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#WAIT ONE MORE NOTE
writeouswriter · 2 years
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Broke: Acknowledging that a character who is an objectively terrible person is also a complex and intentionally well thought out individual with different levels of nuance you can empathize with in some ways while not in others is immediately “woobifying” or “poor little meow meowifying” them.
Woke: “This character is a bad person” and “this character is still a person” are two statements that can, should and do coexist and admitting that they exhibit nuance and depth and are more than just their bad actions doesn’t immediately excuse or condone their bad actions or mean that you’re ignoring or trying to soften the canonical version of the character.
Bespoke: That’s the whole point, that’s always been the point, to be made to empathize with horrible people so you can understand that they can be anyone, that bad people can be likeable, can be interesting, can be human, are human, and it’s scary to think about all the ways they’re just like you and all the ways they’re just like everything you hate, forcing the use of critical skills in media analysis, forcing a confrontation of the duality of man.
Whatever Level is Above Bespoke: But sometimes, yeah, sure, maybe they are a poor little meow meow, what are you gonna do, get a lawyer
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Lackadaisy Enrichment
#in our enclosures!!#video linked as source; which i'm glad to see already has a million views and is trending. That's Right#lackadaisy#WHICH i have been reading since at least '07 when i was thirteen my god b/c this animation is based on the ongoing webcomic#like does its influence show up Directly in some Discrete way i can point to in my art? not very easily probably. And Yet.#the inspiration....i wasn't able to be Regularly Only for at least another year / art done Nonprofessionally Online was novel to me#like wow ppl can make & post fanart of w/e they love huh....didn't know webcomics were a thing & i never really read that many since but.#good god the quality of Lackadaisy at its onset is like this is superb?? this person putting in all their talent and effort???#and Then you get years & years more art and i don't even know what superlatives to throw out abt its quality as it evolves. obsessed w/it..#if i see a new lackadaisy comic page i Will be acting out. obviously this animation is a delight & also stunning. and fascinating to also#juxtapose as a Translation / Interpretation of the comic in a different medium & standalone snippet of Story#and that we're not even quite there in the comic timeline; Taking Notes abt character info we get distilledly here....genuinely love like#take it back to '07 i'm like oh boy can't wait for the dream team to assemble. then a decade later when it did? Oh Boy. that is payoff lol#namely hooray for stitches and mudbug at the field office for every passing gangster. killing one marigold associate but not the other#which seems like a promising start to shootouts w/the other dream team triumvirate. i adore that in canon so far mordecai freckle & rocky#have met but only over a nice brunch. re: all intentions anyways. anyways i'm like Gifs Must Be Made while i'm also so riled afresh abt the#comic that i've been sooo hype for for over fifteen yrs now babeyyy Deservedly. i've done a couple of rereads & ought to do another....#For Interest it'd probably take a few sittings to catch up from the start but there is much to be engaged over....this ongoing story that's#historical fiction prohibition bootlegging cats with plenty of focus on characters & several Mysteries. which i'm better at parsing now lol#like one of the more recent rereads like Oh Of Course x (probably) accidentally killed his y & z took the fall & that's a binding secret...#Not [oh of course] abt the circumstances surrounding a's death & how b & c were involved. nor the ''what's marigold's damage'' mystery#which is great. love to not know things. love that we can readily follow all the emergent drama everyone's wading in nowadays. hell yeah#anyways admire my organized approach to gifs here. four shots each Expressions Atmosphere Action Groupshots#sure might've muddled through gifmaking for this anyways but fr being a huge lackadaisy comic enjoyer for now most of my life helps#and its very Overall Inspiration like. just really getting the [you can really just draw stuff out here] going. fr the art's detail & skill#and that enrichment like i'm gonna have a great time following this. And I Have#you don't expect a crowdfunded indie animation in the mix back then but hell yeah fellas#SIGH ok removing a 4th gif that's broken / not displayed despite reuploading then entirely remaking it. if it's a bug i'll try again later
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idliketobeatree · 4 months
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redswaberkez · 8 months
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10/19/1997 Next stop: Armageddon, the River Styx, Hades... and all points in between! All aboard!
close up below!
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I know art is something where everyone must interpret the details in their own way and beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but here I want to talk about some details from here:
I once walked in the forest and saw three trees with eyes painted on them with white paint, it really fascinated me.
It’s more difficult with an inverted cross, but in short, this is a projection of my personal struggles.... but I’ve already come up with a little story about how, out of piety, dude ended up with an inverted cross...) I hope I’ll do this story. And the red lightning. A literal insanity in his world
I started drawing it on the power of anger. thats it.
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sleepytownez · 2 years
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*Spoilers for Cult of the Lambs Endgame*
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If you spare The One Who Waits he actually has unique dialogue.
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The text he gives you slowly becomes slightly friendlier the more tasks you do for him.
The dialogue shows that the gods of old faith were actually somewhat mean and shitty beforehand (one even scared of him from the start) as well as showing his more remorseful side.
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-plus he can never die of old age and you can marry him.
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This is an absolute win.
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cormorant-red · 3 months
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I played 999 recently at @xivu-arath's recommendation, and I had so much fun that (inspired by that one polygon video) I illustrated my liveblog about it!
If you haven't played 999 and you are even a little bit intrigued by a puzzle/mystery visual novel with multiple timelines that all guide you towards wild plot twists...probably don't read the text! 999 is the kind of story that is best experienced with no knowledge besides the basic premise.
Transcript below the cut:
Cormorant: characters in this game really just say shit like "have you heard the story about the crystallization of glycerin?"
as a matter of fact i haven't, june, please enlighten me
Storm: "I know we're stuck in a freezer but. let's talk about weird mythical science!"
Cormorant: it's also killing me that junpei is dressed like marty mcfly and isn't sharing any of his jackets
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Cormorant: this game is leading me to arrive at mathematical concepts on my own. what the heck
Storm: kshgushhsg
I take it you're having a good time then
Cormorant: trying to check lotus's work and it turns out that no matter what group i arrange to take through a door, the people left behind will always have the same digital root
so to get through door 7 with snake missing, i could either send a group with sum 16 (junpei, ace, clover, and june) or with sum 25 (clover, june, seven, and lotus), but it doesn't matter because the remainder always have root 9 and can't get through doors 3 or 8! wild!
Storm: yeah the numbers and which doors end up barred to you is so cleverly deliberate
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Cormorant: i'm glad i finally checked what novel mode meant, because this is way more fun
Santa cocked his head to one side, like an inquisitive bird, and looked at them.
After several long moments, during which it became apparent that Santa had no idea what the cards meant, June took pity on him.
i'll have to go back and redo the beginning after i get to the first ending
Storm: oh yeah! as I recall that was done differently when it was originally a dual screen game... but it's much better when in novel style. gimme all the descriptions
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Cormorant: I had a long day of sitting though presentations and so I entertained myself by calculating digital roots
I discovered that adding 9 or any multiple of 9 to a number has no effect on the digital root, which is awfully interesting bc I got to the part where snake gets killed. Assuming door 3 was opened with 12 and not 21, the options are 7+3 (motive?), 6+4 (they’d both have to be REALLY good actors), or 9+1. And if bracelets work without a body attached, and if ace picked it up in door 5…
That would be a really useful tool to get around the 3-person minimum without altering the digital root
I’m also very intrigued by the theory that zero is also in the game but I don’t know what to do with that yet
Storm: forlornly having to keep myself from saying literally anything
Cormorant: Understandable, please don’t give me any hints! I’m just calling shots for the joy of being wrong
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Cormorant: and how do you know that, my traitorous friend?
Santa: “The RED doesn’t need a person, you know.”
Santa: “All I need is the bracelet.”
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Cormorant: y’know what i think he’s bluffing. he does need June specifically and that’s why he refused to consider leaving her when they first found door 9. if all he needed was a hostage, he could have grabbed junpei and forced ace to come along, and then he would be dealing with two people under duress instead of three
i peeked at a guide and apparently i found the ending adjacent to the true ending(?) first, oh well. time to see the others!
santa: i said i don't want to leave seven alone
me: bud you can't do a heroic sacrifice too, it'll mess up all the math
reader, he was not doing a heroic sacrifice
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Storm: got any character opinions or theories to share so far?
Cormorant: hmm I’ve got soft spots for santa and lotus maybe just because they were in the first group I went with. I like that the game makes a point of showing that lotus is quick with the math/technical knowledge. I warmed up to clover and seven more than I expected to! I have no evidence to mistrust ace….but I don’t trust him
Snake died before I before I could say two words to him
Or…didn’t. Forgot clover said he didn’t
I got info about the previous experiments from clover and I wonder if we’re like…reenacting the past somehow? Experiencing morphogenetic resonance with the last voyage?
Again no evidence i just wonder where the pseudoscience is going
Storm: santa was so my type as soon as I started playing that I just picked all rooms with him on my first run skugrhsghu
Cormorant: AHAHA that makes me feel better about going “yeahhh door 4 I like the cut of this guy’s jib”
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Cormorant: “the bracelet comes off when your heart rate reaches zero” interesting then that we’ve brought up cryostasis
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Cormorant: i simply don't trust him not to have a spare bracelet in his pocket!!!
They climbed into the elevator and Junpei listened to it creak and rattle its way to the bottom deck. Only Junpei, Ace, and Lotus were left.
As the elevator rumbled out of sight, Ace spoke.
Ace: “Lotus, would you be so kind as to go with me?”
Cormorant: “bad end” YEAH I’LL SAY
Storm: lkksghr yeah there's a few of those!
Cormorant: santa was really quick to declare that he, june, and seven needed to go with clover. waht's his game
june and ace could have done it just as easily
Storm: they could have! good catch
maybe he just thinks seven is cooler than ace,
Cormorant: i'm imagining clover taking all her grisly trophies to the door only to find it already engaged, because lotus needed no persuading,
and regarding the true ending requirements, it's also funny that santa's like "i hate this bookmark! get it out of my sight!" and this is a huge help in junpei befriending the girl who's otherwise about to snap
Storm: load bearing bookmark
Cormorant: good thing you threw that tantrum bud or you would have been killed with an axe
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Cormorant: in my suspicions i forgot a critical detail, which is that he didn't actually go into the door with the body this time
of course seven has been propping doors open, so it really could have been anybody
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Cormorant: "where have these 16 boys and girls disappeared to?" eight for each game and then an experimenter? again with the idea that zero might be in the game...
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Cormorant: bad endings complete! on to the normal ending, which hopefully has less of junpei getting stabbed to death
puzzling over who could have done all those murders, especially in the sub ending...or did everyone get killed? clover thinks that snake's death was faked. or did snake do all the murders, since he was the only one unaccounted for?...and then i remember what kind of game i'm playing. can't discount the ice mummy as a suspect.
Storm: you truly cannot ignore the possibility of the ice mummy
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Cormorant: ah no, so santa's sister was the kid that died...
i can't figure out the connection between events! why did the last games have the veneer of a science experiment, while this one has no context given? why was it all kids last time, and a random mix of ages this time, with some repeat subjects?
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Cormorant: called it!!!!
Junpei: “Ace, Guy X, and the 9th Man’s bracelet.”
Junpei: “That was all you needed to open door [3].”
Cormorant: called it before i even got to an ending ehehe
what i’ve been saying!!
Ace: “(9) is a potent ally in the Nonary Game.”
Ace: “Adding (9) to any set of numbers won’t alter the digital root.”
Ace: “As you can see, (9) is a very useful number here.”
Ace: “With it, one can go anywhere, with anyone.”
Ace: “It is, I suppose you could say, a game changer.”
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Cormorant: okay, normal ending finished! junpei did not get stabbed but we also didn’t resolve much…I’m now thinking that ace with his pocket drugs could have easily played dead in the sub ending
glad to see that snake is okay and hopefully can stay okay in the true ending. where did clover get that riddle, and will she still have it?
0=6. how much do I read into this
still don’t understand how we get from here to santa hostage situation. he’s been so consistent about not even considering betraying or abandoning people, so either he’s a better actor than ace…or it’s staged. are he and june in cahoots
Storm: augh so close now!! soon I can actually say things
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Cormorant: O FUCK
Seven: “Santa’s always in the room with her. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?”
Snake: “Yes, that’s right.”
Clover: “What about it…?”
Snake: “That’s quite simple, really.”
Snake: “You told me that the first time you came to this room…”
Snake: “…Santa was the first to refuse to leave June behind.”
Snake: “Now, doesn’t that beg the question “why?” Why would Santa do such a thing?”
Snake: “The answer is easy.”
Storm: B)
Cormorant: i've been thinking of them as a pair because it makes the math easier! if you've got 3 + 6 + 8, just cross out the ones that make 9 and don't even bother with the addition, your root is 8
Storm: B) B) B)
Cormorant: but god!! they are a pair, do not separate (or the jig is up)
Storm: they hid it soooo well
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Cormorant: was wondering when we would see the last cradle guy and oh duh, he was guy X
i did think it was odd that santa phrased it as "i need to leave two of you behind" rather than "i need three of you to come with me," but if he was responsible for everything (most things?), he knew that snake was there, and he was setting up a group that could follow him. excited to see where this is going!
[dreamy sigh] this game is so elegant. what a little puzzle box
Storm: yeah it is, it's just so wonderfully crafted. so little is wasted!
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Cormorant: oh boy [akane vision label]
"through the morphic fieldset we were resonant, and we were as one" i don't think i've mentioned it before but i'm constantly pleasantly surprised by the narration in this game. it's not flashy but it's evocative in a way that's really working for me
Storm: this is where the port falls short a bit of the original version... the ds really worked well with this aspect
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Cormorant: the number of times i thought "this will be totally wrong but i'll say it to storm anyway"
hello??? [arrow pointing back to the message “I wonder if we’re like…reenacting the past somehow? Experiencing morphogenetic resonance with the last voyage?”]
Storm: Y E A H
Cormorant: laser-guided spitballing
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Cormorant: man i said that 4+6 would have to be really good actors if they were the ones that opened door 3...and while they didn't kill snake, i sure underestimated our queen of the stage akane kurashiki
the baseline was NOT where i thought it was
Storm: no one does it like her
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luminique · 1 month
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everyone’s least fav boothill thinker (me) has a work in their notes app but chooses to dump some thoughts here too
so boothill doesn’t need sleep, at least i don’t think he does. with state of the art technology, a few upgrades once in a while, and sheer willpower, he can be ‘awake’ for longer periods of time. so after a long day of fighting some ‘ipc cuties’ as he’d call them, he comes back to you exhausted.
he forgets that he’s made out of metal in this tired state and leans into you, giving you a lazy back hug. it doesn’t charge him up but it sure does charge up his mental battery. he’s heavy but slowly, you were able to drag him to his power station. it’s right next to the bed so it gives him a moment to cuddle you as his body charges up.
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batsplat · 16 days
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Your post about sete/vale rivalry is literally so informative it's like a pivotal post to fully understand the way valentino's mind works. You're his friend just up to the point you are not (mainly after perceived crimes not backed up by any real proof apparently). Valentino literally turbodivorced every guy he was friendly with in the paddock (and the irony of two of those turbodivorces happening in the same place isn't lost on me)
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I did do my best to keep marc out of that post and let the parallels speak for themselves but like. yes
what's interesting to me about this rivalry is that it's... kind of his first rodeo. I mean he'd obviously had rivals before and a feud and all that and him and biaggi were constantly *gestures* - but one of the most common complaints about valentino is that he switches up towards you when you actually become a serious threat. which!! I still fully believe to some extent is natural, this is sports, they're competing, and I take more seriously with some of valentino's victims than with others. (melandri is always the one where I'm a bit? valentino no offence but why would you bother, in 2005 there wasn't a title fight and in 2006 valentino actually got on really well with two of the four other main contenders and at the very least didn't actively have a problem with dani. so maybe just a melandri problem question mark.) but I do feel like sete was... maybe not the first, but the first that was this extreme. and, very much topic for another post, but he really does learn a lot from the sete rivalry. a lot of the tactics and performance art and all of that, how he uses all of it to demoralise his enemies - this rivalry was kinda the blueprint
but, at the same time, of course it was a different valentino that marc ended up fighting, and not just in terms of how fast and competitive valentino was at that stage of his career. this is something that's quite hard to get across sometimes, because the natural inclination is to just... look at all the past instances in which valentino was a dick and conclude that he has, in fact, always been a dick. but he wasn't just statically malevolent for a twenty plus year career, and it's important to... reinsert context to assess how he developed as a rider and as a character during that time. it's not twenty non-stop years of valentino feuding. and marc is facing a valentino who had inevitably changed as a result of years of injury and poor results on a poor bike. valentino was pretty open in 2012 that he was returning to yamaha after two years on a donkey of a bike to, y'know, see if he was still fast, if he still had it in him - because he genuinely did not know (stop me if this reminds you of anyone more recently). he was so frustrated in 2013 with constantly finishing in fourth place that he took the truly radical step of firing his crew chief jb. one more try, one more change up to see if he could still be fast
it was only in 2014, where, okay he was losing to marc, but he could feel that he was competitive again, he could semi-regularly beat jorge and dani at the very least... then comes misano and he beats marc in a direct fight, draws an error out of him, gets him to crash, and marc shows up at his ranch and manages to strongly signal that he does actually really want to beat valentino. and that, in a way, shows that he was beginning to take valentino seriously as a competitor again (which I would suggest he wasn't doing at the end of 2013). that's something that's easy to miss about the ranch episode: yes, it's notable how much they were treating each other like hardened rivals, but it was also notable they were doing so in 2014, given the kind of season marc was having. maybe it truly was the worst possible timing. maybe it truly was the race in misano that made both of them go. hey. this really could be happening
but it's still a humbled version of valentino, it's still a version of valentino who has already kind of had to make his peace with the fact his time might very much be over. to me, in a way it's more dramatically satisfying if he did make peace with it, if he was more or less all right with marc making the sport his own. okay, there's always going to be a little bit of bitterness, a little bit of envy... because he wished he could still do what marc was doing, of course he did. but by the end of 2013, he knew it was more likely than not he would never be involved in another title fight. he thought his career might be ending after the 2014 season. he told the world if he wasn't competitive in the early races in 2014 then that would be that, and I think he meant it
there was no guarantee he'd have a season like 2015 - sure, he was working harder than ever and making radical personnel choices, all in the hope he still had something more to give... but he didn't know it would happen. it was really really unlikely!! there's a giddiness to him in early 2015, almost like he couldn't quite believe himself he'd get that chance. and then, yes, he does withdraw from marc, he does go back into title fight mode... but relatively speaking, this is still a more agreeable version of valentino. this is still a version of valentino who is determined to not start shit with jorge - it's odd to watch, but in those 2015 pressers valentino is constantly engaging him in conversation, at a time in which the marc chatter was already dropping off pretty sharpish
(incidentally, I think vale was proper pissed off at how jorge reacted to the whole sepang thing and how jorge was angry with valentino, which is very funny to me. like at catalunya 2016 vale's going!! I actually made an effort with this bitch!! I was nice to him for three years, does that count for nothing??)
valentino also doesn't blow shit up over assen, even though by his standards marc should be giving him plenty of reason to. he's definitely cooled off towards marc, but he's still giving him the benefit of the doubt where he wouldn't have done so with past rivals - which, yes, I do think partly reflects how he felt about marc, but also reflects how he was approaching that year and that phase of his career as a whole. he didn't really want drama; he wasn't really looking for any distractions from the actual title fight. which doesn't mean that he wasn't already changing his behaviour towards his competitors in response to the demands of the season - it's just a question of the extent. here from a write-up of assen 2015 (I don't entirely agree on the point of the effectiveness of valentino's mind games, though I do agree - like valentino himself does - with the general idea that most of the work needs to be done on-track):
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in the end, he cracked. I guess that's what generally happens when you put someone under that kind of pressure - you make them revert to type. valentino wasn't arrogant or entitled or over-confident in that season, he was desperate. he'd been given this unexpected chance and he was throwing everything he had into making it work. body, mind, soul, all of it, wringing himself out in pursuit of this dream. he could feel it slipping away at several points that season... that four race jorge win streak where he led every single lap and it was kind of like? okay, you just can't do anything about that. valentino can't match that, not at this stage of his career. or brno, after which they were level on points and jorge led on countback and it just felt like valentino so obviously had a consistent pace deficit that surely this could only go one way. all these moments where it felt like it might actually be over, in the least dramatic way imaginable. in many ways, this wasn't really a title fight that should ever have been so close - and it's to valentino's credit as a rider, his versatility and willpower, that he was even able to push things as far as he did. but he did know he was hanging on by a thread, and he ended up playing the last hand he felt he had available
obviously, it wasn't really rational calculation that made him do what he did in sepang - though there probably was an element of, y'know, might as well. but he believed he detected a pattern of behaviour in marc - not entirely incorrectly, because it did feel like marc approached his battles with valentino differently - and fashioned himself a conspiracy on the basis of it. he hoped it could change the momentum one last time; he decided to make one final roll of the dice. and then, of course, marc reacted in a way that has ensured valentino will never stop believing in his conspiracy theory. because of course marc did, because of course he never would have taken it lying down. because valentino knew from the moment marc engaged him in that battle at sepang that it was almost certainly all over, because he lost his temper - which usually helps him, except when it doesn't. because they both lost their tempers and ended up just wanting to hurt each other, to prove a point. because that's who they both are
the main point I'm trying to make here is kind of.... it's just how I personally read the sete stuff - yes, these are the same patterns of behaviour, yes, a lot of parallels do obviously present themselves. I've long felt that sete is the single most significant valentino feud to understanding what happened with marc. he's the only other one who valentino was friends with, the only other one valentino felt hurt by on a personal level, the only other one who valentino changed his behaviour towards from one day to the next. and I think under the right circumstances, if you give valentino enough of an excuse and enough of a prize to aim for and have planted enough seeds of suspicion in advance... you can get this situation where the competitive paranoia takes control and he buys into this whole betrayal narrative and he decides he needs to go nuclear. and it also gave him a script to follow - one he knew could work because it had. except of course it could have gone very wrong in 2004 too. what happens if he's so desperately determined to ruin sete that he bins it in phillip island and finds himself only barely ahead in the points going into the title decider? compare that race to phillip island 2009 - obviously, there's a sizeable difference between the level of opposition (especially at that circuit) and the '09 race probably wasn't winnable, but he still ends up eventually deciding to settle for second behind casey because he doesn't want to risk losing the championship to jorge. he's not casey's biggest fan either, but he never came close to losing his head fighting him. it's different. he might do some of his finest riding when he's angry, but where there's anger there's also volatility. and, on occasion, there's also some really bad choices
if 2004 is the moment where he's properly learning to play these games, then 2015 is him falling back on these tools when he really had basically discarded them. it'd been five years since he'd engaged in mind games in earnest (I know him and casey were constantly at it in 2011-12, but whatever the hell that was about, whatever part of their psyches they were appeasing there, it obviously had fuck all to do with on-track competition). that's a long time! there's a 2014 interview where he's asked about his work on the 'mental side' against his rivals:
the first thing he immediately stresses is that there's zero point in doing any of this if you're not fast enough on-track to back it up. if you are fast, sure, you can do some off-track 'work', especially if you know it makes your rivals suffer :) but it won't have the same effect without the on-track performance. so even if we want to say valentino hadn't mellowed post-2012, even if he hadn't grown one jot humbler in his heart of hearts, even if he wasn't swayed by any genuine fondness for marc, he still knew the maths just didn't work out in his favour with his current opponents. he couldn't deploy his favourite tactics against jorge because jorge insisted on spending the entire season either two spots ahead or three spots behind valentino, and the off-track stuff just can't work if you're never sharing space on-track. it could and did work against marc, but he wasn't trying to score psychological victories against marc! certainly not by the time they reached assen and marc was basically out of that title fight. so there wouldn't have been any point in trying to fuck with either of them in that way off-track and, well, it could easily backfire. which is something valentino understood perfectly well until they were 88.9% of the way through the season, and then he changed his mind at what was almost the very last possible moment. which I think speaks to how desperate valentino was to make a mistake like he did at sepang: he felt it was all he had left to try
the other way in which marc comes into this whole thing is that.... I mean, he knew about all this stuff! this is the thing right, maybe he wasn't watching the sepang 2004 press conference as an eleven year old and later going 'huh' but broadly speaking, he will obviously have been aware of how this went down, qatar controversy and all of it. he's sitting right there in that jerez 2015 presser when valentino is asked about sete and in response valentino says sete played 'dirty games'. he's obviously aware of the whole jerez 2005 situation, not least because he copied valentino's overtake in his third ever premier class race. which in turn sete was watching unfold, and is still having thoughts about in 2023:
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so it's kind of... y'know, you've got marc, you've got someone who's still very much the heir apparent despite all the drama between him and valentino. if you're sete, do you look at marc and see somebody who valentino hurt in similar ways to what he did to you, or do you look at marc and see another version of valentino? do you see both? it's again that thing of, if you have a problem with some of valentino's more aggressive riding then you will definitely have a problem with marc. because of course marc is the escalation, because valentino generally picked his moments a bit more and adjusted his levels of aggression more to the situation, whereas marc is mostly just Like That. so sure, if you're sete gibernau you can look at marc and see another one of valentino's victims, but at the end of the day you're also going to see his legacy
and this from 2017:
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not an original thing to say obviously, half of motogp has said it at one point or another. but. still. meaningful to me!
that tension between 'fellow valentino rival' and 'valentino's successor' is imo inherent to the jerez pass situation, because (along with laguna seca) it's an example of marc actively inserting himself into valentino's legacy. and the thing is, right, these aren't just neutral fun passes that everyone remembers because they looked cool: they're the biggest flashpoints of their respective feuds. marc did to jorge what valentino did to sete - and then he did the most valentino thing imaginable and went to jorge when he must have known jorge would still be furious, making him publicly reject his handshake and starting up a whole lot of discourse™ that would take forever to die down. marc knew immediately how controversial what he did would be and was completely at home in the chaos. it's not just the pass that does valentino proud, it's the shamelessness
while that race might not have had the same repercussions as '05, at the end of the day you do have to remember that those passes have a lot of baggage and controversy attached that marc is also making himself a part of. in the case of laguna, it's valentino addressing livio suppo in the presser because of all the grief suppo and casey had given valentino over the '08 overtake. in the case of the jerez pass, it's sete talking about how alienated he is by this whole approach to riding that marc so completely embodies. and the whole thing has come up quite a few times since 2013, because everyone loves bringing up last corner passes at least once a year when they show up again at jerez
so for instance we have this clip from 2016 (fourth race of the season, vibes still in hell), where the riders are asked whether they'd prefer to be in first, second or third position heading into that final corner. not all too much to say about this one, really. jorge, who it seems has at long last learned his lesson about what to do when you've got a lunatic sitting on your rear wheel headed into the final corner of a race, stresses that he'd protect the inside line - not least because these two fuckers would dive on the inside through the grass if you give them half a chance. also, decent gag from marc! good on him. not always easy for those who have decided they hate him so much so that they refuse to laugh at anything he says
then we have this from 2017 - where sete is in the room - asking four riders who they'd want to arrive at jerez's final corner with. three guys give pretty boring answers, though you'll note in 2017 valentino does actually mention his battle with sete (*gestures with his head in sete's direction*) in the same breath as the one between "marc and jorge". those three boring answers are followed by a great response courtesy of jorge. the question doesn't actually specify, but obviously jorge immediately zeroes in on valentino and marc since they are. you know. the two guys with a history of doing last corner jerez crimes. and they're also two confirmed lunatics, though jorge believes that valentino at least might be a little less reckless now that he's a little older. hey, maybe even marc has become 3% more sensible at the advanced age of 24 (funnily enough, vale when making that overtake in '05 was two years older than marc is in this clip). it's a sweet moment - but, without wanting to belabour the obvious, it's also another way of showing how irrevocably linked both the passes and the blokes executing them are. both valentino and marc are 'hard brakers', to put it lightly. two peas in a pod, from a man who would know
we do also of course get sete reacting to valentino's answer. idk what this facial expression is but I sure am compelled by it (thank u to dani pedrosa for working with sete in 2017 so that we'd get live sete reaction shots. I am very grateful)
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okay so those two I included because. well it's just kind of neat and fun that this is a parallel they won't ever escape. linked legacies and all that. but I am actually building up to a point here, and it's to do with how even post-2015, it's not like marc is always overflowing with sympathy and compassion for valentino's other victims. he knows his lore! he will know at least the general details of the sete relationship and how it deteriorated and what valentino did to him afterwards! so let's bring in austria 2017, a time at which the vibes between the two of them aren't actually. catastrophic. exhibit a:
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so in this presser, valentino is asked if his overtake on jorge at catalunya '09 is the favourite of his career, and he says it was special because it was the last corner - he can't remember any other examples of him making a last corner overtake in the premier class. at which point marc taps valentino to point out sete:
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the expression marc makes in the thumbnail - that's how he looks when he's eagerly waiting for valentino to put two and two together. the thing is, right, this whole feuding business, the way valentino treated his rivals, how he was pretty awful to them... all of it will have been stuff that marc actively enjoyed as a fan. and even post-2015, when marc has experienced some of the very worst valentino has to offer, marc still finds the whole jerez thing pretty funny, not just the overtake but what it meant for the relationship between valentino and sete. he makes valentino aware of sete in the room, because of course he would never forget valentino's greatest hits. like, remember why this exchange is funny: everybody knows this overtake was a super controversial thing and a big source of tension between the two of them and valentino's forgotten about it. and marc's laughing at this!! in 2017!! "after we have a bit problems" and marc thinks it's hilarious!! buddy
one more presser moment, from 2019. just a bit of context here - earlier in the presser they were asked about dani getting a corner named after him at jerez and valentino went 'yeah good for him but I wouldn't want a corner named after me !!' and marc talked about how he'd gotten a corner at aragon named after him the year before. so now, the riders are asked what their favourite bit of the jerez circuit is. the joke here goes a) marc says 'last corner' the way he does because everyone knows he did a terrorism there, b) jack miller says 'you mean jorge lorenzo corner' because everyone knows it's funny marc did a terrorism on jorge there like a day after jorge got the corner named after him, and c) marc says 'it's valentino corner' because everyone knows his move was copying the move valentino did on sete. and... 'valentino corner'... first of all why would you do this to your literal teammate jorge lorenzo... but again the whole reason this exchange is funny is because the premise is that they did the same thing, valentino to sete and marc to jorge. implicitly, it's making the link between the pair of them and how they terrorised their rivals in the same way. still. in 2019
speaking of legacies, there's a moment in the 2016 catalunya presser where valentino is asked how that duel compares to his past duels in 2007 and 2009 at that circuit (notice the blatant and unchallenged sete erasure - 2004 and 2005 were really great but okay). and valentino says he counts it on the same level as the jorge fight - "was three great battles with three great opponents". which, y'know, I really love 2016, I think it's fantastic, but marc makes a mistake on the penultimate lap and denies us the most dramatic of finales. like I think it's completely reasonable and nice for valentino to count it in that same camp as the 2009 duel, but I also think it wouldn't have been crazy or disrespectful or anything if he'd gone 'yeah that was great but not quite the same thing'. this definitely might be reading too much into it (surely not) but given how valentino has since occasionally left marc out of the rivalries list, said he wasn't his toughest rival etc etc, I do think it's kinda notable that during that moment of 'reconciliation', valentino allowed marc to be part of his legacy - even if it's just in a small way. 'great valentino catalunya battles' is a pretty cool group of races to be a part of, y'know? the infamous overtakes, the duels, these are the things people remember. these are the things marc remembered, as valentino's fan - inevitably, it'll mean something to him. it's a legacy he wants to be a part of, by fighting valentino, by emulating valentino, and sometimes valentino lets him and sometimes he'd rather leave marc out in the cold. you'll note that in 2019 he doesn't really engage with the "valentino corner" gag from marc and instead goes with the far more neutral turn 5 as his own pick
in the very very immediate aftermath of sepang (aka december 2015), marc did openly make the comparison between himself and valentino's other rivals:
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and it's informed his whole approach since then - it's a big part of why he's tried to be quiet about the drama with valentino over the years. he knows how valentino behaves towards his rivals, he always has. he knows he can't beat valentino off-track... but (beyond his undeniable mental resilience) he's just fortunate enough that with his talent and the way their career windows have overlapped, more often than not he's been able to out-perform valentino on the track. and y'know, it's an interesting element to the whole thing I feel... marc was a fan of valentino's for a lot of reasons - he was very much a fan of the complete package, if you will. including what valentino did to his enemies! it's not like that aspect of vale was some kind of closely guarded secret; it was like a top three valentino rossi talking point for years and years. (part of the subtext of assen 2015 is marc not really enjoying being on the receiving end of one of those classic valentino scam wins, when marc had been intending to do that to valentino.) again, those overtakes of valentino's weren't just famous because they were cool, they were famous because they helped valentino fuck with his rivals. it's not just about emulating his on-track aggression, it's about emulating how valentino did his best to get in his rivals' heads. when we talk about marc 'being a fan' of valentino, then it shouldn't be ignored that this involved marc being a fan of what an absolute and utter asshole valentino was. and like with all things relating to valentino, I'd wager marc has pretty complicated feelings about this. at the end of the day that's also part of his make up as a rider... but it also really burnt him personally...
it's almost like an identification thing, isn't it. if you're marc and you're thinking about valentino's past rivalries, whose shoes are you placing yourself in? in many ways it should be valentino's rivals, because of course some of their experiences mirror marc's. and there's a rare moment in the winter of 2015, when he's still in the process of trying to make sense of everything that's happened, where he does make the connection. but apart from that, he's shied away from it - even when he's criticising valentino, he's generally not framing what valentino did to marc as indicative of some broader character flaw. it's casey and jorge who explicitly make that link, not marc. he's still kind of... idk, separating that out. obviously, marc would far rather be valentino's successor than another one of valentino's victims, even if he hasn't really been given a choice in the matter and has ended up being both. I don't really have any evidence to back this up, but my guess is that deep down he feels like what valentino did to him was different from what he did to those other guys. and in some ways he's right and in some ways he's wrong
unfortunate, isn't it. you're a fan of somebody with a reputation for fucking with his enemies, which is fun and neat and you kinda want to copy how he does it - maybe put your own spin on the whole thing but you're still into the general vibe. you enter the sport at a time when you can still fight your hero, but he's kinda washed and he's too old to be starting new feuds (*bzzzzt!!* incorrect! you are never too old to start feuds) so there's no real danger. and you share a bond you think on some level is different from whatever those other guys had going on, even sete gibernau, whoever tf that is. and then you become real rivals and realise how extremely not enjoyable it is to be losing to him yourself and you really want to show him and maybe you do push it a little far along the way. but it'll be okay. it's all fine... until he decides it's time to destroy you. and on one level you do obviously see the parallels because you're not an idiot... but on the other hand, none of that stuff, none of what he did to those other guys - it wasn't ever going to stop you from being a fan of his. it's the bits he did to you that are the problem. and at the end of the day, you'll never quite be able to let go of the twelve year old boy inside of you who found jerez 2005 really, really cool
anyway
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cinammonelles · 30 days
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I want to talk about this page in particular because the implications here are so riveting.
Lavi is currently 19. Allen is believed to be 16.
Which means that either
The Bookmen are lying
Bookman Jr. did die then and Allen either didn't age the first few years or his age got fucked up multiple times before he met Mana
The first seems highly improbable at this point tbh. If the Bookmen were planning to make Allen take the poison to make him remember his past then lying about when Past!Junior (presumably) died seems counterintuitive and would only make Allen mistrust them more once he was in full possession of his memories.
It doesn't seem like Allen de-aged to an infant. He says his earliest memories are from when he was in the circus. Even if he did age back to an infant, he would've needed caretakers and nothing in the story suggests he had any.
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(Note how little Allen doesn't have his Innocence in the last panel. What the fuck does this mean Hoshino.)
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Allen looks perhaps 4-5 in both of these panels. If Past!Junior died over 19 years ago and Allen aged linearly since then, then he would have to be 23+ by now. Even considering the possibility that he aged back to an infant, he he should be 19+ by now and he looks barely over 17.
We can assume that he must've aged in a somewhat even fashion once he joined the circus because otherwise the performers would've commented on it at some point of time.
What happened in the years between Junior dying and little Allen getting into the circus? Was he in a child's body till he acquired his Innocence? How did he even acquire his Innocence in the first place?
There's also a final possibility that came to me while I was writing this post— Lavi was born while Past!Junior was still alive. He was born with the 'mark' because Past!Junior was no longer fit to be a Junior. I genuinely have no idea how Hoshino will explain this. Will it be some sort of corruption? Memory loss? Chronic illness?
All of them seem equally unlikely options at this point. But so did the possibility of Allen and Bookman Jr. being different people before this chapter :)
Either ways, this was a very intriguing chapter and I'm looking forward to whatever Hoshino has in store for us.
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pawfulofwaffles · 6 months
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Nhnhnhn holidays
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It’s very snowy, Eddie better be careful delivering mail…
(In the first picture, since it’s hard to read, Frank is saying “Happy Hanukkah” and Howdy is saying “Merry Christmas” and their exclamations are colliding, so they just go with “Happy Holidays” instead)
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lynzishell · 23 days
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Prev // Next
Transcript below the cut:
Asher: Is that everything? Atlas: Yeah, I think so.
Alexander: Lex, it’s good to see you. Lex: Hey pops, how are you? Alexander: I’m good, good. How are you? Lex: Oh, I’m fantastic. Where’s your son at? I need to— Aha, there he is!  
Lex: ASH!!! Asher: Holy shit, look at you!! Lex: Me? Look at you!! Asher: Ahh
Julian: Hey kid, I’m told we’re supposed to start heading outside. Phoenix: Okay, we’re just about ready. Thank you so much for doing this for us. Julian: Oh, I’m honored. I’m so happy for you two.  
Iris: Dawn? Just wanted to let you know, the guests have all arrived and are taking their seats outside. We’ll be ready to start soon. Dawn: Oh goodness. Okay, thank you. Megan: I better head down. Unless you want me to stay. Dawn: No, no, I’m good. Will you tell Atlas to wait for me? Megan: Of course.
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front-facing-pokemon · 7 months
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13eyond13 · 4 months
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love it when a character that's hard to read intuitively for you has like a dedicated fandom interpreter who can just glance at their blank face in a panel and then give you a 3k word essay on their innermost thoughts & desires & fears and neatly tie it back into the themes & whatnot as if it's the most obvious thing in the world
#im talking about griffith btw#guts i feel i get intuitively - maybe because i have some personality traits in common with him#and we get more about his life concretely told to us in canon. so he is a bit easier to pin down as a character and feel attached to for me#but whenever i was reading the manga i just kept wanting more insight about griffith's actions and feelings#like ok yeah its fun to have mysterious antagonists and suspense /tension etc but its also fun to feel like you deeply understand them too#and i felt like that was a bit missing from him for me in canon#so reading about him in analysis and fics is the most fun for me rn#he always felt kinda half unreal to me- which maybe was the point of him - but i wanted a bit more about his childhood or something?#and wished we had more stuff explicitly from his pov in the story to read or explanation about his transformation or wtv#and now he's so much more closed off to me even than he was in the golden age. i keep waiting for him to explain stuff and he does not#ANYWAYS all this rambling to say some people out there are very good at interpreting him and making his like. insecurities#more obvious to me bc i didnt really get that side of him from canon intuitively well#also im really enjoying reading the first few berserk fics ive read#there may not be a ton of them out there but there is def writing talent in the fandom#i'll share some recs once i'm done sifting through most of what's out there to read#also (not to tie everything back to death note but it IS my home fandom after all)#i feel griffith is obvs the more light-like character here and L maybe a bit guts-like? but unlike berserk in death note#light is the one you get to know best and L is the mysterious / unreal one you don't get a lot of concrete insight into#and in the DN fandom I can read the more mysterious character intuitively but had to warm up to the less mysterious one instead#and the mystery of L makes sense to me and doesnt bug me as much due to like - he HAS to hide a lot about himself or else he will die lol#so some similarities there but also some opposite feels as well#berserk spoilers#p
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martyrbat · 6 months
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a female character isn't allowed to be a character that is also female. she isn't allowed her own agency and complex motives nor any deeper emotions without it being centered around the male cast around her or a child. even if she's not a mother, she remains one because she could always potentially become a mother or she is the ‘mom character’ to the men/children around her and her actions MUST reflect that. if they don't, she's labeled a selfish bitch. if she is an (actual) mother than that's all she is—she isnt allowed deeper characterization or discussion because thats all she'll ever be, that's all she was made to be. male characters are allowed to be fathers (lireral or in the sense of providing for the people around them) with deeper feelings but a mother? never a mother.
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balestrra · 11 months
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The Mirage Saloon proprietress Primadonna, and her trusted employee, Ms Rose
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petrichormore · 8 months
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I’m too lazy to analyze it someone do it for me but that part in the convo q!Bad had with q!Baghera where she says something like “The workers could have a family, they could be someone else’s egg” and q!Bad responds with “yeah I thought about it, that’s when I stopped uh…”
because that seems very important to me. it seems like a confirmation of the fact that q!Bad saw these workers as mindless drones and Walter Bob as an outlier, an mistake on the federation’s part. And then when Ron essentially confirmed that it wasn’t, that they all have feelings, he stopped.
Stopped what? Stopped seeing workers as nothing but extensions of the federation? Stopped psychologically torturing Ron? Stopped keeping him in a damp cage? Stopped resisting the urge to care?
Stopped what? No matter which option you pick, you learn that q!Bad thought about the workers in a certain light, learned information that potentially severely contradicted his belief, and then reflected and adjusted his own behavior accordingly. If the “that’s when I stopped…” was about to end in “torturing him” that feels like a huge… something… about q!Bad and his supposedly “unhinged” nature.
There are a couple natural conclusions to that sentence, almost all of them make q!Bad seem a lot more… something… than I’d originally given him credit for.
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