Ride 769: Danchiku's “escape”
Pag 1
1: Sohoku's number 5 jumped ahead! And he kept attacking!!
2: Number 4, Kaburagi, caught up to Doubashi who has been left behind!!
4: This is bad!! Pedal!!
Let's raise our pace!!
Pag 2
2: I won't let you get away, Chicken!!
Pag 3
2: No.... they're so fast!!
It's no use anymore, senpai!!
3: Get away Danchikuu!!
Pag 4
1: Yeah, Issa!!
Pag 5
1: 4km left until the sprint line!!
2: Don't underestimate him, San-na*!!
(*NdT.: Kaburagi is calling him that because when earlier he called him “Doubashi” with no honorifics, Doubashi corrected him saying “it's san, na” the 'na' is just and ending particle, but I decided to leave it in the nickname Kabu is using now)
3: Danchiku is strong!!
He's the kind of guy who once he makes a decision, he sticks to it!!
4: Buah!!
I'm not underestimating him
5: With that attack earlier I got that his “running” is no chicken!!
6: Haha, I told you from the start!! I told you “that's not true”!!
Pag 6
1: But “mentality” is another story!!
3: “Running” and “mentality”are different things, but two sides of the same coin!!
4: I'm chasing him like this!! I'm getting closer!!
That's the reality!! The situation!!
I'll swallow him
5: And even if I don't do anything, he'll make a mistake!!
6: Tch, this guy hit a nerve
7: Look
8: My pressure
Pag 7
1: Is rising!!
3: What's this
From behind me
4: It's the feeling of something dark and hug approaching!!
This is that guy's....!!
Seriously!?
Pag 8
1: But!!
Gaa
2: But I also came here fully prepared!!
ruaaagh
3: “Take care of that idiot”
4: Bamboo
6: Hop Shot!!
Pag 9
1: I'll leave him behind!!
2: Switch to a
3: higher gear!!
6: Dammit, instead of switching to a higher gear I switched to a lower!?
Such a stupid mistake!! In a moment like this!!
I'll switch to a higher gear now!!
8: Stupid mistake...? That's not it
Pag 10
1: Is my body reacting to Doubashi's pressure!?
Pag 11
1: Dammit!!
Don't turn around
2: San-na is going to move to pin Nagoya down, you go with him
This is the chance that
And then keep going like that!!
3: Issa managed to get for me!!
4: Don't turn around
He's getting closer, I can feel it on my skin!!
5: If I turn around his pressure will swallow me!!
Gaaagh
6: Dammit... so this is the Inter High?
Pag 12
1: This is Hakone Academy's Doubashi Masakiyo!!
2: Chicken.... your pedaling got all messy
Pag 13
1: He's coming closer!!
2: I'm gonna get swallowed!!
4: It's over
After all you really are a chicken
Pag 15
2: A white pressure... Issa!!
3: Danchiku, since it's you, you can do it!!
I'm sure of it, so run without hesitation
4: After all you're
Pag 16
1: Team SS..... Special Strong!!
Higaruaaagh!!
Pag 17
1: I'll take it, Issa!!
2: Higaruaagh!!
Dammit, what happened, he came back to life!!
3: What did you do, Orange
4: I raised it too
Pag 18
1: My pressure, to tell him “if it's you, you can do it”!!
2: I am “team SS”!!
3: I can do it!!
Garuaagh!!
4: Hahaha, if you don't hurry he'll get away, San-na!!
That's called Panda Shout!! That acceleration is terrific!!
5: Talking like that is your strategy to get me to use up my legs, Orange!!
Hahaha of course, you've finally noticed!!
Pag 19
2: I've noticed from the start, though
Is-is that so!?
Well, can't be helped. My plan to defeat him by using pressure alone was a failure
This time I'll use my legs
3: I'll show you my running that I've tempered thoroughly this past year!!
4: The sprint is now down to us three
As expected, there's no one who can catch up to us from there!!
Pag 20
1: In that group behind us!!
2: Pedal more
Let's catch up to them before they get out of sight!!
Gallop!!
Mokkosu!!
4: From behind us, another.... two people!?
Are catching up!?
5: It's two guys from the selected team!!
Pag 21
1: I'm so glad, we caught up with the lead!!
We were pulled by Doubashi-san but we got tore off a little later
You worked hard, you two!
Yeah, somehow!!
2: The leader of our team, Sugimoto-san, negotiated with Doubashi-san fro us
3: Our number has increased so we still have a chance!!
We'll chase Sohoku and Hakogaku that are ahead
Yeah!!
And we'll fight for the green number bib!!
4: Alright, senpai, I'll pull
“Two people” who caught up?
No
5: There's one more person!!
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every time someone calls moirallegience just an alien qpr i wilt a lil like YEAH thats more or less the CLOSEST human thing but its also Literally Not That. like a qpr is fundanmentally not romantic and thats not even going into moirails whole Actual Purpose of calming ppl down. its just. aughhhhh pisses me off i see the confusion but, as aformentioned, aughhhhh
OH MY GOD THIS HAS BEEN BOTHERING ME TOO.... but i don't want to get petty at the people in my notes always saying "moirails are QPRs!" because in some ways that is the closest human thing so it's hard to be mad...
i think there's definitely some overlap in some ways. but NOT because moirallegiance and qprs are the same at all really, but INSTEAD because both relationships have unconventional boundaries defined by the people within them.
you know... like every relationship.
like the only reason the two have overlap is because they are both partnerships that emotionally care for each other but can choose to not bang (which is true for any romance anyway, even if it's considered abnormal). they're both just romances* that are unconventional to human norms, which makes people view them as the same thing when they're not.
i think the REAL issue here is that humans insist on using human words to understand things that are just, fundamentally, alien. can't we just appreciate alien romance for being... alien romance?
no, it's not platonic, it's romantic. it's just romantic in a way you aren't quite wired to understand, is all.
*in generalization, most QPRs are not romantic, because they are made up of aroaces who are life partners in a non-romantic way. however i want to disagree with you that none of them are romantic, because that is up to the partners in question.
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The whole discourse about the privacy/secrecy/support thing has been sitting with me for a few days (I mean other than it always does to a certain degree) thanks to all the excellent discussion happening and I know I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said a million times before, but I think what we're seeing and what we're going to learn (e.g. from TTPD) is that it wasn't just the support issue, but how it was shown/handled.
We've all gone out of our way to show that introversion =/= lack of support. Someone can be shy, reserved, etc. and still show up for their partner, whether in public or at home. To chalk any of the differences up to the clash between introversion and extroversion is unfair to folks who count themselves among either tbh.
@thisisctrying said something the other day that hit the nail on the head about how if that support had been offered in private, there very well may not have been a Joever to begin with, or at least not at this point in time. (Sorry for loosely paraphrasing, and for namedropping you! Long time listener, first time poster.)
If this were a case where the "shy" partner said, "I am really uncomfortable with the spotlight personally and do not want to court it, but I will support you in your ambitions and offer you whatever you need to make them happen and make the glare bearable," I suspect that would have gone a long way to making Taylor feel seen and comfortable in pursuing her goals in the way that she now has. Again, that might have been more akin to the balance that seemed to have been struck around 2019 from what we can see, but even speaking in a general sense, there are lots of couples out there, celebrity or not, that have similar approaches where there are highly driven people and busy careers involved.
(A famous example being Dolly Parton's marriage. Tbh I know next to nothing about her and Carl, but she's always heralded as an example in this regard, because her husband is famously uncomfortable with the spotlight and hasn't accompanied her to public events in decades, but she's said that she never minded that because that was always work to her, and what was important was that he supported her in pursuing all her career goals and basically ensured she had a place to call home to return to at the end of the day.)
We're kind of in a brave new world with her current relationship because it felt like, at least at the start, we were maybe watching her figure out her boundaries in real time as to what she was comfortable with or not and adjust accordingly. Like so many have said, I fully believe the extreme privacy thing was initially driven by herself and her experiences in 2016, and she needed that quiet time to recover from all of the things and figure out how to exist in the world again.
Stating the obvious, it seemed like eventually privacy was equated with secrecy, turning the relationship and the celebrity into the elephant in the room and something to never be spoken of to the outside world. People are free to choose whatever works best for themselves and their relationships, and for some the separate public lives might work, but the “kept me like a secret but I kept you like an oath” theme is all over her work and it’s clear that it’s a sore spot for her, because she’s been made to feel shame just for the life she leads so many times in the past.
What I’m trying to say is that it’s pretty obvious something Not Great was happening behind the scenes, which didn’t just amount to “she wanted to be a public celebrity and he wanted to be a private hermit.” (Also, in case anyone forgot, this is a person who also chose a public-facing career who also has to engage in press for it, but I digress.) As her career reached new heights post-folklore, if she had the support at home to do all the things without judgment and with encouragement, and in turn offer the same support to her partner, she may have very well lived just fine with that, not unlike Dolly Parton’s case.
By reading between the lines in all the press since, as well as comments on tour and general ~vibes~ with TTPD teasers, it seems like one of the issues was that that was likely not the case. There was all the stuff that we saw — the reticence to acknowledge each other in the media (particularly on one side), the lack of public support even at events at which they were both in attendance for their respective jobs, the great lengths they went to not to be photographed together at events they attended yet no problem taking pictures with other friends and coworkers, the jobs that separated them, the withdrawing from the public even for work accomplishments, etc. Which could all be manageable if a couple chooses to do so together and are not inherently a sign of trouble in themselves.
But what we’re seeing now I think is a reflection of the things we weren’t seeing then, and it seems to indicate some very deep hurt. (I know, call me Captain Obvious.) And like so many have been saying, it feels likely that that part of that hurt is rooted in that very lack of private support where a person would expect it from their partner. Obviously as a Taylor fan blog I’m going to be more inclined to understand her side of a story, but tbh, it’s also because… this is sooooooo common, and something I’ve experienced in my friend group. (@taylortruther is right when she says most breakups are the same one way or another lol.)
One partner is resentful of the other’s success, or resentful that the other’s priorities begin to evolve as new experiences unlock new goals, or feels the other’s ambitions are not worthy of pursuit, and coupled with perhaps their own struggles in the same domain, it’s easy to see where that can chip away at the other partner’s morale and faith in the relationship. I know I’m just speculating here, but I also don’t think it’s totally unfounded. (Again, because a) I’m picking up what she’s putting down and b) it happens to sooooooo many women even among us dull normals.)
With all the pointed mentions about how much Taylor feels supported in her current relationship and how she in turn loves to offer the same show of support to not only her partner but other loved ones, how she’s stepped out more in the last year to a whole host of events, how she’s mentioned feeling like she locked herself away for years and she’s just proud of her partner and happy she can show up for him even if the chaos around it is unsettling, it paints a picture of what perhaps was happening before last year.
To feel like you’re all alone in carrying the weight of the relationship (or burden of it), of twisting yourself into knots to accommodate the other person’s boundaries (or insecurities) but not feeling reciprocity for your own has to be so painful. (The idea that it may have been even darker and to have a partner not only be unreceptive to your own needs but even perhaps resentful/dismissive/belittling of them is even more painful to think of. I guess we’ll find out when TTPD comes out if that was the case, too.)
At a certain point, that lack of acknowledgement will force your hand to be able to reclaim yourself. And it feels like the further removed Taylor in particular is from it, the more she moves from being sad about the life she felt she gave up by leaving, to angry at the life she felt she was giving up by staying. Especially being in a relationship now where it seems like everything comes much easier, where she can be open about the person she’s with and show up for them, all the stuff that seemed as challenging as climbing Mount Everest in her past is nothing more than a molehill at best in her current life.
TL;DR: I don’t think it’s privacy that inherently spells doom for a celebrity relationship like this; it’s the mutual support and respect that does. If Taylor had felt that in the later years of her previous relationship, I think we could be seeing a different, though not necessarily unfulfilled, person right now in 2024, who’d be happy on tour but whose personal life would look a little different. But it seems like by losing that support she lost parts of herself, and we’ve seen her reclaim that in spades in the last year, and perhaps to degrees she didn’t even realize she could from before all the Bad Stuff started happening in her young adulthood.
I know this was extremely long-winded and unnecessary, especially about total strangers we only know through scraps fed through the media, but I just always bristle at this idea that issues like these boil down to “personality differences,” as though one person wants to live in a city and the other on a remote island, or some shit like that. The whole support (and gender tbh) issue is one that’s just very close to my heart because again, I have seen it play out with so many of my friends in long term relationships and marriages and I just think people in relationships (and women in particular in some circles) deserve better than to feel like they’re being, well, tolerated.
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