#or c. how did we get here

[eltheabberation]

Messy panel redraw for a crack au I made :> (original panel is from :re chapter 2)

[guildling]

i appreciate him very much

[batsplat]

Brno 2003: Sete Gibernau sprays champagne at race winner Valentino Rossi, who is holding up his ball and chain that symbolises how he is 'condemned to win'.

From Rossi's autobiography:

In the summer of 2003, HRC sent over new exhaust pipes. I chose not to use it, precisely because I was sick and tired of hearing that I had an edge over everybody else. But, partly because of the stress, partly because I was also in negotiations with Yamaha, Honda and Ducati, I was in far from perfect form. Sometimes I would lose concentration and make mistakes. When I famously missed that turn in Barcelona and ended up in the run-off area, it was a result of the fact that I was napping behind Capirossi. This incident, and others, caused people to say that my bike was so much better that I could afford the luxury of sitting back and simply turning on the juice late in the race, beating everyone in the final lap. Obviously this was not the case. If I have the chance to pull away, I pull away. Always. Because if you hold out for the last lap you're taking a huge risk: you might finish second! Whereas if you can pull away at an earlier point in the race, you can avoid trouble later on. I only ever sit and wait when there is no alternative. That's when, for me, lying in wait is a good tactic and the best way to win. In Germany, for example, I made a mistake on the last lap and Gibernau made me pay for it. But it's not as if I was planning to wait for the end, as a way of humiliating my opponents. I simply made the mistake of not passing him earlier, so that I could then build a gap. It was a tactical error. After losing that race in that way, because of a distraction, I got so angry that on my way home I told myself, "Enough! From now on, I'm taking no prisoners!" So from that moment on I raced with the aim of dominating every lap and I won five of the last six races of the season. The only one where I finished second was the Grand Prix of the Pacific, in Motegi. But as you know, that day I raced after getting virtually no sleep the night before, because that was the night I had decided to leave Honda. As you can imagine, I wasn't totally focused, to say the least.

The race at the Sachsenring in 2003 was a particularly painful loss. Rossi had overtaken Gibernau on the penultimate corner, but had made a mistake into the final corner that let Gibernau get a better run to the line and beat him by a mere 0.06 seconds. He was criticised by the Italian press in the aftermath, as had become increasingly common that year. Despite leading the championship by a healthy margin, this was widely perceived to be a weaker season than his overwhelmingly dominant 2002, not least because he had achieved only three race victories to Gibernau's four. He had already felt disillusioned with Honda from the start of the year, sick of a culture of winning he found as oppressive as it was relentless. Sachsenring was the last race before the summer break, and he went off to Ibiza to clear his head and get a new haircut.

^The new haircut in question.

Excerpt from the Brno race commentary:

Rossi hasn’t won for four races*. He is desperate to win here this weekend. He turned up at the circuit this Thursday with a bright red haircut that he got on the beach at Ibiza - he was feeling very jovial, very relaxed, and… Well, it’s been suggested in some quarters that it’s a psychological thing he’s trying to pull on the other riders, because he’s coming under mounting pressure from the press and the fans - and Rossi just wanting to show he’s still the party animal he always was and he’s having fun out there on the bike.

*His results during that time were P2 P3 P3 P2.

Fresh from his time off, Rossi got involved in a tight five-way battle with Bayliss, Gibernau, Biaggi (in the first half of the race), and Capirossi. His victory was far from inevitable, and when Rossi managed to get in front for the first time he was unable to make a break for it. After the group of riders fought it out for most of the race, the contest for the win eventually came down to a direct duel between Rossi and Gibernau. With one and a half laps to go, Rossi ran it wide and let Gibernau get back in front once again - and made another mistake that seemed to give Gibernau the decisive advantage. Rossi made the overtake for the win with only a few corners to go.

^Gibernau congratulating Rossi, at a time when the two were still good friends. According to the commentary, the two of them had partied together over the summer break on Ibiza.

^From Rossi's autobiography: "This gag was supposed to be ironic, underscoring my situation with Honda. Everybody expected victory from me. So I was a condemned man, condemned to win..." (See here for gifs of the celebration.)

Rossi finished 0.042s ahead of Gibernau, with another close run to the line... so the elaborate celebrations could very easily have not come to pass. He ended up breaking the circuit record on the last lap - and went on to win all but one of the remaining races that season.

From Mat Oxley's Valentino Rossi: All His Races:

And then his first post-race theatrics in a while: he wore a prison inmate's hat and ball and chain to poke fun at the Italian media. "They said I was in crisis because I'd been beaten at the last four races. Leading the championship and finishing on the podium obviously isn't enough for them, so now I must work on the chain gang!" And beneath the striped cap was a new red hairdo, which restarted the Ducati rumours. In fact, nothing could have been further from the truth. During a secret midnight meeting in the paddock, Vale told Yamaha that he would ride for them in 2004.

An excerpt from the commentary at the next race in Estoril:

Well Valentino Rossi arrived in Brno three weeks ago with a bright red hairstyle and a lot of criticism from the Italian press saying he wasn't as focused as he had been last year; he'd just lost that race at the Sachsenring in Germany. He's fought back in the best possible way.

^Rossi's fans at Sepang 2003.

When he sealed the title in Sepang that year, he brought back the convict celebrations, this time equipped with a big novelty lock and key - so that he could free himself of his shackles at last. He left Honda at the end of the year to embark on a new adventure with Yamaha.

[skitskatdacat63]

Hey do you remember all those videos of Fernando smelling flowers? Haha yeah....

[campbenji]

based on swrve's video, if the jwct s1 novelization is coming out July 2nd 2024, that should mean the show would be premiering the month prior, meaning June 2024. i do want to mention that although ppl have previously used the novelizations to guess release dates, this is an entirely new show and nothing is confirmed, so the rest of this post is merely speculation.

if we guide ourselves on the release dates of the jwcc seasons, almost all of them were released on the second to last week of the month, the only exception being season 4, which due to the second to last Friday of the year being Christmas's Eve, could not follow this rule. the first four seasons released on a Friday, with season 5 releasing on Thursday. so, if we assume jwct will follow similar rules to jwcc in terms of release, we could be expecting season 1 to come out the second to last Friday of June: June 21st 2024.

now *drops the researcher tone* June 21st 2024. that's half a year away. just half a year. can you hear my screaming

[moeblob]

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

Fulj hates one thing: Deacon.

[zeep-xanflorp]

WHICH ONE OF YALL TOLD MY FRIEND AB THE RICKFUCKERS IM NEVER GONNA HEAR THE END OF THIS NOW

[justaz]

sick and tired of the needing to know every aspect and technicality of a ship’s domestic life. “theyre two boys, how will they have kids” idk thru the power of homosexuals?? stop asking me, why does it matter???

[deus-ex-mona]

i miss her…

[joelscruff]

me: *writes a boyfriends dad!joel smut fic one day just for fun*

me now: *watching my readers cry over the deep lore i've created*

[saviourkingslut]

not to be about opera again but to be about opera again. as an art form it has the reputation of being super stuffy and something for snobs who don't know how to have fun only but honestly this was one of, perhaps even THE main theatrical entertainment for centuries. i wish people knew how hard these things can go and how engaging they can be. like characters kill and die and fight wars and (almost) commit human sacrifice left and right. characters fall in love they mourn they're ecstatic they cry they're furious it's an extremely dramatic and emotional art form! and i understand that opera does not appear approachable bc of the general conventions of the art form but i promise old works can be fun and engaging if you go watch them with some preparation beforehand (reading the libretto helps) - not to mention not all operas are old bc there are so many modern operas which engage with topical events! also the music slaps.

[ichthyorelationships]

ideas: i didn't really think of him being underwater but they deserve to have drama by crying there too so i just think you could say something about the composition being denser than water or w/e. proteins

i'm always like good thing he didn't try to exit asap via swimming in ciao alberto But What If He Did lol. just swim Somewhere else along the coast, maybe panic about [money??] & whether somehow this ruins school for luca, whether he can get in touch w/o it being On Sight b/w him & all marcovaldos, consider just kind of trying out other places, traveling after all...fascinating considering the other povs on the issue like: now there's the paguros to sympathize w/a kid vanishing, luca however in a somewhat more novel position there, giulia's throwback to alberto being a bit perplexing lmao, kind of thinking the best massimo could do is have a prewritten letter for luca to give to alberto If Possible, conveying something like i know you didn't set my livelihood on fire on purpose but even if you did i'd want you to stay. and luca in a position to do all of "maybe give the island fun facts so someone can check if he's there" & "wait & hope alberto can/does get in touch" & "have a lot of feelings"....not even the context of what this drawing is about necessarily, just tacking it on here anyways. ahead of time i went "heh now i Know they're gonna have it get little Real here b/c it's really about alberto wanting the security of feeling he can 'earn' a sustained relationship" then the short cleared & i was lying completely dead on the pavement

[yuukimiyas]

໒꒰ྀི◞ ︿ ◟ ꒱ྀི১ accidentally hurt my own feelings last night & now my brain hurts !!!

[flaming-toads]

.

[ascalonianlightbringer]

curuniel replied to this post:

Fun fact Logan used to be a mercenary, of a somewhat rough kind. Much less of a fancy boy before he got his current job. So I'm not surprised that extrajudicial murder wasn't fully off the cards.

Huh! On the one hand, I wouldn't have ever imagined that background from the personal story. On the other, he does often seem frustrated by the constraints of Krytan society and his position, so it makes a certain kind of sense.

Like, in the noble storyline, the bandit situation does get resolved through formal channels and traditions, but Logan is super gung-ho about backing up the PC in trial by combat, and he does mutter about taking things into his own hands if they don't work out this way. And in the commoner story, he's the one who rushes into a fight with a ton of Ministry guards while Anise urges caution. So "no, you can't just try and murder him, we've got to lure him out so we can actually kill him" isn't necessarily out of character for him even given the other storylines. And it also makes sense that he'd bother less with the fancy captain persona when the hero who rescued him is an ex-bandit from the streets.

[furrysmp]

decided for giggles to see what dsmp has been up to in the. Two and a half years since I last looked

Anyways so canon is trashfire but the part of me that started sunbringer in dsmp is now stirring to make More stuff. Like a "the universe reset thing but dream is still in prison so it doesn't reach him" thing that I'm trying to remove from brain bc I actually didn't do the catching up via vods and instead looked at fandom reaction for instructions and uhm.

Yeah no I genuinely want to write this it's gonna be so interesting but also who even does dsmp anymore like is there an audience