#so he made sure he wouldn't have to

[a2zillustration]

I carried this thing for MONTHS with the EXPRESS PURPOSE of putting Raphael in it (knowing full well Larian wouldn't let me do that, mechanically) and I had one major miscalculation.

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[[ All Croissant Adventures (chronological, desktop) ]]

[[ All Croissant Adventures (app) ]]

[naamahdarling]

Sudden and hard. Felt like a small explosion, like when the compressed gas factory a few miles away from my house exploded years ago, but with no sound besides the soft, faint thunder of a dozen nearby houses shuddering.

And our house shaking, obvs.

Cats were/are not happy.

[cantdealwiththisnow]

Part 1 - Appreciation post for all the TFP universe Autobot mugshot cameos (known and unknown) in RID2015 3x25 (even if the context is that they've been OUSTED against their will)

[fourswords]

to be quite honest shadow's characterization in the fsa manga was always something that raised more questions than answers for me because it's like. he's got a mile-wide inferiority complex about being link's shadow we all know this but when did he have the time to develop that inferiority complex in the first place. how long was he lurking around after ganon created him before the events of the manga actually started. what did he witness or hear or both to make him so fucking angry

[mlobsters]

jared padelecki and jensen ackles jaxcon 2023 gold panel (x) / gen v s1e6 jumanji

diddling and musk flavored skittles

[batsplat]

after 2015 until 2018 it seemed that things had calmed down a bit between valentino and marc, in the sense that they had started to be polite between them again and valentino no longer seemed to be on a war footing. then after argentina obviously the situation worsened again. in the podcast where valentino spoke in 2021 if I'm not mistaken, when he talks about marc,however, he only refers to the events of sepang and not to what happened in argentina which instead seemed to have been the final “divorce”. so my question is, during 2016 and 2017 did valentino just pretend to put up with marc? because in that podcast you can feel valentino's resentment is still a lot even after many years, so I imagine it must have been even greater in the two years immediately following sepang, even if it didn't seem if you see how he behaved

well. look. it was reflected in how valentino behaved... I think sometimes if you see isolated photos and gifsets, you can maybe be left with a bit of a mistaken impression of what that dynamic actually looked like for those two years. they got to a point post-catalunya where they were civil to each other, and maybe they'd exchange two lines in greeting, at podium celebrations, when somebody in a presser made a joke... and maybe marc at the very least was sincerely hoping they could get back to something like what they had before 2015. in reality, though, it was still very very far away. it wasn't open hostilities... at some point in 2016, valentino realised he simply couldn't go on like this. I talked about it a bit here:

you get this discrepancy in his 2016 output, actually. if you compare what he's saying that autumn for written press interviews vs what he's saying with marc right next to him... he'd clearly decided there was zero point in directly fanning the flames. at the sepang 2016 presser when marc and him are quizzed on what had happened the previous year, he just goes with marc's response and decides against reopening the controversy by adding anything from his side. but he still made it clear he hadn't changed his mind in interviews from the exact same time period! at times, he tolerates marc's tentative advances - at other times, he's almost accidentally sucked in, like he can't quite help himself from laughing at something marc has said. but there was never a period where he forgave marc for what he'd done... for various reasons he just decided he wasn't going to harp on about it too much. he did basically say as much post-argentina 2018:

but yeah, argentina 2018. it's an interesting one, isn't it? the stuff that valentino says there doesn't actually feel... quite in line with anything else he's said about marc. typically, when valentino criticises marc, it really is all about sepang 2015 - it's very focused, very specific, he's talking about being unable to forgive marc on a personal level for something marc had done to valentino... but it's not like he's really coming at marc for anything else... when other riders have gotten into spats with marc, he's stayed out of it - and generally he remains pretty neutral when he talks about everything else concerning marc. so, for example, there's a world where the moment alex rins is saying marc doesn't respect other riders in 2019, valentino immediately jumps at the opportunity to offer his hot take... but he doesn't do that. and yes, he had criticised marc's riding before, in particular in marc's moto2 days, but obviously those criticisms were considerably more restrained and sounded at times quite worried for marc's sake. (he also got close to that in silverstone 2016 when he remarked marc had 'something special' for their battles, but a) he's not wrong, except insofar as it's clearly mutual, and b) he explicitly said he didn't have a problem with that fight and considered it hard but fair). in 2017, when valentino was criticising other riders for being too aggressive... well, he wasn't doing so with marc, and he even conceded the point to marc in subsequent races after marc had obliquely criticised valentino at cota for his rhetoric not matching up to his own riding. when valentino's young riders have gotten into their own spats with marc, he's not waded in either, at most saying stuff about marc's fight with pecco that from his lips sounds almost like something akin to praise. radio silence after bez's run in with marc at the end of last year... argentina 2018 is the exception not the rule

and you know... at the end of the day, that was an emotional reaction. valentino might be wearing the habitual smile on his face during the media debrief and sound reasonably calm and composed, but he was furious. which, it's always worth remembering, isn't an entirely unreasonable reaction to that specific situation. yes, valentino doesn't have a clean track record either, but you're going to struggle to find such a... weaponised carelessness, a blatant disinterest in his fellow riders while shoving them aside, in the way marc was exhibiting that day - and indeed that whole weekend. looking back, of course argentina 2018 ended up being an isolated blot on marc's track record that he's not come close to repeating since (yes, he's made high profile errors that took out other riders, but it's different)... but we didn't know that at the time. also, I doubt valentino much appreciated being treated just like an obstacle in marc's path! the fact that valentino wasn't the only marc victim that weekend kind of has an interesting effect, because you have to doubt whether it would have helped if valentino felt like he was being targeted specifically by marc, but on the other hand... well, it's almost disrespectful, isn't it... being singled out is in a way still better than being brushed aside like any other rider

still, valentino's pushing it with his criticisms, he's out of line, and he clearly did lash out in the heat of the moment - which was of course largely a product of the resentment he'd been holding onto those past two years. calling marc's behaviour that day dangerous? sure, you'd find a lot of agreement for that. saying that marc was ruining the sport? that he was intentionally causing other riders to crash? ... well, hold on one moment. I reckon the simplest explanation is the best one here: valentino was angry and said stuff he wouldn't otherwise say, which we know because he's not done so before or since. of course, he was never going to retract what he said about marc that day - he wasn't ever going to apologise for it. not with their history, not when there was still just enough about those argentina comments that he meant... so he wasn't going to feel too much regret about the bits he wouldn't have said under any other circumstance. the problem post-2015 for valentino is that constantly signalling his fury to the world wasn't doing him much good... but pretending like everything was just fine clearly also took a bit of a toll. argentina 2018 wiped the slate clean - even though they gradually crept back towards basic civility after that. and valentino really didn't continue with that line of critique... since then he's basically completely reverted back to a sepang 2015-centric approach. maybe a few hints at it... in 2021, he said something along the lines of how he doesn't feel good when he's on-track with marc, but that's pretty generic while also crucially being personal - he's not saying marc is a problem for the series, he's saying it's them specifically that have an issue with each other

which doesn't mean he didn't believe what he said in argentina 2018 in the moment... when they reconvened in cota and had marc and valentino do separate media debriefs from the main presser, valentino said he stood by his comments - but also didn't actually repeat them or elaborate on them or anything. he's back to terse short responses to the press' questions, saying he wants to focus on the race ahead: kind of the go-to approach when it comes to marc post-sepang (with notable exceptions). he's walked his strongest comments back as much as he was probably ever going to - by simple virtue of the fact that he's left it at that. and you know, he's a complicated guy... 2016-17 was both pretending and it also wasn't. he didn't act like everything was forgotten, but he certainly was willing to let people believe that this relationship might end up being mended - which quite frankly was probably never going to happen. mostly, he was just sort of sick of the whole thing, struggling to enjoy himself in what had become such a charged, hostile environment for all the riders involved. at the same time, look - fundamentally, the interpersonal chemistry with marc was always fine. they click as people! they click as riders! marc makes valentino laugh! sometimes, that line between 'pretending' and 'letting yourself pretend' and 'actually not pretending at all' can be quite thin. when valentino talks in that time period about how much he enjoyed a battle with marc, of course he isn't lying - because he really does enjoy those fights! that's what racing is all about for him, and that's something him and marc still share! as long as marc isn't barging him aside and causing him to crash, that is. maybe it'd be easier if it were all a pretence, but it wasn't... sometimes, when you say you thought a race was hard and fair, you really do mean it and you really did have a lot of fun. sometimes, the struggle isn't actually acting nice for the cameras, it's trying to bite down the temptation to laugh alongside your sworn enemy

see also assen 2016... like, isn't this kinda wild? you've just had catalunya the race before, you've just had the mere semblance of a tentative start to a possible reconciliation - then they return to the place that was really the beginning of the end for them. they go on a few track familiarisation laps, including to check out the resurfaced final chicane (aka the scene of the crime). they race each other on said track familiarisation laps. then marc brings it up in the presser, giggling about the whole thing, and apparently valentino also finds it pretty funny - before he visibly swallows up his grin. later that weekend, marc pointedly decides to try out valentino's final chicane move himself during the warm up session. this is all obviously deranged, but it's a type of deranged where they are fundamentally on the same wavelength. it's the kind of ridiculous behaviour they're both incredibly fond of... you see it in how valentino shrugs off the towing at catalunya 2019, and thinks it speaks to marc's smarts and wiliness - unsurprising, really, because they're so similar in that regard, and valentino has never shaken his admiration for marc as a competitor

valentino can clamp down on his animosity towards a rival during his direct interactions with them... lord knows if you watch a few of the casey and valentino face-to-face interactions over the years, you really wouldn't match that up with the sheer vitriol of some of the stuff they were concurrently saying about each other in the press. that rivalry was never really personal (on valentino's end), it was never fraught in the same way (for valentino anyway) - still, it shows he's theoretically capable of separating this stuff out when he needs to... and he just about managed with marc for two years. if he had just been waiting for an excuse, surely you would have heard at least a hint of that when him and marc swapped paint in 2017. you never quite knew how he was going to answer the inevitable questions about marc's riding, but no direct criticism was forthcoming at any stage. the post-argentina 2018 rhetoric wasn't in any way premeditated from valentino's side, and personally I don't think he was just waiting for an excuse either. it was the result of a constant internal conflict between knowing that engaging in any more active beef with marc wouldn't do anyone any good, and the fact that he still hadn't forgiven marc... and then a race came along that simply pissed him off enough to push him over the edge

from 2016 onwards, valentino both very much wanted and very much did not want further conflict with marc, and neither of those impulses ever quite go away. usually, he's disciplined enough to avoid stoking the flames any further... potshots to the press outside of the paddock are essentially a free and harmless outlet in that regard, and even there you can tell he was trying to scale it back in the years where he was being forced to directly interact with marc. he was pretending and not pretending and sometimes pretending like he wasn't pretending and sometimes pretending like he was pretending. maybe it would have always just taken one major on-track confrontation for things to fall apart between them again... but you do kinda have to acknowledge the whole thing was really unfortunate. I've long thought that something like sepang 2015 was pretty inevitable as long as valentino managed to put himself in title contention once marc had joined the premier class, but I don't actually feel the same way about argentina 2018. an awful marriage of circumstance and coincidence and bad choices caused the relationship to fall apart again this badly. valentino might have had some more or less sincere misgivings about marc's riding, but at the end of the day he wasn't going to ever express them unless it got personal - because all of these people are incredibly self-centred and valentino wouldn't have felt like it was worth it. he lost his temper, he said some stuff he might partly but not fully believe, he's not inclined to bring it up again. that's that

[vulpinesaint]

they are so fucking silly it might be terminal

[humanmorph]

"They found each other in the wreckage of optimism, and it took them a decade to decide that hope was not enough to save the Golden Branch from itself. It was in a library, not an armoury, where the Apostolosian became the sword and shield of Integrity, a Divine who’d lost its Candidate. Some climb into their Divines, others deploy them across the battlefield, or fight under the blanket of their shadows. But Integrity demands intimacy. It digs into the flesh of the willing, all metal and promises and penetralia, desperate to create an unbreakable unity. It is afraid, and wounded, and it cannot know the power it gives without seeing it first in the reflection of a Candidate's eyes: the loft, the velocity, the violence. And for the first time in centuries, Integrity doesn’t fear its Candidate. It moves with confidence, in muscle and ambition. It believes in Sokrates Nikon Artemisios." (COUNTER/Weight 22: A Broken Branch)

Great episode to get to after recent palisade happenings. I obviously remember the "Integrity demands intimacy" but there's so much other great stuff here.... "They found each other in the wreckage of optimism" is just incredible.

Edit: Noting the wording of " [...] the Apostolosian became the sword and shield of Integrity" because Integrity literally is both those things - they are the armor Sokrates wears and the weapon they wield - but it positions them here both as a protector of Integrity and someone Integrity acts through (divines & candidates!).

And I love that this gives Integrity pre-Sokrates interiority I had honestly completely forgotten about. "For the first time in centuries, Integrity doesn't fear it's candidate" A divine afraid(!) of what it can do together with it's candidate, the power it gives. And then what Austin describes in pal29 comes to mind, which is like, "if there was a time when Integrity was like, you know, 'Finally someone has come to help me get out of this situation.' That is not what's happening here." It's interesting because that phrasing of if not the current but a past state("that time has come and gone ")... it still sounds like fear a little bit. And that obviously isn't the case anymore (I don't feel like typing out this Austin quote but he said something about the notion of immortality & change that made me real happy. I love that shit) & I'm curious to learn more about this hopefully.

I love Integrity & while I don't think of it as "the good one", it's fate is important to me because is still one of the sickest divines (which is really saying a lot with like, Perennial and Motion et al. around).

[i3utterflyeffect]

What if the way Mango learns is that Dark tells him? And thinks it a normal thing to admit to? Like "oh yeah, I turned my creator into a stick figure so I could kill him, and I also stabbed the kids he adopted in front of him because I wanted to suffer as much as possible. Apparently they all ended up getting brought back though." Or something along those lines where it is clear who he's talking about.

MAN. i feel like King would just break from being told that casually.

[passthroughtime]

yagami, WHY do you have to be such a bitch around kuwana. i'm going to strangle you.

(P.S.: he didn't tell kuwana that tesso said not to feel bad about it. obviously.)

[sysig]

Animal collection as a hobby, a perfect fit! (Patreon)

[axewchao]

Another look at the three new faces from the previous pic! They may only be memories to Dal now, but they're memories that he keeps close to his heart.

Fun fact: Everyone in Dal's tribe had their names come from gems. Would've had each gem connect via what they symbolize, but it was hard to get any concrete meanings when multiple sites would say different things about the same gem. So I decided, "screw it, go random."

Tanzi: (Name comes from tanzanite.) The older of Dal's charges. A shy yet curious sort, Tanzi loved exploring the caverns with her Warden. She especially loved lessons revolving around gems and their uses, and would collect different ones so she could practice making jewelry. Coming from a whole family of jewelers, it was clear that Tanzi would've had a head start on her future once she was of apprentice age.

Whenever she wandered the lower levels of the tribe's home, Tanzi would often sense something... "off" about the area, but no one ever saw her concerns worth investigating. Except her Warden, that is...

Ama: (Name comes from amazonite.) The younger of Dal's charges. Reckless and confident, Ama's dream from the get-go was to become an Ascendant and see the world above, and she spent every day trying to find ways to make that happen. Often to disastrous effects; proving how fast she could run led to her crashing into people/fragile objects, she'd nearly set off a few traps that could've seriously hurt her, and Dal himself had his own share of injuries when trying to keep her out of harm's way. Him being gentle yet firm was what made him the only Warden capable of keeping her in check, as others would loudly scold her, which both scared and made her all the more determined to prove herself, just so they'd stop yelling all the time.

Her motivation took a hard hit after her Warden was sealed inside a crystal; that's only for the bad guys, and her Warden was never bad!! So why'd the grown-ups take him away...?

Lazule: (Name comes from lapis lazuli.) A friend of Dal's since childhood, Lazule was an Ascendant; a tribe member that was granted access to the surface world after proving he was capable of handling the dangers that waited up above. His role was mainly to gather various herbs, fruits, and any other plants when requested. He did this happily, often coming back with more than what was asked of him because he wanted to spoil the puggles. And maybe get a flower or two for Dal, since seeing the latter left him more and more tongue-tied as they both got older...

While Tanzi and Ama are at peace in the afterlife, Lazule's spirit remained dormant in the caves, watching over the crystal Dal was imprisoned in, the Protector Pearl, and the ruins they both once called home. It isn't until Team Sonic arrives and frees Dal that Lazule finally passes on, knowing that both his dearest friend and the tribe's beloved Protector Pearl were left in good hands.

The new world Dalex had ascended to was completely different from what Lazule had always seen... but Dal would be fine. And someday, when Dal's time truly comes, he can tell Lazule all about it.

Until then, Lazule, Tanzi, Ama, and many others are more than content to wait.

[smile-files]

i continue to find ii3 baffling. why did they make it (this isn't to hate on the season, i'm genuinely curious)

[michinekot]

i felt like drawing Maru but I really don't have the energy to even color this sketch.

[bikananjarrus]

thinking about how stellan died so elzar didn't have to.....

[steakout-05]

i've made a few posts about the Clone High reboot before but something specific that i think it gets wrong are the way they handle their celebrity cameos. the original Clone High would sometimes bring in these popular celebrities to appear in the show, usually to influence the clones and push the main anti-moral of the episode. since Clone High was made in the early 2000s, these appearances got really dated really fast. but something that counteracts that is the way they're characterised. for example, i have no clue who tf Mandy Moore is, but i still really enjoyed her appearance in the Snowflake Day episode because of the way she's characterised and satirised. she's portrayed as this homeless girl who happens to be attractive and look suspiciously like Mandy Moore who's obviously trying to hide the fact that she's a popular celebrity by playing the role of Joan's guardian angel. she leads Joan on into thinking she's this magical angel when she's actually just stealing everyone's stuff and replacing it with spices, and it works really well because 1. her insistence that she isn't a celebrity was really funny and 2. she works on her own as a solid character to push the story along and set up jokes. they put a twist on the whole "hi i'm [insert celebrity here] and i'm here to talk about [insert psa here]" by turning it into a joke of itself and adding on extra traits that make the characters entertaining to watch.

the reboot, however... just does the "hi i'm celebrity" bit with full sencerity and doesn't really satirise the celebrities in any way. they don't make fun of them or add commentary or critique them in any way, they just appear to send a message and then dip, just like they would in the same teen dramas Clone High was meant to parody in the first place. for example, in the episode where they get hunted down by the Heebie Jeebie monster, its revealed at the end to be that guy from Sharknado who's just kinda like "hey i'm trying to send a message about the importance of teenager's mental health, here's a hotline, i'm sharknado dude btw" and then just kinda... dips? i don't like this because there's no joke there, it's literally just a celebrity coming on, saying the message out loud, and then leaving. there's no criticisms, there's no making fun of the character, there's no commentary on the fakeness of bringing on big celebrities and actors delivering a message that big stars like them could's possibly care less about to influence a vulnerable and impressionable group of people like teenagers, there's nothing there. i'm not saying the message of mental health is dumb or bad or anything, i'm just saying that the celebrity appearances aren't handed the same criticisms the original show was written to have, and i think that takes away the reboot's spirit as being connected to Clone High. it's not a satire anymore and i feel like i can't enjoy it because of that. it has become the very thing the original saught to mock, and like, that's kinda funny in a fucked up ironic way, but it's also really not. the reboot just doesn't have that same spark that made me fall in love with the original series and i feel like i can't like it because of that, among the multitude of other issues it has.