#i had forgotten that i had asked so much

[walking-circles]

this sounds rlly dumb but sometimes i forget my actions from the past had an impact on my life today

[2aceofspades]

Number five with Leo and Mikey Leo feeling guilty about triggering the events of the movie

5.) "I don't know if I can forgive."

I changed it a bit, but hopefully it's still alright 🫣

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Also, here's an extra cuz I misread the request at first gah-!

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Thank you for your submission! 🌟✨

(:

[creativesplat]

I would also like to see some miphlink, if that's okay!

I was really struggling with what to draw, and then I remembered your ask from ages ago (dang ADHD brain...) anyway, sorry its such a late answer, but Miphlink inspired by Dicksee's La Belle Dame

[turrondeluxe]

How do you feel about winning the competition

[heybiji]

I'd love to see Dandelion laughing! I love to see him and I want him to be happy.

Dande had a good laugh last session after playing around with stilts and falling into a pond.

[justcallme-ange]

May we see what you have instore for the rivals childhood AU? 👉👈

Yes of course! Sorry I didn't mean to leave everyone on read. ^^; Oh geez where to start.

So the whole AU started with this little idea of Dream and Techno having a shared language they could talk in secret in - and then snowballed into an entire story/history between the two haha ^^

A majority of it focuses on their early childhood together and then with Phil and Kristin and their eventual family with little shenanigans and flashes here and there of their future (current?) selves.

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

Hi hello I watched all of carmilla in a weekend when I was 17 because a student teacher who in retrospect I had a bit of a crush on mentioned that she knew one of the actresses. also I am pretty invested in all your recent vampire stuff because I watched iwtv in 2 days last week because your edit intrigued me

oh hiiii 🫶 thank you for indulging me. thats so cool that you watched iwtv! did it live up to the expectation?

i also watched carmilla at 17! or like, 17-19. i found it when s2 had just started and followed it to the end. did something permanent to my brain but i think it was a good thing. on rewatch now im like, i was right to like this. like it's a solid show, it's good. it has its flaws obviously but it's well written, the emotional moments still get me, i can see why i liked it and i still like it now even when it's not anymore, you know, meeting every need that baby gay me didnt even know they had

what it doesnt reaallyy do though - i dont remember if i posted abt this or if i left it in my drafts but - is explore vampirism as a concept. their subject matter is more lesbianism than vampirism. which is great! thats what they wanted to do and they did it and it's very good. but reading interview with the vampire the book rn im realising how much potential vampires have to be metaphors for like so many things and i started wondering like 'wait, did carmilla just not really engage with it or did it all go over my head'. but it just didnt really engage with it all that much. which again is fine bc that wasnt what they were doing. im glad they were more about the lesbianism than the vampirism

but there's this interesting difference in framing, because in iwtv they keep calling armand 'ancient' right? and emphasising how old he is. and he's like 500? and i was like 'wait isnt carmilla like 400?'. she isnt, shes 340, but still, thats getting there, you know? and we know quite a lot about her history, but kind of just the Big Events. when she was turned, the events of the novella, coffin of blood, silas. thats sort of what we know. but none of the long lonely slog of history day to day you know? with armand i feel like we can really feel how much time everything takes. how every one of those years is made up of single days. with carmilla i dont feel that as much. i keep kind of thinking about daniel, when louis calls him a boy in the first episode, saying "im an old man, with all the triggers that come with it"

because carmilla might look 18 (or mid twenties at this point) but she has lived all that time. shes also seen her native land be claimed by like a succession of ruling powers, right? like armand. shes been buried alive, like louis. when lestat is born, shes already 80 years old, shes lived a whole human lifetime, and the entire adult part of it shes been a vampire. shes lived through 1680-1870 being a lure. i compared her to abigail hobbs in some tags on a post, i dont know if youre familiar with hannibal the tv show, but i do also kinda keep thinking about that comparison

if youre not familiar, in the first episode of hannibal the murderer of the week is this guy garrett jacob hobbs who kills and cannibalises girls who resemble his daughter. and later on it turns out she was made to be his lure. like they'd go places and he'd sent her to the victims to make friends and maybe get them back to their home or smth. not sure if they specified all the details. but that's what carmilla did for mother. and in s2 we hear from mattie that while every couple of decades carmilla had to lure victims for the fish god, she also seemed to just enjoy humans between those times, right? like the doctor, gets lonely, gets a new companion. but we've only sort of got mattie's mocking word for it ("dont eat him, hes a poet! or her, shes got such a wonderful voice. or that one, shes just too pretty to ruin"), we don't know exactly from carmilla's point of view what she was doing or why. if mattie's talking about stuff that happened after the blood coffin, 1950-now, then i think it's a fair assumption based on what carmilla says in the s1 sock puppet show that after she'd figured out what the real situation was and what her role in it was, when she'd started trying to save girls from being sacrificed, that she mightve been doing the same trying to save people from becoming mattie's victims. it's probably more likely that she was just trying to find excuses to stop mattie from sucking someone dry rather than actually having like an aesthetic based morality. but it might be a bit of both. im still trying to figure out what her philosophy actually is, like i dont know what existentialism actually means ghkfjghkj but i will

i also found it pretty striking in the movie when shes turning back into a vampire she says like "this was supposed to be done, you know? the blood lust, the self-loathing, the sleeping tied to a chair in my own bedroom". thats what defines her vampirism, wanting blood and hating yourself for it (the third part is a joke/reference to s1 but also i think meaningful for how she sees her relationship with laura when she IS a vampire. little bit of that 'she will reject me for my monstrousness' shining through). and thats what defines vampirism for lots of vampires across the genre obviously, but i dont know, it struck me. we dont get a lot from carmilla's pov, we know a fair amount about her, but the story is always told through laura. we get laura's diaries, but just snippets here and there from carmilla, what shes thinking, how shes feeling

and i love that shes a philosopher. i love that thats how she seems to try and find something to hold onto, in a world that kind of moves around her, having been murdered, kidnapped, turned and groomed to be a lure on the cusp of adulthood, never having been properly loved (the relationship with her father wasnt good she says in s3, and her mortal mother i dont think has ever been mentioned (like laura's)). the only good relationship she seems to have had for the better part of 3 centuries seems to have been mattie, and mattie seems to love being a vampire. i can imagine carmilla just sort of going along with anything mattie wants to do just because shes so desperate for that friendship. not like, against her will necessarily really. but more like, she hasnt even had the space to develop her own will, you know? and philosophy lets you do that. philosophy gives you frameworks to understand the world and to develop your own opinions on it. and by the 21st century she seems to have developed those opinions, she has a sense of her own values, but shes also still stuck in that same situation. shes jaded and cynical in the face of laura's optimism and strong moral code a lot of the time in s1 because she feels probably pretty powerless. like she does what she can to save some girls but at the end of the day shes scared of her mother and she has nowhere else to go really, right?

i like how she grapples with that over the course of the series, in tandem with laura grappling with her black and white morality. she sort of jumps ship from her mother to laura bc theyve fallen in love, but then laura still stuck in her hero thinking refuses to see her monstrous side. not literally bc i think the biological vampirism never seemed to be a problem for laura, but morally. the having murdered. carmilla needs laura to see that and love her while seeing it bc the last girl she loved rejected her for being a vampire.

but you see her kind of swing back and forth in s2. she softens first with laura but then they break up and she leans back hard into the sarcastic cynic defense mechanisms, leans hard into "im a monster, dont expect heroism from me". but thats like, it's sort of learned helplessness i think. it's powerlessness, resignation. bc morally shes not a monster. maybe she doesnt have as strong a drive to help other people as laura does and is a little more selfishly hedonistic in that she just wants to enjoy her/their life, but she doesnt hurt people for fun, she never has. she just sort of didnt have another option for a Really long time. so she pretends she doesnt care. "im a vampire, this is what i do, this is who i am". but clearly from the way she talks about it when she turns back into one, she doesnt enjoy it

and i like how she goes even further in s3, where she starts swinging even more to the heroic side, bc she sees hope. shes like "wow if we kill my mother, i'd be free". theres hope and she becomes like a lot more active. and shes like that at the start of the movie too, a lot happier, a lot more relaxed, and then vampirism is back and bam depression gfhgkjh like shes immediately more gloomy, ashamed of her past and her self, retreats into herself

sorry i just took this as an opportunity to dump all the carmilla thoughts floating in my head on you. you didnt ask fhkghgjh consider this an open invitation to you or anyone else to come talk to me about carmilla

[luck-of-the-drawings]

THE ORDER OF PALMS An order of holy folk that serve The Helm, working to create powerful Aasimar Paladins for the purpose of protecting any who hire their help. [BACKSTORY UNDER CUT]

One day, Gjör and her peers were lead by their mentor Opheria, to a mission far from their home. On the peak of that mountain village, they saw upon the horizon, the castle of their home go up in flames. Horrified and scared, the apprentices sought to follow their mentors guidance, and followed her lead into a small barn. It was there, that Opheria proceeded to slaughter each and everyone of the apprentices. It seemed she somehow had a hand in this sudden attack on the Order of Palms. Gjör D'annevual survived a sword through the 'heart', on account of a rare condition, that places her heart on the other side of her chest. When she finally managed to bring herself back home, the Order was insulted by her survival. She had so many better peers, why couldn't any of them have survived? This runt was seriously the only thing that survived Opherias wrath? It was better to just wash their hands clean of this. Thus the Order decided to banish Gjör from their ranks. She now travels the land in search of a purpose.

[reverieaudios]

I really wanna say, your art is really nice and pretty. Seeing you drawing your own thumbnails, and other assets yourself is really beautiful and refreshing to see. You put a lot of work into your audios and hope you know it's appreciated :D

Thank you so much! I had actually been in a pretty bad art block for a while before starting the channel, so designing everything has been really good for getting me out of that!

[moeblob]

Deacon loves two things: Ymber and digging himself a grave.

Fulj hates one thing: Deacon.

[batsplat]

Is Valentino Rossi the best rider in 1vs1 battles?

ehhhhh *shrugs* I mean. the best ever? like. who knows. the best in the field most years he was competing in the sport? maybe, I guess?

this is one of those questions where I don't really like giving definitive answers but am more interested in how you'd even go about assessing it? like, what metrics are you looking at, what are the criteria, can you put numbers to it or do you have to be super holistic about it or what. I think the 1 vs 1 is already an interesting distinctions, because that is a little different from just talking about wheel to wheel skill. they're related skill sets, but it's not the exact same

so. to bring in an example with a sample set of races I imagine most people reading this are pretty familiar with. let's say we're comparing valentino and marc in direct combat with each other. let's say we put the races where they're fighting one-on-one for basically the entire race in one box, so assen 2015 and catalunya 2016. let's say we have races where one of them is working their way through the field - and it's all building towards the confrontation between the two of them, so say a qatar 2013, a qatar 2014, an argentina 2015. let's say you have a very intense fight that doesn't last the whole race, like sepang 2015, or an extended 'duel' that is basically a defensive ride without any actual overtakes, like silverstone 2015. now, you may have noticed that from this list, valentino... kinda wins a lot of these? not qatar 2014, plus sepang 2015 is in the 'this cost both riders too much to have a winner' camp, but except for that? it's a strong record for valentino. however! the moment you take away the '1 vs 1' qualifier, suddenly the record looks way kinder to marc - you have a catalunya 2014, a phillip island 2015 and a phillip island 2017 go in his favour, while only assen 2017 is a multi-rider dogfight that involves both of them where valentino ends up taking the win. I do think when you're considering 'rivalries' and how a particular dynamic develops over time, it's worth looking specifically at what's happening in extended one-on-one combat and differentiating that from dogfights! because it is a different vibe, because it matters if you're just focused on one guy. but of course both categories still matter in assessing direct combat... even if there are also different skills involved in those different types of fights. valentino, even very late in his career, was still particularly adept at challenging and outsmarting individual riders, and it's a specific format he clearly did thrive in. so. yeah. both of these general categories are indicative of w2w ability, even if they're not quite the same - either in terms of the skills required or in terms of narrative implications

here's another issue. valentino tends to win the race-deciding extended confrontations against marc, but obviously that too isn't entirely reflective of what happened when they met each other on-track. this is because during their time together in the premier class, marc was winning a lot more races than valentino and generally had more pace than valentino, so a lot of on-track confrontations that marc came on top of where typically one-and-done type situations. overtake and move on, overtake and move on. so while you still have a misano 2014 (valentino overtakes marc and marc eventually crashes while attempting to keep up) or a brno 2014 (another valentino overtake where he pulls clear), you then also have laguna 2013 (the corkscrew move is the end of that battle), le mans 2014 (a single overtake around halfway through the race after which marc easily pulls clear), indy 2014 (an early tussle that eventually becomes more marc domination), motegi 2016 (similar, except here valentino ends up crashing), thailand 2018 (valentino can't keep up the pace once marc has gotten past)... like, we get to a place where we're risking penalising marc for 'being very fast' and not sticking around once he's gotten the overtake done, which does also feel wrong? it's an odd balance - because, again, when we're talking Actual Rivalries then it does matter who is winning an extended battle, psychologically if nothing else. like if that's the bit that mattered the most to the outcome of your race, if that's the bit people will remember years to come, if you invested a lot into winning that fight, of course it does matter. but that's narrative, not skill... is this really a good way of assessing how good someone is at 1 vs 1 duels?

I picked the example of that specific rivalry not just because it's the one most people are most familiar with or because I love engaging in discourse about that rivalry - but because I think direct rivalry comparisons are probably the most straightforward way you can approach trying to figure out who is 'better'... and marc clocks in just behind casey as the one who has the most balanced record against valentino w2w. like, biaggi is basically a walkover, and honestly you don't really have that many extended 1 vs 1 duels except for welkom 2004. and for sete, obviously a great rivalry (and I've always believed you don't need a rivalry of equals for it to be good and fun), but also once you get past that sachsenring 2003 turning point then the balance does go out of the window. I've been thinking about this in relation to a longer ask I've ended up massively overthinking (surely not), but I was kinda startled looking back at just how one-sided valentino's record is against jorge. like, unless I'm forgetting some major battles, the most extended scrap you can point to that jorge won is for his very first premier class win at estoril 2008 - and that's also pretty much settled by around halfway/two thirds through the race. but the actual 1 vs 1's that last much of the race? catalunya 2009? sachsenring 2009? motegi 2010? well.... hm. races that build to a battle like sepang 2010 also go in valentino's favour, and even extended tussles like le mans 2011 and phillip island 2014 are more valentino W's. hell, even various short and sweet battles like jerez and indy 2008, misano 2009, motegi 2015, aragon 2016, sachsenring 2018 generally have valentino come out on top - though in this category there's some exceptions, like qatar 2008, indy 2009 and jerez 2010 that all involved jorge besting valentino in a short direct fight

which raises another problem... we do need to in some way acknowledge that valentino simply ends up in more of these fights than most of his rivals - and as a direct result ends up winning more of them. like, once jorge clicked into title winning form in 2010, most of his wins became 'shoot off the line and win way ahead of everyone else with metronomic consistency'. I'm not saying all his race wins were like that! and he did win some great duels in his time in the premier class, especially against marc. but of course, he did that kind of dominating races a hell of a lot more than valentino did - whose approach to winning races was more 'qualify wherever, amble off the line, get moving around halfway through the race and figure things out from there'. now, I discussed this point a little bit here in the context of 'was valentino still successfully mind gaming the other aliens' - but just to bring it back, valentino was deliberately approaching his races in ways geared primarily towards being able to fight his opponents, even to the level of how he set up his bike:

you see this most extremely with something like laguna 2008, where valentino flat out knew he didn't have the outright pace to win - his entire strategy was built around not being the fastest but being able to fuck with casey. in that situation, he's not got the speed, he's building his entire strategy for the win around wheel-to-wheel disruption. and this, plus the regularly mediocre qualifying and starts, does just mean that statistically speaking he's overtaking more riders in his average win than any of the other aliens are. like, if that's your primary metric, then yes! he's clearly very good at w2w! by extension he's also very good at 1 vs 1 duels! if you're looking at riders who have clocked in more than a certain number of wins and do the maths of average overtakes per win, then, yes, I would imagine he tops that metric. does that make him the best? ... well, again... it does feel like you're risking penalising the better qualifiers and starters for being better qualifiers and starters and not ending up in seventh place at the end of every single first lap

so, you've got 'how they measure up against their direct rivals' and 'average numbers of overtakes' as ways to begin considering w2w ability as well as 1 vs 1 track record. then you get into increasingly nebulous waters... here's another potential metric for w2w skill I quite like: efficiency in overtaking. not naming any names, but there are certain riders who, when attempting to work their way through the field, will just. get stuck. even though they have a clear pace advantage over the rider directly in front of them. leading to incredible amounts of faffing about rather than just getting the overtake done. obviously, valentino does like to engage in some faffing about too, but generally speaking he's only doing that when he's in close proximity to the race leader and can realistically get himself to the front of the pack fairly quickly. he's very efficient when he's actually working his way through the field. of course, this is something marc is similarly excellent at, as he has shown plenty of times this year... which. well. this is where we run headfirst into another problem: this sport has changed a lot over the years and some things are simply not at the same difficulty level as they were in past years. so, sticking with those two, which of these is a 'better' comeback? 2006 sachsenring, where valentino starts tenth on the grid after tyre problems in qualifying, at a track he doesn't really love and in serious championship trouble, but works his way to the front before having to fend off the chasing pack that is coming back at him all the way until the chequered flag? or 2024 sachsenring, where marc starts thirteenth on the grid after having been impeded in q1, at his speciality circuit that he's visiting for the first time on a new bike, and works his way up to p2 despite his fractured rib and finger in an era where overtaking is a lot harder than it was in 2006? well, first of all, congrats to both of them, very nicely done. but secondly, that's kind of the problem, right? while I'm sure prime valentino in this era would also regularly be doing that marc/pedro thing where they make the commentators go 'oh ho ho they said overtaking was impossible in motogp these days!!' - at the end of the day his approach involved some built-in faffing about that was also more feasible back in the day. if we're assessing w2w ability, we do need to make some kind of allowance for era - which also affects how often riders are likely to find themselves in 1 vs 1 duels in the first place

here's another plausible metric: last lap battles. this is ALSO something that is super era-dependent. casey in his whole time in the premier class gets involved in like? about four battles that are still going on in the final lap? there's definitely a few I'm forgetting, especially if they weren't for wins/podium places, but it's definitely not a lot. compare and contrast with how the 2017 to 2019 era played out. everything back then was tyre management, tyre management and more tyre management, and dovi in particular was big on the 'eh let's win this race at the slowest possible pace' thing, where everyone crawled around the track as slowly as they could get away with before pulling the pin a few laps before the end. obviously, the characteristics of that era were a) very beneficial to dovi, in that they rewarded both those who knew how to make those specific tyres work (and his decline in 2020 was largely linked to the changes in tyres) and those who were very good at managing last lap duels, but b) inherently were more likely to produce last lap duels than a few other eras. like, in the alien era, which regularly featured gaps of. idk. seven seconds between the front runners, the characteristics of those bikes (as well as those riders) just meant you had very few battles that lasted that long. so inherently, it's harder to judge riders like, say, casey on how good they are in that kind of situation, not least because you are working with such a tiny sample size. and those battles are a big feature of how we remember 1 vs 1 duels!! people love last lap duels!!

now, yes, obviously valentino's record in 1 vs 1 last lap duels is very strong, and there's really only a few he loses over the course of his entire career. dovi is another strong contender in that particular category if we're just limiting ourselves to riders this century (which we are). (unfortunately, those two kinda took turns to be competitive so we didn't really get much of a direct h2h, but off the top of my head I think it's a pleasing 2-2? dovi takes qatar 2008 and le mans 2011, valentino takes qatar 2015 and argentina 2019. I feel like I'm definitely forgetting something.) but again, you do end up in caveat central with this metric. look at marc, who was reliably finding himself in last lap duels specifically at tracks he and/or the honda were quite poor at - again, ragging on that record too much does feel like you're penalising him for managing to get there in the first place. on the other hand, is it really fair to take too much credit away from dovi in handling those situations - surely, at the point where you're arriving in the last lap together, you're at a stage where both riders have a decent chance of winning? on the third hand, it is worth pointing out that dovi is more often than not in the lead going into those last laps, and is fending off a sort of on-the-edge last gasp 'might as well have a go' marc attack. 'last lap battles' is inherently quite a loose term, and how much should who's leading going in be considered a criterion? does it matter if you actually have an overtake or not? does it matter when in the lap the overtake happens? it's obviously quite an arbitrary category... sete makes a mistake headed into the last lap at sachsenring 2005 that gives valentino the lead, while marc makes a mistake on the penultimate lap of catalunya 2016 that essentially ends his victory challenge towards valentino. how do you compare those?

and at a certain point, you need to get away from the headline numbers and start thinking about what it actually means to be good at 1 vs 1 duels. you get into categories like 'race management' - choosing when best to make your attack, balancing risk and reward, not making risky overtake attempts for no good reason when you could just wait for half a minute longer, making sure not to needlessly fuck your tyres while pushing too hard too early. there's ability to actually execute overtakes, which is a question of race craft, creativity, and also about being able to play the opponent. there's various defensive abilities - somebody like pecco exemplifies this, who is both very hard to initially overtake in part due to his ability on his brakes, but is also adept at immediately re-overtaking (a favourite trick of his mentor too, as it happens). to borrow from another sport's terminology, you can contrast 'conversion' and 'steal' rate - if you have the superior underlying pace at crucial stages of the race, are you actually converting that into your maximum achievable result, or conversely if you have inferior pace, can you steal a result your pace doesn't 'merit'? obviously, you get a massive blot in the copy book every time you fail to convert any kind of result by crashing out or by bagging yourself a severe penalty for your race conduct. what about the psychological dimension? your ability to put pressure on another rider, e.g. by showing them a wheel here or there, to force them into a mistake rather than 'just overtaking' them via pure skill? is reputation and intimidation part of your skill set when it comes to wheel to wheel ability? the off-track 'work' you're doing on the opponent, and the prior weight of their expectations for this fight... your ability to study and analyse riders to pinpoint where they are at their strongest and weakest, while also figuring out where they're going to expect an attack and where they won't - maybe even sucker them into thinking it will come from somewhere differently than it actually does... on sheer weight of his track record, you'd have to say valentino is pretty much peerless in some of these categories. and, yes, some of these skills are weighted quite clearly towards the '1 vs 1' element over the 'multi-rider dogfight' element of w2w skills. they're more about terrorising a specific rival than thriving in the chaos

so. what does all of this mean. what's the actual answer. is valentino the best at 1 vs 1 duels. well. who knows. even if we're ignoring the historical dimension and limiting ourselves just to this century, there's too many confounding factors - from different racing eras within that time span to different individual approaches to racing - to allow us to truly evaluate who the 'best' is. I think the cleanest way to summarise it is... from the great riders this century, valentino is the one who most depends on his 1 vs 1 skills (and w2w skills more broadly). that's his unique selling point in a way you wouldn't say it is for any of the others... the guy who gets closest is dovi - but I still reckon his biggest skill is his tyre management and that was the most important differentiating factor that made him so competitive in 2017-19. his ability to scrap w2w comes second (and is absolutely a constant throughout his career), but really that's the bit that allows him to take advantage of the tyre whispering skills... it lets him finish the job, if you will. whereas with valentino, his brains and cunning broadly speaking and his w2w more specifically - and especially the 1 vs 1 stuff - is like, his x factor. I mean... obviously he's also good at the other things - I called him a mid qualifier but of course it's worth remembering he has 55 career pole positions in the premier class, more than jorge or casey or dani. this is primarily a function of his longevity and all of them are definitely better qualifiers than him, but like. of course he's not slow. it's just that relatively speaking, when compared to the other aliens, he's the one who is winning the least via his actual raw pace. here's one metric for that: in valentino's seven premier class title campaigns, he only has the highest average grid position in only three (and during his super dominant 2002 season, it's joint with biaggi). in three of those title-winning seasons, he's the second best qualifier on average, and in one of them he's only third best. the only other seasons this century where the best qualifier on average doesn't win the title are 2015 (marc just beats jorge, valentino is quite a distant third), 2020 (joan mir icon winning a title with an average grid position of NINE POINT FIVE SEVEN lmaoooooo, only seventh best on the grid), 2022 (fabio is a little ahead of martin and then pecco) and... that's it

which kinda means that... can you say valentino's objectively better at 1 vs 1 battles than the other aliens? well, no. I mean, sure, I do feel fairly happy to say he's better than jorge and especially dani, more *wiggles hand* about casey and marc - because with those two there's enough confounding factors in comparing them to valentino and they've also challenged valentino often enough directly that you can make the alternative case. in the end you do kinda go... well, it's very much a 'all these guys were at their best in very different versions of motogp' thing. what you can say is that for valentino, 1 vs 1 prowess is a bigger part of his game than it is for his fellow aliens. his route to victory both on an individual race level and on a title fight level is built around engaging in a lot of these fights and winning them - and, given how successful he's been, of course you do have to conclude that bit of his game is clearly operating on a high level. so when you compare that to both casey and marc, those two really do have other bits of their games that are more important to their success. fewer of their race victories percentage-wise have been won through 1 vs 1 duels. casey is dominating enough races from the front he's not even doing all that much w2w tussling. marc might be losing plenty of these close duels, but he's relentlessly at the front enough that this consistency is what's giving him titles as much as anything else. whereas valentino's entire approach is tailored towards finding himself in those kinds of direct scraps, winning said scraps, and then using those scraps as a way to demoralise the opposition... unsurprisingly, he's got the biggest sample size of that style of battle and has a very high success rate. who knows if he's the best, but he is the most dependent on that specific skill. and he sure has had a lot of practise at those duels, which I imagine will have gotten him just a little closer to being perfect

[spaceratprodigy]

✏ WIP Whenever ✏

Thank you for the tags @captastra @darkfire1177 @the-lastcall @hibernationsuit 💖💕

Haven't been working on too much personal art lately so not many new things to share

Have a lil sneaky peeky at these tiny sketches for the next few faith and max smoochy prompts in my ask box tho :]

open tag to anyone who wants to jump in!

[tj-crochets]

It doesent have to be an actual quilt (as I wouldnt have the adquisitive power to buy it off you), but I'd love to hesr your thoughts on how you'd make a lesbian pride quilt!

(Also, whats your thought on microlabel flag requests, kindly?)

Hi! At this point, I am not making full pride quilts unless I have a person in mind to give them to (the progress pride quilt is for a specific one of my friends, for instance) but I can absolutely talk through how I'd make a pride quilt for pretty much any pride flag The lesbian pride flag has so many variants that I'd need to know which version the person I'm making it for wants, and if it's the shades of pink or the pink and orange one, it would be very difficult for me to make a quilt of, because some of the colors are extremely close to each other. I wouldn't be able to just go with stash fabric, I'd need to buy fabric specifically for it, and that would probably require using solid color fabrics in order to get colors that close but distinct. It is entirely possible, and if you let me know which version of the flag you have in mind I can go into more detail? I'm not 100% sure what you mean by microlabel, but going by what the phrase looks like, I'm totally fine with microlabel flag requests! I make no guarantees about what I will or will not make (partially because I never know for sure what I will or will not make) but I usually learn about at least one new (to me) pride flag every pride month and I am delighted to do so. If the flag you are requesting is less common, or (like the lesbian pride flag) has a lot of different variants, it does help me a lot if you either include a picture or a description of the flag so I know which one you mean

[homocrafting]

I was watching this ethubs megacut video and it's composed of LL clips and there's a part after... I think Tango? maybe? blows up the middle tower in their fortress that Bdubs says smth like "We can always rebuild" and Etho replied "I'm done building" and like. do I need to explain the metaphors you can make out of this. they're making me ill again

[seafleece]

After the transformation (death) of a friend, Shadowheart and Karlach go on a journey to take their effects home.

--

They’re not dead, just gone.

They’re not dead, just gone.

(She tries to think about Omeluum. She tries not to think about how Omeluum is not the name of its old host.)

It’s easiest to pray to Selûne on their behalf. When it’s not about them, she never knows what to say.

[theflyingfeeling]

Aaaaaaa OlliAllu crushing on each other aaaaaaa 🥺💖💕

I wanna know everything about the timeline! 😍

Thanks for asking!! My favourite topic!! 🥺

So just as a disclaimer: the following is based on nothing much but my vivid & delusional imagination (except that it's all totally true and real 😌)

Behold,

💖 The Olli/Allu Love Story Timeline* 💖

(*according to theflyingfeeling / this is gospel truth okay don't fight me)

Pre-Aleksi-joining-the-band / Timebomb -> becoming friends 👨🏼‍🤝‍👨🏻

So I imagine that before Aleksi joined the band, he and Olli were friendly but maybe not super close (or as close as Aleksi may have been to Joel/Joonas/Niko). They respected each other as musicians and, as time passed, figured the other is a pretty cool dude to hang out with and fun to play shows with 🤝 By the time Aleksi joined the band, they were already good friends 😌

(I love how from the very beginning it was not unusual to spot them next to each other in pictures (yes yes I know about their team short/team tall arrangement in pictures, humour me a little here though)

Can we also cry about this (irrelevant to Olli/Allu (unless Olli wrote this)):

"our lovely friend" 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

*

2021: UMK / Eurovision / post-Eurovision -> developing the crush 💕

They started working on Dark Side pretty much right/around when Aleksi first joined the band, right? By then they all, including Olli, had spent more and more time with Aleksi in the studio as well as on stage before he officially joined the band. During the UMK/Eurovision project, however, they were suddenly working together way more intensely (especially after winning UMK), so I like to think that was when their friendship deepened and they found out just how much they have in common (e.g. all their nerdy mutual interests). They probably started to chat more just the two of them (in the UMK video 15 facts about Blind Channel, Aleksi mentioned calling Olli (and always catching him biking lol)) and sort of just drifted towards each other so that they were frequently seen together (the screencap on the right is taken seconds before they stop to stare each other in the eyes, sorry I don't have a gif of that) 💕

(and no I haven't done extensive research on how much more often they were spotted together in comparison to how often they were spotted with other band members just sshhhhhh it's not like this is a doctoral thesis)

If I recall correctly, they also did some interviews together, at least this one where they look like they had just woken up from a nap with lots of cuddles (and maybe even some shy kisses for fun (because sometimes good friends make out for the lols, right??), I mean come on, they look so soft 🥺💓

They also sat (and partied) next to each other during the finale, and shared that one looooooooong hug I mean COME OOOOOON they don't want to let go of each other 😭

Of course, we cannot forget about the tipsy/drunken cuddles during that interview (and in the hotel room a bit later, source: I just know it in my heart) 💞

(remember also the other, less known drunk interview that showed Olli staring at Aleksi dreamily 🥺)

I think around this time they also got a bit flirty with each other for the first time? At least if one is to interpret the way Olli "mocks" (lovingly <3) how Aleksi says his middle name in the hotel room IG stream they did (and of course we're going to interpret the heck out of that, that's why I'm writing this whole thing for 😌 (I still crack up at Niko's "I thought it was Mattson" every time though lol))

Another highlight from 2021 was obviously the moments they shared in the Posse shower stall we have been discussing lately, which show exactly how comfortable they are with each other 😩

Also, I can't remember for sure and I can't find the ask for reference, but was it the summer of 2021 when Aleksi had to miss a show (because he was sick or something?), and reportedly Olli had been all quiet and gloomy that day, to the point that Niko pointed it out on stage during their show, telling the audience (jokingly) that they're sorta worried about Olli because he has barely said a word all day? I remember talking about this with someone and they had videos/pictures/?? about it too, but until I have some actual evidence of this, you're just gonna have to take my word of it 😌 In any case, it goes to show how much they meant to each other already back then 😭

To conclude, I think the year 2021 was the year they slowly developed their (mutual) crush, but without fully realising what was happening. There were some cheeky cuddles (perhaps even sleepy/drunken kisses) and friendly teasing which was totally NOT flirting although it totally was, they weren't just ready to admit it and butterflies in the stomach that they tried to ignore; they're fairly certain they like each other platonically and nothing more, even though they can't help but smile a little more brightly when they get a text from each other and they miss each other a little too much when they're apart... 💕

*

Spring/summer 2022: the US tour / the EU tour / the summer (tour) -> getting together 💞

Let's start off with this poor-quality gif I just made, for no particular reason except that I want y'all to look at how cute they are 🥰

According to Niko (source: just trust me alright, I think he said it on twitter but naturally I can't find anything rn), as I'm sure many of you know by now, during the US tour Olli and Aleksi were often the last ones awake in the tour bus, drinking Mountain Dew and chatting away about nerdy stuff. I think this is when they really grew closer and I can easily imagine that around this time the first thoughts of "what if..." entered their minds 😳

Maybe they sometimes ended up just staring into each others eyes lovingly, before realising neither has said anything for a while (and it was sort of awkward when they did realise, but they just laughed it off), or maybe there were accidental/absentminded touches; maybe they both just felt so warm and cozy in each other's company, and even though they were both getting a little sleepy, they kept on talking for a few more moments because they weren't ready to let go of the moment and "burst the bubble". Maybe they were joking around and being low-key flirty, and when they finally went to bed, they'd be going out of their minds in their bunkbeds, trying not to think about all that too hard.

I like to think that eventually they got more daring, sat more closer to each other, and suddenly the small touches weren't accidental anymore. They could have an entire conversation with Aleksi's hand on Olli's thigh or vice versa and it would feel so nice and so natural 💞 There may have been a few kisses too, just for fun and because the vibes are right, and maaaaaaybe they don't really talk about it that much, but they definitely can't wait to try that again somewhere a bit more private 👀

Speaking of which, we also know that they roomed together at least once ("Little Man asked first"), and by some inexplicable coincidence, the two of them were the only ones in the band who got ill during the tour? Huh, that's strange 🤔😌 So I have a reason to believe the US tour was when they first got together, even if they thought they were just fooling around back then 🥰

(can't think of anything in particular to say about the EU tour in the spring, but we can look at these pictures nevertheless 💗_💗)

and then 🥺🥺🥺😭😭😭😭😭😭

Getting emotional receiving the gold records in Ruisrock, hugging each other the first thing because who else would they hug, what more prove do you even need to see how much these two love each other 😭

We also know that in the summer 2022 Olli stayed at Aleksi's when he was in Helsinki (not sure if this happened every time he was in the capital but there were a few occasions), I think they were spotted grocery shopping together or something? They also participated in this interview together, providing us moments such as

1) the two of them sitting tightly in Aleksi's (?) car,

2) hearing that they had spent the night together watching old tour videos,

3) Olli commenting on Aleksi's outfit ("I warned you..." = he had been looking at Aleksi's dick through his pants 🥰 (at least I assume it's about the romper that showed the outline of his peepee? he says "last summer" but I don't think his outfit in the 2021 summer tour was as controversial? it was literally just a black t-shirt (with a white long-sleeve underneath sometimes) and black trousers, so I assume he means "the summer that has passed" (the interview took place in August))

4) Olli's surprise when Aleksi says he, too, would like to collaborate with Skrillex and Aleksi teasing Olli about "having thought about Skrillex last night" (don't worry Aleksi, I'm sure he was thinking more about you than Skrillex 🥺)

To sum up, in the first half of the year 2022, they got together for the first time and formed a special kinda bond, slowly falling in deep, soft love 🥺💕

*

Autumn 2022: the EU headline tour, the London & LA song-writing camps -> honeymoon time 💖

...yeah, I wonder what happened during the EU headline tour 😳

(they fucked. a lot. rough. this is the truth.)

...and before they left for the honeymoon song-writing camp, they did the cutest thing that any two humans have ever done in the history of the universe 😭

I mean 😭😭😭😭 are y'all still crying about this?! because I never stopped 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 you can just imagine them grocery shopping for studio snacks together and they spot this card (I do wonder what the picture on the front is) and have this grand idea and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa the giggles when they wrote the card and gave it to daddy!Johnny AAAAAAAAAAA I'm going to explode if I think about how unbelieavably cute it all is, is this not something you do with a very special bro of yours?! I cannot handle it 🥺💕

In London they went on a date on Olli's birthday (yes I have decided the others weren't there 😌) and Aleksi took the most boyfriend picture of him because they're boyfriends in love 🥺

In LA we know they shared the bed (source: you can't prove they didn't!!) and looked very very soft and boyfriends; in conclusion, they were on a honeymoon 💖

*

2023: boyfriends boyfriending 💓💞💕💖💗

And yeah, that sort of brings us to this year and the way they are now, so cute and sweet and boyfriend and touching each other for no reason thinking they're being discreet and playfighting and giggling at each other's joke like they're the most hilarious person that ever lived and smiling sweetly when they see the other has replied to their text and being so fucking cute in Aleksi's twitch streams without Olli even physically being there and getting engaged for real and just 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

Of course there are soooooooooo many moments over the years that I also want to mention but can't really pinpoint in the timeline, such as all the clothes/accessory-sharing and adopting each other's style (cuffed jeans and tucked-in shirts) and the wine drinking while listening to soft music and cuddling in meet-and-greet pictures and looking so happy about it too and in general always sitting/standing next to each other in pictures ("but they don't always--" YES they do always, don't even fight me about this 😤), the evidence is right there in front of your own two eyeballs if only you choose to see it and live like a king the way we do here in the Olli/Allu Delulu Land ✨

Finally, let me do a random photo dump to further illustrate my point if you're not yet convinced for some reason (and to reach the 30 pictures per post limit) 💖

(sorry for no sources, if this is the reason I go to jail I'm going happily)