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batsplat · 2 months

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Is Valentino Rossi the best rider in 1vs1 battles?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#anon: who's the best at 1vs1 battles #me: well what does the word 'best' really mean you know... what does it mean to be good at anything #dude why is this so long. i blacked out when i wrote this #i do love athletes whose brains are their usp #though it's quite easy to... go too far in that direction. like valentino wasn't just mind beaming his way to all his wins #that being said. i did see that valentino only had ONE race in his career where he had all three of pole/fastest lap/every lap led #one!!!! pecco apparently has like? five???? casey has NINE #I worked out the percentages for this based on the numbers people were floating as % of total premier class wins #vale is at 1.12% jorge at 10.64% marc at 13.56% pecco at 22.73% and casey 23.68% likeeeeeeeee the gulf is CRAZY #pecco and casey relatively speaking of those names have had their primes in the worst eras for racing but #HOW do you only completely dominate one race out of eighty nine wins. how does that happen. what a scammer #and the funniest bit is the one time vale did it... was jerez 2016. first race in spain that year. like wow is THAT how we motivate you #seventeenth season in the premier class and that's what it took. one of the purest spite rides this world has ever seen #//#brr brr #batsplat responds #heretic tag #this is all incredible cowardice btw obviously i've ranked all the aliens in my notes by basically every imaginable metric #from qualifying to starts to w2w to mixed conditions to wet weather prowess etc etc etc. like i do also do it i just don't stand by it #realistically one of vale or dovi do kinda have the strongest case this century. like if we're going sample size x success rate it's them #anyways. too much 'oh if only casey hadn't retired' this 'couldn't he have stayed for longer' that #all i'm asking for is to re-run those years with a sensible engine capacity lemme see something #i feel like if you upped the sample size casey's w2w would get respected way more but his achilles heel would be red mist #like in retrospect it didn't matter but sachsenring 2012 genuinely could have cost him the title. brother what are you doing #mugello 2012 right after that like girl......#if he hadn't injured himself at indy people would have Serious Conversations about that duo of races lbr. now everyone's forgotten #this is some of the world's most niche discourse truly #idol tag

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yeonban · 4 months

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OC Questions on the Seven Forms of Love.

@effigist asked: Does your OC have a healthy sense of their own worth and value? Or do they see themselves as failing to live up to their original potential? Perhaps they are convinced of their own sinful or inadequate nature? / for tobias &. elijah again !

Tobias does! If anything, his sense of personal worth is more inflated than a regular person's should be. Like the majority of the orphans from Wammy's House, he wholeheartedly believes that he is always right and he has complete trust in his own abilities, regardless of whether we're talking about his intellect, attention to details, leadership skills or whatever else. He's confident in everything he has to offer, and he knows exactly what his value is, especially in relation to the underground and Wammy's House. That is partially why he feels comfortable enough to purposefully act rude to some of his caretakers and allies: he's aware that no matter what he might do or say, as long as his usefulness outweighs it on the balancing scale, they won't be able to do without him. It's comical to watch too, how grown adults have to resort to relying on someone as young as him time and again even when he's intentionally getting on their nerves. It definitely serves as an ego boost!

The downside to that, though, is how very much of his self-worth is based on how well he's doing with his schemes. Being wrong once would be a humbling hit to his ego, being wrong twice would be the same as having the sky fall down on him, and being wrong thrice would practically cement that he's no longer an useful asset, which would prompt him to prepare ahead of time for his incoming death. This is one of the many side-effects of having been groomed by Wammy's House into equaling his existence to how successful he is, and Tobias is actually one of the few orphans who takes this news well, since he's always been prepared to die, even long before he arrived at the orphanage. That said, he genuinely doesn't think it's possible for him to ever fail or be wrong, so he's rarely if ever contemplated this. #Ignorance_is_bliss!

As for his opinions on his own nature... Tobias may be certain that he's living up to his full potential and that he'll only get better from here on out, but he is just as confident that he is a "sinful" person down to the core. Not because of what he does for a job nor because of what he does to guarantee his survival, since he doesn't think others in his position are sinful, but rather because of his guardians. He's always thought that by having been born as his parents' son, he will eventually end up like them too, filth teaches filth, and the fact that daily he grows more similar to them really doesn't help the counter cases. His parents literally modeled him after themselves during his formative years, to the point where he grew to enjoy hurting others in spite of the many teachings Wammy's House tried to instill in him which ultimately only helped him select a target (criminals who should be taken down a peg) for his enjoyment rather than eradicating the habit entirely, and were his parents' friends still alive, they would be able to recognize Tobias as the Stratford family's son the second they'd lay their eyes on him; not even by looks, but by his uncanny smile, the way he holds himself and his interests.

Even worse still, his next guardians (Watari, Roger, Wammy House's misc. staff) are people who also couldn't care less about what happens to the orphans they raised as long as they aren't fit to become the next L, and Tobias realizes he's subconsciously adopted many of their beliefs as well. If everyone who raised him was/is a godawful person that the world would be better off without, then it's obvious that he is the same as them. Fortunately though, he can't bring himself to really care about what his overall impact on the world is. Whether he'll leave this world better off or worse off than it was when he was born, it doesn't matter. He'll be satisfied with whichever. All that actually matters to Tobias is getting to live his life however he pleases, by seeking fun as he currently is and by getting to feel alive for a bit rather than feel detached, empty or angry as he's always felt during his childhood and teenagerhood. He never got to enjoy life until he left Wammy's House at 16, so he's going all out on it now while he still can say he'll wake up the next day. He has a... surprisingly positive view on himself and life, all things considered.

Elijah on the other hand, is much worse off mentally and existentially. Similarly to how Tobias and every other Wammy orphan in existence bases their worth around how perfect (or not) they are at utilizing the skillsets that made them into "official" geniuses worthy of being taken to Wammy's House, so is Elijah, except when he arrived at the orphanage's doors, he already felt like a deeply inadequate person. His mother died when he was very young, several years before he became an orphan, and although he does vaguely remember her kindness and warmth, what he remembers more vividly is his father, who ignored his existence by either not being present at home if possible or by outright acting as though Elijah didn't exist. His father was never fond of children to begin with, but watching his son take on all of his late wife's traits reminded him of his loss and only added salt into his wound, making him eventually dislike even seeing Elijah.

The only times Elijah was ever spared a glance, or rarely, given praise, was when he put up a convincing act in front of his father and/or his father's friends by "becoming" someone he wasn't. He purposefully rid himself of every trait that his father disliked and instead took on a "persona" which would be catered to his specific preferences. Later, he took it up another notch and began changing his appearance as well, to whichever extent he could manage with the resources he could find in the house. Soon enough, his father figured he could use his son's acting and disguise talents to pass it off as having multiple children with varied interests and personalities, which led to him striking numerous (scam) business deals in Elijah's name (as well as "his other sons"' names) for the future. Moreover, he promised others that "each" of his "sons" would marry into certain families down the line based on whichever offers or connections he received right now in return, and thanks to the usefulness he suddenly found in Elijah, his father started paying more attention to him. Except, his father never liked Elijah for who he really was, only for who he could become, and therefore not only did Elijah never like himself either, but he only ever saw a semblance of worth in himself when he wasn't being himself.

Safe to say, after his father died in an accident, Elijah no longer knew who to be. He "was" several boys, each one in front of different people or on different days of the week, and whoever he was would always be picked by his father. Although Elijah did find his way into Wammy's House that same year, he wasn't found by Watari. Rather, he was found by one of the letters of the third generation who then sent him to be "examined" by Watari's staff to check which of Quillish's orphanages he would fit better in, and this examination only helped worsen what Elijah thought to be true. He once again had to prove himself if he wanted others to not abandon him, and so he proved his talents and continued to do so when he was selected for Wammy's House as well.

It was only when he met Tobias, who bluntly disregarded his acting and called him out for having no personality on their first meeting, that Elijah was forced to face the reality that even he himself didn't know who he was or what made him him other than his skills. Ironically enough, with the two of them having arrived at the orphanage only a few days apart, they were selected as roommates for the rest of their stay at Wammy's House. The problem was that Tobias disliked every single one of Elijah's personas, and made it painfully clear. This brought Elijah to quite a conundrum, because even the new ones he tried to create to cater to Tobias' taste incited, at best, a roll of Tobias' eyes. The ongoing hostility from Tobias' end also intimidated him for a while, but the forced proximity of their shared room and the subsequent years of Tobias looking down on him in pure disgust despite his best efforts to accommodate him eventually irritated Elijah enough to start a physical altercation.

Puzzlingly, and although Tobias was at first seriously considering murdering him for daring to jump him, Elijah noticed that Tobias tolerated him more easily when he showed his real feelings and expressed his real thoughts than when he made some up. They were still antagonistic to each other for a while afterwards, but with Tobias respecting Elijah's true self more than his imitations, and with Elijah realizing it and acting accordingly, he eventually formed a personality that felt more authentic to himself. The others, fellow orphans and the staff alike, liked his real self too, and this has helped Elijah let go of some of his preconceived beliefs of his innate unworthiness.

However, he couldn't rid himself of them entirely, because Wammy's House flourishes by working on and perfecting every orphan's particular skillsets in preparation for their future as safeguarding agents. Elijah's talents, whether he liked it or not, were acting and disguises, and thus this was what his individual lessons were focused on, whereas the missions given to him all entailed different identities to take upon himself for espionage work. Although he made a step forward by being able to show his true self outside of studies and work, he couldn't always be himself, and that was enough of an obstacle for Elijah to once again become unsure of which parts of himself were him and which were adopted from others.

This is a dilemma that he continues to experience to this day, feeling alien in his own skin, and especially so since he chose to help Tobias in his grand schemes by doing what he knows best to be helpful, meaning exactly what is causing him an identity crisis to begin with. It's why he struggles to find any value in himself and why he believes his worth comes solely from his skills and the intel or connections he brings back. It has reached a point where Elijah's different personas have sort of muddled into one that he tends to use outside of work, which is a mix of himself and the hundreds of other people he's faked being over the years. The only times you can see his unadulterated self, with no semblance of someone else and childish as it might look, is when he bickers with Tobias, which is amusingly enough also when Tobias shows his unadulterated self. A whole decade of mental development later and they're still the same perpetually beefing dumbasses 💔 Watari is rolling in his grave as we speak

The reasons why Elijah opted to work for Tobias rather than for Wammy's House are actually related to the point above. Tobias, unlike their fellow orphans, still manages to get an accurate read on Elijah even when Elijah himself doesn't quite understand what he's thinking or feeling, so being able to ask Tobias for psychological explanations is rather grounding. On top of that, with Tobias being unsure of how to navigate a "normal" life thanks to his out of the ordinary upbringing, and with this leading to him asking Elijah for help in turn, Elijah gets to feel useful even outside of his missions, as his own person separate from the disguise master and the spy. Though one could argue that Elijah's sense of worth remains mostly tied to his genius, and that his sense of self is nowadays mainly tied to Tobias' understanding of it. At least it's a good thing that Tobias is always right with his judgements.

#◜✧ . ❪ muse. tobias. ❫#◜✧ . ❪ tobias ; meta. ❫#◜✧ . ❪ muse. elijah. ❫#◜✧ . ❪ elijah ; meta. ❫#long post /#child abuse /#Wammy's House don't traumatize one (1) of your dozens of orphans challenge IMPOSSIBLE #You'd think Tobias would be worse off considering his past is traumatizing in a million more aspects than Elijah's but amazingly no??#Tobias' parents traumatizing him in the way they did ended up cutting off his brain links to emotions outside of primal ones (anger)#so although he's The worst person in the world to piss off and definitely not a nice guy to come across... he's alright w Himself!#Meanwhile ELIJAH's mental health is hanging on a thread at all times and the thread's tied to Tobias' wrist of all people 😭😭😭#These 2 are the most ??? duo to ever exist like Tobias is out there acting as Elijah's personal psychologist b4 sending him to work #and Elijah is acting as Tobias' moral compass & personal aid for social interactions that Tobias hasn't had experience with thus far #They should do a comical bit actually bc this is ridiculous enough for one. Elijah calls Tobias to ask what he (<-Elijah) is feeling today #and then after answering /srsly; Tobias asks Elijah what reaction he (<-Tobias) should have instead of punching sb in the face #Every normal person watching the bit (that's not even a bit; it's just a flavor of insanity that the house has gifted its orphans): ......?#I do find it hilarious how Tobias has a track record of calling people who are struggling w themselves out like open books though LMAOOOOO!#Kid him was far worse. NO tact whatsoever because he was always annoyed. NOW however he's at least saying it um... decently!!

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