#look at these scene cuts they are always at the exact same time they're basically the same gif over and over but not

[lock-my-feelings-in-a-jar]

[batsplat]

hi! I don’t know if this is the type of question you’d like to answer, but I was thinking about how being born in the same year would have affected valentino and marc’s careers (as in both born 1979). would they or could they have started in the same year? would they be teammates at honda, and if so, would valentino still make the switch to yamaha? how does this affect rivalries with other riders? I just think it’s interesting to think about!

it sure is interesting to think about!! tossing it under the cut because this gets long and kinda dumb

well, look, let's set some basic conditions here. first of all, obviously we don't know if 1979-born marc reaches the same level of success because of how the sport changes over time, everything is super circumstantial, what even is 'talent' bla bla bla (kinda the stuff I talk about here). he can't use his signature riding style on those bikes, demands of the bikes are different, competitive ladders are different, local motorcycling scene is different, etc etc etc... hey, by the same token, maybe he'd be even more successful and would never lose a race. we're going to throw out all that nitpick-y shit and assume that he makes it to the top of the sport. we're also going to assume that marc and valentino are both able to compete with each other on relatively equal terms and go from there. we'll obviously never know either way, but this is the most fun way to approach it, like obviously either 'marc wins zero titles' and 'marc wins ten consecutive titles' are deeply unsatisfying outcomes... I do think you can get fun and nerdy into figuring out how exactly their respective strengths and weaknesses as riders compare, what their title fights might look like, the nitty gritty of which tracks they'd beat each other at... but I reckon this post is probably long enough as it is, so I've mostly skipped over those bits. they both win some titles, that's what we're going with

the precociousness question is interesting because, again, obviously marc's development timeline would inevitably look at least somewhat different in this universe. would he start grand prix racing a little later? would he need a little longer to adapt to those 500cc bikes than he does to motogp bikes? who knows. let's just play this the most simple, straightforward way possible and again assume he hits his early career milestones at the exact same rate - most importantly, of course winning the premier class title as a 20 year old rookie. it's an editorial choice that lets us skip to the fun stuff

so, the fun stuff. let's compare and contrast their journeys to the premier class:

top row is ages, bottom row is years in this timeline, the cells indicate championship positions, the colours indicate class (green = 125cc; blue = 250cc; lavender (?) = 500cc)

this actually works out quite nicely! they're not even really encroaching on each other's titles at this stage. if you really want to get into 1998 lore, obviously that title becomes way more complicated... aprilia is the strongest team, they had that 'super team' set up already filled up, do they supply four guys? is marc somewhere else? does valentino have worse machinery in that year? one of the two other guys? who knows, and also this feels like maybe a tangent for another day. let's assume they're both competitive here, and then it doesn't really matter so much if valentino ends up p3 in that championship - crucially, he still needed a big chunk of that season to adapt to the bike

so then! let's start with this time period, and rattle through some random thoughts about what the competitive landscape looks like pre-2001:

if marc is that good that early, he kinda hogs up a lot of the limelight. some folks took a bit of a punt on valentino in 1996 to get him into gp racing - yes, there were already signs of something special, but it was still all a bit more uncertain

so valentino is basically always in the position where he's hunting marc... he's constantly a step behind

now, it's actually possible to wager a good guess at how he reacts to that! the answer is 'not great': when he was constantly asked about biaggi, whether he was the biaggi of 125cc and all that, he came out with the line that biaggi would dream of being the valentino rossi of 250cc. in this timeline, I don't think the biaggi thing completely goes away because that's still italy's darling... but the first point of comparison would always be marc. and valentino unsurprisingly doesn't enjoy always being second best

of course, they do have enough overlap in the lower categories that they do actually get to fight each other on-track. 1996!valentino was, as he describes it, "an absolute pest". even though he only finished in ninth in the standings, he did get a win and was often in the front-running group, so let's say they do have a few on-track run in's during 125cc. chuck those two together as seventeen year olds, and this sounds like *checks notes* a bit of a health hazard. there is a genuine argument to be made that valentino is worse at this stage - from oxley's reference book about france 1996: "valentino was once again in the mix at paul ricard, ducking and diving in the midst of a leading group that numbered up to 16 riders, but he was riding harder than ever, using all the kerbs and then some and occasionally kicking out at rivals with his knees and elbows"

marc likes to respond to aggression by one-upping his rivals, so this feels like it just goes wrong. several times. while they're still in 125cc. also, marc is mostly winning that year, which really lights up valentino. if anything, he'd probably be even more motivated during those years, because now he's got someone to chase and someone he would just love to piss off

let's say marc still narrowly misses out on a rookie 250cc title in large part due to injury. they spend a year together in that class too, where valentino is doing a lot of learning - but is a frontrunner basically from the word go - and marc is going for the title properly now. they have a lot of intense annoyingly tactical battles this year, plenty of dramatic last lap battles, and it takes valentino around half the season until he starts winning some of these (irl, he won one of the first ten races of the season and then the last four - and also crashes a lot. marc was the class of the field)

this is the year in which marc is just... a lot. plenty of controversy!! practise crashes! back of the grid penalties! and if marc does stuff like 'trying to run his rival off-track', there is a bit of a risk valentino attempts to one-up him here. they are both starting to get real reputations, and valentino's probably gets worse by association lol

then marc heads off to the premier class. valentino dominates his 250cc title, but he's being overshadowed by marc doing the thing. which means he will be extremely fired up once he gets to the premier class himself... which might not actually help him. too much exuberance on those 500cc bikes sounds like a recipe for painful crashes

let's assume marc dominates the first half of that season and it takes valentino a while to get going. the second half is more competitive when valentino finally clicks with the 500cc's and marc starts making more errors... setting up what's to come

let's also say marc immediately gets to the repsol honda team because they really want the next big thing and the contract situation is different from when valentino joins a year later - whereas valentino still gets a shell satellite team set up for himself in 2000. he's still obviously highly rated by honda and they still give him doohan's old crew and presumably quite heavy factory backing... but there's also not quite the same urgency in the succession planning. you kinda want to sign the kid so nobody else gets him, right, and he did beat marc a few times at the end of 1998... who knows who ends up turning out better, yeah? but at the end of the day, marc is still Plan A and he seems to be working out pretty well for them

this is all well and good, but obviously a rivalry is a bit more than just a general vibe and on-track incidents and a list of results. so, my general thesis for how this relationship goes is that it kinda oscillates between 'pretty good vibes!!' and 'breaks your geiger counter'. this goes in cycles of about 2-3 years, becomes a lovely soap opera for the paddock to follow. so let’s say for instance that they go through a rough patch in 1998, and then again in 2001, and then again 2003-04, and so on…. then you get marc’s injury years and from then on it gets proper messy

so, here's a stab on what the interpersonal vibes look like during the early years:

valentino embraces the underdog position. you get this with the biaggi stuff but also you get it throughout his career... he actually likes it! he's so much about surprising people, subverting expectations, proving them wrong... he thrives in the role where everyone thinks marc is going to be the next big thing and dominate the sport for fifty years

he does also have the potential to be a major thorn in marc's side, especially if the title fight is as close as marc's canonical 125cc title was. but they do run into the same problem here that they unfortunately will always run into: they get on as people! their chemistry has never actually been an issue. back then, you'd also get more like... socialisation in the paddock... it's a bit more casual, less professionalised, they hang out more and are teenagers and are both young and annoyingly good and eventually get to that irritating 'you're the only bitch in this house I respect' thing

valentino is still very good at making marc laugh, and seems to find marc funny too so. that's a thing. marc canonically glomps onto a very small number of people, and he's already shown in real life one of those people can absolutely be valentino. we all know what we're here for and it's the most BORING outcome if they're just indifferent towards each other. but why would marc be! of course, he's completely taken in by the super talented charming rival who is actually willing to match his viciousness step for step. he wants to fight valentino forever and ever

marc does really want to be friends... once he knows valentino he decides he really likes him... sometimes he's a bit oblivious to how tough he's making valentino's life, sometimes he's wilfully disinterested... valentino is sucked in a little bit in spite of himself, though I still reckon valentino's cynicism about friendships with rivals was learned over time (hey ho sete). at the start, valentino is happy enough to be friends with his close rivals, and really it's only later that all those subconscious issues of keeping rivals at arms' length develop. he's there to have fun! it might be vicious on-track, but it's a party off-track!

and he thinks it'll totally be fine!! he's not adverse to chatting up rivals and trying to get a sense of how they tick for future reference... some of the stuff marc does bothers him, but it's not like he can immediately even articulate why. and it is tough, with how marc has long been the chosen boy... just how brutal marc gets when valentino gets close to beating him... and usually valentino reacts Just Fine to that, but he does file it all away for future reference, because he sure doesn't think marc is reacting that way to just anyone on-track...? and then sometimes marc is perceived as a real rival, sometimes he just makes valentino uncomfortable, and valentino suddenly remembers that Actually, this is a Work Relationship. in general valentino runs very hot and cold with marc, in a way that does make sense according to his internal logic but can get very confusing to anyone else, not least marc

the slight mismatch between their rates of progression also gives you these gap years where they're not directly competing... and valentino is really coming into his own in 1997. so, yes, valentino is constantly chasing marc from a competitive standpoint... but marc is watching valentino's celebrations and thinks they're just like. the best thing ever. accidental valentino rossi fan, poor soul. a big fan of the hairstyles and will enthusiastically defend them to any critics, including that one time when one of his parents made a derogatory remark about the green hair

what if they're proper friends in 1997 (age eighteen) and hung out and gone to parties together and gotten drunk and have just become Real Actual Teenage Friends while they're not racing each other... when marc gets his diplopia, what if valentino is kinda freaked by this, he'd been planning to get to 250cc to beat marc's ass next year... what if he goes to visit marc, what then...

still, this is probably around the time when valentino first says mildly annoying stuff about marc to the press (going by the biaggi precedent), which is how you set up them really going at it in 1998. it gets vicious... but also, they're young, they do kinda get over it, and then marc progresses to the premier class and they can just socialise normally again... all the while, valentino is watching what marc is doing and thinking about just how badly he wants to beat marc

valentino's rookie campaign in the premier class is also fine - because valentino is too busy adapting to the bike, marc is dominating, and traditionally those are not the circumstances in which valentino picks his fights. they have a lot of fun here together, and they're both very generous about each other's successes. marc is so impressive, I can't compare myself to him yet, valentino's adapting so well to the premier class, he'll definitely be fighting for titles soon, etc etc. fair fights (by their definition of 'fair', anyway) and them both being really complimentary towards each other afterwards. everyone who wanted beef is disappointed and disgusted, but at least you've still got the vale/biaggi thing going on in the background (btw marc also for SURE would've picked a fight with biaggi in 1999, so they can bond over that and pointedly chat to each other in pressers while ignoring biaggi)

valentino's ability to make marc laugh is particularly lethal in this year, because valentino’s struggling just enough that maybeeeee marc is being suckered just a little into thinking he’ll always have valentino covered. so he can just let himself have fun with valentino without feeling too threatened... this sets up the title fight in the following year being a complete and utter nightmare… late 2000 is already ringing a few alarm bells when marc’s results start getting messier and valentino is clearly finally properly getting to grips with the 500cc bikes (first dry race win late that year). oh well! I'm sure their relationship will survive just fine!

and then... well, again, super conveniently, valentino's first premier class title at age 22 matches up with... you know. marc's 2015

let’s just say marc does suffer a bit of head loss when he encounters his first real challenge in the sport, when there’s finally a bit of real adversity after so much success. valentino wins the first few races while marc has some patchier results, and then marc kinda tries too hard to close the gap - and then, whoops, he’s gone too far and he’s left himself with too much work to do. I did run the maths for their average points at xyz age just to have a rough measure of how the seasons compare… as in how valentino’s compare to valentino’s and marc’s compare to marc’s, because any comparison between the two is completely meaningless, very different competitive pictures. that being said, fun fact: biaggi actually scores slightly more average points per race in 2001 than marc does in 2015. still, I don’t really believe you can get marc to sepang 2015 that title fight, just isn't close enough… the marc/valentino relationship does still sour, but it’s because you get an assen equivalent... valentino wins in a slightly dubious manner, and marc doesn't react well... after which valentino goes ‘aha so it’s all right until I’m winning, yeah?’

valentino in this timeline has just like. such a massive victim complex. helps fire him up that everyone’s constantly underrating him NOBODY believed he could ever take on marc (this is mostly not true). the way the assen 2015 equivalent plays out is not just ‘what a sore loser’ but also ‘MARC NEVER BELIEVED I WAS GOING TO BE A SERIOUS THREAT AND THIS PROVES IT’. it’s like… deeply insulting to valentino and also triggers the bit of valentino’s brain where he has to prove everyone, most of all marc, wrong. that's how you get the interpersonal hurt! valentino fully believes marc has switched up towards him and can't handle any version of their rivalry where marc doesn't have the upper hand. and marc does need some time to get over it and maybe he did write off valentino just a teensy bit but also... this is just how he competes... he thinks of a lot of things as 'fair game' that others don't... and he does also view valentino differently when he's a real competitor, so valentino isn't even completely wrong... marc does react badly to losing for the first time... but it's also more complicated than that, because marc is genuinely fond of valentino and really does want to put all that aside when the title fight is over again, except valentino thinks marc has shown his true colours. whips this controversy out later on in the season as he has a habit of doing, presumably when there's not even really any title fight impetus because that's been mostly wrapped up. (which would be a bit unusual for him but, hey, he's young and silly, he doesn't start feuds in Sensible Ways back then.) so they just kinda both end up escalating it and making it ugly, and by the end of the year it's all a mess. without any competitive justification... it's a bit argentina 2018 vibes, like there's not really any point to it apart from how they both drive each other insane occasionally. big public controversy. nobody wins here!

my guess is that the general pattern of this relationship is that it’s fine any time marc has a clear edge, and devolves every time valentino challenges him. this isn’t necessarily because I think marc throws a fit every time he’s challenged - it’s primarily because valentino prefers to attack from a position of strength. basically, if you want to get something proper nasty from him, you either need to get him with his back against the wall where he reckons blowing shit up is his best choice… or you wait until he has the upper hand, at which point he attempts to press home his advantage. bite harder when the opponent is already bleeding, if you will. a big believer in being a mean winner over being a sore loser, valentino is, and you do see this trait at various stages of his career. also, mostly there has to be a competitive justification to start drama? if he can't fight properly on-track, then why bother? so at times, it’s all civil on the surface when he’s on the back foot… but when he’s on top or close to the top, then the knives really come out. incidentally, this is one of the reasons why irl he was relatively restrained with marc post-2015 (look, I’m aware it might not seem like that but he definitely was way less indiscriminate with the snide jibes lobbed at some of his other rivals than he was with marc). there was never a situation where it really felt worth it with marc, and it’s just… a better look to have a go at your opponent when you’re winning, right? in this alternate timeline, there absolutely are times when valentino feels like it’s worth it... first premier class title is still baby valentino who isn't really deliberately picking fights and is more genuinely hurt by what he believes is marc playing dirty, so it's all less deliberate and calculating. but from then on you do see this pattern a lot I reckon

in terms of fallout, obviously you’d have to assume their popularity would be at least a little more balanced - and at the very least there’d be more national loyalty from the spanish here (boo!! vale!! at!! jerez!!) BUT valentino is just very good at the charm offensive… all the quirky celebrations, plus everyone loves an underdog who takes on the big bad dominant athlete of the time… idk, I reckon he might still get the love of the masses. if their relationship completely deteriorates in 2001, that feels like disproportionately it gets uglier for marc. but it's too much for both of them!! valentino gets a bit spooked in a way he didn't irl after the biaggi rivalry… he really did like marc and against biaggi he did just end up being everyone's sweetheart ridwe in a way he can't quite pull off against another young star… and it's just all so polarising! the factionalism takes valentino aback a bit - I still think it's worse for marc, but valentino goes. hey. this isn't fun any more :(

and oh, by the way, valentino switches to repsol honda for the 2002 season

everybody is extremely hype to see what the two do to each other as teammates, Will They Murder Each Other, but they are initially disappointed… contrary to popular perception, valentino is in fact capable of biding his time, and he goes into that season deciding it’s in his interest to Not have any more drama - which marc broadly agrees with him on. this detente doesn’t last long, obviously, but I feel like this is the time period where they're both a bit more settled, a bit more consistent, less susceptible to complete head loss, can really go at it in the championship... you get a couple close title fights here I reckon, ones where they're trying not to reawaken the feud between each other but... hey, let's say they actually have a crash where they take each other out (the one thing they canonically did not get to do!!) while fighting for position. massively try to downplay it afterwards, they're both hard racers after all :))) but everyone kinda knows it's only so long until this goes badly again. except at the same time they're kinda forcibly exposed to each other a lot in their capacity as teammates and they remember how they were actually Friends and the line between pretending to enjoy each other's company and not pretending is blurred... and the initial drama wasn't as bad as sepang 2015 (also helps valentino that he won the equivalent title in this timeline lol) and valentino knows he's going to see so much of this guy... he's someone who doesn't want to spend much of his life in awkward silences... they're kinda destined to be rivals forever and ever and they're also teammates and there was way too much drama... so actually they do get back to a friendly jokey place... is it sincere? is it not? who knows (not them)

dealer's choice who wins these two titles. we can chuck in one of those where valentino wins the major on-track battles but then marc wins the title fairly comfortably or something... valentino would really relish those fights lbr, even when they don't alter the momentum of the season as much as he'd like. maybe they do get a super close title fight for flavour, one where they're both actually consistent and the big on-track battles do make a difference in terms of momentum and all that stuff. crucially! they still have FUN fighting each other! that's the key thing... plus, they have that annoying vibe where they think they're the only guys who can match each other... there's that mutual understanding that's built in the heat of battle, like they're the only one who really gets what the other is all about, nobody else can... if anything, marc is forced to respect valentino even more now that vale has actually managed to beat him over the course of a full season at least once. biaggi is still a personal antagonist for valentino, but even irl he does very much fade as a threat after the first title fight - and it's all kinda defanged by marc's presence. how borderline obsessed valentino ends up with marc. maybe biaggi still ends up being the real title threat in 2001 after marc nukes his hopes early that year, maybe you still have some of that canonical vale/biaggi drama, but by the end of that year it really is more about marc and THEIR whole thing

brief interlude for a list of jibes valentino likes throwing at marc on a semi-regular basis as he gets better at using the media:

inconsistent stewarding: easy one. valentino was canonically an absolute menace in his early days, but by the time they compete in 250cc I’m sure there’s some mildly phrased insinuations that marc really seems to be getting off lightly with his penalties. valentino isn’t as skilled a media operator back in those days - but with marc’s hit rate of controversial incidents, it’s just incredibly low hanging fruit. valentino picks it with ease

Stop Asking Me About Marc: see the biaggi of 125cc thing. valentino gets sick of being constantly compared to marc! he's his own girl! it's what prompts the first insults he lobs in marc's direction, and it becomes a bit of a running theme. it's not even that anti-marc, but the more sick he gets of The Narrative the more implicitly anti-marc it becomes (marc, who's a lot more into the idea that they're Eternal Rivals, doesn't start drama over what valentino says but it just makes him a bit sad :( like HE doesn't have any problem being compared with valentino Actually)

‘woe be on me for taking on Big Honda’: listen, irl obviously valentino was increasingly annoyed in 2003 when both sete and biaggi argued he had the better bike than them because he was in the factory team. irl that ‘satellite team’ of his in 2000-01 barely was an independent outfit. still, would he have hesitated in 2001 to remind people that his number one rival was decked in repsol honda colours and he wasn't? well, probably not. just rhetorical positioning, right - he’s not even attacking marc, he’s just politely questioning whether honda really would prefer the satellite team to win the title and whether that might not have an influence on what bike parts they’re sending to which riders… just mentioning it! just reminding everyone of what an underdog he is! in case anyone had forgotten!

unequal treatment: this type of thing probably wouldn’t stop when valentino switches to the repsol honda squad. also probably would be justified lol - we’ll get to this in a second, but if he's facing a marc who has had time to make this team his own and is going to fight to keep it that way? yeah, hm. the way this works is that marc is waging most of this war behind the scenes and valentino, who'd be constantly on the back foot in this scenario given it never would have really been his team, is repeatedly taking it public. doesn't work particularly well beyond making marc's life more unpleasant - the public takes valentino's side, honda doesn't

'someone doesn’t like a challenge :((': again, the assen 2015 equivalent, where valentino points out their relationship was just fine until he started seriously challenging marc. young!vale doesn’t really have a reputation for being a particularly nasty competitor, especially if the biaggi feud is defanged just a little… so I reckon he could actually pull this off quite nicely. marc does rub a lot of people the wrong way, even without the valentino factor! he's so obviously rough and ruthless and so committed to winning that valentino can easily play victim here

'marc races me differently': basically the silverstone 2016 thing... it's not really something valentino complains about once they're through the 2001 title fight, and there is the understanding that this behaviour is kinda mutual - but valentino does occasionally throw in a snide remark. just to remind everyone that marc treats him differently!! he's extra aggressive with vale!! of course valentino is totally fine and chill with it, just wanted to remind everyone. in case they'd forgotten. just. a. reminder.

of course, there's also another major issue: the unique stresses of the teammate dynamic. here's the big question - does the switch of valentino to yamaha still happen? yeah, sure! I think he could well get flighty. marc would be the established guy within honda and someone that valentino would never be able to completely displace. plus a lot of valentino’s canonical complaints do still hold, about how honda doesn’t care who’s winning as long as it’s a honda, the stifling culture of winning, the joylessness… marc wouldn’t leave honda unless he absolutely has to because he loves that team, that's his home in a way it never is for valentino. but he is also obviously an absolutely awful teammate to have and, bit of a hot take here, when it comes to the development war stuff he kinda is worse than valentino. so you've got marc ensuring vale's input into the development process is constantly ignored, marc's entire team attempting to isolate valentino within honda, and he never does manage to ruin valentino's title hopes entirely, but inevitably the internal war is one valentino never comes particularly close to winning. in real life valentino sticks it out in repsol honda for a grand total of two years, aka the length of one contract cycle, which sounds about right for the length of time that team would survive until they do just start attempting to strangle each other. so vale goes to yamaha! this would not be a pretty divorce, and it would be even more obscenely risky than in real life, flat out insane from valentino. irl people think he's kinda crazy for doing it, in this universe people would think he's just an idiot. how on earth is he planning to beat the marc marquez on a yamaha?

interpersonally, the yamaha switch is. not good vibes. valentino has spent an entire year implying he feels imprisoned in a team with marc (LOVE brno 2003 in this universe), and marc finds this move a) baffling, and b) kinda loser behaviour because valentino can’t handle taking him on in the same team, so he’s essentially conceding the fight to marc. this dynamic is basically two years of marc attempting to bully valentino behind the scenes, trying to make his life hell, just endlessly gnawing away at him, and then valentino's like 'right lads I'm out' and marc goes :( why would you do this :(( I'm losing my main rival :(( I thought you were better than this :( I thought we had something special :(. for valentino, yes partly he's throwing a fit because he knows honda would never choose him over marc, partly it's justifiable frustration at being stuck in very much The Marc Team, but partly it's also kinda... not really fun for him... he does actually want his team to care about him... but honda doesn't care... so that's that

now, realistically, in this timeline marc has zero right to be losing to valentino in 2004 - not with that bike disparity. maybe if he loses his head completely! that’s… hm, 2018!marc, who we know did have some capacity for head loss. if marc builds up an early advantage while the yamaha is still at its dodgiest, it should theoretically be game over. if he does something silly… hey, who knows. that one’s a fun one psychologically because obviously marc would be the overwhelming favourite that year and valentino can completely embrace the underdog role. I do also reckon whoever wins this one, you can have a real big proper falling out either towards the start or maybe even towards the end of the season. it's all more serious now, somehow... being at honda together meant it just kinda felt like they'd be exchanging titles, honda didn't mind who won - but now both manufacturers are super into it, the press is even more into it, they're more into it... it's personal! they both have a point to prove! maybe marc dropped a few kinda mind games-y comments towards the end of their time together that he doesn't get why valentino felt like he had to leave, that it's not really what a rider does when they think they can win in a fair fight, kinda implying maybe valentino thinks he's already won enough titles and knows he isn't beating marc again anyway. valentino responds in a sane and proportionate manner (bottling it all up and then using any controversy that happens the following year to just unleash on marc). let's say marc wins that title (and valentino gets second place just ahead of sete), but valentino wins a big dramatic fight late that season, and there's some kind of justification for him to really lay into marc, to set off the feud all over again... all sets up their title fight the next year, of course

irl this is when they're both at their very best (2005/2019 respectively), so they get to be at their very best here too. in the name of balance, maybe you should let valentino have this one... or maybe not, swap these titles around at will. but if he DID, then he obviously builds that title charge around a big dramatic victory against marc early in the season on spanish soil. it feels lazy to just copy paste jerez 2005 and valentino being booed to this scenario, but let's assume marc does have his canonical early season crash at a friendly track (á la cota 2019) and that valentino does get that big victory at... hm, catalunya (ik, switching jerez for that is very creative) (but at least he can't get skittled by jorge lorenzo in this timeline). and the win is in somewhat controversial fashion and national partisanship is at a high here... canonically, valentino gets more aggressive in his racing during his switch to yamaha out of necessity, though in this world I imagine he would've already gone more extreme earlier while trying to match marc. they both kinda have to be careful to not go... too far, constantly flirting with the limit, exploring how much they can get away with, but they do have a duel here where they really push it. cause some controversy. give the season the right vibe (x)

no misano on the calendar unfortunately for an equivalent marc being booed moment, and I actually quite like the idea they both keep their respective mugello and sachsenring streaks (so no booing a victorious marc at mugello). each of which isn't the favourite track of the other, though vale in particular has had some great sachsenring scraps... and valentino's margin over the field at mugello is way smaller than marc's equivalent margin at sachsenring. but again, mugello's not really a fantastic marc track, and even without facing prime!valentino he didn't win after 2014, so it feels reasonable valentino could still get a bunch of consecutive wins there. I reckon we give marc a donington park victory, which was basically like valentino's second home race and a track valentino did really like. plus the british fans are canonically absolutely out of their minds so it works. the way the timeline works out that would unfortunately steal one of valentino's most iconic wins, but let's not overthink this eh

let's say their interpersonal relationship is actually slightly on the mend again after the nadir of the previous year, but the public has never been more divided... this is basically what everyone had wanted, right? the competition and the racing has never been better bla bla, they're nicely contrasting characters who are both happy to play dirty, and they give the press a lot to work with. (there are also a vocal minority who despise them both for being 'dangerous assholes' but what can you do.) hey, maybe they actually manage a season where they're the only two guys to win races, that would be kinda cool - and if you look at 2005/2019, surely it is possible... (I suppose sete is a bit more competitive here at least than he was irl because valentino has had the decency not to crush his soul.) narratively, of course it's a bit too neat to let them have this showdown just before it goes to shit for both of them, but they're the type of guys to make things narratively pleasing so I'll allow it. two nations divided, plenty of sniping at each other in the press, but #realfans will note they actually start meeting each other's gaze again in pressers and even manage to shake hands... let's say valentino does most of the points damage early that season, bites at marc from a position of strength (or something) to create a bit of a buffer, before running a bit of a defensive campaign, while marc is gradually ramping up the sheer levels of on-track terrorism. valentino does not remember the last time he had an fp2 session where he didn't have a honda-related jump scare. bless

anyway, listen, I don't really care about the order of these titles, beyond it being more fun for our purposes here if they're more or less balanced (though I do think it's neat if valentino is always kinda stuck chasing marc). they never get quite to the same relationship lows of sepang 2015 because, well, you needed a lot of very specific circumstances to get there irl - and I do think them being peers and being more familiar with each other does help... there's also no real power imbalance, or certainly not as extreme. plus, they're kinda aware from early on that they're stuck with each other. they're primed to spend their entire careers as rivals, like it or not! (I imagine valentino would very much Not like that at times.) they are both deeply pragmatic a lot of the time as racers, and valentino in particular would be less inclined to completely burn his bridges in this scenario I reckon. life's easier when you remain civil... and unwittingly they do keep remembering how fond they are of each other

brief interlude to ruminate on how this all actually affects them as people, vs their canon selves!

valentino never gets to be The One Guy in the sport, which does take something away from him in a way... a little less confidence, always a little more to prove. again, I do think he's quite comfortable in that underdog role and manages to make it his own. he's not as popular, he's not singlehandedly breathing new life into the sport... but on the other hand, what do people love more than a great rivalry? people would have gone crazy over them both, and valentino would've taken full advantage, turned them both into even bigger stars... still, there's a little more insecurity in there over his own abilities than there is irl where he was the single lord and master of the sport for years

the thing about marc is that so much of who he is as a racer feels to some extent influence or inspired by valentino that it's kinda tough to imagine who he is without that. then again, having valentino as a peer does allow valentino to still exert some of that influence (if obviously in a different way). they'd learn a lot from each other, at the end of the day - and even if marc doesn't hero worship valentino... he can still think vale's really cool... it's not star struck, but it's maybe a little bit star struck - given valentino is just so different to anyone else marc has ever come across

the power dynamic does change how they both approach the interpersonal relationship too... irl!valentino does really like adjusting his interpersonal warmth settings to what exactly he's attempting to accomplish in any given rivalry at any given point (even though, again, he's not that deliberate with it from the start of his career). but he's also less likely to completely freeze marc out... not for long, not forever. they basically do the 2016-18 cycle several times because they're competitive enough for long enough to be able to do that shit. warm with each other before there's another big fight, again and again

you do flip the dynamic a little bit in that valentino is the one to shape himself in response to marc a bit now... always chasing, perhaps a note of envy, perhaps some resentment of marc's role in the sport... perhaps also wishing he could get some independence, some freedom from marc and this joint legacy (also helps motivate the switch to yamaha). marc is way more into that shared legacy lbr, but they are both the types to get themselves nicely fired up over an enemy... so consciously or subconsciously they do play up that feud at times when it suits them competitively

no sepang 2015 trauma for marc! this valentino stuff might be bad, but it would never be that bad. he's a bit more happy to pick fights! a bit more happy to do his psychological warfare in the open! a little more openly annoying! less worried about how he's being perceived! more willing to meet valentino head on! let the man have some fun

okay. misery town... 2006

so, look, obviously we're applying some artistic license again here if we're keeping both the arm injury and valentino's dramatic last round loss. like, if you really want to get into it, valentino needs to lose the championship to someone and in this universe there's no seat available in repsol honda in 2003 so do you put hayden somewhere else within honda... but after that rookie season does honda still have enough faith to actually promote him... also does it make a difference if he doesn't have valentino there to directly give him advice... also, dani would PROBABLY just be promoted directly to the factory team in 2006... like idk I do feel this universe might kill nicky hayden's career and valentino should reallyyyyyy win this title. but like. fuck it. who cares. there's also a more abstract argument to be made about how irl!valentino does feel that he left something on the table in 2006 (personally I think it's one of his most impressive seasons but sure, I do get what he's saying) - but surely you wouldn't be 'complacent' in the same way if you hadn't won the last five titles? but again. nobody cares. let's assume they both still have broadly the same year they had irl, partly because there is something.... pleasing? sad? about how the ages DO actually match up here in terms of when their domination of the sport kinda collapses (if to completely different degrees). which would be a massive shock for the sport, right! both of those things irl are already a big shock, but if you have two super dominant forces you would kinda assume one of them would be able to pick up the pieces in any given year, even if the other falters? especially if 2005 was like, this ultra dominant season from the pair of them! but no, suddenly they're both diminished, maybe it is possible for someone else to actually win a title

(another 'fun' coincidence is that jerez is actually the season opener for the very last time in 2006... until 2020. so you can directly layer these races onto each other rather nicely, with valentino's first corner crash and marc's gravel excursion happening at jerez, two early disasters they're attempting to recover from before marc's crash)

on this year:

not really MUCH to say about it on-track if we're assuming it broadly plays out the same...

idk, guess it's about how you want to interpret their relationship. does valentino give marc a call? does he have an aneurysm watching marc attempting to race the following week in *checks notes* qatar? does he get quite stressed out about how cavalier marc is with his own safety, because unfortunately he does care about the guy? does he feel like he's missed his big chance to exploit marc's absence? does the press give him a lot of flak for this? any more insecurities to work through here?

hey, at least there isn't a pandemic in this universe

the thing is, right, if you've spent your entire racing career hunting down this one guy, who's always a step ahead of you, using him as a way to motivate yourself - so much spite, as ever, with valentino to get himself going - and then he just disappears... like they've been sharing the paddock for ten years, for valentino's entire grand prix career. his first memorable battles were against him, he was watching marc win titles in a higher category than vale, then this gradually escalating rivalry with more and more history and hatred and genuine friendship... you kinda inevitably end up defining yourself by the other, right? you can't avoid being shaped by that relationship, by that competitive push and pull. without quite the same interpersonal breakdown... well, valentino is someone who loves to hate his enemies. like, he does enjoy the animosity! he enjoys sniping at his rivals! he enjoys fighting them flat out on the track and off it! and if marc is suddenly gone, he's left feeling bereft. he doesn't get WHY, but he misses him...

marc starts getting long phone calls from valentino where he goes on increasingly incoherent rants about whatever aspect of the sport has annoyed him today. marc doesn't understand what's going on but he's not going to complain. it's a nice distraction

on to 2007! so, obviously the honda in 2007 is better than the honda in 2021, and irl dani does actually end up outscoring valentino by one point (after valentino attempted to ride in valencia with a broken hand and immediately had a mechanical dnf lol). (also idk what to do with the honda situation, let's pretend like honda panicked and created a three man team.) I'm gonna go ahead and say that this version of marc would get considerably better results than 2021!marc, but is not getting particularly close to winning that title. maybe he finishes fourth in the championship idk. he's missing races, honda's definitely not on ducati's level that year, honda/yamaha are still on the michelins at a time when the bridgestones are very much the tyre to be on

one rider who is guaranteed to insert himself into that rivalry in any timeline is, of course, casey stoner. now, casey does get a bit of a grace period from having to deal with marc... marc is absent for his rookie season and is still preoccupied with his injury afterwards. mostly, this is valentino’s problem… but also!! marc can multi-task. so you know how casey complained about valentino hazing him in practise sessions in 2006? and you know how marc would make himself a nuisance in 2019 when following around rookie fabio during quali? and how he followed around his new yamaha hire and rival vinales in pre-season testing in 2017 on a fact finding mission? and how irritated casey was when elias kept following him in successive races in 2007 (see here)? and how much marc was using this tactic post-2020, including by repeatedly picking on new big name pecco? how he generally does this in quite a targeted manner against his main rivals? and how he also tends to do it more when he knows it'll piss people off? so, let’s put all of those things together. how do we think that plays out?

this is why I reckon that despite how casey is nominally fighting valentino for the title, somehow you’d manage to have more open hostilities between casey and marc. again, remember how the casey/vale dynamic went irl: yes, casey was increasingly pissed off by the end of 2007 because he thought valentino wasn’t as nice to him any more and was also annoying in the press about him. but like, relatively speaking… this is still all quite small scale stuff. valentino mostly just does some wink wink nudge nudge stuff to the press that gets back to casey and annoys him because he thinks it’s contributing to an overall unfair narrative about his title… but it’s all still fairly subtle. valentino waits until laguna the following year to go all in, where he completely changes up his on-track tactics and - once he’s got his big win - he really makes sure to rub it in. there's a clear competitive justification for the laguna escalation, but his baseline level of on-track aggression with casey is relatively restrained until that point

by contrast, in this universe you get at least three or four incidents that year where casey extensively complains marc and marc just does the equivalent of a thumbs up (or a literal thumbs up, as he has been known to do). valentino determinedly stays out of it but probably silently enjoys it. by virtue of the negative effect marc and valentino have on each other, racing standards are really not at casey stoner acceptable levels at this time. casey doesn't enjoy valentino's media whisper campaign, but the marc stuff broadly bothers him more... in the races, outside of the races... irl valentino sort of retreated and regrouped late 2007, early 2008 and was less focused on fighting casey, more focused on exerting pressure on yamaha and figuring out the tyre switch he'd forced through. marc does NOT have a title fight to worry about and can instead dedicate himself to making a nuisance of himself. the thing is, casey is generally more inclined to expressing his annoyance through the media than on-track (unless he literally punches you, which he has of course done), so that's probably one of those weirdly one-sided situations where marc does drive casey absolutely insane but also doesn't really talk about it publicly while casey. does

all that being said, I don't really see any reason why casey wouldn't still win that 2007 title pretty handily, which brings us on to 2008. marc goes off halfway through to get his arm fixed, so no tricky title fight questions there. MY main question is whether he mimics valentino in switching to bridgestones. (irl!dani was still on michelins for like. most of the season until they pissed him off so bad he made the switch, which basically made a bunch of riders copy him and kinda brought about the single tyre era lol.) I think he does! bit awkward with michelin (as it was for valentino), but I reckon he'd also subscribe to the principle of wanting to take on his rivals on equal footing - and even if the tyres don't make as much of a difference as valentino says, at least everyone's in the same boat. so maybe that already kinda kills off the michelins at the start of 2008... and it's almost an act of silent solidarity, like marc has had an on and off enough 2007 that he's not fully on top of where he can make the michelins work and where he can't, and honda's telling him to stick with what he's got, but he's looked at what valentino's doing and gone. eh. if he can't do it then maybe it is a better idea to switch, so it's like an unspoken way of showing that he does kinda trust valentino's judgement... (I'm aware the two people still reading this likely don't give a shit about this, but I swear the tyre thing was a big enough deal that it does have major characterisation repercussions.) so valentino takes that title. you kinda assume marc would have considerably better results on that honda, certainly doesn't just have a single podium, hopefully gets a win somewhere. who knows

I do however have one specific suggestion for 2022-inspired drama

marc takes out defending champion and eventual 2008 runner-up casey lap one of his comeback race. valentino sends him flowers

brief interlude to talk about rivals!

again, think the main thing with biaggi is that it just takes a bit of attention away from the whole thing... the feud still happens because it's a rivalry between two italians that gets a lot of press hype, and valentino still doesn't shy away from pissing biaggi off - but there's still less of a spotlight on it. and yeah, wouldn't just be valentino who gets into some feisty exchanges with biaggi, looking at biaggi's track record

I feel bad for doing sete dirty up until now, so as the number one sete gibernau scholar currently active on this website (and quite possibly any website), I do need to address the sete question. the thing is, right, the appeal of the sete rivalry in canon is that it's kinda like. valentino fighting his internal demons. trying to figure out the honda thing. fighting sete who is a way of externalising the internal demons. inevitably, having a straightforward number one enemy and friend and rival and object of his obsessions does kinda distract from sete? who has to play the third man role in that dynamic, and finds it tougher to asset himself in any title fights (especially if we give 2004 to marc in a fairly straightforward manner)

I think sete would still have dramatic on-track battles with both of them! but it's also different if those fights don't have quite the same Implications, because the media narrative around them ends up being completely different. sete isn't being used to judge whether valentino is washed or not, basically

valentino/sete friendship saved!!!!

maybe sete wins the 2006 title for gresini in this timeline idk. sorry sete unfortunately I don't think u get cursed in this timeline :(

and now to the most important question: does casey prefer marc or valentino before he joins the premier class? so u can kinda go both ways on this... on the one hand, I think casey is more directly inspired by marc's style. also, he's a big fan of dominance, and the way this works out in my head is that marc does have more 'dominant' wins than valentino where he just comfortably gaps the field

then again... valentino does tend to go that extra step on the interpersonal stuff, is a bit friendlier with a bunch of riders including the up-and-comers, just generally more outgoing than marc is. (yes, I realise marc being more closed-off is partly the aftereffects of sepang 2015, but it's also a vibe idk. valentino is aggressively a people person, marc is charismatic but is really only interested in about four people at any given time.) plus, you've got the australian connection via valentino's crew chief, and vale probably does have a somewhat better reputation than marc in terms of being a dickhead on-track?

I reckon casey is fairly neutral on this rivalry and cites them both as inspirations in the generic sense, but does get on with valentino a touch better before they become rivals

he does end up kinda hating them both

valentino subconsciously probably does benefit from the emergence of casey as someone he can actually focus some negative energy on in marc's semi absence. gives him some fire again... gets him out of his funk... at heart he's a hater

maybe casey's relationship with valentino is a little better than irl because valentino is no longer the sole representative of everything that's wrong with the sport. like, you still get mad about laguna, right, but then you're also being crashed out by marc on the first lap of his post-injury comeback a couple of races later... like I said. he hates them both

casey already wants to unionise along age lines irl, in this universe he's lobbying for a new rule to force riders to retire at age 27

dani's a fun one, because inevitably he does kinda have a rough time of this scenario. first of all, he's not really honda's golden boy in the same way any more. you've already got marc. second of all, it's not completely implausible marc would've quietly tried and failed to block dani from joining the team at all

I actually think if you put those two respective versions of marc and dani against each other... more beef? puig surely becomes a bit of a nightmare in that team, even more than irl, constant ugly press briefings and insinuations that marc has developed this bike to shit (obviously would be ironic given what a marc... propagandist? puig became in irl post-2020 but y'know)

kinda like a worse version of the dani/hayden dynamic that's also a fusion with marc's dynamic with his post-2020 teammates, where it's just interpersonally quite cold and frigid and there's a lot of scrapping about who gets to lead the team in bike development. not ACTIVELY hostile 'let's kill each other on-track' but not really good vibes

is jorge lorenzo a marc fan in this universe? .... or. actually. is he more likely to be a proper valentino fan? canonically, the being a biaggi fan thing was a bit of contrarianism from jorge - but if you're going to be contrarian against the guy who is winning everything in this universe, it'd primarily be against marc. also, presumably a lot of his immediate circle would root for marc on the basis of national loyalty, so maybe that... could push him in valentino's direction?

on the flip side, if valentino is more popular, maybe he goes marc. god knows, maybe he'd still be a biaggi fan, but I kinda feel like this version of motogp in the noughties you have to choose a side. I think you can make a case for either direction

not that it really matters... if we're still slotting jorge into valentino's team, he was more committed to keeping that relationship respectful than with his other rivals, which.... uh. hate to say it, but I reckon you could give marc and jorge early beef too?

kinda depends, because there's only an overlap of two races where marc is back and before jorge is crashing himself to pieces in his rookie season, so he'd have to strike FAST. then again, he managed to piss off both dani and casey during that time period! he's efficient!!

still, long term jorge's number one priority remains valentino, and that's also where the more serious drama would likely originate

anyways!! one more year and then we're 'up to date'. honestly, there's no elegant way to integrate 2009 and 2023, so just do whatever really. the issue here is obviously the honda... which did have some proper gremlins in 2009, but like, normal gremlins not 2023 honda gremlins. obviously, if marc injures himself a bunch, he's not in the title fight, but presumably he's not injuring himself as much and not as reckless in frustration if he's not on that bloody murder honda. you could have him play the sepang 2015-lite role in the jorge/valentino title fight? I seem to remember the commentators at some point in 2009 saying that valentino had talked about how dani might end up playing a significant role in the title fight by way of like, taking points from the others in crucial places (something like that, I'm sure he phrased in a way that sounds less condescending). irl 2009 is a bit meh as a season apart from like. seven interesting races. (jerez le mans mugello catalunya sachsenring phillip island sepang iirc, and three of those are wet races.) so adding in extra marc marquez would probably spice up the product at least a little bit? a fit marc would presumably be in that title fight but y'know, given the yamaha was the best bike that year (apart from maybe the ducati, casey seems to think that was the best bike they ever made but who knows), maybe it still ends up being very much an intra-yamaha war. not super committed to any particular title fight scenario that season idk

and on the interpersonal relationship post-2006:

man the aliens getting involved does make it more complicated. over the course of his career, valentino generally doesn't really deliberately escalate feuds when he's not fighting someone directly for a title? of course there's a very obvious exception to this rule who is relevant here

I think to both of them it's still the Special Rivalry, even though valentino does not embrace it to the same extent as marc does. but subconsciously he still does embrace it...

they do have this fun thing where they very clearly race each other differently than they do anyone else (excepting days when valentino has something special cooked up for casey)

realistically obviously these on-track battles happen less because we are now in a dire dire era for racing that can't entirely be blamed on the riding styles of the other three aliens. but like I'm sure they still manage twice a year at least to cook up something fun

I've turned this around in my head a few times now and I... just don't really see valentino starting shit with marc during this era? and because he is a bit more the active instigator in that dynamic, but he'd be more inclined to brush off whatever shit marc is sending his way... I kinda think they'd be fine here? if anything, you might get to this slightly absurd place where it essentially mimics the 2013-14 vale/marc dynamic where they do low-key back each other up whenever a dispute rocks up. deeply confusing to anyone who has been around to see the years and years of relentless toxicity to see them repeatedly publicly agreeing like this

but like? if the other aliens (especially casey and dani) complained about marc and valentino's riding style...? hey maybe we get some good old-fashioned generational warfare, marc and valentino both going fuck them kids

also again as a baseline dynamic, they are fond of each other... they may have a lot of problems, but the interpersonal chemistry isn't one of them. if this is a period in which valentino is racking up a couple more titles and marc isn't, obviously this would be like. deeply distressing to marc. but also again I do feel you'd need two parties to escalate this feud again and I just don't think valentino would?

world peace era

kinda the question, right... irl you have 2018 as a new nadir and then the relationship edges back towards civility in 2019, minus isolated spats... and then you have enforced separation by way of covid/injury and that's kinda it for their interpersonal interactions. but in this universe, they do just... keep interacting... also they have so much more history with each other! less hero worship less active betrayal but more just them being teenagers who got drunk together a lot. they'd figure it out again imo!! it's still weird and loaded because they're both ultra competitive, but at the end of the day throwing in a bunch of other rivals into the mix makes them think about how maybe they do actually like each other a whole lot

and the injury does spook valentino... marc was suddenly gone... marc keeps hurting himself... canonically, valentino does show some real concern about marc's antics in 2012 - and okay, here valentino isn't the older one and isn't as traumatised and still believes in his own immortality a little more, but he's still not marc. and marc makes a stupid, reckless decision, and he leaves valentino... given how long they have been friends in this universe, it's just about enough of a scare that it maybe prompts valentino to reevaluate that relationship just a teensy bit? not enough to hold too firm in the face of competitive pressures, but enough to make valentino worry a little more about marc hurting himself than he's worried about marc being the biggest star in their world or their legacies being tied too closely together or whatever... and marc does infuriate him in this, but he does also care...

after this, you would have to get more creative with this universe. valentino breaks his leg, I guess. obviously, marc is not riding a satellite ducati. does valentino still go to ducati in this universe? who wins any of the titles going forward? do you really want to steal any of jorge's titles? what about casey? what happens when we hit the 2013 onwards stretch? idk I'll revisit this in three years time to compare and contrast with what happens irl in marc's timeline (psst since he's currently as old as vale was in 2010.... casey/marc teammate feud starts next year....?) and decide how to forcibly graft that onto this timeline. I'm not really attached to specific title numbers.... going forwards, you can have them compete 4eva - fuck the other aliens - or have only marc win titles or neither of them wins any more titles and that's that. who's to say!

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

so... like... what does this alternate universe change? obviously there's a bunch of cool on-track battles that would've been neat to see. they're both just fun racers to watch - with very different styles that match up very nicely - and of course the thought of both of them in their prime slugging it out week after week is tantalising in itself. I do think in general, valentino doesn't match marc's aggression as much as he assen 2015's his way through his problems... but also, you'd get some fun 'wow you've both taken each other out' races where both feel like they can't get away with yielding to the other. also, one of my favourite things about sports rivalries is how the way they engage with each other changes over time, how each new encounter inevitably in conversation with all the past fights they've had. in this universe you end up with a bigger sample size inevitably than irl (though honestly the irl one compares pretty positively with a lot of rivalries this century in terms of quality of on-track competition), plus it's over a larger time span. what do they learn from each other? what tricks do they pick up? how does that dynamic change over time? the most obvious shift informed by real life is that [2000 -> 2001] [2014 -> 2015] you go from marc winning the proper battles to valentino winning the proper battles, which helps bring about the marc head loss that season as valentino gets more comfortable with the bikes and the premier class and marc struggles for the first time. where you go from there... again, tbh it's dealer's choice, but the key thing is you have that dynamic of constantly revisiting old haunts and old battles and building on their history more and more and more... it's also super formative and constant for both of them in a way that none of their actual irl rivalries can quite be, like something that caries through from 125cc to 250cc to the premier class?? kids crashing into each other in 1996 and revisiting that same track in 2009 to fight it out again? they end up just sharing a lot with each other that completely eclipses any other on-track rivalry

but there's something... hm, I do really like the generational aspect of marc/valentino and to me it's one of the most interesting aspects of that rivalry, so I'm almost loathe to strip them of that, which is obviously why I've written a reasonable length tumblr post about this. when you make them peers, marc cannot steal valentino's moves, he can't supplant him, he won't have this hero worship that makes him construct himself in valentino's image. you kinda want to find a way to maintain aspects of that dynamic, right, where marc still sees valentino as like. the coolest thing ever. and doesn't model himself after him as much as admire him, sometimes from closer and sometimes from afar... valentino's always making racing fun - which it obviously is to marc too, marc's also a cheery kid, but they are a bit different in how... y'know, marc's constantly inventing new ways to overcome the pain barrier whereas valentino looks at all the more unpleasant aspects of racing and goes 'no thank you <3' (one of my favourite anecdotes about young valentino is what a wimp he was about the rain, which never quite went away). also they come from different enough backgrounds, valentino with his deeply laissez faire parents where he had to grow up quickly himself and occasionally parent them, marc with his deeply not laissez faire parents where the growing up is a bit more about the money of it all but he's still fairly sheltered and living the Professional Child Athlete Lifestyle... and whenever they're not actually racing each other, marc can still construct a bit of an idealised version of valentino in his own head, where he doesn't as much want to be him as he wants to be around him. the reflected glow of all that joy

you tease out the most interesting elements of valentino's side of the equation by going all in on the resentment imo. marc might not be replacing him in this universe, the stuff he 'has' in this universe is fundamentally stuff valentino can take from him if he's good enough... but marc's just everywhere, isn't he? always a little ahead, always seen as the next big thing, burns bright very very early. valentino wants his own legacy! he wants to be his own guy! but he's also a storyteller, and there is a story to be told here... one about how he's just a girl, in a big big world, taking on the big bad marc marquez. so in his head he'd just love to get rid of marc, but also he gets to this weird place where he kinda needs him.... he ends up defining himself against marc, both in the public's eye and in his own mind. they're both each other's biggest points of reference, to where they're eventually each other's only reference. and just like in real life, valentino never quite escapes how all this resentment stems from self-recognition... it's resentment based on how similar they are and how unfair it is that there's someone who's this good who's this much a match for valentino... all because they're similar enough in their approach to competition, grinning while twisting in the knives, vicious in the heat of battle... and because they do both fundamentally want to have fun! so sometimes valentino might love to hate marc but mostly he just loves to fight him...

anyway. what would this timeline adjustment actually add beyond a bunch of on-track battles? I think the main thing you get here is the kinda.... intimacy... from having been teenagers at the same time, having been given the time and space to actually build up a relationship as peers that constantly gets chipped at and reconstructed again and again and again. they kinda function as each other's foils, which they do anyway but here it's from a position of equality. irl, you actually have to jump through some major narrative hoops to even put them both in a position where they'd consider becoming friends (thanks real life for jumping through those hoops). you don't have to do that in this universe! valentino did get more cynical about being both friends and rivals over time (or at least that's my theory, see here) - but when he's a teenager, he's not going to be cautious in the same way! if he likes marc, which the evidence we have suggests he very much would, he'd just be friends with him! the normal way! valentino isn't prepared for the entire thing turning ugly because he's never done this before, there's no past experiences he'd be drawing on here and would be inspired by in starting feuds with his friends-turned-enemies. they'd both be young and innocent and kinda get into the process of feuding in an organic manner, as it should be

and, yeah, the other element is that valentino... well. look. he's really not the fully formed package at the start of his career, including when it comes to media manipulation. but it's always in there somewhere... there's something fun about this being baby's first feud! irl he kinda stumbles into the biaggi one, right, where he says some shady stuff about biaggi and then he's like 'wait a moment the journalists actually report on what I tell them??' and then it escalates from there. very trial and error! in this universe, valentino can trial and error this feud, where he just says some kinda feisty stuff to the press about how he doesn't always want to be compared to marc marquez and maybe they should be asking marc about him, y'know, the cocky little shit - and the public animosity comes and goes in waves where they have one serious spat in the lower categories, then patch it up again, then a proper feud, then it gets better again, then more feuding, etc etc etc.... and in all of this, they're both very into using the media as the way to litigate this feud - especially when they really aren't speaking to each other. and valentino's occasionally quite deliberately drawing the public to his side to make marc's life less pleasant, which he gets better and better at as the years pass. valentino does help turn marc into a bit of a heel, someone the public loves to hate and to root against. (though, again, it is very very important to me you get some crowds booing valentino.) marc's just too good! too vicious! and unlucky to have valentino, the people's princess and poor wee underdog, as his primary rival! but even then, because valentino is younger and less jaded, there's also a level of hostility that he would shy away from. and the fact that they're so inescapable to each other also helps the feud die down each time. because you don't want every single podium until the end of time to be unbearably awkward...

in a way. the direct competition does make things more vicious but more straightforwardly so? and in a more equal way. broadly speaking they do have a better shot of figuring things out in this world imo! maybe valentino finds a qatar 2004 equivalent to burn everything to the ground, but I reckon he flirts with that line without quite crossing it... they have more argentina 2018 equivalents, stuff where one of them (probably marc) does something insane on the track and one of them (probably valentino) says something insane off it... but that's a bit more straightforward! what really makes sepang 2015 so fucked is that it's not a direct title fight between the two of them, like that's why it's the wound they can't heal from! irl it's almost like a commentary on the age gap, right, that they're barely overlapping in competitive windows and how the feud itself can't stem from something so direct... it had to happen in a more roundabout way that allows it to curdle into something far crueller and far more bitter... but the moment you make them peers, then it's all fair, really - a lot of the stuff they do to each other is more 'acceptable' and just part of being rivals and easier to eventually look past. (cf how they're both mostly still focused on sepang 2015 to this day, not argentina 2018.) for better or for worse, they're trapped with each other... irl, part of the unequal power dynamics stem from the simple fact that valentino was integral to marc's childhood but marc wasn't to valentino's. marc can't escape valentino not only because of their shared history, but also because valentino was such a big part of growing up, of figuring out who he'd become... hero worship as a formative process - where however marc feels about valentino now, there's still elements of his identity as a racer and as a person that are inexorably linked to valentino. but here, when they're peers, neither of them can escape that - and when nostalgia comes calling, it does so for both of them. valentino can't just dismiss marc as part of his story, because marc has managed to so thoroughly make himself a part of it. which can make everything worse between them too... and they know each other so thoroughly they'll figure out some nicely brutal ways to hurt each other, again and again and again. they're so similar, so combustive, stuck with each other for so long that they can trial so many flavours of cruelty. but hey, let's be optimistic, just this once. they can't escape each other so they might as well learn to forgive each other

[jackredfieldwasmyjacob]

hello everyone, as your resident annoying spaniard currently playing pokemon scarlet and violet i wanted to make posts talking about references to my culture within the games!! i don't know how many of these i'll make but yeah, i'm just very excited about all of this, i've been playing pokemon since emerald and i've always wanted a region set in my country :)

i'll post all spoilers under the cut but i have yet to make a tag y'all can block (suggestions are welcome!)

the first obvious reference is of course the players house! even though from the outside it feels more latinamerican than iberian to me (gamefreak has fucked up in some extense regarding that, i'll talk about it don't worry), the inside is clearly spanish

everything from the paintings resembling a flamenco dancer and manchego windmills to the mounted plates (my grandma has some very similar ones, they're always white and blue or white and red) to the tiling in the kitchen screams spanish. you can even feel the popcorn walls (funnily enough the walls in my house are also painted in red and white/beige).

the next references can be found in nemona's mansion in the form of paintings:

the first painting mimics joaquín sorolla's style, while the second one does the same with joan miró. also, and i'm gonna say this a lot but i can't get over it... the floor tiling. it's literally that. i've seen that exact tiling irl.

this is a very obvious thing... but bocadillos / sandwiches lol

specifically this scene, of your mum giving you a bocadillo to have as a snack, is something repeated every day in the country; school and high school kids normally pack a bocadillo (or other snack) to have in the playground at break.

the worker trainer class looks exactly as workers in spain do, same outfit!

now we go with more obvious ones, food!!

first pic: paella (not with the traditional ingredients but it's something i guess); the 'juice with fruit' thing is most likely just sangría; escalivada is a vegetable dish from eastern iberia; tortilla de patatas (my personal favourite spanish dish); and finally the last food probably references gambas al ajillo, prawn with garlic and paprika basically.

second pic: patatas bravas can be found everywhere in spain, mostly as tapas or appetizers, and they're incredible. alfajores are usually associated with latin america, but it's true that they're also prepared in southern spain, usually around christmas time. coffee is a must in any spanish bar, it is a coffee country and café con leche is loved throughout spain. about quesadillas... those are mexican. pokemon slipped up with that one.

third pic: coming from the city that's most associated with churros in the country (one of the inspirations for mesagoza lol) i'm so happy they are in the game!!!! i love them and can't wait to get them in december dipped with hot chocolate, as it's traditional (i believe what we call hot chocolate is hot cocoa in other places?) i'm sad that there's no porras tho, that would've been a cool addition.

i imagine there'll be more dishes in other parts of the region, and i can't wait to find them all!!!

this one's very neat, the mailboxes are exactly the same as in spain :)

the academy classes look pretty similar to public high school classes, the distinct green desks and chairs are particularly noticeable

i'm not sure how this will be adressed in the english version so maybe this only makes sense in the spanish one, but it seems that the academy students are divided into sciences and humanities/social sciences/arts, just like irl spanish high schools

once again... floor tiles. the floor game in scarlet and violet is off the charts, the one in your character's room is one of the most common tile design in spain

that's all for my first day playing the game!

here's next post btw !!

[im-a-king-baby]

hi ! first of all; i read ELYN over the easter weekend and stayed up till like five am waiting for it to get happy so i could sleep (i gave up) and i loved it so so much. It just feels like such a tangible, realistic outcome for them (if we ignore s3) it made me ache in that exact anxious yearning way the actual show does. Big ask and 100% appreciate it if the answer is no but are you planning to write more for them in that universe? Would love to see them when Wille is at university, or see Wille simply make some (oblivious?) uni friends, or see Sara and Simon interact again or honestly literally anything and everything.

secondly, and who knows maybe (probably) you’re aware of this but the photos/images in the fic do not appear as images but just as a text/error box? Is that intentional or did they break? I kept finding myself curious as to what image was put with the chapters haha

Hi!!! I hope you had a good easter... and went to sleep at some point... 😅

Thank you for alerting me about the images! I was not aware of that :( Although I guess that makes all those hours hardcoding the text threads and tumblr posts so they would work without images worth it 😂

I have gone through it all again and updated the image links so they are working for me now (let me know if they're still broken for you?).

There's nothing in them that's required to follow the fic, you just get to judge the time I spent procrastinating by making album covers and then sorting all the random pop songs I'd invented into albums (something that was definitely vital even though no one but me cares about the difference in vibe between Simme eras 🤣).

If you are just interested in the art, these are the 4 covers I used in the fic:

Sadly this fic was always destined to lose canon status after season 3 (although I am going to keep believing August's arc could go the ELYN route until proven otherwise).

Regarding sequels, prooobably not? Sorry :( I have more notes for Simon pov scenes during and before than anything set after because I'm not sure what more I have to say, (other than wanting to write something of ELYN Wille with Edvin's new haircut but basically all I've got is this:

For a moment Simon thinks Wilhelm isn’t even here, then the bleached blond head turns and it’s Wilhelm’s face and Wilhelm’s eyes and Wilhelm’s mouth dropping open in surprise at seeing Simon in the doorway. “You’re here,” Wilhelm says. “How are you -?” “You cut your hair.” It’s dumb. Obviously. But Simon hasn’t slept and Wilhelm’s hair is almost white, sharp and bristled, and Simon wants to touch it, to see if it hurts. “I…” Wilhelm hesitates. “There were always rules about my appearance, about how I was allowed to look, and I thought…” he reaches a hand to his hairline, his face falling a little. “Do you hate it?” The bristles give under his fingers, impossibly soft. He looks older, but also somehow younger, like he’s reclaiming the rebellious teen years that the crown never let him have. “I want to kiss you,” Simon says. The coffee shop is full of people. At least four that Simon can see are looking at them, not even trying to be subtle. There’s a camera tilted in their direction, but it’s not close. “Can I kiss you?” “I-” Wilhelm starts doing the same glance - who’s watching, who’s filming - then seems to catch himself, snorts a soft laugh and pulls Simon in. It's too short for Simon to catch hold of, but he can run his fingers through it and it's soft or ghost them over to catch the sharp edges of the tips, and it's Wilhelm and he's here, they're both here. And they're going to be okay.

<3

[possiblylando]

Chainsaw Man Chapter 134 Analysis

Woah hey bit later than usual with this one. Had a moment there when I began to grow disillusioned with the current chapters direction. Watched some Baki (2001) and a giant ape taught me the beauty in all things. Anyway, Chainsaw Man. Chainsaw Man will die before the end of Part 2. The Manga has to end eventually. Fujimoto doesn't seem like the kind of author who can leave a story off on "And so the adventure continues". They've already rolled out a replacement Chainsaw Man. If the original died then there's always a Chainfraud Man to replace him.

This chapter felt like it was backpedaling. These last few chapters have all felt that way. Defusing the tension of the previous chapter or even the current chapter immediately. I can understand the reason behind it now, But I still don't like it.

These chapters are here to mirror Denji himself instead of the narrative. We only got to see the peaks of his development without the blank middle. Like I said, I get cutting out the sections where "Nothing interesting happens" but that also defuses alot of tension. I would've much rather we had gotten an Asa Chapter or Two after 132's ending before we got to see what happened with Denji and Nayuta. It feels like it was just written for the weekly audience instead of for the quality of the story as a whole. Reading these chapters back to back it's just. 132. Denji & Nayuta are captured; Oh this is real bad what are they gonna do?? 133. Oh- They let Denji out. Oh wow okay thats a rough ultimatum- Nevermind. 134. Okay he's thought about it more. Because clearly time has passed between each of these chapters. But we don't get any of that time to pondering on what could've happened. It feels rushed is what I'm trying to convey. Idk maybe I'm supposed to feel discontent with what's going on to mirror Denji's feelings. If that's intentional then yeah I guess it's doing it's wrong. This entire chapter is Denji trying to rationalize his decision to himself. He clearly wants both. He knows it, Nayuta knows it, Yoshida knows it.

I can't help but wonder how Denji would be acting if he hadn't lost Aki and Power. He's acting the way he is now because he doesn't want to experience what he did again. He doesn't want to be dragged back down to hell.

I'll get a bit out here for a second. But I think the TV scrolling's message is intentional and important.

Obviously the nouns here aren't exact. Grandpa and Golf aren't the important things here. Keep in mind this is pretty out there and I don't think this is like- Be all end all. So I'm gonna show you basically what I'm seeing here. Also Grammar aside;

I don't know how intentional it is but it mirrors what happened in 133 when you look at it from this angle.

This whole scene is kind of upsetting looking back on it. In Denji's Mind this is his out. He can have two options right now. He isn't turning into Chainsaw Man to do this but he's still Chainsaw Man. Meaning he won't be breaking the rules. Nayuta won't have to get hurt. It'll all be-

*This guy has a passing resemblance to Katana Man, If he was a High Schooler.

You can pin point the exact moment the light leaves his eyes.

The Church are clearly Religious Zealots. It's interesting that they're using Abrahamic Religion as a basis for their uh- Beliefs? Goal? I'm not sure. I wanna go into some of the deeper meaning of this. So obviously it's time to talk about Christianity. *Side Note: Was Jesus a real person in the CSM universe? Adam and Eve were created by God as pure beings. Adam was created first however God soon after used half of him to create Eve. They lived in Eden which was a perfect paradise. However Eve was tempted by the Devil into breaking the only rule set in place by god by eating the fruit of knowledge. Adam not wanting Eve to suffer alone did the same. That's the basic of it. I think it's safe to assume what they really want to do is turn the world back into Eden. A world without Evil. However they seem unaware of the utter impossibility of that. Especially without the actual Chainsaw Man. We as the Audience know that any devil consumed by the Chainsaw is forgotten by humanity, Thus they lose all power. But the thing is this ability's activation conditions are still questionable. Pochita ate War's Guts yet War continued to exist, He only took Nuclear Weapons. Denji ate Makima yet Nayuta exists as the current Control Devil. Maybe because he wasn't in his chainsaw man form? So how can they create a world without Devils? Is it simply an Ideal to strive for instead of an actual goal? As in they just kill all the devils and everything- Okay that's not going to happen. We've seen the pattern. They're going to start dating the Devils again. God damn it. It's sad to see the Church take away all the suffering Denji has been through and put it onto someone else. Imagine if Jesus was replaced by some random guy who claimed to be the true son of god. Jesus still existed and went through all that shit to forgive the sins of humanity, Yet everyone just accepted this new guy was the real deal and the one who saved them.

This last page is also real sad.

Denji doesn't deny that his guy is Chainsaw Man now. He doesn't say "He's not Chainsaw Man!", He says "I'm more Chainsaw Man than him!". He's accepted the fact he can no longer be Chainsaw Man. But he still craves that acceptance. He wants people to like him specifically, and for that to be taken away by a guy he's only met once. It's real rough. I know that this isn't where it'll end for Denji. But there's a part of me that Wishes it was. If he stopped here he would get to live that life he wanted at the start of the series. But that life isn't enough anymore. Stagnation leads to the risk of falling back down to where you were before. And Denji doesn't want to be dragged back down to hell.

[kyogre-blue]

CF, let's go!

Immediately more amusing than SS by virtue of the fact that I care about the enemy units. Yes, Rhea looks so cool, Flayn is so cool, Catherine yeeeeeah. Very nice, I'm very happy.

Jokes aside, CF is looking very interesting from the perspective of speculating about 3H's production process.

From what I recall of the interviews, it seems they added CF comparatively late, due to simping reasons. That's interesting in itself, because Edelgard was given a lot of focus in development, given stuff like the early drafts of her also being able to Divine Pulse. But I guess it was only later in that they realized that, yeah, giving her a route would be cool and probably the most unique thing they could do.

Anyway, given its weird development, CF has a lot of strangeness about it. It's the shortest route by a good margin (VW and AM have 10 chapter each, SS has 9 due to Gronder being cut, but CF has only 6). There is only one actually unique map, I believe (Tailtean), but the chapters are reshuffled in completely different order from VW-SS-AM having basically the exact same progression. At the same time, is a very obvious lack of pre-rendered cutscenes and even in-engine scenes to some extent.

So the impression I get is that it was added late, so they couldn't produce certain assets like cutscenes or more than six chapters, but at the same time, they had a lot more passion for it, since they created a unique progression and honestly Edelgard has been emoting more in one scene than the entire Academy phase.

My dudes.... perhaps you should have started from the villain route and just gone full in, instead of the limp-wristed SS stuff, which supposedly was written first out of everything.

Live blogging notes:

I like how Edelgard is in her school uniform during the pre-battle scene in the Holy Tomb, but is then in the Flame Emperor outfit post-battle. Girl took the time to change, I see. It's not really a huge deal, but it's so lacking in attention to detail, sigh.

Man, furious antagonist Rhea is so cool. Very nice.

The Immaculate One is just a still here, where it was always a cinematic in the other routes.

"The monsters that have controlled Fodlan in secret for far too long" Edelgard again attributing things the Agarthans have done to the Nabateans.

We book it. Only respect for Rhea.

Hum... all the BE students escape with us to one of the Imperial army's provisional camps. Except Flayn, obviously. The students give a mix of reasons why they're siding with Edelgard, and they're fine. Kinda mild, but whatever. The music really gets me. Cute bubbly track while everyone is like "well, I wasn't thinking and just ran" or "I have political reasons" and then it switches to Edelgard's imperial march theme, and man. It's really something.

Yeah, Edelgard's anti-Church pitch is kinda... lol. Given that her own henchmen was like "steal all the bones! desecrate those graves! kill everyone!"

"[The Church's] control over the lords of the Kingdom and the Alliance is nearly absolute" L M A O

This is hilarious. Admittedly already more fun than SS.

Edelgard admits to being well aware of how much chaos and destruction she is bringing about based on just her own will. She knows she is the cause of countless deaths. But she still says she wants to bring down the church.

Except, of course, the Church hasn't done anything to her lol Edelgard's manifesto will expose "the foul practices of the nobles from the Kingdom and Alliance" like what tho

Byleth is going to lead a special "Black Eagle Strike Force"

oh ho.... we're exploring a non-monastery area! very nice

Quickly noting: We skip the entire last month of Academy Phase, going from 2/29 for the Holy Tomb directly to 3/30 for the pre-assault camp.

Edelgard B: takes place in her monastery bedroom, which is funny at this juncture. She talks about how she'd like a day to just idle away and eat sweets, and also how without Byleth she would have become a harsh leader with a heart of ice (ok, sure) and how everyone else always treated her as an untouchable princess or emperor, didn't look her in the eye, etc. Ferdinand does not exist, I guess. It's very staple as a concept, but the details aren't really in place for this. At best, you can say this hinges more on her own perceptions -- she never respected anyone else until Byleth enough to let them approach her as anything except pawns and vassals. Self-imposed trials and all that.

Roundup of the kids: Ingrid wants to try to persuade her father to join Edelgard but thinks he probably won't, Caspar's father is leading the "western units" and he'd have had to fight him if he stayed at the monastery, Linhardt calls out that the biggest nobles in the empire stripped Edie's dad of his powers but are now supporting her to smoothly take the throne (weird!), Ferdie acknowledges that his father is greedy and arrogant but feels that he did a lot of work for the empire only to now be disgraced (stripped of his rank and under house arrest), Bernie has less thoughts in her head than Caspar, Felix has like two lines lol, Leonie is just directly with Byleth and no one else, Ashe emphasizes that he can't trust the Church after Lonato and Christophe, Sylvain is kind of mess, thinking of his father, Dimitri, how he might die in the fighting, etc.

Hubert says it's not up to Edelgard to bring the students to our cause, which is... kinda wild. Why is it not up to her. Based on the rest of the dialogue, he means the recruited students from other houses, but uuuh given 3H quality, I expect he says this even if you haven't recruited, and also the phrasing is very vague to begin with.

Garreg Mach has never been attacked, so no one really knows how well it can stand against assault. Edelgard is confident in our power "from a mathematical standpoint."

Ladislava leads Edelgard's personal guard. There's also Randolph von Bergliez. His mother married into Caspar's family but this was after his birth. Unclear if this means he's from a previous relationship of hers, or if he wasn't legitimized despite being from a Bergliez fling. That explains one random battle line I got from him when attacking as Caspar on SS.

There's a couple stray comments from NPCs about Rhea turning into a beast (which happened down in the Holy Tomb where only a few people were, so... curious an NPC knows) and about not entirely believing Edelgard but supporting her for now.

Overall battle plan for the assault: Edelgard (+Byleth) leads an elite force that strikes as close to the monastery as possible, planning to draw attention of the elite Knights and Rhea's ire. Meanwhile, the main forces that marched in from the capital will surround and "annihilate" the remaining areas.

Another still of the Immaculate One after the battle, no CG. The entire scene is just one still, headshots of models talking and some filter to show that "the castle" is "crumbling." And that's it, wow.

Without Rhea fighting Thales and trying to save Byleth, she's well enough to flee to Faerghus. Nice!

Dimitri is King <3

Claude "strategically stirs up conflict between Leicester lords in an effort to maintain neutrality" lmao

Sothis is cool with you even after the Edelgard simping shenanigans, I guess.

The Imperial Army is holding the monastery, which is different from the other routes.

Edelgard emotes?? At the reunion with Byleth. WOW

Another still, no cutscene.

Edelgard's dialogue here... has almost the exact same beats as Claude's which is a bit funny.

Recap again that Dimitri is King and supporting the Church, Claude is being neutral, though Edelgard makes it clear this is a negative. His leadership "has thrown the Alliance into chaos."

OK, so Edelgard directly says we're going to eliminate the Church, the Kingdom and the Allaince. We're out to get them all, and the first target is Claude because Riegan has been standing against the Empire. To secure a route for imperial troops into the Alliance, we'll take out the big bridge first. At the same time, we'll take out Judith and since her territory is on the border with the Kingdom, getting her out of the way will be useful too.

[away-ward]

So I just saw your post about ThunderBay location and I just wanted to add a silly thought. So Im from Canada (Quebec, Montreal more specifically). I think you should look at the map of Montreal, it'll be easier for you to see a bit more clearly where Thunderbay could be in the US. Montreal is an island (surrounded by a body of water), but still within the province of Quebec, it reminds me of Meridian City. The closest town to Montreal is Laval, which is a smaller town (20 min drive from Montreal), it reminds me of the distance between Thunderbay and Meridian. In Corrupt they could go back and forth between the two locations really "quickly". It's basically the same for Montreal and Laval. There are about 4 million people living in Montreal. Laval is not really a small town (about 49,000), but the distance between the two always reminded me of Thunderbay and Meridian City.

There's also this neighborhood in Montreal, named Westmount. Basically, all of the really wealthy people on the island live there. About 20,000 people, which is still a lot for Thunderbay, but the aesthetic of Thunderbay always screamed Westmount when I was reading the series.

Anyway just a thought, and your blog is amazing

Love you

Ahh, thank you. Happy you’re enjoying the blog!

This is the exact type of response I was hoping for. I didn’t even think to expand outside of New England. Since people often ask where I think Thunder Bay would be located, I was trying to figure it out geographically.

Aesthetically is another matter.

Montreal fits exactly how I imagined Meridian. I still think Thunder Bay is probably farther, since in Corrupt when they burned Rika’s home down, and she was racing back to see if her mom was okay, it took her a little over an hour. Other times, they note it took them just under an hour. With this, I estimate the travel time to be at least 45 minutes with good traffic.

However, the way Montreal and Laval are situated remind me of Meridian and Whitehall. I know technically Whitehall is just a neighborhood within Meridian, but Kai notes it's on the other side of the river that cuts through Meridian and the way Michael and the others talk is as if Kai is farther away than would be normal, so a twenty-minute drive from where the rest of them live makes sense.

And I’ve gone to google maps to bop around Westmount for a while. It is gorgeous! No matter where I dropped, it was stunning! I love all the red brick and stone. That’s one thing I was missing with the towns in Maine. Brick and stone weren’t materials that were used often in that area. But there’s something about Thunder Bay that says old stone buildings, but maybe that’s just me. Still, I can see why this area works for Thunder Bay though.

Honestly, Victoria Hall is sort of how I pictured TBP, whether that makes sense or not. But I guess either The Study or the one of Mt. Pleasant Ave work too (when I say I'm easily influenced not picky, I mean it).

I’m in conflict here, though. Because while I picture stone and brick – old, historic buildings – I also picture the little seaside village main streets I’ve seeing. It’s not one consistent image in my head.

Personally, This is how I pictured Thunder Bay when reading. Lots of space, green during the spring and summer, colors in the fall. The larger houses spread out, ocean views from just about everywhere.

Above, we can see on the right side those larger houses right on the coastline, but they're still really close to the town. That's sort of how I pictured it. This is Bar Harbor, ME. It's the one that has the cute little gazebo in the right on main street and I could really picture the burning scene as well as the one where Emmy watches Will go into Sticks, since there's a bar/restaurant right across the street.

But I don’t know. I think it’s great that we all have different ideas about what it would look like for them.

[teememdee]

2022 Art Summary!!! I'm extremely proud of both how much I've made and how much I've improved this year :D and because I love talking about my work I wanna go through each month under the cut because I didn't put some things on here but I feel they're important

JANUARY

After two years of it being the same picture, I decided to start the year update my twitter pfp, and I think I'll keep up the tradition this year, because not only has my art style evolved, I'm now over 4 months on T so I want to reflect that. Other than this piece I started work on another late in the month, but wouldn't finish until February.

FEBRUARY

And there's the big piece. Based on my own fanfiction would your heart know, I had been wanting to draw this scene for a long time. Ahri and Kai'Sa's Runeterra designs take forever to draw and I spent ages on Kai'Sa's expression. Fun fact, for the background, I painted over a Breath of the Wild screenshot for reference, and Link is crouching behind Kai'Sa if you turn her layers off. I like this piece still, and I'm glad I made it, but I like the other piece from this month more. I love drawing characters from games I don't play! I love Yae Miko's design and love making myself suffer with small details, so this happened. I can't remember the exact number but each piece of jewelry is an absurd amount of layers. This piece helped me improve both my hair and metal rendering, plus I just love the colors. ALSO: published the first chapter of my Kahri Proposal fic, the stars align for you and i!

MARCH

One piece this month, as this time of year is always the worst, both mental health wise and school-wise. Still, I wanted to make art for Kai'Sa's birthday on the 7th. To be honest I don't really like this piece that much, I could sit here and nitpick it but no one wants to read that. People on Twitter liked it though!

APRIL

I don't think I was as miserable in April but I didn't draw / finish anything (I definitely did stuff for my art classes, but nothing fanart related + I was still writing fic at the time) until the 24th. I did this in one night after the "Hollow Mind" episode of The Owl House. A fantastic episode from a fantastic show. This piece gave me the confidence that I could make simpler yet still really good pieces in less time.

MAY

Evidently, I was much happier in May. Kujou Sara was another "I just think they're neat" piece that turned into me teaching myself how to render hair and skin way better, and about gradient maps. I did the whole piece (minus the mask) in greyscale and then basically just fucked around. I'm still really happy with how it looks. Then I finally drew a kiss I liked. This is another piece I could now sit here and nitpick but generally I still like it, especially the hand. THEN THE RELEASE OF BEL'VETH RUINED MY LIFE. The color story Pinwheel WRECKED me. I drew the "You, and your father" piece the same day it came out. Not only did this teach me more about expressions and ESPECIALLY environment lighting, the author of the story liked it on Twitter!!!! I was already obsessed, but Pinwheel threw me into the depths of brainrot regarding Kassadin and his family (Kassfam). Due to a distinct lack of canon material, I have a boat load of headcanons that I won't get into here, but the family portrait is set in K/DA-verse when Kai'Sa is two years old, not long before her mother dies. TL;DR the Void won't leave this family alone and I'm obsessed with them. Then, a piece that was in my head for a really long time, I couldn't stop thinking about how Kai'Sa was only ten years old in Runeterra when she falls into the Void. I adore this piece, wish it got more attention on Twitter but oh well haha ALSO: published the second chapter of the stars align for you and i!

JUNE

My birthday month!!! The first piece was a gift to myself, and I love it so so so so much. It's so cute. I love them. I'm so proud of how Kai'Sa's second skin looks and both of their expressions. This piece was also my first steps into getting better and rendering Ahri's tail + hair. I love it. It's one of my favorites from the year. Then Star Guardian 2022 started!!! I finished this piece the day after SG Kai'Sa's voicelines dropped, and because I'm a firm believer in Kahri being soulmates, I went wild over this line. I really love how Ahri looks, she's so cute. This piece taught me how to cope with my ship being so, extremely not canon LMAOO

JULY

More Star Guardian!!! The big Kahri piece is approximately one billion layers (200+) and took five years off my life. I'm very VERY proud of it, but I'm never drawing full body pieces of those designs again. KAI'SA MENTIONING HER MOTHER IN ANOTHER SKY WAS FOR ME PERSONALLY. I'm the only person obsessed with her. I love this piece it's so cute. I hope one day DeadWife gets a canon design but for now I love her like this. And then a big smooch!!! This started as a sketch I was doing bc I was miserable + found a good reference and then it turned into my most popular piece of the year, and I adore it. Definitely a step forward in regards to rendering Ahri's hair and showing motion + emotion.

AUGUST

Just one piece because I was busy, but good practice. I love Sarah Fortune and wanted to make her Star Guardian version look more like how she does in Runeterra. Love her expression and nose shape especially. ALSO: published the first chapter of my copium Star Guardian Kahri fic, be the light to carry me!

SEPTEMBER

Simple pieces I knocked out in one day each. The Runeterra kiss is my favorite, I want to say it's the best rendering I did all year. Admittedly I don't have much to say about the Star Guardian piece. Could have been better but it's good! Twitter loved both of these :)

OCTOBER

I've always wanted to draw Seraphine because I love her, then her Legends of Runeterra design came out and I knew it was time. I LOVE her hair. I love Seraphine. She's my bestie. Then my favorite piece of the year!! No reference, just brainrot. They're so cute. They love each other so much. They're married. I adore them. That's all. And next I wanted to practice gradient maps again, so I did this one night and am so, so proud of it. Another contender for favorite piece of the year. Kai'Sa is such a tragic character and I feel like this really shows just how sad she is. I love her. ALSO: published the second chapter of be the light to carry me!

NOVEMBER

And of course I made an Ahri companion piece. Same deal, done in greyscale then I messed around with a gradient map. I especially love the background here. Can you tell I love Runeterra Kahri. I wanted to update my Twitter banner because it was an old piece, and so this happened. Again, their designs are so much, but the effort is always worth it. Notably this piece taught me more about environment lighting. I just love how they're holding each other. Noticed after this I've been coloring Ahri's shoulder armor wrong, but oh well. I love this so much.

DECEMBER

And here we are at the end of the year!!! Ahri's birthday means she gets art, and I love all the photos she has in an album in that official Spotify playlist cover art, and always wanted to make something involving that. This piece started off with a different sketch but I didn't like how static it felt, this is much much better. Super proud of the expressions here. I tried to get the handwriting at the bottom as similar to Ahri's canon handwriting (it's in a photo Seraphine posted), and writing out Kai'Sa's name in her handwriting made me stupid emotional. Lastly, for the past two years of brainrot, I've drawn a piece of Kahri in some winter scene, and WOW is this an improvement since last year. I also finally figured out how to do drapery in my style, I think. I literally finished this piece today, and I adore it. I just love this ship so so much and I'm not sorry.

IN CONCLUSION:

I made a lot of art and got much better at it!! I mostly wrote all of this for me, but if you read all of it, thank you so much! This was also the year I joined tumblr because my home base Twitter is. yeah. but I had wanted to make an account for a long time and have lurked for even longer. Glad to be here and glad that you are too!! Happy New Year!!! May you all have a good 2023 :D

[detectivemarvelingcomics]

Alrightyyyyyy Post-Episode Ms. Marvel Thoughts!

Spoilers under the cut! I wanna do these again, I did them a lot for TFATWS haha

I love this show. I'll be honest the power change is kinda a big thing for me, but its a different universe and me shouting into the void about it isn't going to change anything, but so far I like what they're doing with it! They found a way to connect her culture with her powers and it's really fascinating to see it!

I wasn't joking when I said that Marvel should've put a TW for immigrant parenting though, a lot of that hit hard. I remember having to set up my case before asking my parents to even stay after school for a bit and even twisting some truths to make it favorable to them. There was one time me and my friends wanted to go get slushies and I basically had to tell my parents a week ahead of time and tell them it was a study session. And, good gosh, I absolutely felt it when Kamala failed her driver's test and her mom just rambled off on things in that tone of voice it literally set off a response in me because like "damn I know I did bad but you don't need to rub it in like that."

But the line that really got me?

"We trust you. We don't trust anyone else."

Now that triggered me, because that is the exact sentence that my parents always told me when I asked them to go places. I kid you not, I literally had to go with my dad to Anime Expo, of all the cons, because they didn't trust me to go with my friends and I was literally a junior in high school when that happened too! Genuinely, I relate to Kamala so much. And I mad respect her because she's got guts to pull that off, I immediately fold when my parents say 'no.'

That's another thing, so many people are villanizing Kamala's mom, and while I understand why, I don't agree with it. I'll never understand why people will always search for a villain (key cases being Encanto and Turning Red) in characters that are too complex and rounded to just be one? Obviously I don't mean this in a way to defend her because I also don't agree with how she speaks to Kamala, but at the same time my mom is the exact same way. The actions come out of love, could they be expressed better? Yeah, of course. But at the same time seeing people flat out villanize her gives me the ick, you know? There is a balance that is not agreeing with your parents but also loving them so much that it overcomes that, and that's how I see Kamala's relationship with her mom, and that's proven in the scene with Bruno where she expresses how hurt she felt when she realized she really hurt her parents'. It's nuanced, guys, like I said earlier, the girls who get it get it and the girls who don't don't.

Now aside from the heavy parts, god I loved the fun parts. Scott has a podcast? Not the thing we wanted, but the thing we needed. The animation? Top notch! It makes the show so vibrant and it's such a change from Moon Knight that to me its refreshing! What I'm really enjoying is the fact that these high school kids are going through high school problems. College apps, socializing, going to cons, ugh, it's so nice to see.

Oh gosh, Avengerscon, oh gosh. It's weird to think about it with the context we know of the Avengers also considering some of them are still probably deemed war criminals and here they are at a convention and if that isn't the most fan convention shit idk what is AHAHAHA but gosh it looked so fun to be a part of, I hope for D23 Marvel hops on that concept and has an Avengerscon section cuz that would be super popular!

Also I'd die for Bruno.

Overall, I'm liking the pacing so far!! It was a great first episode and I can't wait for the next one!

[everythingsinred]

Let's Talk About NatsuMikan: Natsume (pt.10)

WOW we did it folks. 10 parts to an essay that we're like. a quarter of the way done with. That's pretty great! More or less, by the time you finish reading this post, you'll have read 35k words worth of analysis and I'll have spent countless hours writing it. What amazing dedication we have to this manga! We should get an anime reboot as a reward!

Anyway, let's go crazy stupid trying to wrap up this arc, where we can see the extent of Natsume's selflessness. As we approach the end, something will happen to make Natsume's plans to distance himself from Mikan very difficult. Let us begin!

Also I've been forgetting to put trigger warnings up for these but I put them on the first few so hopefully you know they're all like that. Child abuse is a huge topic we'll cover throughout, as well as all the consequences that come with it, so be wary.

Chapter Forty-One

Medusa--Mihara-san--is amused to see that the frightening, powerful, and awe-inspiring “Black Cat”, who demonstrates a trained command of his alice despite wearing an alice-restraining mask on missions, is actually just a little kid.

Natsume doesn’t care about being impressive; he cuts to the chase, asking where Mikan is. Medusa makes his comments, but Natsume stays on his point: his new mission is to save Mikan, after all. Though keeping Mikan and Ruka safe had been his personal mission from the get-go. But just as Natsume isn’t interested in anything Medusa has to say if it isn’t about Mikan, Medusa isn’t interested in any topic that is about Mikan. So the small talk ends and Shiki is commanded to test the kids’ abilities.

Natsume cares about one thing right now and it isn't his DA alias.

They are in the midst of some kind of battle or standoff when Mikan reappears, safe. She calls out to them, excited to see them again. Ruka and Tsubasa are happy to see her safe as well, so they call out too. Natsume is not as thrilled. He’s good at staying on mission and keeping his attention on the dangers around him, like Shiki and Medusa, as well as the countless other Z members, all with mystery alices.

Mikan suddenly appearing and making herself known is dangerous, and she’s immediately under attack, unwittingly. He runs to protect her, using his alice as a barrier between them and the man who just tried to hurt her, but when he turns back to look at Mikan, he’s livid.

The art in this scene is so gorgeous, I could stare it forever. Look at how silky Natsume's hair is. Pretty.

Tsubasa and Ruka have never been on a mission like this. They were just eager to see Mikan unharmed. She was also just excited to see her friends again after being separated. But Natsume knows better. On a mission, you have to stay vigilant and always careful, and Mikan was careless. He yells at her, scolding her. But even through his emotions, he stays vigilant, protecting her even more when the enemy tries to take advantage of the distraction.

This is what he came for, not just to be the brains and keep them on track throughout the journey, but also to protect them, because that’s what he always does, what his priority always is. He will use his alice to ward off enemy attacks, and use his body as a shield, even if he winds up exhausted and bleeding and hurt. And he is.

But he still tells Mikan to stay behind him, to stay safe, so he can properly protect her this time, because he couldn’t do it before.

He doesn’t expect Mikan to get up and tell him that he doesn’t have to worry. She doesn’t want or need him to protect her; instead she wants to help him. She tells him, for once, that he doesn’t have to be the only one hurt anymore. He’s understandably surprised to hear this, because it means that someone other than Ruka has been paying attention. She understands that he’s been through the wringer, and she doesn’t want to just sit back and benefit from his effort without giving anything back. But more than just saying she’ll take on the brunt of things for him, she wants to help. She wants to be his strength, not a burden on him.

She has been noticing him, even the things he doesn't want her to notice.

This shocks him enough that it actually distracts him from his vigilance, and suddenly it appears that Ruka is in danger. He leaves her side just long enough for her to be captured by Shiki instead, and immediately teleported to Medusa’s side. They needed to get Mikan out of the way, after all, so that Medusa could use his alice, which he immediately uses to petrify Tsubasa’s leg.

Chapter Forty-Two

Right off the bat, we’re shown just how much the stakes have risen. Medusa’s alice is deadly, not just dangerous, and he’s already managed to hit Tsubasa with it. His next command is to have Yuka steal the kids’ alices, and to start with Natsume. It would make things easier on him, anyway, Medusa says, obviously privy to the idea that a child like Natsume wouldn’t want to be a child soldier at all, unlike Reo who mused that maybe Natsume would be more content with just a change of employer.

But Yuka makes it clear that her alice isn’t strong enough to steal all of the alices at once, trying to spare the kids from losing their abilities. So Medusa then goes to a Plan B, convincing the kids that his alice will only be temporarily affecting them until they agree to work for Z. After all, Natsume can’t really use his alice when Medusa has Mikan in his clutches. He’s been in this situation before, practically living in it, having the lives and happiness of his loved ones held over his head so that he will be pliant. Medusa comments that he loves torturing people like him, and he must not be the only one, since Natsume’s been tortured in this way for years now.

Ruka is hit in the shoulder while trying to shield Tsubasa from another attack from Medusa, and the shoulder region is particularly life-threatening, as it’s close to the heart and he might die from the loss of blood flow soon. Of course, this sets Natsume into berserk mode, but before he can use his alice, he coughs violently. This gives Medusa an opportunity to strike Natsume in his dominant arm, his left one.

He tries to use his alice, despite being at a new disadvantage, and still angry from what’s happening to Ruka. So his leg gets hit too.

Medusa gets temporarily incapacitated by Mikan’s nullification, so he sends Yuka to steal Natsume’s alice, which should be a walk in the park because he’s lost control of his arm and leg, so he can’t run away.

It’s here that Natsume reveals to the reader the secret he’s been keeping for the past few days, the one that we must now keep as well, that Mikan is Yuka’s daughter.

This is another one of those situations, where the stars align in all the wrong ways. Something you've always wanted is within grasp, but there's too many reasons not to take it.

Natsume stands there, unable to move, and ponders his situation as Mikan desperately screams for him to run away.

He wonders if he was waiting for this exact moment, if that’s the reason he came along at all, so that he could meet Yuka and have her steal his alice away.

Earlier, Natsume left a conversation about losing alices because it was too painful. He doesn’t feel the same way about his that the rest of them do. It’s not some fond part of him that he can’t stand to lose. He hates it. It’s been a hindrance since the day he was born. People of all sorts of organizations, including the government operated Academy and terrorist organizations like Z, have coveted his power. It’s put his loved ones in danger. It’s made his life a living hell. He’s been robbed of a fun childhood, of smiles and friendship, of peace. It’s stolen opportunity from him, so he can’t even feel free to pursue a crush, or make bonds freely, or let himself laugh. It stole his future from him, and he dies a little bit more every day. He won’t live long enough to go on a date, graduate, get married, get a normal job, have kids, grow old. He might not even make it to middle school, and he knows it. He lives his whole life in eternal emotional, physical, and mental agony. He’s always under the gun, always careful, always selfless, always defensive.

Why would anyone want that?

And this is his chance to lose it all. Things could be easier, better, safer. He could lose it and finally exhale. He could go back home to his dad. He could be an actual kid for once. Yuka could steal his alice and all of his responsibilities and the deadweight he’s been carrying on his back for his whole life could be gone.

Of course he almost lets her steal it.

But Mikan has been screaming in anguish for him to run away, and he remembers what she said when she saved him during the Reo Arc: that it was too late to give up, and that they should return to the academy together, because a bright future must be waiting for them.

And because of that, Natsume makes his first move to escape Yuka’s alice.

Does Natsume really want a future if his friends and loved ones would still be in danger? Would it be worth it if he was safe, if it came at the price of their safety? If Natsume doesn’t use his alice to keep them safe and protected, then who will? Who can?

Natsume smacking Yuka’s hand away isn’t selfish. It’s not him realizing he wants to keep his alice, that maybe deep down, he might actually love it. It’s not dear to him in any way. It’s still the thing that wears his body down and forces him to cough up blood. No, this act is selfless, yet again, because his own happiness and even his life come dead last to him. He has to keep them all safe after all.

Yuka snatches his wrist anyway, ready to steal his alice away, until she realizes she can’t. Mikan is using her alice from all the way across the room to protect Natsume.

So basically, the idea of Natsume leaving the academy causes this kind of reaction in Mikan, something Natsume has no choice but to see for what it is: fondness.

He looks at her with surprise, because this is an act of affection. Mikan has just used her alice to keep him with her. His life isn’t in danger, but she wants him to stick around. Now more than ever, Natsume can see proof that she cares about him, even despite all the bullying he’s done, despite all the mean words he’s thrown her way, even after he told her cruelly that he hates every single thing about her. Up until now, Natsume had no reason to believe she was doing anything but tolerating him, and though that was the outcome he was working for, deep down he does want the girl he likes to have some fondness for him too. This is the first time Natsume can really see that he means something to her too, as more than just a classmate or a partner. He is someone she doesn't want to part with.

And Mikan has fulfilled her wish, to be Natsume’s strength, because now Natsume is able to yell at her to duck and blow up the wall behind her.

Usually such huge explosions are the result of him at his angriest, using his ability to punish the people who hurt his loved ones. He’s probably also done similar things on missions, maybe even when he’s completely calm. But this time Natsume is weaker than ever, his dominant left arm completely out of commission, unable to move, under duress. He finds the strength to cause that explosion because of Mikan, because she wants him around.

While everyone is distracted, Natsume tells Yuka to go help Mikan, hinting that he knows her secret.

So Yuka stabs Mihara-san and has the petrified kids lick his blood off the blade. It’s confusing to the other kids why she would do this, but Natsume knows exactly why.

It would be interesting to see more interaction between Yuka and Natsume. Surely Yuka knows that Natsume is Kaoru’s son? It would be interesting to see if she noticed that his name matches Mikan’s. What does she think of him? What might their dynamic be like? I will always mourn that we’ll never find out.

Chapter Forty-Three

This chapter is the one that should officially designate this manga into the “tragedy” category. Yes, there’s been some heavy and deep stuff so far, most having to do with Natsume and the heavy abuse he deals with, but even with all that it’s managed to be mainly a cheerful and upbeat story. This chapter makes it clear that horrible and heart-wrenching things can and will happen, that we can’t count on a happy ending every time.

The kids are close to escape. They’re about to head through a warp zone back to school, and it’s urgent they move fast because the hide-out they’re in is currently imploding. Unfortunately, Mikan has dropped the antidote to the bullet that hit Hotaru, so she refuses to leave until she’s retrieved it from under a pile of rubble.

Pengy finally has a chance to prove itself, wriggling under and saving the antidote for Hotaru. It has helped Mikan, and because that’s the best thing someone can do, Natsume is grateful.

Natsume's smile (even a small one like this) has incredible powers, like giving robots a feeling of self-worth, making his classmates fall in love with him, and making me think he is a good boy. It would be irresponsible to overuse it.

Just like when Tsubasa showed his worth back at the high school division when he used his alice to help Mikan, Natsume has a new respect for Pengy, who was able to do something amazing to help the group, and Mikan especially. So he gives Pengy a slight smile. It’s really subtle and nothing outstanding on anybody else, but it’s a rare thing to get from Natsume, even for those whom he loves. “I guess you can be a little useful,” he says. This is the best sign of appreciation someone can get from him, and Pengy glows for a moment (ahh… the power of Natsume’s smile), until things fall apart.

The floor gives way under Mikan’s feet. They’re able to pull Mikan up, but Pengy is still too far to reach. Despite Mikan’s desperation, Pengy understands that they’re wasting time trying to reach it. Finally, after Pengy has proven its use to Natsume, it refuses to be a hindrance again, and sacrifices itself so that everyone can safely return the antidote to Hotaru.

They’re all through the tunnel, hit with the knowledge that Pengy is gone. They all react somewhat differently, but Natsume feels guilt.

Pengy's smile has evil powers because it makes me cry.

Natsume had considered Pengy a robot, something unfeeling and mechanical, just a useless thing Hotaru made once. It was something that could be discarded, and after it had proven to be troublesome, he’d even advocated that it should be discarded. He’d considered it useless all along, but when it really counted, Pengy was able to save Mikan and the antidote. It proved not only that it could be useful, but that it wasn’t just another mechanical robot. When Natsume smiled at it, it smiled back. And in its final act of sacrifice, it acted out of love for both Hotaru and Mikan, and Natsume feels sorry for what he’d said about it.

Natsume has a habit for establishing a bad impression of someone, and then having that person work hard to prove themselves to him. Pengy is one example, but he’s like this with Tsubasa, Mikan, and all sorts of people at first. People (and robots) that he despises until they show him what they’re really made of, winning his respect and sometimes even affection. It makes sense he would be so distrustful, seeing the life he has to live. Trusting the wrong person can get you hurt sometimes, and can lead to disaster. And having something useless like Pengy can cause a mission to fail. But Natsume is sometimes wrong about his first impression of a person, and the same qualities that could lead him to believe something is useless or annoying can end up being strengths that he respects.

Chapter Forty-Five

Yes, I skipped 44 because that’s more noteworthy as a Mikan chapter. Natsume doesn’t do anything I found particularly intriguing and I didn’t want to make anything up or repeat myself. In fact, for the rest of this arc, there’s very little left for me to say, so I apologize if this is a short analysis to conclude with.

The first thing we’ll address is the ESP and Persona discussing the insubordination that has just occurred. Yes, an injured student has safely recovered, and a Z hideout has been destroyed, but it wasn’t their plan for things to happen that way. Narumi needs a warning, for one. Natsume, according to Persona, needs simply to be punished back into obedience. From the way Persona talks about him, we can see how little he thinks of Natsume, how easy he can be to manipulate and control, which is all he is good for anyway. To them, Natsume is nothing more than a pawn in their game. Sure, he’s a useful pawn, the Black Cat that strikes fear into the hearts of the school’s enemies and successfully completes his missions even with a punishment mask on, but he’s still just a pawn. Nothing more.

While watching Mikan and Hotaru’s reunion, Tsubasa teases Natsume about joining the group hug. Natsume ignores him, and makes to walk away, but stops just long enough to toss his healing alice necklace to him. Tsubasa can borrow it to make up for having Subaru put Natsume’s injuries first. He makes it clear that he doesn’t want anybody looking after him, and that might seem like a snub, but this is kindness too. Natsume calls Tsubasa by his name, though he’ll do his best to avoid ever saying it again, and lends him a source of comfort and healing to pay back Tsubasa’s compassion. This is a growing moment, because Natsume has opened himself up to the idea that he could care about more people, even if it means more to lose.

Saying people's names is another rare magic from Natsume, I guess.

Natsume has learned things on this mission too, just like Mikan has. He’s a bit more open-minded now. He judged both Tsubasa and Pengy, and ended up changing his mind about them both, even if only by a little. He’s also discovered that Mikan has affection for him too, and it will completely undo all the effort he’s so far tried to make in distancing himself. It’s one thing to stay away from the girl you like when she hardly stands you. It’s another thing when she enjoys your company, and your feelings are turning into love. His feelings have intensified, or maybe they were always so intense but are just newly solidified, as he’s not hiding from them as much anymore.

He won’t be able to distance himself from her anymore, so he’ll completely stop trying.

Conclusion

Natsume has realized that Mikan holds a degree of fondness for him too, and because he is now very deeply in love with her, he will not be able to stay away like he'd resolved to before. Tomorrow we will begin our essay with Natsume's birthday, a very exciting way to start looking at his new approach to his relationship with Mikan.

The last essay (pt. 9) in particular inspired people to tell me that they were learning new things about Natsume, and as a result even loving him more, and that makes me so happy! Natsume is one of my favorite characters ever, and I want people to love him as much as I do! I love when people leave comments or questions! Really, I'm just so happy and over the moon that people are reading and enjoying, because again--this is a LOT of words. It's a long essay, and it means so much not just that people want to read about Natsume and his feelings for Mikan, but that they want to hear what I have to say about it! Thank you so much for supporting me! Isn't it exciting that we're about a quarter through? <3

I can’t put a song in the tags cuz I have too many tags. So. Church by Fall Out Boy.

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[thejustmaiden]

Jaken = Rin's Dad?

Okay, is this how a daughter treats their so-called father?

Most definitely not.

Rin and Jaken's relationship clearly screams of your typical sibling rivalry punctuated with cute and silly moments of playful bickering.

Yes, Jaken may technically be her main provider, but that doesn't necessarily equate to him being more of a father than Sesshomaru. If anything, he demonstrates more of a brotherly love towards her. As we all know, parents (which Sesshomaru embodies more based on real life patterns and parallels) will leave their older more capable children in charge of looking after their younger brothers and sisters. In this case, that would mean making Jaken responsible for watching over Rin and protecting her if need be. Ah-Un offers protection, too. Think of it as Jaken as the big brother and Ah-Un as the family dog who are babysitting while Sesshomaru as the parent of the household is away at work or taking care of business. I mean, they literally fit that description to a tee and I'm dying at the accuracy of it all! 🤣👌

[Quick! Someone write up a modern au where Sesshomaru finally gets out to have a nice date night but everything goes wrong in the most spectacular way. Like maybe Rin and Jaken catch a ride on Ah-Un to go spy!]

I recently revisited some episodes from The Final Act, and I couldn't believe how many moments like this there were where Rin got after Jaken or when she would "put him in his place" so to speak. Obviously, all of it is mostly harmless. I was only surprised by how often it occurred, not to mention how Jaken would just stand there and take it. Towards a supposed father figure, Rin's behavior is downright unacceptable. There's a certain level of respect a child is expected to show their parents/guardians, and that's just not what I'm witnessing here between them. Like at all.

Rather their dynamic has the nature of some sibling relationships like I mentioned above. So I really wish fans would stop pretending otherwise, because based on what we know of father-daughter relationships- healthy ones at least- they don't appear anything like what Jaken and Rin have. If you could please provide me other examples of where we've seen similar portrayals in fiction or in real life, then perhaps I can get on board.

Look, that doesn't have to mean that because Jaken isn't her father then Sesshomaru must be. They can both be her caretakers without necessarily filling that traditional father role. I'm just saying that if we're going to start assigning titles to characters, let's make sure we are accurate and truthful in our assessments. If you're going to label anyone Rin's dad, then it needs to be Sesshomaru. Jaken doesn't have precedence over him in terms of fatherly attributes, that just wouldn't make sense.

After all, this isn't about what you want to see, this is about what Rin very likely sees. It's safe to assume that she views Sesshomaru more like a father than she does Jaken. She knows she's safe with him (broadly speaking lol) and that he'll come for her no matter what. That sense of security and comfort is what a child seeks and what they should always feel in a parent's presence. She trusts and even idolizes him, just as a young and innocent child tends to do with their parents. At that age, parents are perfect and could do no wrong in their child's eyes. Idk about you, but this describes perfectly how Rin is around Sesshomaru.

Rin adores him and will follow him anywhere- yes, even into danger! That's what the innocence and unconditional love of a child will bring them to do if necessary. Fortunately, at the end of The Final Act we learn Sesshomaru takes Kaede's advice when he realizes that leaving Rin with her in the village is in her best interests. That way she'd be able to lead a more normal and safer life alongside other humans. Remember, Sessrin shippers, that doesn't mean he wasn't still a part of her life and didn't witness her become a young woman over the years right before his very eyes. Therefore, if they eventually do become romantically involved, then most if not all of those gifts had intimate and seductive intentions and it essentially constitutes as child grooming.

I understand from a Sessrin shipper's point of view why it'd be so much easier to claim Jaken as the father. In doing so, they diminish Sesshomaru's role in her upbringing. By refusing to acknowledge the real role he had in helping raise Rin (short periods can be crucial and impressionable too esp. in a child's early years so yes they did assist in raising her not only Kaede), these shippers are better able to justify how their filial-like relationship evolved into a romantic one. So yeah, I get it, if I were a Sessrin shipper I'd probably do the same. It's one of the more plausible arguments available to them, after all. "Let's pin Jaken as the father to fend off antis!" is the best chance they've got, but even so, it's still not good enough. But if you insist Jaken is indeed like a father to Rin, then Sesshomaru is most certainly one too. Who says she can't have two fathers anyway?

The thing is however much you want to deny or downplay what Sesshomaru truly means to Rin and vice versa, nothing will ever change or hide the truth of the matter. Please, stop acting like they're only traveling companions and nothing more. Some of y'all even go so far as to say that they're like strangers. Knowing potentially little about a person is not equal to a lack of love and affection. Making big assumptions such as this to defend your ship is actually doing you more harm than good. Let me elaborate.

According to your reasoning, if that's all Rin ever was to him was a companion and Sesshomaru had no real attachment to her, then what precisely is the basis of your ship? Recall that Adult!Rin doesn't exist yet, thus we have no real idea what she will be like or if she's even alive. So how can you make comments like that but then go on later to say "they have such a unique and unbreakable bond" or "only Rin can be the mother because she's the only human he ever cared for" if all that time spent traveling together didn't amount to much in the first place like you claimed to believe beforehand? Do you see how your rationalizing is confusing?

Contrary to what some of you may think, I'm not just saying all this because I'm an anti and I'm obligated to disagree with you, or whatever other excuse you want to tell yourself. Believe it or not, I'm attempting to give as unbiased and objective of an analysis I can based on widely accepted interpretations of family dynamics, development, and any history we know of.

Of course I respect that at times fans will perceive things differently since that's bound to happen. What's hard for me to wrap my head around however is the unwillingness of some fans- not exclusively Sessrin shippers- to apply basic common sense and sound judgment to their observations and deductions.

Looking at all our facts, then taking the small handful of scenes Sesshomaru and Rin do share together into account, one can logically conclude that their dynamic is akin to one found in a typical parent-child relationship. If you still fail to recognize Sesshomaru as a parent to Rin, then that's fine too. In the end, that won't really change the fact that he'd still take on a role resembling an adult figure overseeing a young child's care and protection. Be it as a vassal, guardian, what have you. Plus, nobody is saying here that Sesshomaru doesn't make mistakes regarding Rin's general well-being, but so do all parents. Overall, I think the majority of us agree that Rin is in good hands. Whether it's in his direct company or in his occasional supervision from his frequent visits to the village.

In other words, it doesn't really matter what exact title you assign him in relation to Rin, as the distribution of power is all inherently the same with any and all adult-child relationships. That bond never changes once you've established it either, seeing as it's a special kind of connection one can only form with a child and a child alone.

I was a teacher for a few years, and speaking from personal experience, you don't need to be a parent, per se, to take on a role of authority in a child's life. I know without a doubt that I could never and will never view any of those kids I taught in a sexual/romantic light later down the road; yes, not even once they become grown-ups who are independent and more than capable of making their own decisions. Those of you who disagree are usually missing the whole point though, because we're not trying to dictate what Adult!Rin can and cannot do like many tend to accuse of us doing. This isn't a question of taking away from her autonomy nor does it fall under "purity culture," which is why people shouldn't continue jumping to these outrageous conclusions and really listen for a change. You're deflecting from the real issue here when you choose to misinterpret what we're saying by ignoring the problem we're actually referring to. You cannot present a valid counter-argument if you persist in twisting our words.

Bottom line: once these kids become old enough to pursue a sexual/romantic relationship, of course they have that right if they're ready. All we're trying to say is you guys ought to stop pushing forward this it's-completely-normal-to-want-to-bang-your-adoptive-dad-since-you're-an-adult-and-can-do-as-you-please agenda and not expect backlash. Ship it if you want, but please stop acting like their romance would be the epitome of a pure and healthy relationship.

Sesshomaru may not wear his heart on his sleeve, but it's foolish to presume he didn't actually care about Rin during their whole time together just because he didn't openly express his feelings until the very end. Surely everybody can comprehend that people handle and process their emotions differently. The way Sesshomaru chooses to is completely valid for the most part, so let's cut him some slack regarding this already.

What I'm trying to get at is that any child whose life you played an influential role in will always be a kid in a lot ways to you even when they're old and wrinkly. Just as they will always picture you as the loved one who guided and protected them when they were most vulnerable and couldn't always fend for themselves. Can't we relate this to children we know personally and apply it accordingly?

Finally, I want to end on this note. Could you kindly take a look at these two images below for a second?

The reason I ask is because of something I recently read that's relevant to the topic. There was this pro-sessrin tweet I saw that stated Rin trying to take care of Sesshomaru when they first met is what a mom would do for a child, which in their opinion, translates to Rin being more like a mother than a daughter if anything.

First off: are you freaking kidding me????

Seriously, so now children aren't allowed to tend to their sick or injured parents?! Parents are apparently superhuman and shouldn't be offered a helping hand from a child, even if they mean well and want to help their parent who's in pain?? Now this Twitter user was mostly being a smartass, but at the same time, it was evident they genuinely thought they offered a valid enough point that warranted no further explanation or clarification.

Secondly, by saying this Sessrin fans don't seem to realize that in actuality they're contradicting themselves and proving the point we've been trying to make all along. Glancing at the first picture and moving down to the second, the role of the one being cared for and the caretaker is reversed. So then by their own logic, Sesshomaru IS in fact like a father to Rin.

What it comes down to is the names you give to the roles these characters play aren't as crucial as the dynamic they share. The specific characteristics of that dynamic are what define the importance of said role, not so much the name in the role itself. So real father or not, Sesshomaru and Rin clearly mean a lot to each other. Close relationships are defined and solidified by the devotion and belonging they have to one another, not solely by the duration of time spent together and their proximity.

Well, that's a wrap! I hope you guys got something outta this blog, and that you enjoyed or found some portions of it interesting. I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject from this fandom, but only engage in conversation if you plan to be respectful. Thank you!

[lsobelevans]

Hiya! First off I just wanted to say your rnm palette ask sets are just utter perfection! They're legit so gorgeous I keep staring at them! And I was wondering if you had a tutorial or tips/tricks on how you made the Isobel+alien girls set with the mixed colours? Keep up the amazing work!!!

hey!! firstly thank you so much!! ❤️❤️

i tried to do a tutorial, i apologize in advance for any english mistakes and if i’m not good at explaining or you’ve got any questions, don’t hesitate to hmu :))

this will be a tutorial to make gifs in the style of this. i won’t go too much into the practical how to make a palette part. 

there’s probably a lot of other better tutorials out there for this, but that’s my way of doing it:

(If you want a very quick summary of all this + just tips i put them at the end, because this is gonna be a long walk through.)

(edit: if you use this pls send me your stuff i wanna see it lol)

Detailed tutorial: 

So one important thing is to choose the right kind of scene and to know what you’re going to be able to do with it. For example it’s easier to color a well lit scene but if it’s too bright it might also be annoying, it also depends on the colors you’ll be going for. Your life is going to be a lot easier if there isn’t too much movement. If it moves a lot, it can still work well if the background is a solid color, by using the selective color adjustment layer. Also sometimes you just have to try to see if it works!!

Since there isn’t a strict rule on how to do it i’m gonna walk you through how i make it personally. 

for this i’ve chosen this palette 

I like it because it’s bright and there’s a colors that are gonna be nice to use with the scene I picked.

Once you’ve made your gif and you’ve cut it/sharpened it how you please (for this kind of gifsets I like a smooth sharpening but it’s really your choice) we can start to bring do the light and then the colors.

This step is like, to each their own. I usually go with curve first, then light/contrast, levels, exposure, then the selective colors layer for the blacks, and vibrancy.

(i’m putting the settings i used here for reference but it really depends on the scene, i don’t always use the light/contrast, exposure, either.)

(sorry it’s in french but it’s the exact same thing in english, and they’re in order) 

I added another curve because i thought it was too dark and now i’ve got this. 

Now we’re gonna start with the selective colors:

(I add another selective color layer because to me it doesn’t have the same use as the one I put before.)

technically you can start with the blacks and go up (blacks, greys, whites, magentas, blues…) here i didn’t change the blacks because i already did that layer before or the greys because it changes the picture globally and here i didn’t see the point to do that at this stage, but on some gifs it can be helpful. 

i like to take off some yellow in the whites and add some blue. 

then for magenta i do this: 

it works because there isn’t that much magenta in the picture but it’s also something that you have to see case by case for the different colors.

same for blue and cyan:

don’t really care about the greens, on this particular picture it doesn’t change much.

then i took off some yellow and did this with the red. my goal with this is to have her skin not be yellow. for now i don’t worry about her hair, just worrying about her skin.

then i added a color balance adjustment layer 

i also added another curve bc it was still too dark in my taste and at this stage i’ve got this: 

so now we’re gonna start to try and color specific elements, it’s like imagining the gif as blocks of colors that i gotta get from one color to another.

i start with her lips. they’re pink and i want them to be more red to match the red in the color palette. so i use a hue/saturation layer.

basically i change it so it matches the palette, less pink and more red.

i also changed the yellow a bit so her skin looks closer to the color i’m aiming for, and i made it lighter. 

then i’m gonna start on the background.

i’m gonna try to make it blue like the blue in the palette.

for this we’re gonna add a new transparent layer and we’re gonna paint on it with a soft brush. that’s what we’re gonna do for the rest of the “color blocks” (background, hair, jacket). since she doesn’t move a lot in the frame, i decided to (roughly) select her silhouette and then color the outside of the selection.

then i changed the blending mode of this layer to “color” (it doesn’t have to be color, i usually try a few different blending modes until i find the one that works). and since it still doesn’t look very good on the edges, i duplicated it and went to filter, gaussian blur, at  about 4,5, to smooth it up. 

it doesn’t have to be perfect in my opinion, i think it works pretty well.

now moving on to the hair: i want them to be yellow to match the yellow of the palette. i add a new transparent layer, repeat. 

here i didn’t select them, i painted directly with the soft brush. i changed this layer to “soft light” because it’s the one that works the best. i also added a hue/saturation layer where i made the yellow a little more vibrant.

then i still think her face is a little bit too yellow so i added a selective color layer where i removed some yellow, i put it under the first transparent layer and then i erased it on the layer mask on the places that aren’t her skin so that it doesn’t have an effect there.

then it’s great because her jacket is already kinda green and there’s green on the palette!

so i do the same thing with a transparent layer and i color it with the green of the palette. changed this one to color and added a hue/saturation layer to make it brighter and worked on the mask so that it only has an effect on the jacket.

and you’ve got your result!!

you can still make your adjustments but i’m gonna stop there for this one :D

now since it was very long and some of you already know how to do all of this

general tips: 

- pick the right scene. 

- see the different parts of the gif as “blocks of colors” 

- use the drafts on tumblr. to see what the gif looks like on its own, to see what it looks like compared to the others, post it as a draft, look at it, change it, change it again, change it again. 

- if you wanna match a palette open the palette in ps and go back to it all the time lol. i’m bad at this but it’s what you should do!!

quick summary if you don’t feel like reading my blabbering:  

pick the right scene

make your normal gif

do the light first

do what you can with the general colors of the gif, think of the skin. selective colors is your friend.

paint the different blocks of colors, change the blending modes, use selection if you have to

final adjustments!!

once again, if you’ve got any question i’ll try my best to answer them. hope this helps somewhat!

[existentialstatesofmind]

Never A Dull Morning

Clare: didn't let boys see her undergarments. Even though she'd starting buying more interesting bras and panties last year, it was for herself not them. Of course Dakota hadn't actually done anything wrong. "It's just private." She explained. "Thank you for understanding." Her cheeks were still pink as she got dressed. Clare wasn't going to explain her weird logic in front of Emi. How she could go without wearing a bra in front of him but wasn't ready for him to see it. Clare was a little shocked after she succesfully beat up Bren. She'd learned how to do that after the whole Fitz threatening her and Eli with a knife incident because it was important to be able to defend herself. Had she gone too far? Bren hadn't actually touched her. Emi was here though and she needed to know it wasn't okay for boys to talk to girls like that even ones who weren't strangers. (Although to Clare, Bren was.) Bren didn't get a free pass. Especially after behaving like that in front of a five year old! He should be ashamed of himself! Besides Clare knew she couldn't hurt Bren badly, she didn't know how to do more than (hopefully) get him to leave her alone from now on. She stepped outside with Kota and slowly breathed in and out trying to calm down. "Is he always like that?" Clare asked. "No problem. I don't want to confuse her. Foreign languages aren't easy for me. I always want to pronounce words exactly how they are written. But in Spanish a J is prounced like an H, in Russian an I is pronounced like an E. So on and so forth. I guess that's why I like French, it's the same alaphabet as English so it's slightly less confusing for me. The difference is the French use diacritics." Clare shrugged. She didn't give up easily and at least she had been right about how to say sushi after all. She felt better by the time they went back inside. Clare smiled at Ash and Emi. "Emi did a good job. He's still down." She knew that wouldn't last much longer so she gladly escaped to the living room with Kota and Emi. Clare sat down on the couch. She bit her lip when Emi asked about purity rings. This was part of the reason why she felt like it was necessary to shut Bren up. Emi didn't need to hear about anything that pretained to sex. Of course she had questions now. Kota was lucky she only asked that one and didn't seem to care that he didn't give her a real answer. Clare winced soon as she heard the name Jenna. Maybe it was a different Jenna? No, soon as Kota got to the part about her trashy short shorts and her purposedly bending over (so everyone could see her buttcrack), Clare knew Dakota was referring to the her former friend. Who stole K.C from her using that exact tactic. He wasn't worth keeping and neither was Jenna's friendship. "I didn't know big mouth already told you all of that before we started hanging out." Clare said softly. "I guess she's still bragging about it. She's been trying to get with every guy since K.C got sick of her. Alli's brother, Sav, turned her down too. She's going to get the baby taken away from her because she won't stay home with him and there's no one else to watch him. I'd feel bad for Jenna but Owen threw my best friend Adam through a glass door for being transgender so...if that's who she wants to be with her baby deserves better." She squeezed Dakota's hand as he confessed to Kelly about his false reputation. Clare knew people might get the wrong idea when they found out she was dating Dakota especially if someone learned about their sleepover(s) but she didn't care. Anyone who mattered wouldn't believe a rumor over the truth. If Jesus Club did to her what they did to her sister, she didn't need to be part of it. However, she hoped they'd changed along with their name. Clare smiled back at him and chuckled because she'd always been able to take care of herself and now she could stand up for herself too. Well, by doing more than slapping boys and making a scene by yelling at them. The other girls at school needed to learn how too instead of relying on Kota to play superman. "I like you just the way you are even if you're reckless. There are some situations you can't get out of alone, she needed a friend." Clare reassurred him after Kelly left. "Just give them the card from now on. Kelly's right. Her dad could've killed you." She shuddered. Clare scooted closer to Dakota when Bren came in. "Do you even realize that was sexual harassment and if you keep doing it, someday a women will press charges against you and you'll go to jail." She said seriously. "You can't grope girls because you like the way we look, just like we can't do it to you. Or each other. Or a guy to another guy." She shook her head. Bren had Genesis all wrong. They were still living with the consequences of Adam and Eve's betrayal. The bible also said that outside of marriage sex was a sin. Even if you didn't believe that, there were other reasons to wait and she didn't plan to do something she'd regret. "Yeah! Let's go after breakfast before it gets too hot. Outside." She frowned. "The only problem is I don't have any exercise clothes here." Clare didn't want to wear her new outfit to the park. She supposed she could make do with what she'd worn over to Kota's in the first place.

Kota: nodded when Clare reassured him after Kelly left and kissed her cheek. "Thank you." he whispered and listened to her chide Bren. He knew that they've been there with him. "Yea, I know. That's why I ask to touch a girl's breasts. They taught me about sexual harassment in school and as long as I don't touch her without permission the most the girl will do is beat the crap out of me. So much easier in Bristol." Bren whined. "Yea, he's got a hard head. He went to Bristol and into a night club where he made a friend. She took a pill, made out with him for about ten minutes, then her boyfriend came and we got a call from the hospital. Bren had to get stitches and had a broken arm. We just sort of gave up after that." he explained to Clare. "The guy had a hard punch, once the girl realized he was beating me up, she called the cops, grabbed him and ran. I'm friends with her on facebook, she asked when I'm going back to Bristol." Bren explained to Clare. "And didn't her boyfriend threaten to kill you if you ever touched her a fourth time since you had to go find her after you go out of the hospital?" Kota asked looking at him. "Yea, but that's just a threat." Bren stated and Kota rolled his eyes. "I wish I could just beat the shit out of you right now, but it'll be futile. I only continued to help because I thought you were done with that girl and could actually change. She's fucking strung out on drugs. That night you were in the hospital she was too, an hour later she tried to kill herself because of the drugs she took. Does that really mean nothing to you, do you not see how much she's calling for help?" Kota asked. "So what she just needs to stop taking whatever drug made her want to die. If she were mine and came to me every night I'd be the happiest man alive regardless if she's strung out or not. They can help the suicide thing." Bren shrugged and Kota got up seeing the headphones still on Emi. "Bren, sex isn't worth your life nor is a girl. Who cares if she got strung out and made out with you, she's fuck-" "I don't care." Bren yelled back and Kota felt a hand on his shoulder to see his mom. "From the first time I held you, I knew you'd be trouble. You acted out more than any of your brothers and never wanted to stay. You were always trying to leave to go wherever, soon that changed and you started going after girls not caring about anyone, but you. I had these papers printed out and money put aside. They're emancipation papers, if you really want this I won't stop you anymore." She said holding his suitcase in hand and he took the papers. "I know you don't care what happens to you, but we do. I think you may need this, to go on your own for a bit and come home to us. Maybe this will help you be a better man." she said as she signed the papers after him and handed him his suitcase and passport. "There's money in there with an address book to friends I've made and keep in touch with in various countries." she said. "And I can be with Iona?" he asked curiously. "This was only an act to be with her?" Kota asked. "Well yea." Bren answered. "If that's what you want." His mom said and Bren took his things and left. "He never unpacked his things. I knew he didn't want to stay." his mom explained and he sat back down. "Maybe this will open his eyes." Kota breathed and laid his head on Clare's shoulder. After she mentioned going to the park after breakfast, he watched as Kelly bought out a plate of pancakes while Dallas carried the plates, Stacy carried sets of silverware wrapped in napkins and Ash and Dom carried sides. Without a word, Kota went to the kitchen and grabbed bottles of juice for everyone, then sat next to Clare and Emi. "Kelly, do you still have those yoga shorts that were too small?" he asked looking at her. "Yea." she answered. "I need them for Clare." He said honestly. "They're in the same place in my room. Also you're on wash duty later after Dallas does the basics. I have Victoria's Secret lingerie that needs to be washed and you're the only one who doesn't shrink them besides Stacy and she has to go home. I also have work." Kelly said and he nodded. "Ok, Stacy do you need your Victoria's Secret lingerie washed?" he asked looking at her. "Yea. Dallas will get them for you when you're ready to do the laundry. Dallas cut some of the tags off mine so that should help a bit. My bras and other items have tags." Stacy explained and he nodded as he ate. "Dom is helping me separate the Victoria's Secret from everything." Dallas stated. "Ash and I will do the dishes then." Stacy stated honestly. "Ok, that leaves Kota and Clare to the floors after dinner." Kelly said. "I wanna help." Emi stated. "We just pick up big items and leave the rest to the roomba." he informed Clare as he continued to eat. After breakfast was done, Kota went and got the shorts for Clare and one of his shirts too. "I'll go change in Dom's bathroom." he smiled at her as he handed her the clothing and kissed her chastely before going to change.