fate, and hoped i could at least age gracefully. i had previously suffered from recurring boughts of discomfort and disconnect with my body, particularly the shape of my jaw, shoulders, and the beard(the beard was the worst thing, it would leave me paralyzed for weeks during the summer every year, ever since around age 20 i have wanted laser hair removal). but it was the though of having to give up and live the rest of my life as a man that was the straw that broke the camels back for me.

but only one year later thinking about it started giving me a really bad identity crisis, i started crying and panicking whenever i thought about how i would have to live as a man for the rest of my life, it was genuinely horrifying, and i felt like "twinkdeath" was creeping up on me, and i found that if I actually wanted hormones it was extremely easy for me to obtain them with just a little bit of my discretionary spending.

i had been talking with some of my trans friends about my issues with gender, that i didnt really feel comfortable as a man, even though at the time i felt like i could never be a woman, some suggested i could be nonbinary. i remember before i finally bit the bullet i talked to a friend who was a transwoman about my gender issues, and after finding that what i was going through felt very similar to what she went through before transitioning, i decided "well, theres nothing wrong with me at least trying hormones, if i dont feel better i'll just stop, its better than being forced to live as a man for the rest of my life"

during the early months of my transition, maybe even the first year and a half, i still kinda identified as a "hrt femboy" or a "nonbinary bigender boygirl" bc i did not feel like i was a real woman or anything, i was just taking estrogen because it alleviated the bad feelings and made me feel happier with my body. i wasnt sure about having boobs yet but i considered it an acceptable tradeoff because everything else made me feel good about my body. i did however, look into SERMs(a type of hormone regulator that can supposedly block estrogenic activity in the breasts) and even briefly used some.

HOWEVER, july of my first year on hrt i got my fateful job at mcdonalds. this period i actually unironically feel like shaped my gender identity to some degree. during the pandemic we all had to wear masks so nobody saw my clocky man chin or anything like that, they just saw my effeminate estrogenized little tits and my beautiful eyes. i got she'd a lot, called pretty, told i was a sweet girl by customers who liked me, and even customers who didn't like me still acted like i was a girl, as they called me a stupid bitch, and said shit like "she got my order wrong" "she was rushing me" stuff like that. being perceived as a woman felt good...i started to identify more with that

a couple times i doubted i was really trans, had some kind of imposter syndrome, that A)i was a fake trans because i denied it for so long, or B) that i didn't DESERVE to be trans because i used to be kind transphobic at times. i tried to stop hrt. every time it didn't take long before i became super dysphoric and decided go to back on it. after a few attempts i kinda realized i belonged on hrt. and when my tits became smaller from attempting to stop i actually felt sad about it, thats how i realized, hey i actually like having boobs, its not a trade off, its one of the benefits

and then bridget came out in guilty gear strive. VERY CONTROVERSIAL thing because suddenly the femboy everyone liked was trans. but. the thing is. i found that very relatable. bc i was also the femboy everyone liked as a femboy, but was kinda trans now, and people who thought i was "based" before, were disgusted at me now. idk. i had a "shes just like me fr" moment and decided i didnt want to keep hiding behind being nonbinary or "hrt femboy" anymore, i wanted to be a girl too. so i just came out and was like yeah i'm she/her pls and my followers who still liked me were like "yeah everyone already saw this coming lol u arent surprising anybody"

anyways yeah the tl;dr is that i basically realized at 25 i could not bear to live with being a man for the rest of my life and i would rather transition than have to be a man, i would rather risk being hated, would rather risk infertility, rather than have to be a man,and it led me to talk to other trans people privately and realize oh hey its not normal for having stubble to send me into a massive depressive episode and thats actually gender dysphoria.

[aregularhuman]

idk, something about House never really changing through the series. even when he did rehab n got sober, life was still shitty- he was still in pain and dealing with interpersonal issues and the repercussions of his childhood. something about how maybe the shittiness of life/mental illness can’t really be overcome, but dealt with, and how exhausting dealing can be, how easy it is to slip back to old habits. things don’t change, they move on. some people stay the same (Wilson), and some change and get sick of you (Cuddy), all because you’re unable to change. people don’t change, right? only seasons do- something about middle age can be so profound or so deeply sad. the first episode is everybody lies and the last is everybody dies- the same but more sad- it’s been a progressive journey downhill that everyone could see, but felt helpless to do anything about.

the way Wilson tried to change too! but just as he had three failed marriages at the start, he only had failed relationships throughout the show. he tried to break up with house, but he kept coming back to this codependent nightmare of a friendship. they’re doomed to be together in some way. are they simply too old and their neuronal pathways too set for them to change or are we all pathetically forever influenced by our traumatic childhoods and past experiences? are we pre-determined by our own trauma to fail? (me thinking about all those studies about the effects of child n adolescent anxiety on adult health outcomes)

and the way that kindest thing house did for anyone was letting thirteen go, releasing her from the rot around him that foreman and chase got sucked into- they both became like him in their own awful ways. the way she chose him to let her go from this life because of his emotional repression and the comfort it provided her and wilson at times. the way it can be so hard to even try to change when everyone, including yourself, have this idea of who you are and should be- what happened when house tried to leave the hospital to stick to his sobriety? how many jokes were made by the team that they preferred him on Vicodin? the distrust he faced from cuddy and Wilson about his sobriety? why bother changing if no one likes it? if no one keeps their word (Wilson making him move out)? and even Wilson’s cancer journey was so painfully real and them, the same they always were- house selfish and Wilson’s emotions not properly cared for? but could it have been another way? when I first got spoilered about houses faux suicide I thought it was gonna be entirely for Wilson bc I didn’t know about the jail thing, but when I watched it it made me so sad because it wasn’t the selfless meaningful act I was hoping for, but just them and their messy dynamics…. house giving up the one thing that gave his life meaning to stay with the one person that stuck with him- did he truly change, or is this yet another impulse decision the ocean of life will support him out of?

[deanmonlover]

Let's make a deal

a/n: okay so this idea came to me because I can't deal with the end of Halloween ends so I came up with a witch reader who brings him back bc he can't go like that 😭 and angst shall ensue this might become a small series it might have been inspired by supernatural but yeah sorry for rambling. let me know what you guys think! 🖤

Tears stained your cheeks as you looked down at the crimson stained hands that once held yours so tenderly you can't help but let out an ear shattering cry.

"Corey please, please don't go."

Your voice echoed in your head, followed by his last words to you.

"If I can't have you...no one can."

The steady drum of your own heartbeat reminded you that you were still alive but the love of you life was still laying there motionless on the ground. Michael simply stared at you, knife glistening in the pale moonlight that slipped in through an open curtain.

"He's...he's coming back." You stuttered, nodding your head as if it would make it more real. Corey wasn't gone, no he couldn't be.

That was impossible he was just here holding you hours earlier, your naked body beneath his own with labored breaths as he ravished every part of you. Open mouthed kisses littered every part of your body with 'I love you' following each one.

"Fix him. Fix him damn it!!!" You screamed at the shape hovering over the both of you. It was because of Michael that he was dead. There had to be something, anything that would bring Corey back.

When you were younger, your grandmother often talked about a spell that was forbidden. It was something that most witches would never think to try but you were willing to risk it all if it meant bringing him back. You would burn the world to ashes just to see him smiling again and honestly he would do the very same.

You reluctantly let go of his hands that held your own before running to grab a long forgotten book from the dusty bookshelf in the kitchen.

"It's got to be in here somewhere..." Your hands hurriedly flipped through tattered pages, hopelessly searching for a cure. Something to make it all better again. "I'm trying Core, I am." You whispered, bookmarking the page with your thumb before grabbing some empty bowls from the cabinets, a knife, and some herbs.

Michael hovered in the doorway staring holes in you but you could care less if he wanted to kill you too he would have done it by now, wouldn't he?

"Okay a little bit of this...and that—" Your words were cut short by a tall figure sauntering past Michael but it was as if he didn't see it, only you.

"Well, well, well what do we have here? Little miss make a deal with an old entity for a human boy that ended his own life." The creature shook its head at you, clicking its tongue in disapproval.

"Just go ahead and make the damn deal already. I need him back, I don't care what it takes." Your heart already hurt, it killed you to even glimpse over at the curly haired boy laying there.

"Ah, but you already know what it takes. I want it sooner than that though."

"Wait what?"

"I want it much sooner. I give you a year in exchange for the return of his life."

"Deal. Just do it already! I don't care." You spat, not thinking of the repercussions because a year seemed like forever at the current moment in time.

"Humans, they never seem to learn." And with a snap it was gone and suddenly a rustling from the hallway could be heard and then came the most beautiful sound you had ever heard.

"y/n, are you okay?" Corey was covered from head to toe in blood but he was...alive. His eyebrows furrowed in slight confusion but his expression turned to worry when he caught sight of you covered in blood.

"I should be asking you the same thing." You were so dumbstruck but relief quickly flooded your body along with several other emotions as you practically broke your neck to get over to him. Your arms wrapping tightly around his shoulders as you all but jumped into his arms.

"Woah, babe it's okay. I'm okay?" He questioned looking down at his coveralls covered in red. You nodded, burying your face in his chest the beat of his heart filling your ears had to be the second most beautiful thing you had ever heard.

"Mhm, you're okay." You whispered, the gravity of the situation not yet hitting you. The fact that you only had a year to spend with Corey until it was you that would be the one being longed for. Time was cruel and it would catch up with you sooner or later but for now Corey was once again yours and that was all that mattered.

[teanderthalrex]

I finished reading the egalley given to me of Children of Anguish and Anarchy, the third and final installment of the Orisha trilogy, by Tomi Adeyemi.

It's no secret that I was disappointed by book two. I thought a lot of Zélie's actions seemed out of character from who we met in Children of Blood and Bone. I also didn't like Amari's storyline but I was willing to go with it in hopes it would have some kind of redemption or doubling down or any kind of payoff in this book. That cliffhanger was not something I thought we'd have to wait this long to have not-really-resolved.

So, was all that waiting worth it? Sadly, not for me. I loved parts of the world-building in Children of Anguish and Anarchy. I did. But other aspects, which I will discuss below, left me underwhelmed. The final book gets a 3/5 (2.5/5 really but rounded up bc I love these characters and I was just happy to see them again.)

Content warnings: Obviously, the usual violence, abuse, and death but also specifically at the beginning there's a lot of this Atlantic slave trade allegory and imagery, so be ready for that.

I wanted more interpersonal stories between the characters we already had and to deal with the outcome of the civil war from book two. So much of what happened in Children of Virtue and Vengeance is brushed aside in this book to make room for a new epic tale spanning three different empires. Zélie and Amari do NOT actually talk about what Amari did in book two, Amari and Tzain don't really talk either. Zélie and Inan are the only two that still vaguely kept the tension they had in CoVaV but again, it barely has the time it needs between everything else going on. We never find out what happened to Roen, nor do we really get any true discussions about how Orisha is going to recover from the political repercussions of the civil war. At the end of the book it's treated like people forgot all the prejudices they held for decades just because the skulls tried to invade and now that the skulls were defeated, everything is great and perfect and wonderful.

Tomi Adeyemi has a strong writing style when it comes to creating compelling fight scenes or describing new locations with gorgeous and lush visuals. And because so much of this book is spent outside of Orisha, battling a new enemy, you get a lot of that. We get introduced to two new empires in this book, that of the skulls and King Baldr, vaguely based on vikings, and New Gaia, which is based on South America and Indigenous peoples (although I think they are speaking Spanish or something close to Spanish and that's the colonizer's language and that kind of bugged me but it's also true to real life current South America so idk). And we meet a LOT of new characters.

Amari finally gets to be gay, so that's a win. There's a background thing going on with her and the hierophant of New Gaia. Woo! A queer relationship made it into this book, if you squint. But honestly that's the extent of what Amari does in this book.

I truly believe we could have pared down the slave boat thing at the beginning and replaced it with Zélie and Amari really talking to each other and maybe Nehanda and Inan making amends publicly or something. Then we could have seen the healing get started and I could have at least liked this book.

I will say I did like Tzain's story. His chapters were the highlight of the entire book. He gets his hands on one of the skull's weapons, which use blood magic and essentially make warriors into dnd barbarians, rage and all. Tzain uses that weapon to help save his people but he comes to realize hate and rage aren't how he wants to fight, that it doesn't make him strong really, and he finds a new source of energy for the battles ahead. You really see him dealing with the death of his mother, which he always felt helpless and guilty about, and accepting he couldn't have saved her.

The villain of this book, King Baldr, felt a tad cartoonish to me. He had this textbook skivvy-ness about him that just reminded me of a crappy MCU villain. I don't have much to say about him. For being the primary motivator of nearly every action the main protagonists make in this book, he is devastatingly underwhelming. It sucks we really had to wait until the last ten or so pages for Zélie to get her reaper powers back. That man could've easily been taken out by book one Zélie.

Despite Children of Anguish and Anarchy disappointing me, I would still recommend the entire trilogy. The world-building is phenomenal and its a great addition to any Young Adult collection. I do think that every single book in the series feels pretty disconnected from the others, but what can I say? The first book got me attached to the characters and part of me will read anything with them in it.

[gurugirl]

to the other anon, i don’t think it’s fair to assume that celebrities have any hold or sway to change what is happening in the world. if you need a celeb to validate your feelings, that says more about you than it does them. i don’t agree that him not speaking on something makes him a “bad person”. he has no sway in anything, and it could be dangerous for him or any other celeb to voice their opinions on literally anything. he cannot change what world leaders are doing to support israel, and if someone is supporting israel is set in their ways and their mindset, he won’t change their mind either. like either way it’s a lose/lose situation. fwiw: i support palestine and hate what israel is doing to them, committing a mass genocide with no repercussions, and it makes me SO angry, but im not getting mad about every celebrity that refuses to speak on the issue. that’s not what they signed up for when they became famous. idk just my two cents. i can form my own opinions without needing and influencer or celeb to share them and make me feel better???

The kind feelings this tragic genocide can induce is so varied. Some of us feel things so deeply that it really does ruin joy.

I understand anon but as I’ve gotten older and have seen a lot of tragic and awful things in my life I’ve learned if I let things outside of my control continue to make my life miserable and allow those things to alienate myself from stuff and people I love, I would not have made it this far in life.

It’s wonderful that anon is so empathetic and wants others to be that way too but it starts to wear away at your soul to the point you have no one and enjoy nothing.

And the other point of Harry becoming a target is real. I’m going to use an example of Taylor Swift telling people at her concerts to vote. Republicans were up in arms and Fox News had these pundits arguing about it (you can google this - they were going nuts that she told concertgoers to vote). The backlash led to her getting death threats - and that’s just for telling people to employ their civic duty and vote. Imagine what kind of backlash Harry styles (a very recognizable, household name - super A+ list celeb) would get if he were to say a word about the genocide?

I get anon. I really do but It’s hard to say he should or he shouldn’t bc this is one of those things his platform isn’t going to be able to change. No matter the public opinion, as you said, world leaders are the ones calling the shots on what’s happening at this point. Public opinion will not make a difference in the outcome, as disgusting and infuriating it is.

Xoxo

[scarletwix]

omg hi its the anon who sent the jasico superhero au that was bouncin round my cranium u posted a response to back in like april if u recall i only just realised i never actually sent anything back but i was reading through my old reblogs and wanted to say the stuff u wrote fucks, like its so neat.

i love the groundworks for the worldbuilding stuff u have set up, mentioning unions and insurance stuff its so cool, and the way u gave nico like a kind of lois lane-ish journalist/possibly blogger idk vibe was stellar.

u mentioned debating whether nico would have powers, and id never considered it but immediately my brain went 'what if he doesnt at first, but gets them later on, has to deal with the implications of that on his life and such, and is just confronted with the truth of jason's secret identity, possibly without jason even knowing' idk u don't have to use that if u do wanna write more with it i just figured id share bc it just instantly popped up nagging my thoughts.

anyway yah it was super awesome to see the little idea that rolled around my mind half formed harassing me turned into something so brilliant!!!

(also ty for posting nimona stuff all over my dash ive wanted to watch it and u let me know that it actually came out lol)

OMG NONNY HI HOW DID I MISS THIS

WELCOME BACK TO THE CIRCUS this au has not left my mind literally every time I hear "Last of the Real Ones" by FoB my brain screeches away from whatever I'm writing and straight into jasico superhero au

I'm so glad you enjoyed it!! That makes me so happy to hear :D as for the worldbuilding I was blatantly inspired by the book Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots, but I took it in a different direction. The idea of Superhero unions fascinates me, and looking at a world and going "how would people react if this became a normal thing" is something I find really fun when doing worldbuilding.

And yay! I struggled a bit trying to decide what Nico was doing and decided Journalism Major fit his vibes enough that I wanted to run with it!! I hadn't even considered the Lois angle but aslksdflfk that's so fun. Too bad his superman made a terrible impression ey?

also that is a DELIGHTFUL idea. I love having to explore the repercussions of suddenly being at the same caliber of power as the heroes he writes about, trying to decide whether or not he's going to DO anything about this information... Mmmm I love that.

I had given it a lot of thought and my main sticking point was "do I want Bianca to also be alive in this au" because my initial thought was that a lot of Nico's trepidation towards heroes comes from the fact that Bianca was one and was either injured too badly in the line of duty to continue heroing, or was killed outright. I thought it would be interesting to see Nico grappling with that aspect of his sister who he looked up to, and what that profession eventually cost her, especially if she was just too injured to keep going, which would leave room for Nico's initial hero worship of Tonitro while also giving him the skepticism of "this is an inherently unfair system." In the end it didn't matter much to the snippet itself, but if/when I go back and write more (I'll be honest it's not even an if or a when because it's just so much fun for me that I have written a few more little snippets here and there of the au, just nothing polished enough to publish lol).

In any case, I was thinking about Nico having powers at the time of the Tonitro & Waterspout teamup in the ficlet and that he could/would use them to try and find Jason and potentially even help with the evacuation effort. I've got half of a scene written in my head that I now think would work really well as an accidental-identity-reveal that Jason doesn't even realize has happened. That is such a fun concept nonny, tyty

Your idea super inspired me, and I have to thank you so much for sending it over!! I'm so glad that you enjoyed it as much as I do :D

(ALSO LOL I HOPE YOU GOT TO WATCH NIMONA what a good movie. So proud of Nate tbh like what a journey he's been on. I remember reading the webcomic on the Nimona website back in the day and it's wild to see how far he's come.)

[bedazzlecunt]

wren, i know this is a somewhat personal question but have you ever felt unsafe or uncomfy when you went out all bimboesque? i'm a little scared of real life repercussions bc yes, while i do fantasize abt strangers taking advantage, i wouldn't want that to become a real, dangerous situation oof i hope u know what i mean. do you keep safe somehow? i'm sorry if this is too personal

omg no it's not too personal, and honestly i'm really grateful you asked. obviously this is a kink blog and i'm talking a lot about fantasy and fun and etc, but i really also love an excuse to talk seriously about it, especially since so much of the tumblr nsft community doesnt

the answer is yes, unfortunately. i'm lucky in that i live in a major city, where alt fashions are more common and turn less heads; it's not new york or anything, but i get way less shit than i did when i lived in Small Town USA. and it's a fucking shame that i sometimes feel like i have to compromise my style because men (and some non-men, but it's mostly men) can't behave. getting oggled or taken advantage of is sooo hot in theory, but in reality, that shit's just scary.

the thing is tho — at least in the major city i live in — i have gotten catcalled and whooped at nearly as much in long little house on the prairie style dresses as i have in miniskirts. the last time a man followed me anyplace i was in a knee-length selkie dress; not exactly the picture of sexy. this isn't to say that concerns about dressing too slutty aren't fair, but i want to emphasize that this shit is about men and their desire to punish folks who exist outside the 'appropriate' flavors of gender expression. it is not your fault or your clothe's fault if someone harasses, whether you're wearing a maxi dress with a high collar or god's shortest skirt. that's on the freak harassing you.

you have to navigate to what extent you're comfortable, and to what extent you're willing to compromise your style to avoid discomfort and stay safe. this is true of almost any alt-fashion, unfortunately. i'm extremely confident in myself and my style and hard to upset, so men catcalling or whatever neither bothers or scares me, but i still take some steps. i only go out in extra slutty fits when i'm with friends because i know men won't be as weird to me if i'm not alone, i stick to heavily populated areas when i am alone, and while i love to flirt and act ditzy and etc, if anybody starts crossing lines or getting too close, i abscond immediately. i also don't flirt with folks at bus stops or the like due to the risk that we'll then be stuck on a bus together and they'll know where my stop is and etc.

and like, this sucks! it fucking blows that i have to do this. but any person, especially fem ppl, who doesn't dress in a 'normal' way will have to navigate this until men learn to be normal. like i said, though; i turn more heads in a bimbo look, but in terms of actual harassment or shit, that often happens regardless of what i'm wearing, and i've luckily never been attacked or assaulted by a stranger. i wish i had a more coherent answer for you; something where i could say 'if you do xyz you'll be safe for sure' but that just doesn't exist. freaks will be freaks no matter how you look

this all being said — i will say that i get far more positive responses (particularly from women, lol) when i go out dressed to the slutty nines than i do negative, and overall it's fun and rewarding and a joy, or i wouldn't keep doing it. i get far more compliments than i do bad vibes, and i feel good. i don't want this answer to scare anyone out of a style they sincerely like. if you're just getting into it, just err on the side of caution at first while you feel out how your community reacts, and you can go from there.

[littledreamling]

i WISH i could ask about all of these. but hmm... i want to know about the professor hope series! this is a copout bc im Basically asking you about 4 things. (other ppl im relying on you to ask about all the other ones!!!!)

Oh my god, I'm so excited for this series!

It's a combination of three different ideas: Hope!Hob, Professor!Hob, and Delight!Rose. It's an AU where Hob stopped Dream from leaving in 1889, causing a domino effect that results in them getting married, Hob ascending to Hope Eternal, Hob rescuing Dream from the fishbowl before he's even put into it, Dream never claiming Daniel or going to find Destruction with Delirium (and thus avoiding all of the repercussions of that), and Rose never becoming the vortex (though she's still Desire's great granddaughter).

Delight in the Midst of Despair is a fic that centers around Hob (as Hope Eternal) teaching a class about the importance of being able to find hope and joy in everyday life. It's a little angsty but, as always, has a happy ending!

Dr. Gadling, PhD is from Rose's perspective as a student in Hob's class. She's not yet Delight of the Endless, though she's pretty close with her Endless family and has seen Hope Eternal in the Dreaming on multiple occasions. She has no idea, however, that Hope Eternal, her uncle Dream's husband, is also Hob Gadling, history professor. It's going to be a multi-chapter fic about Hob being a damn good professor, mostly told from Rose's POV but also some outsider POVs.

Snitches Get Stitches is about Rose and her friends having a conversation about their professor's alleged immortal status. Rose is fully aware that Hob is sitting just a few tables down and can overhear the entire conversation, so she decides to have a little fun at both his and Dream's expense. It started as a crakfic idea that got a little serious (oops)

Crowning Delight is the culmination (for now) of the series and is about Rose ascending to Delight of the Endless. Just before the ceremony, she's understandably very nervous and Hob sits down and talks to her about the responsibility that the Endless carry and how nervous he was to become Hope. It's a very sweet conversation, especially because Hob sees Rose as something of an adopted daughter, the Unity of Dreams and Hopes and Desires (get it...? yeah, I know that was bad lmao). And then the ceremony happens and it's mind-numbing and tedious. And then, the real party starts and we get to see the Endless really let loose and have fun

All in all, this series is one of the biggest projects I've ever attempted and it's been pretty difficult piecing things together, but I'm super excited for it!

[rivercityrabbitsbro]

Sometimes you gotta pat yourself on the back for growth because you you're the only one who can really see it and I'm gonna do that right now.

This last weekend, through PMS emotions and everything, I had someone I've known for over 15 yrs explicitly state they're cutting contact with me.

We'd had a conversation the night before that happened, about another friend having an issue with them, and they were INSISTENT that "if you have an issue with a friend and you don't talk to them about it, you're not a true friend bc you'd rather avoid the conflict so that you can continue to experience that issue-filled friendship than confront the issues and allow for growth". And I pointed out that while I can understand and agree to an extent, they had to acknowledge that they didn't have the best track record of hearing criticisms or concerns and responding appropriately - they typically either blow up over something that's not the point/being said, or they just cut contact with everyone for 2-4 wks and sulk and come back never addressing it. And they agreed they could handle things better, but also if you're REALLY friends, you gotta risk it.

So not to get into the hard specifics, but the next day I got an incredibly dismissive response to a basic question - "I get you want to spend more time with me, but I'm good". From a person who, among other things, cut all contact for over a year with me, specifically, and seems to only engage with me if forced to in the context of a group, but then turns around and says they have very few friends but I'm one of them etc etc.

So since they were so insistent that Real Friends Address Issues, I did. I addressed it. And they fully missed my point to hone in on one thing I mentioned (that was so not the point that I even addressed that it wasn't the point in the text I said it in), and then told me to not bother contacting them again.

And here's where the Growth comes in: my entire emotional reaction was JUST the feeling of "how could you read those words and come out of it with the point you did," both in disbelief in how stupid it was AND in anxiety bc of my deep issues with being misunderstood bc I fail to communicate well.

No agonizing over losing this friend, no panicking over social repercussions, no "what is wrong with me". Just "are you fucking kidding me bro?" followed by my usual internal breaking-down of the various ways I could've phrased it better, and then realizing that in this instance I really wouldn't have phrased it any better.

If the issue was to be addressed at any point, it would have been in this way. For them to misread it to the extent they did they'd have to either 1) be taking me in bad faith from the get or 2) think of me in such a condescending manner as to assume my issue was over something as petty as they were arguing.

So there was no winning move for me here. Either I never addressed it and stayed maintaining a friendship where I felt Tolerated At Best, or I eventually addressed it and they would've seen it as "a conversation about nothing" (as they described it) and taken the personal offense they did here and dropped me at that point anyway.

Plus, if it turned out like this within a day of adamantly professing for 10-20 mins they want their friends to address issues when they have them, then truly it was always going to be this way. And that's fine. I don't need someone who can't accept the tiniest bit of criticism in my life.

Just. Fucking wild to me how unfazed I am. Not 0 fazed, but not my usual level of fazed. Just like "Well alright then. That sucks but whaddya gonna do"