#Have to start posting from the other blog

[fallahifag]

just cleared out over 1700 asks from my inbox and i just want to say thank you to anyone who has ever sent me a nice or supportive message that i could not respond to. i have read them all and appreciate them more than anything. from here on forward, i'd like to focus this blog more on sharing resources to help palestinians- which is why i have not been answering any asks that are not related to donation campaigns.

alongside the sweet messages, i have been getting a ton of hate messages that promote weird accounts that were created to exclusively harass me and other palestinians on tumblr, accusing us of things that are extremely untrue and even questioning our backgrounds. despite not letting this hate personally impact me, i understand that it may have taken a great toll on my other palestinian friends who have been working tirelessly for the palestinian cause. i luckily did not have access to my phone when most of the conspiring against us took place, meaning i did not see the worst of it - but it still bothers me that this is the type of attention we are getting when the only attention we want is attention to help those suffering in palestine.

we have said this a million times and in a million different ways. we are real people. our families are being impacted. our friends are being killed. our lives are being changed. all we want is justice. you don't deserve a pat on the back for simply reblogging one of our posts, or asking us personal questions irrelated to the subject we are desperately trying to bring focus on. you need to be doing more. you COULD be doing more. donate, share, interact with gazans and palestinians in non-parasocial ways.

it is not hard. if you can't decide on a specific campaign to place your donation, click this link for a spotlight fundraiser you can support. regularly check palestinian sources and blogs on here for more updates on fundraisers you can support. can't donate? sharing and interacting with these posts goes a long way. we need attention. attention will bring forth action. do not undermine your privilege and power. you can always be doing more.

lastly, i would like to remind you all that i am planning to start my hunger strike in a couple of days. this hunger strike is meant to encourage more and more people to donate to help save my friend hani's family. if you have an extra dollar, please consider donating to hani's campaign. and if you cannot donate, share his fundraiser.

throughout my hunger strike (and moving forward), my blog will mostly focus on bringing attention to fundraisers that you can support, as well as news and updates from gaza and the west bank. it has been over 225 days of relentless genocide in gaza and torture in the west bank. we are coming up on a full year. none of us should be able to rest in these conditions. no more playing games. take us seriously and do more.

#thanks bye #palestine

[pixxyofice]

🏰 cursinguponcastles

of course i manage to grab everything EXCEPT for my anxiety medications. they're still stuck there!! in the House!!! every night I worry my friends are going to leave me for asking them to come along and some part of my brain is like "you wouldn't be worrying if you had taken your meds" and I have to then tell my brain the meds. ARE NOT WITH ME!!!

(this post is unrebloggable.)

-

(anon) asked:

plum? how have you been running this blog without anxiety meds?

🏰 cursinguponcastles replied:

Um! How did you know I didn't have my anxiety meds??

-

(anon) asked:

Don't the Houses keep stuff, like, forever? I'm sure if you go back to that House you'll be able to get your meds back. Unless it's like, frozen or something?

🏰 cursinguponcastles replied:

Oh. Ohhhh. Well, um! I am going back to get them! They're back in Dormont! I just won't be focused on getting my meds when I'm there, you know??

-

🎗 ribbpeat reblogged from 🍑 yetanotherfinepeach

🍑 yetanotherfinepeach

so was anyone going to tell me the savior of vaugarde runs a horror blog account or was I supposed to just find that out from her APPARENTLY LEAVING HER MEDS IN THE CENTER FREEZING POINT

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🍙 chateau-riceballs reblogged from 🧦 socks-to-be

🍯 lovelyhoney-truths

and just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, the savior of vaugarde turns out to be a tumblr user

🛴 offowchmy-nkee

and this is bad... how?

🍯 lovelyhoney-truths

How is this not obvious to you people? She's on tumblr. She's been ACTIVE. Instead of doing her job of saving us she's been giggling about her little vaugarde boys getting eaten. I'm sitting here typing with one arm waiting for vaugarde to be saved, and she's wasting time reading. Boo-hoo she left her anxiety meds in the House where the King is freezing all of us from. Actually, wait! Why didn't she just turn around and take him out? If she's supposed to save vaugarde, assigned to, and she was close to its starting point, why the hell did she walk the other direction and faff about?! Some Savior she is! Most of the country is frozen because of her! And instead of just shutting up and doing her job she went on a funny little pilgrimage. I'm not calling her a Savior anymore. 

🐱 ChangeGirlClaws

do you know about the existence of paragraph breaks. Like at all.

🎀 darts-chatting-blogg

Instead of looking at... all of that, apparently not everybody knows this so look at this.

THE DOORS OF DORMONT GOT LOCKED BY THE KING AND THE SAVIORS HAVE TO FIND FIVE ORBS TO BE ABLE TO EVEN TRY TO SAVE US. And in case you don't know, Vaugarde is huge! The saviors passed by my place a week ago and they only had four Orbs then.

I think Plum and her friends are making good progress, actually! I think she's allowed to relieve stress by reading about guts and gore, actually.

🍙 chateau-riceballs

she's what

-

🐝 finalgirl-standing reblogged from 🐮 The-Cointry-of-Voigarde

🍯 lovelyhoney-truths

Not only does that orb bullshit sound made up and stupid, but apparently Plum also runs a guts and gore blog??? what the fuck is wrong with her. Has she Changed to be so disgusting when she should be Changing herself to be able to save the country?? Do you guys really believe that shit? I haven't heard of a House where Orbs lock the gates, that's clearly her making up excuses for why she can't just go there and beat him. How can her friends stand to be with her when she's this irresponsible?

🎀 darts-chatting-blogg

One. The King warped the place (see image here!) and Dormont was known for experimenting with locks. People just be saying crab, I guess.

Two. Defenders. Get their asses. I'll start.

C

🎗 ribbpeat

R

🍑 yetanotherfinepeach

A

🛴 offowchmy-nkee

B

🐱 ChangeGirlClaws

P

🍙 chateau-riceballs

O

🦴 justanotherchange-blog

W

⚓️ insertcreativebloghere

P

🧦 socks-to-be

E

🐮 The-Cointry-of-Voigarde

N

🐝 finalgirl-standing

I

(this post is unrebloggable.)

-

⚓️ insertcreativebloghere reblogged from 🦴 justanotherchange-blog

🦴 justanotherchange-blog

if I was on a journey to save the country and I forgot my focusing meds at home I would just forget everything. Honestly, Plum's doing much better than I am???

⚓️ insertcreativebloghere

If i had to save the country without my meds i would've thrown myself into the sea

-

🐮 The-Cointry-of-Voigarde

(a picture of the countryside. Half of it is frozen, and the other half isn't)

Well. It was an honor, everyone. I'm glad to have contributed to the crab pow.

-

🏰 cursinguponcastles reblogged 🐧 penguin-do-be-writing

🐧 penguin-do-be-writing

hi everyone, sorry for the silence! My family has been loudly debating what to do about the freezing country, I think i touched something weird and my feet have stopped working for me, so it's hard to get to my writing desk. whoops! it's been a struggle to get words written down. Don't worry, though! I've got a chapter for everyone! This time, things get INTENSE. That internal organs being not internal warning was for a reason!

🏰 cursinguponcastles

CHANGE, THIS WAS SO GOOD!! I'm really sorry you're close to being frozen, but I could see how it affected how you wrote Dembélé struggling to get away! It felt too real, haha!!

I'll miss your fics! I, well, hopefully, will see you in a few months!!

#put more stuff under the read more because i dont wanna clog dashes #isat #in stars and time #dashboard simulator #unreality #? #mirabelle focused.

[ivyppoison]

𝐉𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐀 𝐁𝐄 𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋𝐒 𝐓𝐎𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓

pairing. jason todd⠀𝒙⠀ civilian!fem!reader

request. “need some angst about being worried about Jason's exes and after babying you, he fuck's those thoughts out your mind (he's both gentle and rough).”

words. 1.297k

warning(s). derogatory language, fingering, sexual themes

note. I might start screaming right now bc tumblr fucked w how reblogged posts look like if they are attached to an ask, & it’s trying me insane, so I decided to change the setup of my posts again <3 this ask had me giggling so much, so thank you anon. once again, if any of those scary minors dni blogs attack me, i will start crying ── yours sincerely, max

APPARENTLY, IT WAS unhealthy to feel so jealous and insecure about yourself in this relationship.

Apparently, you had to discuss your feelings instead of standing from afar and pondering your intoxicating thoughts on your own.

Jason was possibly one of the most attractive men you had ever met, and the fact that you were in a relationship with him confused you slightly.

As you learnt more about his past, especially about his romantic life, you had started to feel self-conscious about the part you played.

Your boyfriend was a vigilante who had a depressing backstory, full of neglect and death. You were just a normal citizen of Gotham City. You weren’t a therapist or a vigilante who could relate to him.

You had nothing to give.

His exes were mostly vigilantes and superheroes like him. They had something special about themselves, you, on the other hand, had nothing.

From that, the thoughts started to invade your every move, perhaps he felt pity for you or simply wanted to get away from the vigilante dating scene.

One thing was for sure: you were simply ‘basic’ compared to all of his past relationships.

This thought had haunted you to the dinner you were having with him one night.

The kitchen table was close to clean after about half an hour of cleaning up, the sound of crickets and the evening bustle of Gotham city permeating through the window.

You rested on the table, your eyes following Jason’s figure as he paced throughout the kitchen, placing the clean dishes away.

He soon noticed your lingering gaze, his eyebrows furrowing as he watched you.

“You okay?” He asked, placing the cloth down as he walked over to you.

You let out a small hum, before looking up at him with glossy eyes.

You knew you could tell him anything, but humans were naturally born with a sense of judgement, no matter how much they loved or respected the other.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” He asked, placing his hand on your back as a means to comfort you.

You peered at him slightly as his eyes locked with yours.

Pausing for a moment, you pressed your lips into a straight line, your eyes flickering between the features that adorned his face before meeting his soft, but assertive gaze once more.

“Do you think I’m enough for you, Jay?” You questioned under your breath, the volume of your words hardly reaching his ears.

“What?” He asked, raising an eyebrow as both concern and curiosity twisted his face.

“Do you think I’m enough?” You repeated, trying to avoid his eyes so you couldn’t see how his face twisted once again into a face of benevolence and worry.

“Of course I think you’re enough, who told you that you weren’t?” He asked, using his pointer finger and thumb to raise your chin up, making eye contact with you once more.

“I was just thinking about all you exes and how I’m just so ── basic,” you huffed, leaning on the counter behind you as your eyes flickered to something, anything, behind Jason’s head to distract yourself. “Don’t feel special.”

Jason paused for a moment, thinking about what could be the next words that left his lips.

“Do you want to feel special?” He hummed, a small smirk forming on his lips.

“What?” You asked, staring back at him, both taken aback and flustered simultaneously.

“Do you want me to make you feel special? Because you are. Just want to make sure you know,” he added, a sense of cockiness now lacing his tongue.

As your eyes locked with each other, a small ‘yes’ left your lips, and as Jason’s eyes lit up at your answer, he didn’t waste any time intertwining your hands with his as he allowed you to lead him to your shared bedroom.

Peering up at him, you laid back on the bed, propping yourself up on your elbows as you tried to make out his figure in the darkness of the room, biting on your bottom lips as you watched, doe-eyed, him move elegantly in the dark, stripping himself of his shirt.

Jason moved, both hurriedly and gracefully, on top of you, his lips meeting yours in a deep and soft kiss, moving with yours in perfect unison.

His hand rested on your thigh, close to your pulsing core as his tongue pushed into your mouth, leaving you breathless.

He soon left your lips with a small pop, a small string of saliva joining the two of you together for a moment, before it broke.

“You want to repeat yourself then?” He hummed, a sense of cockiness in his voice as he peered down at you, his lips ghosting your jaw, pressing small kisses along the course of your skin

You stared at him through your lashes before shaking your head, squeezing your thighs together as his hand slipped onto the inner part of your upper legs.

“Use your words,” he murmured, using his hands to pry open your legs before your body followed suit, earning a small smirk on his lips.

“I don’t wanna repeat myself, Jay,” you whispered, biting your nail as you felt his finger hook the band of your underwear, the sudden invasion of cold air causing you to squirm slightly.

“Gonna fuck those thoughts out of your pretty head, gonna make you feel so special,” he smirked, dragging an impetuous finger across the bud of your clit after discarding your panties onto the bedroom floor, earning a small gasp from your lips as you leaned back onto the bed.

“You’re so wet f’me, baby, you’ve been thinking about this, huh?” He asked, his olive tinted eyes gazing softly at you, as you nodded with a small mellifluous hum.

Without hesitation, he sank two of his fingers into your cunt; unconsciously, you closed your thighs before he used his hands to pry them open once again, using his free hand to hold your leg to the bed.

Letting out yet another whimper, you closed your eyes as his name fell from your lips like a soft melody, a fucked-out expression already on your face as you let out a strangled moan.

The room was dark as none of the artificial lights were on but the soft glow from the street lights left the lights in a glow. The curtains softly blew in the night’s wind creating an almost bewitching scenery.

From the start of your more intimate relationship with Jason, he always felt insecure about the scars that littered his body, so whenever you initiated sex, you’d always leave the lights off.

Now that you were more comfortable with each other, you still found the poetic eroticness in being too close with each other in the darkness of the room.

The gentle yet potent movement of his fingers had you locked to the bed, your back arched slightly as small, almost pornographic whimpers and mewls escaped your lips.

Jason pressed endearing kisses to the oeuvre of your bare stomach as he thrusted in your needy core, grazing the bundle of nerves, so you brought your nimble fingers to his hair, raking through the strands gently in comparison to the continuous hurried feeling of his digits inside of you.

You squirmed underneath him, your breath hitching and breaking, telling him you were ‘so close’ as you squeezed your eyes shut.

As you reached your climax, you threw your head back as you revelled in the pleasure Jason brought you. Whispering his name repeatedly, you buried your face in the below besides you, flustered and dumbfounded.

“Look at me, baby,” he called, gently patting you repeatedly on the cheek, “already dumb and I’ve barely fucked you, huh? Might manage to fuck you senseless after all,”.

#txt. #*dc #dc #dc x reader #dc x you #dc x y/n #jason todd #jason todd x reader #jason todd x you #jason todd x y/n #jason todd fluff #jason todd angst #jason todd fanfic #jason todd smut #jason todd fanfiction #jason todd fic #red hood #red hood x reader #red hood x you #red hood x y/n #arkham knight

[ladylannisterxo]

... the one where spence takes an interest

Pairings; Spencer Reid x fem!Reader

Words; 0.6k

Warnings; one use of Y/N but this was written back before I stopped using it lol but other than that, none, just fluff!

Summary; {requested} "Not to pester you, I had this thought and wanted to share is all, but could you imagine talking to Spencer about something you're really excited about (like a movie/tv show/game or something) and the next day he starts talking to you in length about it, and it turns out he went home that night and read/watched everything he could on the subject."

A/N; goodness, I wrote this years ago on another blog and since I've been rewatching Criminal Minds, I figured I'd go ahead and post it again (cause why not?)... the one and only thing I ever wrote for Dr. Spencer Reid ajdhsakdshak

{ masterlist }

You didn't plan this. Really, you didn't. But you know how it goes when you start binging a new tv series: just one more episode... and then before you know it, it's 2:00am.

Now you're sitting in the bullpen. It's 8:00am and you're constantly rubbing at your tired eyes and chugging coffee like your life depends on it.

And Spencer is wearing a curious expression, already extrapolating possibilities as to what could have kept you awake last night.

But he doesn't mention it. Not when the team is discussing the new case, not even on the jet en route to your destination. He waits until it's just you and him, paired off to go talk to the medical examiner about the latest victim.

"Are you okay?"

"Hmm? Oh yeah, just a little tired."

He smiles warmly, offering you an amused glance before fixing his eyes back on the road. "I gathered. What kept you up?"

"You know, I just..."

But then you realize you don't want to tell him, not really. To you, staying up super late to watch a tv show seems embarrassing when compared to how he most likely spent his night.

You imagine that he read around six books, most of which were probably in a language you didn't understand. Or maybe he called his mom to check in with her. Or maybe he had nightmares himself and so he thinks that's exactly what happened with you...

Any scenario you think of infinitely sounds better than oh, you know, I just stayed up super late watching some trashy guilty pleasure tv show because I have no self control.

"Nothing really," you settle on, "it's dumb."

"Try me."

So you cave, mostly because you're too tired to fight. He listens intently as you tell him about the new show you found, how it's completely ridiculous but it allows you to step out of your life for a bit and relax.

He doesn't say much, just nods along as you talk and before you know it, you've arrived at your destination and it's back to work.

Spencer actually doesn't mention your conversation again for the remainder of the case and finally, the unsub is in custody and the team is back home to enjoy a nice, long weekend.

You don't see or hear from Spencer during this time but first thing Monday morning, he's greeting you as you step off the elevator with a cup of coffee and a bright smile.

... and then he tells you he spent the weekend watching the first season of the show you mentioned and to his surprise, he really enjoyed it.

To say you're confused is an understatement but you listen as he discusses every character and what he thinks of the current story arc.

"Spencer," you laugh, resting your hand on his arm and halting his speech. "Not that I'm not thrilled to talk about this but I really wasn't expecting you to go home and watch an entire season of a show just because I mentioned it."

He smiles sheepishly, eyes lingering on where your hand still rests on his arm.

"You were really excited about it though."

"And?"

"And it seemed important to you... so it's important to me."

A smile pulls itself across your face and you open your mouth to respond when you're both interrupted by Garcia letting you know there's another case.

"Hold that thought," you inquire.

"It's impossible for me to forget it."

And just like that, you're discussing trashy tv with Dr. Spencer Reid during any downtime that you're granted. You gush about your favorite character and he theorizes future story arcs while simultaneously pointing out behavioral inaccuracies.

"People do not speak like that in that kind of situation, Y/N."

"It's tv, Spence, it's supposed to be unrealistic. That's what makes it fun."

+ Bonus: if it's a series that is currently airing, you both come into the office the next morning and excitedly discuss every single thing that happened and then theorize on what could possibly happen next.

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x fem!reader #criminal minds #writing by 's'

[caelum-in-the-avatarverse]

Fandom can do a little gatekeeping. As a treat.

So I finally decided to archive-lock my fics on AO3 last night. I’ve been considering it since the AI scrape last year, but the tipping point was this whole lore.fm debacle, coupled with some thoughts I’ve been thinking regarding Fandom These Days in general and Fandom As A Community in particular. So I wanna explain why I waited so long, why I locked my stuff up now, and why I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a-okay with making it harder for people to see my stories.

Lurkers really are great, tho

I’m a chronic lurker, and have been since I started hanging out on the internet as a teen in the 00s. These days it’s just cuz I don’t feel a need to socialize very often, but back then it was because I was shy and knew I was socially awkward. Even if I made an account, I’d spend months lurking on message boards or forums or Livejournals, watching other people interact and getting a feel for that particular community’s culture and etiquette before I finally started interacting myself. And y’know, that approach saved me a lot of embarrassment. Over the course of my lurking on any site, there was always some other person who’d clearly joined up five minutes after learning the place existed, barged in without a care for their behavior, and committed so many social faux pas that all the other users were immediately annoyed with them at best. I learned a lot observing those incidents. Lurk More is Rule 33 of the internet for very good reason.

Lurking isn’t bad or weird or creepy. It’s perfectly normal. I love lurking. It’s hard for me to not lurk - socializing takes a lot of energy out of me, even via text. (Heck it took 12 hours for me to write this post, I wish I was kidding--) Occasionally I’ll manage longer bouts of interaction - a few weeks posting here, almost a year chatting in a discord there - but I’m always gonna end up going radio silent for months at some point. I used to feel bad about it, but I’ve long since made peace with the fact that it’s just the way my brain works. I’m a chronic lurker, and in the long term nothing is going to change that.

The thing with being a chronic lurker is that you have to accept that you are not actually seen as part of the community you are lurking in. That’s not to say that lurkers are unimportant - lurkers actually are important, and they make up a large proportion of any online community - but it’s simple cause and effect. You may think of it as “your community”, but if you’ve never said a word, how is the community supposed to know you exist? If I lurked on someone’s LJ, and then that person suddenly friendslocked their blog, I knew that I had two choices: Either accept that I would never be able to read their posts again, or reach out to them and ask if I could be added to their friends list with the full understanding that I was a rando they might not decide to trust. I usually went with the first option, because my invisibility as a lurker was more important to me than talking to strangers on the internet.

Lurking is like sitting on a park bench, quietly people-watching and eavesdropping on the conversations other people are having around you. You’re in the park, but you’re not actively participating in anything happening there. You can see and hear things that you become very interested in! But if you don’t introduce yourself and become part of the conversation, you won’t be able to keep listening to it when those people walk away. When fandom migrated away from Livejournal, people moved to new platforms alongside their friends, but lurkers were often left behind. No one knew they existed, so they weren’t told where everyone else was going. To be seen as part of a fandom community, you need to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known, etc. etc.

There’s nothing wrong with lurking. There can actually be benefits to lurking, both for the lurkers and the communities they lurk in. It’s just another way to be in a fandom. But if that is how you exist in fandom--and remember, I say this as someone who often does exist that way in fandom--you need to remember that you’re on the outside looking in, and the curtains can always close.

I’ve always been super sympathetic to lurkers, because I am one. I know there’s a lot of people like me who just don’t socialize often. I know there’s plenty of reasons why someone might not make an account on the internet - maybe they’re nervous, maybe they’re young and their parents don’t allow them to, maybe they’re in a bad situation where someone is monitoring their activity, maybe they can only access the internet from public computer terminals. Heck, I’ve never even logged into AO3 on my phone--if I’m away from my computer I just read what’s publicly available. 

I know I have people lurking on my fics. I know my fics probably mean a lot to someone I don’t even know exists. I know this because there are plenty of fics I love whose writers don’t know I exist.

I love my commenters personally; I love my lurkers as an abstract concept. I know they’re there and I wish them well, and if they ever de-lurk I love them all the more.

So up until last year I never considered archive-locking my fic, because I get it. The AI scraping was upsetting, but I still hesitated because I was thinking of lurkers and guests and remembering what it felt like to be 15 and wondering if it’d be worth letting a stranger on the internet know I existed and asking to be added to their friends list just so I could reread a funny post they made once.

But the internet has changed a lot since the 00s, and fandom has changed with it. I’ve read some things and been doing some thinking about fandom-as-community over the last few years, and reading through the lore.fm drama made me decide that it’s time for me to set some boundaries.

I still love my lurkers, and I feel bad about leaving any guest commenters behind, especially if they’re in a situation where they can’t make an account for some reason. But from here on out, even my lurkers are going to have to do the bare minimum to read my fics--make an AO3 account.

Should we gatekeep fandom?

I’ve seen a few people ask this question, usually rhetorically, sometimes as a joke, always with a bit of seriousness. And I think…yeah, maybe we should. Except wait, no, not like that--

A decade ago, when people talked about fandom gatekeeping and why it was bad to do, it intersected with a lot of other things, mainly feminism and classism. The prevalent image of fandom gatekeeping was, like, a man learning that a woman likes Star Wars and haughtily demanding, “Oh, yeah? Well if you’re REALLY a fan, name ten EU novels” to belittle and dismiss her, expecting that a “real fan” would have the money and time to be familiar with the EU, and ignoring the fact that male movie-only fans were still considered fans. The thing being gatekept was the very definition of “being a fan” and people’s right to describe themselves as one.

That’s not what I mean when I say maybe fandom should gatekeep more. Anyone can call themselves a fan if they like something, that’s fine. But when it comes to the ability to enjoy the fanworks produced by the fandom community…that might be something worth gatekeeping.

See, back in the 00s, it was perfectly common for people to just…not go on the internet. Surfing the web was a thing, but it was just, like, a fun pastime. Not everyone did it. It wasn’t until the rise of social media that going online became a thing everyone and their grandmother did every day. Back then, going on the internet was just…a hobby.

So one of the first gates online fandom ever had was the simple fact that the entire world wasn’t here yet.

The entire world is here now. That gate has been demolished.

And it’s a lot easier to find us now. Even scattered across platforms, fandom is so centralized these days. It isn’t a network of dedicated webshrines and forums that you can only find via webrings anymore, it’s right there on all the big social media sites. AO3 didn’t set out to be the main fanfic website, but that’s definitely what it’s become. It’s easy for people to find us--and that includes people who don’t care about the community, and just want “content.”

Transformative fandom doesn’t like it when people see our fanworks as “content”. “Content” is a pretty broad term, but when fandom uses it we’re usually referring to creative works that are churned out by content creators to be consumed by an audience as quickly as possible as often as possible so that the content creator can generate revenue. This not-so-new normal has caused a massive shift in how people who are new to fandom view fanworks--instead of seeing fic or art as something a fellow fan made and shared with you, they see fanworks as products to be consumed.

Transformative fandom has, in general, always been a gift economy. We put time and effort into creating fanworks that we share with our fellow fans for free. We do this so we don’t get sued, but fandom as a whole actually gets a lot out of the gift economy. Offer your community a story, and in return you can get comments, build friendships, or inspire other people to write things that you might want to read. Readers are given the gift of free stories to read and enjoy, and while lurking is fine, they have the choice to engage with the writer and other readers by leaving comments or making reclists to help build the community.

And look, don’t get me wrong. People have never engaged with fanfic as much as fan writers wish they would. There has always been “no one comments anymore” wank. There have always been people who only comment to say “MORE!” or otherwise demand or guilt trip writers into posting the next chapter. But fandom has always agreed that those commenters are rude and annoying, and as those commenters navigate fandom they have the chance to learn proper community etiquette.

However, now it seems that a lot of the people who are consuming fanworks aren’t actually in the community. 

I won’t say “they aren’t real fans” because that’s silly; there’s lots of ways to be a fan. But there seem to be a lot of fans now who have no interest in fandom as a community, or in adhering to community etiquette, or in respecting the gift economy. They consume our fics, but they don’t appreciate fan labor. They want our “content”, but they don’t respect our control over our creations.

And even worse--they see us as a resource. We share our work for free, as a gift, but all they see is an open-source content farm waiting to be tapped into. We shared it for free, so clearly they can do whatever they want with it. Why should we care if they feed our work into AI training datasets, or copy/paste our unfinished stories into ChatGPT to get an ending, or charge people for an unnecessary third-party AO3 app, or sell fanbindings on etsy for a profit without the author’s permission, or turn our stories into poor imitations of podfics to be posted on other platforms without giving us credit or asking our consent, while also using it to lure in people they can datascrape for their Forbes 30 Under 30 company? 

And sure, people have been doing shady things with other people’s fanworks since forever. Art theft and reposting has always been a big problem. Fanfic is harder to flat-out repost, but I’ve heard of unauthorized fic translations getting posted without crediting the original author. Once in…I think the 2010s? I read a post by a woman who had gone to some sort of local bookselling event, only to find that the man selling “his” novel had actually self-published her fanfic. (Wish I could find that one again, I don’t even remember where I read it.)

But aside from that third example, the thing is…as awful as fanart/writing theft is, back in the day, the main thing a thief would gain from it was clout. Clout that should rightfully go to the creators who gifted their work in the first place, yeah, but still. Just clout. People will do a lot of hurtful things for clout, but fandom clout means nothing outside of fandom. Fandom clout is not enough to incentivize the sort of wide-scale pillaging we’re seeing from community outsiders today.

Money, on the other hand… Well, fandom’s just a giant, untapped content farm, isn’t it? Think of how much revenue all that content could generate.

Lurkers are a normal and even beneficial part of any online community. Maybe one day they’ll de-lurk and easily slide into place beside their fellow fans because they already know the etiquette. Maybe they’re active in another community, and they can spread information from the community they lurk in to the community they’re active in. At the very least, they silently observe, and even if they’re not active community members, they understand the community.

Fans who see fanworks as “content” don’t belong in the same category as lurkers. They’re tourists. 

While reading through the initial Reddit thread on the lore.fm situation, I found this comment:

[ID: Reddit User Cabbitowo says: ... So in anime fandoms we have a word called tourist and essentially it means a fan of a few anime and doesn't care about anime tropes and actively criticizes them. This is kind of how fandoms on tiktok feel. They're touring fanfics and fanart and actively criticizes tropes that have been in the fandom since the 60s. They want to be in a fandom but they don't want to engage in fandom 

OP totallymandy responds: Just entered back into Reddit after a long day to see this most recent reply. And as a fellow anime fan this making me laugh so much since it’s true! But it sorta hurts too when the reality sets in. Modern fandom is so entitled and bratty and you’d think it’s the minors only but that’s not even true, my age-mates and older seem to be like that. They want to eat their cake and complain all whilst bringing nothing to the potluck… :/ END ID]

-

“Tourist” is an apt name for this sort of fan. They don’t want to be part of our community, and they don’t have to be in order to come into our spaces and consume our work. Even if they don’t steal our work themselves, they feel so entitled to it that they’re fine with ignoring our wishes and letting other people take it to make AI “podfics” for them to listen to (there are a lot of comments on lore.fm’s shutdown announcement video from people telling them to just ignore the writers and do it anyway). They’ll use AI to generate an ending to an unfinished fic because they don’t care about seeing “the ending this writer would have given to the story they were telling”, they just want “an ending”. For these tourist fans, the ends justify the means, and their end goal is content for them to consume, with no care for the community that created it for them in the first place.

I don’t think this is confined to a specific age group. This isn’t “13-year-olds on Wattpad” or “Zoomers on TikTok” or whatever pointless generation war we’re in now. This is coming from people who are new to fandom, whose main experience with creative works on the internet is this new content culture and who don’t understand fandom as a community. That description can be true of someone from any age group.

It’s so easy to find fandom these days. It is, in fact, too easy. Newcomers face no hurdles or challenges that would encourage them to lurk and observe a bit before engaging, and it’s easy for people who would otherwise move on and leave us alone to start making trouble. From tourist fans to content entrepreneurs to random people who just want to gawk, it’s so easy for people who don’t care about the fandom community to reap all of its fruits. 

So when I say maybe fandom should start gatekeeping a bit, I’m referring to the fact that we barely even have a gate anymore. Everyone is on the internet now; the entire world can find us, and they don’t need to bother learning community etiquette when they do. Before, we were protected by the fact that fandom was considered weird and most people didn’t look at it twice. Now, fandom is pretty mainstream. People who never would’ve bothered with it before are now comfortable strolling in like they own the place. They have no regard for the fandom community, they don’t understand it, and they don’t want to. They want to treat it just like the rest of the content they consume online.

And then they’re surprised when those of us who understand fandom culture get upset. Fanworks have existed far longer than the algorithmic internet’s content. Fanworks existed long before the internet. We’ve lived like this for ages and we like it.

So if someone can’t be bothered to respect fandom as a community, I don’t see why I should give them easy access to my fics.

Think of it like a garden gate

When I interact with commenters on my fic, I have this sense of hospitality.

The comment section is my front porch. The fic is my garden. I created my garden because I really wanted to, and I’m proud of it, and I’m happy to share it with other people. 

Lots of people enjoy looking at my garden. Many walk through without saying anything. Some stop to leave kudos. Some recommend my garden to their friends. And some people take the time to stop by my front porch and let me know what a beautiful garden it is and how much they’ve enjoyed it. 

Any fic writer can tell you that getting comments is an incredible feeling. I always try to answer all my comments. I don’t always manage it, but my fics’ comment sections are the one place that I manage to consistently socialize in fandom. When I respond to a comment, it feels like I’m pouring out a glass of lemonade to share with this lovely commenter on my front porch, a thank you for their thank you. We take a moment to admire my garden together, and then I see them out. The next time they drop by, I recognize them and am happy to pour another glass of lemonade.

My garden has always been open and easy to access. No fences, no walls. You just have to know where to find it. Fandom in general was once protected by its own obscurity, an out-of-the-way town that showed up on maps but was usually ignored.

But now there’s a highway that makes it easy to get to, and we have all these out-of-towner tourists coming in to gawk and steal our lawn ornaments and wonder if they can use the place to make themselves some money.

I don’t care to have those types trampling over my garden and eating all my vegetables and digging up my flowers to repot and sell, so I’ve put up a wall. It has a gate that visitors can get through if they just take the time to open it.

Admittedly, it’s a small obstacle. But when I share my fics, I share them as a gift with my fellow fans, the ones who understand that fandom is a community, even if they’re lurkers. As for tourist fans and entrepreneurs who see fic as content, who have no qualms ignoring the writer’s wishes, who refuse to respect or understand the fandom community…well, they’re not the people I mean to share my fic with, so I have no issues locking them out. If they want access to my stories, they’ll have to do the bare minimum to become a community member and join the AO3 invite queue.

And y’know, I’ve said a lot about fandom and community here, and I just want to say, I hope it’s not intimidating. When I was younger, talk about The Fandom Community made me feel insecure, and I didn’t think I’d ever manage to be active enough in fandom spaces to be counted as A Member Of The Community. But you don’t have to be a social butterfly to participate in fandom. I’ll always and forever be a chronic lurker, I reblog more than I post, I rarely manage to comment on fic, and I go radio silent for months at a time--but I write and post fanfiction. That’s my contribution.

Do you write, draw, vid, gif, or otherwise create? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you leave comments? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you curate reclists? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you maintain a fandom blog or fuckyeah blog? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you provide a space for other fans to convene in? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you regularly send asks (off anon so people know who you are)? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you have fandom friends who you interact with? Congrats, you're a community member.

There’s lots of ways to be a fan. Just make sure to respect and appreciate your fellow fans and the work they put in for you to enjoy and the gift economy fandom culture that keeps this community going.

#ao3 #lore.fm #fanfiction #fandom history #gift economy #caelum rambles

[wroetovic]

VROOM (harry lewis x reader)

summary : in which y/n and harry get invited to go to the silverstone formula one grand prix (2023)

face claim : no one exact

notes : im an absolute noob at writing fics so please excuse the quality lmao. im petrified of posting on here but ive been thinking about starting a blog for over a year. im open to feedback, opinions and any sort of questions/advice is welcome! i happen to waffle a lot so just skip those parts if uninterested. this is my first post so enjoy 😝 also pls request because i have the creativity of a koala so id appreciate some ideas :D

pairings : harry lewis x reader , lando norris x platonic!reader

"WHAT ARE YOU WEARING?! Are you actually serious?" You asked your boyfriend in genuine shock, followed by a laugh from the man dressed in head to toe in Ferrari merch. The red and yellow colors clashed hilariously with the sleek, orange McLaren paddock pass hanging around his neck.

"What? I thought I'd support the winning team." He shrugged, a cheeky grin spreading across his face. You and Harry got invited by the Mclaren F1 team to watch the Silverstone Grand Prix from the paddock. As a Formula 1 fan youself, you were excited to see the cars upclose. To watch the mechanics to the pitstops, engineers do their things (idk what they do lmao) and to watch Max Verstappen overlap the whole grid like seven times. Even since you were a little kid you were amazed by those cars driving freakishly quickly. Now, several years later you get to experience it right infront of your eyes.

"Look, there's Lando!" Harry pointed out, spotting your friend talking to a group of mechanics. You approached Lando, who broke into a wide grin as he saw you. "Hey! There are my favorite YouTubers!"

You beamed. "Lando! It's so good to see you. How's it going?"

"It's been wild but amazing," Lando replied, glancing at Harry. "And I see you've managed to get Harry in the right gear this time."

Harry laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah, I had a little help with that."

Lando gave you two a playful nudge. "So, who are you rooting for today? Besides me, of course."

You laughed. "Well, McLaren, obviously. But I'm also excited to see how the Brits perform. It's going to be an interesting race."

"That's the spirit," Lando said, his eyes twinkling with excitement. "Alright, I better get back to my team, but I'll see you guys later? Enjoy the race!"

You and Harry found a spot in the back of Landos garage, it had a view on the screens but also the pit-stop. The whole race went by fast. The moment the lights went out Lando tried his hardest with a deserved P2 at his home race.

Liked by mclaren, f1 & 1,002,485 others.

yourusename mom, i got invited to the silverstone grand prix.. still lowkey in disbelief like wtf.. me?? anyways, tysm mclaren 🩷 enjoy my lovely film camera dump raaaah.

View all 2,547 comments.

user harry looking fine as always😍

user y/n and lando finest friends

wroetoshaw whos the first fella hes fit

- yourusername he has a girlfriend..

user i can imagine y/n just walking around taking pictures of everything and everyone 😭😭😭

user i almost melted when they came on the screen

- user me too 😭 forgot i was watching f1 for a second

wroetoshaw i still think i shouldve worn my ferrari outfit #hater

- yourusername youd be sticking out like a sore thumb youre lucky i stopped you #loser #youalmostworepajamapants

user y/n looked so good there 😍

user i LIVE for y/n and landos friendship

faithlouisak i cant believe you chose him over me..

- yourusername im sorry bae.. next time im taking u

faithlouisak finest woman out there

calfreezy wtf fake friends.. theburntchip are you seeing what im seeing ???

- theburntchip bunch of fakies😔

holy what a yap fest lmfao please someone REQUEST something 😭 cause this is too plain.. !

#formula 1 #mclaren #lando norris #harry lewis #w2s #w2s x reader #harry lewis x reader #wroetoshaw x reader #sidemen #harry wroetoshaw #wroetovic #f1 #social media #smau #social media au #yapping #certified yapper #professional yapper #yapyapyap #yapfest #waffling #silverstone 2023 #lando norris x reader #lando x reader #formula 1 x reader #f1 smau #max verstappen #red bull racing #vikkstar123 #behzinga

[nyhti]

Batman Rogues Tumblr AU:

Jervis:

-Joined Tumblr in 2009, has had the same blog all this time -Has a big follower count, but most of those blogs have long since been abandoned -Is very active -No sideblogs, everything from kink to cute animal pics is on the same blog -Has witnessed or been involved in every single major event in this site's history -Attended Dashcon (he was the one who pissed in the ball pit) -Involved in some sort of petty drama on a daily basis -Has a 20km long post of just going back and fort arguing with some random user. This argument started in 2016 and neither remembers what it even was about. He gets worried if the other person hasn't responded in a while. -Gets at least 3 callout posts a week. Always makes sure to reblog them and adds an essay underneath defending himself no matter if the callout post was about liking the wrong pony in MLP or murdering someone in cold blood. -Kinnie drama the likes of which you've never seen before -And in general just discord you never thought anyone could ever come up with -At this point you wonder if he's even having fun on this site, but he just keeps on reblogging bunny pics like it's nothing -Has a Wacom drawing tablet

Jonathan:

-Joined in 2011 after Jervis introduced him to the site -Has some really tacky theme he hasn't changed since 2013 -About a couple hundred followers, but they are very devoted. Lots of mutuals -579257405547 blurry photos of Nightmare -Post fics and essays on various topics he's been thinking about lately -Of course reblogs every single spoopy art piece he finds -Definitely does fic request -The most fucked up smut you've ever read -Like smut you don't even know is smut, because it's just that confusing -Most of his post don't get past 50 notes, but he has made a couple of post, mainly of the: ”Here's how you write x, y and z...” and ”As a Professor of Psychology, I can tell you...” variety, that have about 10 000 notes -Has a chill time on Tumblr -Only uses Tumblr on desktop. Has never even seen the app. -Completely unironically reblogs every cool skeleton on a motorcycle pic

Joker:

-Joined in 2013 -The only reason he joined is because he once came across a horny drawing of Batman and searching for the artist led him to Tumblr. -Starts writing a post, gets distracted mid way though and starts doing something else. Comes back to Tumblr 3 hours later, notices he was making a post, doesn't even bother rereading it despite not remembering what it was about and just hits posts. His blog is full of completely incomprehensible post that just stop mid way through -Makes a couple post that get so popular they are still making rounds today. They will always have additions like: ”I still can't believe this post was made by the fucking Joker” and ”Joker had a Tumblr?!” -Forgot his password a month after joining and never visited the site again. Barely remembers he ever had an account -Those true crime people still harvest his 20-post-pathetic-excuse-for-a-blog-blog for content to this day all the while completely ignoring all the rogues with still active (and better) blogs. They are saying things like: ”Ooohhhh, it's like a deep dive into his twisted mind :00” and are always trying to find some hidden symbolism and meaning behind all his ”just farted so loud it scared the neighbor's cat” kinda posts.

Eddie:

-Joined in 2011 -759752974576 sideblogs, 55425720752174838+1 sockpuppet accounts -When he's really low he'll post a poll like: ”Be honest, am I cute? Yes/No” and then has his 55425720752174838+1 sockpuppet accounts hit ”Yes” and somehow ”No” still wins. He deletes the whole post. -Posts the most obvious ”and everybody clapped” Tumblr fake stories you've seen. When he gets called out, he pretends you were supposed to figure out they were fake -Has an awful time on Tumblr, but can't delete, because he's addicted to getting notes -Always falls for every one of those post where OP pretends to be stupid on purpose (i.e. smooth sharks, putting fingers in guns etc.) -Posts riddles everyday that even his biggest haters cannot help but try and solve -Sends himself hatemail so he can post the witty comeback he just came up with. Forgot to hit anon once and people just won't let it go

Hugo:

-Banned for posting cock :/

#jervis tetch #scarecrow #joker #riddler #hugo strange

[natsukishinomiyaswife]

⋆ 𝓐𝔃𝓾𝓵 𝓐𝓼𝓱𝓮𝓷𝓰𝓻𝓸𝓽𝓽𝓸: 𝓦𝓪𝓴𝓮 𝓾𝓹, 𝓘 𝓛𝓸𝓿𝓮 𝓨𝓸𝓾 ⋆

Please note: This is a repost from my old blog, @sugarcookiesheep!

*This was originally written and posted on Azul's birthday!

⋆ It was late at night, Azul sound asleep as you sat beside him. You had set an alarm, wanting to be up as soon as midnight hit. You were so excited, unable to wait till morning as you shook him gently, waking him up. He stirred, disorientated as he opened his eyes slowly. It was still dark out, looking up to find your face mere inches from his own, leaning over him. He sleepily pressed a kiss to your lips, thinking he must still be dreaming as he stared at you in a daze. You laughed, finding his sleepy reactions cute. You moved some hair out of his face, giving him a gentle kiss as you wished him a happy birthday.

⋆ His face scrunched up in confusion, starting to become more awake as he asked what time it was. You checked your phone, telling him it was a little after midnight. He groaned, thanking you before turning over. He tells you to go back to sleep, mentioning how he has work in the morning. You can’t help it though, moving to press more kisses wherever you could reach on his face. “I’m just so happy you were born, you know?” you say, Azul looking towards you at your words.

⋆ You looked at him with such love, such affection. He couldn’t help but think how beautiful you looked, dressed in your pajamas with your hair messy from sleep. Your words had struck a chord with him, moving to hold your face in his hands. He looked at you for a moment, his eyes reflecting back with the same love and affection, before pulling you down into a deep, searing kiss. If he wasn’t awake before, he certainly was now, putting his all into this kiss. He wanted to convey how much you mean to him. How much he loves you, adores you, treasures you more than anything else.

⋆ After a moment, you both break apart, breathing heavily. Your lips are red, face warm and eyes heavy lidded. He’s sure he looks the same, urging you to lay back down. He holds you close once you’re back in bed, laying facing each other. You wish him happy birthday again, Azul stroking your face as you feel yourself grow drowsy. He presses a kiss to your forehead, wishing you goodnight and sweet dreams as you fall back asleep. You have another alarm set, wanting to make him breakfast before he heads to work. It’s a shame you never asked what he wanted though, as he already has the only gift he could ever want, right here in his arms ♡

Originally posted: February 24th, 2024

𝓣𝓱𝓪𝓷𝓴 𝔂𝓸𝓾! ♡

#♡.sheep writes #♡.twst #♡.azul ashengrotto #twisted wonderland x reader #twst x reader #azul ashengrotto #azul ashengrotto x reader #azul x reader

[neteyamsoare]

𐙚˙⋆.˚ ᡣ𐭩 who did this to you? | tsu'tey rongloa is now live.

new message from: @inlovewithpandora. “ who did this to you? ” + “ i’m not letting them get away with this. ” with Neytiri or Tsu’tey x human!reader (avatar 1 based) || After the war happens N or T can’t deny their love for reader (no matter how hard they try to push the feelings the down) so they confess their feelings to reader and when reader says they feel the same they start dating and become a couple. Some people in the clan are upset bc they don’t like a ‘demon’ living among them especially after the war w/ the destruction the sky people have caused….

current game. after word got around that tsu'tey and you are mates, some na'vi are furious that they lost their chance to a sky demon.

game warnings. minors and ageless blogs do not interact! | sfw, fem! human/dreamwalker! reader, angst, bullying, mention of bruises & wounds, protective! tsu’tey, angry! tsu’tey, hurt/comfort + fluff. wc. 2.3k.

slang. pa’li ( direhorse ), palulukan ( thanator ), yawne ( beloved ) + yawnetu ( loved one ).

streamer's note. i’m so happy to finally have this done and posted. this is my fifth installment for my milestone event and i can’t wait to finish each one. thanks bb for sending this in, really appreciate you.

masterlist 𐙚 2k subathon masterlist 𐙚 previous fic 𐙚 taglist

After winning the war, the humans got sent back to earth and everything went back to normal in the clan.

Once there was nothing to keep Tsu’tey busy, nothing to push away the thoughts of you he kept buried, he could no longer deny the feelings he had for you.

Tsu’tey found himself glued to your side more often, protecting you while the two of you walked through the forest to train together.

He fell in love with the way you smile, laugh, and the way you showed compassion for the forest animals no matter how dangerous they were. A smile will always display on his face whenever you are around or when he sees you in the distance, drawing in your notebook.

Tsu’tey just knew he needed to confess his feelings after he saw you drink water from the leaf. It shouldn’t have been such a huge deal as he saw a lot of women do it in the past but with you, it felt so sexual.

He could feel his body already reacting to the sight, he found it very hard to look away as he watched some water drip down your chin to your chest and he sharply inhaled as he prayed to Eywa to give him strength.

Tsu’tey began courting you the next day, gifting you a beautiful woven bracelet along with a matching necklace that had his colors in it. You were surprised at first as you never thought he felt the same way you did knowing how the two of you had first met but came a long way.

As soon as the two of you mated for life, you didn’t waste any time in revealing your relationship status to the clan.

Tsu’tey would have you so close to him, your tail wrapped around his leg while his wrap around your waist, hands intertwined with each other while people stare at you two.

They watched how you and him were deep into conversation, how easily you made him laugh, some watched in awe while others watched in envy that a sky demon was able to break down his barrier.

Some people didn’t like that a sky demon lived amongst them especially after the war and what the sky people did to their home.

Tsu’tey didn’t care for all the talk people were whispering to each other because he wasn’t going to let it get in the way of the relationship, you couldn’t help but let it bother you deep down, hoping one day some didn’t treat you differently.

You grip firmly on the basket that was placed on your hip as you gently pluck fruits from a close vantage point as if you were in your avatar body due to the link unit malfunctioning.

Norm said it’d be running good again by tomorrow but you couldn’t wait as you were craving some yovo fruit, you and Tsu’tey’s favorite fruit and you thought it would be nice to surprise him with some.

You hum a bit while focused on getting the perfect looking fruit that’s ready to eat when you hear footsteps heading your way.

You glance in the direction it’s coming from, a group of girls reveal themselves as they ride in on their pa’li, stopping their laughter once they see you.

You immediately rolled your eyes, wanting nothing more than to run away but you were not in your avatar form so you had a disadvantage.

“Well well well, look who we have here girls,” Naru snickered as she and her friends dismount their direhorses.

“Don’t y’all have something better to do but to pick on me?” You questioned, still not looking at them and kept your focus on the fruit.

“Well going hunting is way better than having to have you in our presence but where’s the fun in it?” She chuckled, making the other girls laugh as well.

“Leave me alone,” you spat as Naru steps an inch closer. “Yeah I don’t think so.” Neynat spoke as she roughly took the basket of fruit away from you.

“Hey, give it back!” You shout, feeling the anger build up inside of you.

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Neynat takes one of the fruits out of the basket, taking a low bite out of it as she drops the rest onto the floor, stomping on one of them while the others laugh.

You were seething with anger, why do they have to pick on you? You didn’t do anything to them, you were always nice before they started to bully you. 

You never mentioned it to Tsu’tey or anyone because you thought you could just ignore it and they would stop bothering you but it just kept getting worse. 

You clench your hands into fists, already tuned out their voices and the only thing you could hear was your elevating heart beat. You shove Neynat hard but because of your size, she doesn’t move an inch and only makes her angrier.

Neynat throws the fruit to the ground as she steps towards you and each step forward, you take a step back, wishing that you weren’t caught in this predicament and praying to Eywa that you would get out of this soon. 

Your back hits the tree behind you, cursing under your breath as you prepare yourself for the first blow as much as you could, they start by pushing you to the ground and your first instinct is to protect your head from getting hit. 

Naru swings her leg back gaining momentum as it connects with your stomach making you yelp in pain as you feel the sharp pain — you almost think you can hear your ribs cracking. 

“P…Please… stop…” you stuttered, scared of what they might do next as they came closer to you, giving you hit after hit until all you could feel was pain running through your body. 

You tried screaming but it fell on deaf ears as the four of you were the only ones this deep in the forest and all you could do was wish for it to stop, wish that Tsu’tey would come save you and put a stop to this. 

You haven’t felt this much fear since the day you and Jake ran from a palulukan and you never wanted to feel that feeling ever again. 

Neynat was the next one to land a hit on you, going on top of you as she hit you in your face, knocking the wind out of you.

“Neynat, that’s enough let’s go before you get us all caught,” Peyral lectured as Neynat punched you on your nose; blood leaking leaking down onto your upper lip before she gets up from over you. 

“Stay clear from us or you’ll not be as lucky to be alive,” she spat, letting out a laugh before she and her girls returned back to their pa’li, riding off as their laughter rang over and over in your head. 

You laid there for a second as you tried to breath which was hard from the hit she gave you. Tears trickle down your face as you try to recall what you might have done to deserve this treatment. 

You sobbed as you moved inch by inch; you needed to get back to the lab one way or another, even if the pain was too much for you, you didn’t want another problem to meet you once more.

Tsu’tey was worried as the two of you planned to go flying together but you were a no show and it wasn’t like you to miss a date with him so as he landed his ikran near the lab; which he assumed you would be — he quickly dismounted, making his way up to the door hoping that you weren’t mad at him.

He didn’t do anything but there has to be a reason you would miss a date with him and if you weren’t angry at him then why?

Tsu’tey takes a deep breath briefly before entering the code to the lab, opening the door to find you standing at one of the desks, back facing him as you looked like you were occupied with something.

“Yawne?” Hearing his voice made you froze, you thought you would have a bit more time to take care of your bruises before he shown up. “Hi… Tey… what are you doing here?” you question nervously, biting down on your lower lip not wanting him to see you like this.

“What am I doing here? We had a date which you missed, is something wrong?” Tsu’tey replied coming closer but you step forward holding back a groan of pain. “E…Everything is fin-” you hiss in pain as a sharp of pain runs through your body, worrying Tsu’tey in the process.

Before you could come up with an excuse to tell Tsu’tey so you could be alone, he turns you around and as soon as he does, his eyes widened in shock.

"What happened?" He spoke firmly as he check your body for anymore injuries, you wince with pain as the tears filled your eyes and your breathing becomes more heavy as you watch him cup your face in his hands, looking deeply in his eyes as you notice a darker color take over his once golden orbs.

"Who did this to you?" Tsu'tey lets out a deep fierce growl, how can someone treat you like this especially since you were so kind to everyone who met you?

His facial expression becomes soft after seeing tears roll down your cheeks and he immediately wipes them away, he bends down to kiss your forehead before pulling you into a hug, not ever wanting to let go.

You take in his scent which puts you as ease, soothing you a bit before you took a deep breath and tell him everything that happened, you could tell he was raging with anger from the way his chest heaved up and down, the way he bares his fangs ever so often, how his tail thrash angrily behind him.

You could tell he wanted nothing more than to walk out the door and bring justice to the people who harmed you but instead he stays with you clinging onto him as the tears spilled out of your eyes while he whispered sweet things in your ear, letting you know everything was going to be okay.

“They’re not getting away with this,” he spoke calmly as he brought his fingers to his neck to turn on the communication device Jake had given him. “Brother, I wish to speak to you, it’s urgent!”

Tsu’tey takes his fingers off the device, pulling away from you for only a second so he can take care of the bruises, if he wasn’t protective of you before, he was going to be even more after this situation.

“I’m sorry…” he spoke, your eyes widened in shock as you were confused of why he was apologizing. “Why are you sorry? You didn’t do this.”

“I know but I’m meant to protect you as you are my mate, this shouldn’t have happened if I was by your side,” he states while he focused on cleaning your wounds. “Tey, it’s not your fault that some people are cruel and mean, I know if you were there not one hand could touch me.”

“I thank Eywa every day for you, I’m lucky to have you,” you smiled. “I’m the lucky one.”

His response elicits a giggle out of you, only he could make you laugh in a situation like this. You lean in to kiss his cheek but he moves his head so your lips could land on his.

The kiss was filled with so much love and passion, you couldn’t wait to build a family with him as no one could ever fill the spot you held for him in your heart.

Days passed since the incident and you were on a journey to healing, Tsu’tey by your side at every moment.

He had informed Neytiri and Jake what had happened — they were livid especially when they saw the state of you. They were so mad that they called a clan meeting.

“How dare you lay your hands on her!” Tsu’tey shouted, looking at every one of them, his fangs making an appearance. “Did you really think after I found out what you did, you’d have a chance with me?”

“You didn’t even have a chance before she arrived, I love her and only her!” You watched in awe at how your mate defended you in front of everyone, loving the facial expressions on the girls as Tsu’tey chewed them out.

“How would you feel if someone did that to you?” Tsu’tey commented, looking at each separately with disdain. “You lucky I can’t throw you to the Palulukans, thank eywa for raising me to be a respectful man, thank.”

The real entertainment started when Jake delivered the news that they were banished from the clan with Neytiri at them hissing at them baring her fangs and a smug look spread across your face as you watch the shock expressions on their faces, intertwining your hand with Tsu’teys.

You watched with a huge smile on your face as the three of them walking into the crowd, tears falling down their faces as they avoided the judgmental stares from the na’vis’ around them.

“They won’t be bothering you no more, yawne,” Tsu’tey flashes you a smile and you cling to him more. “No one’s going to be messing with you after seeing the consequences.”

You loved the sound of that, you can finally live at peace, you planned once you’re fully healed, you would do the conscious transfer so you can build the family you want with him; first you’d have to convince him but that was something you could worry about that later on.

“Hmm, how about we redo that date we missed?” You offered while looking up at him and a smug played on his lips. “I would love that, yawnetu.”

chat. @yawnetu, @bubblebunbun, @fluorynn, @rivatar, @sweetdayme4427, @moonchildxoxx, @hadesbabygurl+ @ikeyniofthetayrangi.

꒰ stream has ended. — all rights reserved © neteyamsoare 2024. do not copy, repost, translate & recommend elsewhere.

#ಣ : 2k subscription #tsu'tey x human reader #tsu'tey x fem reader #tsu'tey x you #tsu'tey x reader #tsu'tey x y/n #tsutey x fem reader #tsutey x reader #tsu'tey te rongloa ateyitan x reader #tsu'tey fanfiction #avatar x human reader #avatar x you #avatar x fem reader #avatar x reader #avatar x y/n #avatar x female reader

[sweetteainthesummerx]

THE LOVE LASTS SO LONG

Ollie Bearman and his girlfriend turned wife, as seen from social media and the public. 

reader has a name and a no fc, but is portrayed as East Asian :)

No warnings, probably going to have multiple parts :)

Very fluffy

ALSO NO HATE TO MACE CORONEL I literally searched up young actors and he popped up

AND no hate to ollie and Estelle's relationship I just wanted to write for fun.

pls be kind this is baby's first Tumblr post also someone pls help me how do I make my blog aesthetic

..............................................................................................................................

E-news!

TRENDING NOW

AUBREY YANG WINS OSCAR AT AGE 17

Aubrey Yang, age 17, wins Best Supporting Actress in break out role on blockbuster movie, Station 13. This young star has been acting since the age of 7, landing roles such in which she worked with household names like Michelle Yeoh and Robin Williams. Her astounding and emotional performance as a newly orphaned teen in the apocalypse adjacent Morgan Freeman has secured her spot in this tumultuous industry. In her acceptance speech, Yang delivered an impactful critique on Asian presence in Western Media and how her win is “ not just [hers], but for all of us”. 

Yang is set to star in upcoming movie, White Jade Tiger, a historical film based on the book of the same name, directed by John M. Chu next fall. 

See below for Audrey Yang’s Acceptance Speech I 2024 Academy Awards. 

aubreyyang posted

liked by morganfreeman, michelleyeoh_official, and 987,432 others

aubreyyang Wow. I am still in absolute shock. Thank you so much to everyone who supported me and helped make this happen. Here’s to more change and more love in the future! 

view all 26,183 comments

morganfreeman well done, and well deserved Aubrey. It was an honor seeing your incredible talent and hard work. 

— aubreyyang thank you so much for guiding me and imparting your wisdom!! I love you on set dad!

michelleyeoh_official They grow up so fast…proud of you, Aubrey!

— aubreyyang MICHELLE MY HERO

dior.n.goodjohn MY QUEEN YOUVE SLAYED TOO HARD IM AFRAID

— aubreyyang AHHH MY GF VAN TRIP WHEN???

user dior and aubrey are friends???

user2 yes they’re both from vancouver their friendship is so cute 

macecoronel ❤️

liked by author 

sabrinacarpenter girlboss

aubreyyang SABBB my lover

olliebearman posted

olliebearman Spring break, ready to get back on (the) track 😁

tagged: kimi.antonelli

comments are turned off.

liked by kimi.antonelli, arthur_leclerc, and 7,4720 others

celebgossipnews_page posted

celebgossipnews_page Aubrey Yang has won an Oscar: but is she winning in the love department? The actress was seen arguing with long-term boyfriend, Mace Coronel in front of Nobu Downtown last Friday night, at 9:00 pm. She left the restaurant in tears, without Coronel. Could this power couple break up at the height of Yang’s career?

Liked by 7344 others

view all 207 comments

user1 dude I hate him sm like wdym u pulled Aubrey, the baddest baddie out there

— user2 fr man is washed up

aubreyyyfanpage girl stand up that man is not worth it LEAVE HIM

— yang4eva WORDD miss ma’am he does not deserve u ONE CHANCE PLS

aubberieyaang posted

aubberieyaang as liv once said, its brutal out here 

liked by celine_diorr and others

view all 20 comments

celine_diorr NAH NO WAY LIL BRO CHEATED ON U LIKE WDYM

celine_diorr WHEN I CATCH U BRO WHEN I CATCH U

liv_laugh_love girl are r u ok u know its bad when ur quoting me

— aubberieyaang I can’t help it I start singing one step forward three steps back whenever I start crying

chuck_bushes do u want me and walker to go beat him up

— celine_diorr YO I want in

— aryannawhatrudoinghere me too

— walkdontrun pulling up to his house rn

— leeahh_j AUBREY I LOVE YOU DONT CRY

— aubberieyaang AW I LOVE U GUYS

dallastexas dude how r u showing up to set and pretending to be okay

dallastexas im gonna grab food and come over to urs

— aubberieyaang PLS. Also water im so dehydrated

______________________________________________________________

© sweetteainthesummerx.tumblr. all rights reserved. unauthorized copying, translation, or claiming of my writing or any works as your own is strictly prohibited.

#ollie bearman #ollie bearman x reader #ollie bearman x you #ollie bearman x female reader #formula 1 #f1 drivers #f1 x reader #smau #f1 smau #ollie barman x female character

[aspenaspenaspenaspenaspen]

@myfairkatiecat

My evidence that @official-tam-cam is @permanently-stressed

My first piece of evidence is from this response when tam-cam thanked me for letting them know about a mistake. They called me aspen, and while aspen is the most logical name you can derive from my username, it’s not in my bio or anything so as of now there are only two people who call me aspen:

…One of them being Isa

the other person that calls me aspen doesn’t have any #tam cam posts on their blog so it’s unlikely that it’s them

My second piece of evidence I don’t know as much about but tam-cam in a post called @ sasharcyreal Maddie

I’m not sure how many people call @ sasharcyreal Maddie but I doubt it’s very common considering it’s not in their bio:

but I DO KNOW that Isa calls @ sasharcyreal Maddie

also, Isa would just have a lot of information about #tam cam considering they helped start it soo

#kotlc #tam cam

[kaylinalexanderbooks]

Writeblr intro post

So yeah when I first came here I didn't know this was a thing so I've been working on this in the background. Now that it won the poll, I'm making it now!

I'm going to edit this post as I go so it has more links as I make posts about my WIPs!

About Me

Hi. Call me Kaylin. It's a pen name but I like it. (Some people are just finding out this isn't my real name and y'all should've read the bio)

I'm an education major and do writing on the side and it's a huge passion of mine (hence why I want to teach literacy)

Asexual demiromantic sapphic (she/her) currently in a relationship - (I am comfortable within reason to talk about my experiences)

Love ask games and tag games and generally interacting with others

Love reblogging mutuals' writing talking about WIPs!

21+ but my WIPs are YA - I don't usually reblog anything with a mature community label (sorry in advance for mutuals who do), but when I do I mark it 18+ and I try to label content warnings (LET ME KNOW IF I MISSED SOMETHING)

I'm an educator by heart so I love giving feedback, know a lot about kids, and of course education psychology and theory

I have minor scoliosis, early start of arthritis in my hands, and chronic headaches and migraines attacks in control with medication if anyone needs to ask me about these experiences for writing purposes. I also occasionally use a cane due to knee pain from an injury.

I have an ultimate get to know me game here if you want to check that out

My asks are always open! Feel free to stop in whenever you want!

My WIPs

The Secret Portal

See linked intro post for more detail!

YA sci-fi/fantasy

Planned to be a five book series

Quick version: A bunch of adolescents discover a portal to a dimension populated by people with powers. There's also a war. Yayyy.

The first installment is currently in the process of being read by beta readers. Apply to be one here!

Tagged as #the secret portal, #tsp, or #teaspoon if you want to give it a nickname. #tsp updates and #tsp excerpt are used as well. All characters get their own tag and #alium will be used when talking about my world building

Ask to be added to or removed from the tag list! @thepeculiarbird @illarian-rambling @televisionjester @finchwrites

@nebula--nix @literarynecromancy

School of the Legends

YA urban fantasy fairy tale retelling

International school for people with gifts (born with), majicks (learn), and curses (given).

Currently in planning stage but five chapters have been written.

No intro post yet but I'm working on it!

Tagged as #school of the legends and #sotl. Also use #sotl updates and #sotl excerpt, though not as often as TSP

Ask to be added to or removed from the tag list! @illarian-rambling

Other Ideas

It Was All Just a Dream - high school senior gets an entire redemption arc via vivid dream

The Emerald of Secrets - temporary title for vague fairy fantasy idea

Perspectives - we watch the same event five times in a row from different perspectives

Eternity - temporary title for a supernatural detective story

The Others - temporary title for a sci-fi apocalypse story

There are more but these are the main ones

What I Post or Reblog

Updates on my writing

Tag games and ask games! I love them dearly but it may take a bit to reply! I have a lot piled up and not all of them are simple. But I will get to them!!

Writing from others

Writing advice

Beta requests, book announcements, and intro posts to help boost!

I try to keep things positive! If I see a negative post about writing I'll usually reblog it with some positive spin. Sorry if that's annoying but it makes me sad that people aren't happy about writing.

I always try to include image IDs to make my blog accessible - if something is incorrect or you have any suggestions for making IDs better let me know!

#writers on tumblr #writing community #writeblr intro #writers of tumblr #writing on tumblr #writeblr community #writeblr #the secret portal #school of the legends #my intro post #my introduction #tsp #teaspoon #sotl #taglist

[judesmoonbeauty]

Alfons Sylvatica Chapter 2 - Semi-Summary

This is a fan translation only. Not 100% accurate. Please expect grammatical errors and translation inaccuracies. This is a SEMI-SUMMARY of each chapter. I am roughly translating this with out much research other than specific lines from certain scenes. Why? Because it's a huge task to translate a main route chapter line by line. So, this is what we're working with, and I appreciate your understanding ♥︎ Cybird owns everything. Re-blogs are appreciated, but please do not post my summaries elsewhere. Minors: Please DNI or consume this content. CW: Dub-Con. Dividers: @/natimiles

Kate wakes up the next morning and finds a shirtless Alfons sleeping next to her in bed. She freaks out and wakes Alfons up in the process who says, “Oh, is it morning already? Good morning, Kate.” She recalls how he came to her room the night before, kissed her and then they went to bed, but no lines were crossed at this point because he knew her body was too tired, but even so did they do other activities that only “lovers” do….she wasn’t sure.

Alfons: Did you have a good dream last night?

Kate: W-wha……from where….

The blurry line between dreams and reality were a shock to her, the fear from last night and the pleasurable kiss they shared was so real, but it still felt like a dream and she couldn’t help, but feel upset. Alfons laughs at her in amusement, and his smile makes her back away from him covering her naked body with the sheet.

Kate: Wow, did you do something to me?!

Alfons: Yes, I did. I did a lot of nice things.

Kate: I didn’t mean that…..!!

She frantically tries to remember why she thought that Alfons was her lover, knowing there must be some kind of trigger. She has a flashbacks to him in her room and the mission prior to that:

Kate: Worried?

Alfons: Yes, isn’t it obvious?

Alfons: Because - you are my lover.

Alfons: You’re dreaming. You’re having a very pleasant dream.

Back to the present, she recalls him touching the nape of her neck and him whispering to her in both instances, and then recalls the pile of dead bodies before he touched her. She mentions that he used his ability on her, and surmises it’s the ability to use illusions. He admits to it and then commends her deductive skills while breaking out in applause. However, he clarifies that his ability is to rewrite perceptions by simply touching the nape of ones neck and whisper, and she asks why he did it to her?

Alfons: Why, because…..it’s fun of course?

Alfons: Poor little robin, thrown into a cesspool of evil.

Alfons: You’re the funniest toy I’ve ever seen.

Kate: …..!! (Kate slaps his cheek.)

Kate: Disgusting……

Alfons: I like your reaction, much better than last nights.

Alfons laughs without straightening his clothes and flutters off her bed, and tells her that if she ever wants to cry again then he’s there for her. She screams “No, thank you!” and throws a pillow at him. Afterwards, she heads to the dining room for breakfast and Alfons is sitting their nonchalantly. She wants to turn on her heel, but she resists and takes a seat. Victor starts talking to her about the mission from the night before, and she asks what happens after she was hypnotized. Did they call the police? William explains to her that in East End there have been many murders, arsons, abductions etc. and yet the police chalk it up to something that “always happens in the slums”.

Kate watches the expressions of those around her: Liam & Harrison listen quietly to the information, Elbert looks down melancholically at it, Alfons doesn’t seem interested in the subject at all, and then there’s those whose eyes sparkle with joy…….“That’s where Crown comes in,” says Victor. He explains that rumor has it that the administrators of the orphanage and poorhouse are responsible for the series of incidents. Last night’s mission was a little prelude to gather information. William says that they are trying to uncover the reason all the administrators are banding together; is it money, ideology, or pleasure? “What do you think”, he asks her.

Kate says she doesn’t know and she can’t of a single reason as to why someone would want to do that, as she recalls the scene feelings well up in her chest making her feel like she’s trapped in a dark place. Alfons chimes in, “Well, you don’t need to know. It’s a hassle.”

Alfons: Some children die in this world without anyone knowing. That means there are some who think they’re nothing more than rubbish to be cleaned off the street.

Kate is stunned by such a statement from him, is this a brazen dereliction of duty despite Crown being tasked with such cases? They stare at each other and he smiles.

Alfons: - It doesn’t matter.

(It doesn’t matter?!)

Alfons: Miss Kate, are you sure? You don't want to hide this.

He taps his own neck and Kate is like, “neck”? Hide what? Liam starts to ask, “Hey Kate, isn’t that….”, and Ellis follows up, “It’s a hickey.”

Kate: What?!

Ellis peeks at her from behind and she covers her neck with the palm of her hand.

Kate: Wh-wh-why....…

Alfons: Well, because……that’s what I did to you, isn’t it?

Kate: …!

Her cheeks flush and Harrison asks Alfons if he’s already touched her? Alfons laughs and asks Kate how he should answer that question, but she is so embarrassed that she can’t say anything. He taunts, “Aw, you can’t say anything?” But, it’s not possible of knowing what really happened last night, and while she is struggling as to what to say, Jude enters says, “What, ya already been devoured? I’m sorry to hear that,” and lets out a loud laugh.

Kate: I’ve not been devoured!

Alfons: That’s terrible…..that you kissed me so passionately, but you were just playing around with me……?

Kate: ….. Weren’t you the one who played with me?!

Liam: Ah.

Harrison: Ahhh.

Ellis: You just admitted it.

Kate: Huh—!?

Alfons: Pfft, ahaha! This is the best, Kate!

Alfons: Victor, will you make her my exclusive?

Kate: What do you mean my ”exclusive”?

Kate wants the situation from escalating any further and Alfons explains that they’d be partners, buddies, a tag-team or whatever she wants to call it. Victor thinks it’s a great proposal after their hot night together, and Alfons says that he must take responsibility for their one night stand, but Kate doesn’t sense any sign of sincerity in his voice. Victor says that he doesn’t care as long as Kate agrees to it, to which, she declines saying she hates the idea. Alfons threatens her with, “Don’t say! If you do, I don’t know if I’ll do that again or not.” She is upset, but it was also her fault for not kicking him out of her room last night as soon as he entered, and Victor warned her that many members of Crown were morally bankrupt.

William makes the suggestion that Kate only accompanies Alfons on his missions and outside of that, she doesn’t need to be around him. Kate still doesn’t like the idea, but it’s better than being with him 24/7, so she agrees and Alfons says it’s fine.

Alfons: Well…..I look forward to working with you, Kate.

[Next] [Master List]

#alfons sylvatica #ikevil alfons #ikevil translations #ikemen villains #Ikémen villains translations #IkeVil JP spoilers

[sevensoulmates]

Hi I just wanted to say I was on twitter and saw someone discussing and sharing your meta posts and I was genuinely intrigued and curious because you guys are obviously so devoted to the buddie couple and it's really endearing. And I was just really interesed about this perception of the couple you guys seem to have because is so different to the other side of the fandom I'm actively interacting with. I'm obviously a B/T shipper and only got into the fandom because of them but I'm really loving the show (currently I'm on season 5). I'm just curious about how is it that you guys see buddie as romantic when I think their interactions are clearly platonic, they obviously have a deep relationship, an intimate friendship but no more that that.

Again, I'm not trying to hate I just wanted to ask because it looks like the buddie shippers are settling themselves for disappointment just waiting for them to go canon. You all are obviously loyal fans and I think that's lovely but I honestly just don't see the show writing Eddie as queer now and I really think Tommy is here to stay (I think there's too many signs pointing to this fact like the buck actually episode and the old guy named Thomas). Again I'm not here trying to hate because I think you guys love the ship genuinely but I just wonder how is it that after all the things the shows portrays you guys are still rooting for buddie. Please feel free to ignore my question if I'm annoying you, I really don't want to come off as rude I was just really interesed in the topic.

There are a boatload of reasons why I and many other people ship Buddie. Most of them are far too long to get to in one ask like this because Buddie have had 6 years worth of material to sort through and it would just take far too long.

Long story short: in the same way that Buck was confirmed bisexual over the course of a single episode after years of many people saying Buck could never be anything other than straight, Buddie could be made canon in one single episode and it would be accepted just as easily even though it's been years and a lot of people are still saying they could never be together.

It's TV. The writers can do whatever they want. The second they decide to start bringing in more explicitly romantic things, people will suddenly start "getting" it.

To be more precise: I think it's easy for people to see a ship like Bucktommy and latch onto it because it's very clearly, explicitly queer. It's a lot harder for people to believe in or "see" ships where a queer couple hasn't done anything explicitly romantic like kiss or hold hands, etc. It's unfortunately due to heternomativity and the sad death of the slow burn. I can't really do anything about either of those things.

For me, the primary reason I ship buddie is because of the deep special bond and obvious family they've built over the years that feels different from every single other relationship they've had with literally anyone else on the show. That includes Tommy, Shannon, Abby, etc. You can view it as platonic if you want, that's anyone's subjective opinion.

You seem like a sweet person, but you're also coming into the show with a bias towards Bucktommy, which is fine. They're what brought you to the show, they're the ones who initially intrigued you, and they're also the only ones currently explicitly queer. I get it.

I am going to be so honest with you: I think the show has been writing both Buck and Eddie as queer men for many many years. But just like how Buck was only allowed to confirm it this most recent season, they haven't been able to confirm it for Eddie just yet. I could write essays and essays about how Eddie is so obviously deep deep in compulsory heterosexuality and has been almost since the beginning, but it would take too long. There's plenty of posts I and others have made all over tumblr and on my blog.

Slow queer burns featuring characters that aren't introduced in the first 5 seconds as queer are almost non-existent, they very rarely happen in popular media, and because of that it's almost impossible to ship something without someone coming at you saying "they don't see it". Fact of the matter is that Buddie is one of the easiest ships to "see", if you were looking at a man and a woman, but they're not. I can't really convince people to see what they don't want to see.

If you're curious about the specifics, I'd encourage you to go through my blog/meta or other buddie-positive blogs on tumblr to find many talented and intelligent individuals who will have a lot to say on why they believe in buddie.

When it comes down to it, I don't think the fandom at large is ever gonna believe it until they see it. That's kinda just human nature and the state of how we all consume media right now.

But once the show does go there, they're gonna be like damn can't believe I didn't see that until now while the rest of us sit here like "we've been trying to tell you this whole time."

In the meantime, I'm enjoying Bucktommy for what it is, for however long it lasts, and I'm gonna enjoy buddie just the same, regardless of if they go canon or not, or how long it takes.

#911 abc #speculation

[mlbigbang2024]

What is a Big Bang?

A Big Bang is a fandom-wide event where writers write a long (more than 10k words) fic, for which artists make fanart during the 6-month long creation period.

How does it work?

Writers arrive with a fic idea at the start of the event. Once they have begun writing, artists select fics to illustrate in an anonymous process. Then mods match writer-artist teams. Betas can get summaries of fics from authors and choose who they’d like to work with. They help with what the writer requests: bouncing plot ideas, helping with the flow of the story, and correcting spelling and grammar mistakes.

When can I apply?

Writer applications are open until the 5th of July. Beta and artist applications are open until the 3rd of September.

Where can I apply?

Application links will be posted in May.

What do I need to participate?

You’ll need an email address, a Discord account, and if you’re applying as a writer, an AO3 account.

What is expected of me if I get accepted to the Big Bang as a writer?

► Create a complete, previously unpublished fic for the event that is independent from your previous works (no sequels or prequels are allowed) and longer than 10,000 words. ► Work closely and communicate regularly with your collaborator partners. ► Keep the setting and plot of your fic a secret, and don’t talk about it publicly outside the event’s server.

What is expected of me if I get accepted to the Big Bang as an artist?

► Create at least two pieces of complete, previously unpublished artwork. If you’re paired with one writer, you’ll create two pieces for one fic, but if you’re paired with two, you’ll make one artwork for each fic. ► Work closely and communicate regularly with your collaborator partner(s). ► Keep the details of your illustration(s) a secret, and don’t talk about it publicly outside the event’s server.

What is expected of me if I get accepted to the Big Bang as a beta reader?

Work closely and communicate regularly with your collaborator partner(s). Provide technical spelling and grammar corrections, along with language, characterization, structure, and plot feedback to the writers if they ask for it. The extent to which writers decide to incorporate this feedback is up to their own consideration. Keep the setting and plot of the fic a secret, and don’t talk about it publicly outside the event’s server.

Do I need to get my fic for the event beta-read?

We encourage the fics to be beta-read. However, it isn’t required. You can also invite your personal beta(s) to the server if you’d like, or you can be matched with one in the event.

How will the matching of artists and writers happen?

After writers submit their Project Proposal on August 30th, all summaries, tags, and snippets will be shared anonymously with artists. From September 5th-12th, artists will fill out a survey listing their preferences for fics they might like to illustrate. Mods will announce writer-artist pairs on September 16th.

If I apply and get accepted as a writer, is getting art for my fic guaranteed?

Artists have the right to decline any work they do not wish to illustrate, so while we will do our best to match each fic, writers are not necessarily guaranteed an artist partner. However, we try our best to keep an even match of writers and artists, and it is likely that all writers will be paired up. All writers can also still produce a long fic to be proud of, with the support of the Big Bang Discord community. Other benefits of being in the Big Bang are getting your fic added to the AO3 collection and reblogged by the Tumblr blog.

Can I apply for multiple roles?

Anonymity in the lead-up to the pairings is very important for this event. For that reason, you can only be accepted as either a writer or an artist. However, writers and artists can also be betas, as well as pinch-hitter artists who can be called on to step in if needed.

What happens if I need to drop out of the event?

If you need to drop out, please contact a moderator ASAP so they can inform you of the procedure! If you ‘ghost’ and fail to communicate your change in status, you may not be able to participate in next year’s event. Exceptions will be made for extraordinary incidents affecting a participant’s ability to communicate.

What happens if my partner drops out during the event?

If you’re an artist or a beta, you can choose to work with another writer. If you’re a writer, the mods will make every effort to find an artist to fill in for you (this person is called a pinch-hitter).

Can writers collaborate on fics?

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[batsplat]

do you have any more thoughts on sete&vale rivalry? ps. love your blog!

I ALWAYS have more thoughts about the sete/valentino rivalry and if there is one person on this website who wants to read them then let's fucking go. so my issue is that when I looked at this ask the first time I thought I could maybe give like. a few thoughts. just some casual fun takes. the problem is I've been doing that anyway in my other posts, but there's really only so much point in doing that if I'm not providing any context on events that are by this point two decades old. so. time for some actual context

this isn't going to be exhaustive by any stretch of the imagination. what I'm covering here is two/three incredibly interesting years of motogp that deserve to be experienced and studied in their entirety, but alas I am but one poster on one microblogging website. so this is very much going to be the whistle-stop tour of explaining feuds, before a little bit of analysis to cap things off. (would like to state for the record that I called it 'whistle-stop' when this post was a lot shorter than it is now, but I'm leaving this paragraph in because it'll get funnier the longer you scroll. it's still not exhaustive but it's a lot more exhaustive than I thought it'd be when I wrote those sentences)

this rivalry began in an odd, uncertain period of valentino's career, at a time when valentino had essentially won motogp. he had just concluded his 2002 season and sealed his second premier class title in the process, with his results that year consisting of eleven wins, four second places and a single retirement. it was more or less as good as it gets, crushingly dominant, the undisputed lord and master of all he surveyed etc etc etc. and yet it was also a time where he was ill at ease with his role within the sport and was struggling with motivation, so much so that he increasingly found himself no longer taking joy in his racing. he ended up being so disillusioned with the existing state of affairs that he decided to make a radical move to redefine himself, to control his own destiny, to take the step from a great to a legend

which is all very abstract, in a way, removed from the realities of racing or indeed competition. this was a time in which no other rider could come close to matching valentino as a competitor and everyone basically knew as much. it adds an odd flavour to the challenges an athlete faces, where the success is such that it warps everyone's understanding of what success even looks like (not helped by how the last dominant athlete in the sport, mick doohan, also had a silly good track record in his prime). you could say, if you want, that 2002 is all about sowing, all about vale having so much success that it's started to feel a bit too easy, where he was just coasting on a wave of his own brilliance. 2003? well, now we've gotten to the reaping stage, where he's suffering under the expectations he himself has created, and all this winning is maybe already getting kind of boring

the first task in sports is not to be better than everyone else - it is to win. being better helps, but it has never been strictly necessary. there was no serious question at any point during his rivalry with gibernau who the better rider was between the pair of them. perhaps even more importantly, there was no question who the stronger between the two of them should be. over the years, valentino would have to deal with more than his fair share of young talent who proved they could match him in ability, the riders who had already long been marked for greatness and had the potential to be valentino's successors to the throne. gibernau was not that man - he was older, he was less accomplished, he was a revelation rather than anointed. it's one thing to be challenged by an alien, quite the other to be beaten by a bog standard human. especially if the bar for what constitutes being 'beaten' is set pretty low - never mind full seasons, should you even be losing individual races to this new challenger?

the rivalry between valentino and sete is not one of two equals, neither in ability nor in how their success was measured. but it became one that spawned a close title fight, courtesy of valentino unexpectedly wrestling the yamaha into title contention against his former employers at the first time of asking. valentino's main pressures in those years did not come because of any other rider, including sete - they stemmed from external forces such as honda or the press, from his internal struggles, and eventually were self-imposed in his decision to take a step into the unknown and join yamaha. the shape that this rivalry took reflected the disparity between the pair of them at every stage. valentino's biggest enemy during those years only ever could have been himself - so could sete exert himself upon this narrative at all? was he only relevant as long as valentino let him be? has he been so conclusively beaten that he has allowed valentino to erase him from his story entirely?

the first task in sports isn't to be better than everyone else... but it usually isn't quite this low down on the order of priorities. when 'being better than everyone else' is taken as read, then where does the narrative tension come from? usually, this is the kind of issue that commercial stakeholders and broadcasters and journalists and fans care about - not the dominant athlete of the time. but valentino is a storyteller and he does care. he can't handle stagnation. he can't handle being bored. he needs something to fight for and someone to fight and he needs all of it to happen on his own terms. the rivalry between valentino and sete becomes about everything except who the better rider is - and they happen to be perfectly suited characters for a rivalry such as this. for something that feels a little removed from the typical pressures of competition, of simply doing all you can to win, to beat the other guy, in whatever way you can, to rack up one victory after the other... but what we're primarily talking about here isn't numbers, it's theatre. it's show. and it's about two men who are particularly in tune with the artifice of it all, who are particularly concerned with how the world perceives them. valentino always knows where the camera is, always knows to play to it - and sete knows where it is too, which is what valentino uses to unsettle him to the point of despair

so, that's the set-up. let's bring in the context. what I'll cover here is mostly limited to what transpires during the years in which the rivalry is at its most prominent, aka 2003-05-ish, and mostly stays away from its legacy or repercussions. the first bit covers sete's emergence as valentino's rival, then how he becomes honda's best hope of stopping valentino, then the controversy that ruined their relationship, and finally how sete falls apart. after that, I'll give some of my thoughts about the rivalry and how it functions as a narrative. but again, there's a lot that's being left out here - like the bits of my notes that are just a tally of every misfortune that befalls sete gibernau post-qatar 2004. remember, kids: curses are a nasty nasty business and should be wielded with care

becoming the challenger

sete's rise to becoming a legitimate title contender was in some ways as unlikely as the manner of his downfall. born in december of 1972, so six-and-a-bit years older than valentino, his grandfather was a titan in the motorcycling industry and he grew up both affluent and surrounded by bikes. he's unusually well-educated for a rider, proficient in languages even by paddock standards - and, like valentino, a bit of an aberration from the mould of the stereotypical nineties bike racer. the reputation he had was for being a bit too vain, a bit too metropolitan, too self-absorbed to be suited to the rough-and-tumble of elite motorcycle racing

by the time he signed with the gresini honda team in 2003, his track record was very far from that of a title contender. after various wildcards in the mid-nineties, he'd finally managed to get a permanent seat first in 250cc and then in 500cc. eventually racing for repsol honda and taking doohan's bike when he was injured badly enough to force his retirement, sete's initial promise remained largely unfulfilled and he was dropped by honda after the 2000 season. he joined suzuki, who were struggling immensely in the aftermath of their title courtesy of kenny roberts jr. sete did get his first premier class win in valencia in 2001 in mixed conditions - a rare race that year valentino did not win after making a conservative tyre choice at a track he's in any case always been dreadful at. in 2002, suzuki was still struggling, though the wet conditions in estoril gave sete a chance for an early duel with valentino until he crashed. valentino said afterwards he felt sorry for sete (in a nice way not a condescending way)

^sete's first ever win came in valencia far far ahead of valentino in a lowly eleventh place. incidentally, it was there that a year prior vale's late charge to an increasingly plausible rookie 500cc title came unstuck. it's fair to say it's not exactly his favourite circuit on the calendar, which some might call a sign of good taste

and then, the move to gresini honda in 2003 - to which he also brought his sponsor telefonica, who became the team's title sponsor for the next few years. as I'm sure fans of the current era are able to appreciate, while it might have been a step from a factory to a satellite squad it was a very obvious competitive upgrade. he may not have had the newest spec of honda, unlike his teammate, but he was still satisfied with his machinery and his new team

sete and valentino had already had a good relationship at this point, a friendship that extended beyond paddock walls. they'd get drunk together after races, party together on ibiza over the summer holidays - and of course there's the story of sete giving valentino advice upon his transition to 500cc. previously, valentino's most notable rivals had come from other factories, whether kenny roberts jr on the suzuki or max biaggi on the yamaha. but honda had poached biaggi for the 2003 season and - after a brief blip in 2000 -were establishing themselves once again as the overwhelmingly dominant force of the sport, boasting an embarrassment of riches both in the engineering department and in their formidable host of riders. they were the undisputed kings of motogp and were comfortable in knowing that their bikes were so good that the riders were far from essential, all easy enough to replace if they had to be. all of which meant valentino knew going into that year that his most significant challenges were likely to come from within his own house, though he would hardly have expected sete to lead the charge

but then, a tragedy in the very first race of 2003 changed things. in suzuka, gresini honda rider daijiro kato crashed and hit one of the walls, later succumbing to his injuries. kato had been a 250cc champion and was widely tipped as a future premier class champion, japan's best hope for a first in that category. even though gibernau and kato had only been teammates for a short time, sete had immediately felt welcomed within the team and had worked together closely with kato over winter testing, including helping him out in the wet conditions in which kato had long struggled

the brutality of racing is such that two weeks later, the grid were to line up again at welkom. and it was there that gibernau secured an unlikely, fantastical win from pole position holding off valentino along the way. he dedicated his victory to his fallen teammate - who he said had been with him when he was riding. he wore kato's #74 on his leathers for the rest of his career. whether rightly or wrongly, paddock consensus was that the events had transformed gibernau, had made him into someone who took his racing more seriously, had made him finally commit all his mind and body and soul to riding, to fighting, to winning

^pointing up to the sky at welkom 2003. the number 74 is prominently placed on his upper chest to the right

it also had another effect. kato's death sparked controversy due to the layout of the suzuka track, the decision of the officials not to halt the race, and the rescue workers who had failed to follow proper medical procedure in moving him. both sete and valentino reportedly said they would not race there again, and it did end up being the last year grand prix motorcycle racing came to that track. it also prompted conversations about what could be done to better protect riders - and sete was one of the main figures behind the idea that riders themselves should have more of a say in safety standards. this led to the establishment of the safety commission, which back then included fewer riders but both valentino and especially sete involved themselves in

^sete at a safety commission meeting

did the tragedy really transform sete's fortunes as a racer? perhaps, though the switch to honda and a team he grew so fond of surely would have helped in any case. still, the contrast in his results and how he went about achieving them is stark; we'll never know for certain, but it's understandable why it's such a popular interpretation. another factor, too - despite some initial resistance, sete ended up inheriting kato's factory-spec machinery and was now riding the same bike as the other primary contenders of that season. the first half of his 2003 quickly cemented his new status within the factory, winning again in le mans, and then in assen. by the time they reached the halfway point of the season after donington park, sete was in second place in the standings, just clear of biaggi and only 34 points behind valentino

which is where we get back to valentino and ask ourselves what the hell that man thought he was playing at. did he really believe that it was all right to sit on a mere 34-point lead halfway through the season? was valentino, at the tender age of twenty four, already washed? was he finished? was this the beginning of the end? had he already peaked? did he just not have it in him any more?

obviously the answer to all of those things is 'no' and also 'what?' - but these were questions that many, most notably in the italian press, were in all seriousness asking anyone who would listen. now, valentino had theoretically just won in donington, except en route he had overtaken under a yellow flag and was controversially stripped of that victory after the fact. which meant that - you may want to hold onto something here - valentino had gone for a whole three races without winning. that's right. three races. granted, he'd already secured three victories that season and had been on the podium every single race, but the pressure was beginning to mount on valentino to deliver. it wasn't just the three race losing streak, but also the emergence of sete as a serious rival and how he had gotten the better of valentino - first at welkom by holding him off, then at le mans by beating him on the very last lap. valentino had also separately fucked up in a duel against capirossi for the victory in catalunya (funnily enough not one of the valentino duels there everyone remembers), eventually making a big enough mistake he had to spend the rest of the race recovering to second. honda had expectations, the italian press had standards, and the sheer dominance of his 2002 campaign meant that even the slightest dips in form translated into criticism of valentino and speculation on the state of his mettle or lack thereof. and things were about to get even worse

last race before the summer break and they're headed to the sachsenring - and here we were provided with a classic valentino performance right until the very moment where it wasn't. when sete caught up with him, valentino let him go ahead to study him from behind and crack him at the very end. he made his move on the penultimate corner of the race and successfully got ahead - but made a mistake in picking a very tight line into the final corner and lost too much speed, allowing sete to beat him to the line by a mere 0.06s. the general perception was that this had been a winnable race, and that it had been lost, more than anything else, out of arrogance. he could have attacked earlier - and if he didn't, then at the very least he should have been smarter about the final corner. he had allowed sete to beat him in a straight fight for the third time that year, who was now on four wins that season to valentino's three. all this meant that valentino's winless streak had been extended to four. that's right. you heard me. valentino rossi, the man they call the goat, had the audacity to go a whole. four. races. without. winning. the italian press had a field day and were calling for blood, and who could blame them?

^sete gibernau posing for a photo with a washed-up loser

luckily, valentino had the summer break to go off and clear his head and think about what he'd done. it was a good chance to get away from the constant scrutiny and criticism that had come during a year in which he'd already been feeling discontent with honda from the very beginning. the perception was that valentino had had it too easy and was resting on his laurels, no longer taking racing seriously enough, coasting on past successes that he was finding it hard to replicate - never mind his 29-point lead in the championship standings. so valentino ends up doing what is sensible in that situation. has a hot girl crisis. goes to ibiza. gets his hair dyed red. rocks up at the paddock for brno with his cool new hair as a bit of a throwback - he's still that guy who knows to have fun, he won't let any of this get to him, he's not going to take any of this too seriously

here's a more in-depth post on brno 2003 including, of course, his celebrations. to summarise - he won a tight thriller of a race and this time beat sete to the line, just about. then he celebrated by having a bunch of his fans dress up as convicts and donning his own cap and ball and chain - a 'prisoner of his own success', if you will. another step was taken that weekend on the road that would eventually lead him to abandoning honda and signing with yamaha. and here he is in his autobiography talking about his disillusionment with honda. he's not the first athlete to feel unhappy within his team, not the first dominant sportsperson to struggle to find motivation. still, when you consider how long his career ended up lasting, there's something remarkable to how quickly it threatened to turn joyless to him. if he were one of those athletes who just needed to win to be happy, he would have been fine within honda

but that's what valentino's all about, isn't it. within honda, under the ferocious glare of the italian press, he felt trapped. he felt imprisoned. he felt burdened by the expectations that his own victories had placed on his shoulders. it isn't enough for him simply to win. not if the winning isn't happening on his own terms. not if it's just another way in which honda can show off how superior their bike is. just another means for the italian press to ramp up pressure on him in the future. if valentino doesn't win, then well, it'll be gibernau. it'll be biaggi. who cares? valentino isn't essential to honda's success - the bike is. and vale decided he could no longer accept that. he returned to his roots in brno with the haircut and the celebrations and the candlelight meetings with yamaha that demonstrated his determination to forge his own path. winning is a part of him; when he wins he uses it to express himself, to define both who he is and who he is not - which is where, of course, the rivals enter the picture. valentino delineates his self against the other as much as anyone does, expressing his identity both as a racer and as a person by drawing the line between himself and his enemy and making a spectacle of what separates them. you can only win when you beat someone else, and valentino has always understood that the vanquished is very nearly as big a part of the show as the vanquisher

but here, the relationship between valentino and sete was at the very least outwardly still warm. they were both as gracious in defeat as they were in victory - helped along by the awareness that whatever the frothing italian press might pretend, valentino was unlikely to lose that year's title. still, were tensions beginning to creep in, given how valentino retrospectively speaks in his autobiography about how both biaggi and gibernau complained he had superior machinery? how about when rumours began to fly about valentino's impending move to yamaha and sete supposedly said valentino won't have so much to laugh about the next year? or the glee valentino read on sete's face at the thought of valentino's departure from honda? another point, on the ibiza trips - it's unclear when and how many times they happened, but one source suggests they had stopped in 2003. on the other hand, the brno 2003 race commentary makes multiple references to how they'd been partying together on ibiza during the summer break (which you'd have to say is pretty remarkable in itself after a race like sachsenring), and I'm inclined to trust the race commentary on this one. so maybe it's 2004 the trips tail off... at what point then did the relationship between the two of them begin to transform from friends to true rivals, however genial to begin with? how wary had valentino already grown of sete by the end of 2003?

^age old tradition. sete buddy that kid is going to ruin you

in any case, the remainder of valentino's season was close to flawless, winning five of the six remaining races. in sepang, having already decided he was going to sign with yamaha come what may, he sealed the title with a dominant win over sete - and brought back the convict celebrations, except this time he had a big novelty key to open the big novelty lock, presumably to signify how he could finally escape. which is charmingly on the nose, yes, but there's something enjoyable about an athlete who is so very committed to making the subtext text. how better to conclude his time with honda, who he had grown so very disillusioned with? tell them how you really feel and all that

^after vale has sealed the title at sepang. sete gives him a nice little kiss before assaulting him with champagne on the podium

or - not quite to a conclusion, not yet. after all, there were still two more races to go in 2003. in phillip island, he secured one of the more spectacular victories of his career when he once again fell foul of the 'could you please stop overtaking under yellow flags' thing - but this time, was informed of the situation and his ten second time penalty during rather than after the race. furious at the penalty, he flew off, setting a blistering pace that not only gave him the requisite ten second margin over his closest challenger capirossi, but eventually meant he crossed the line fifteen seconds ahead of his countryman. he had a point to prove that day, and proved it. he might have been on the best bike, yes - but he was laughably better than anyone else riding it, and the world still hadn't seen yet all that he was capable of

then came the last race of the season and the announcement honda and valentino would be holding a press conference together afterwards, widely expected to be announcing a split that for much of the year the paddock refused to believe might actually happen. one more ride on the honda that valentino must say farewell to and will dearly miss - that unfortunately took place at valencia, an ugly bore of a track that valentino has always been awful at, the only one on the calendar he had not yet conquered. but he needed to say goodbye to his beloved bike (decked in an austin powers-themed special livery) in style, and he went on to win the race before telling the world that him and honda were parting ways. time to go to yamaha and prove the haters and losers wrong - including one sete gibernau

^honda or yamaha, friendship can survive anything <3 quite like valentino's unorthodox spraying technique in the photo on the right - sete was admirably determined to drench vale at welkom

honda's next champion?

the thing about 2004, right, is that the dominant rider in motogp had very nicely taken himself out of the picture for at least a year to try and turn that useless pile of junk into title-contending machinery. maybe rossi would start turning things around in the second half of the year and snatch an occasional win. maybe he'd put together a title charge in 2005, though that was by no means guaranteed - it was entirely plausible that his failure would be as complete as it would be spectacular. what this meant for everyone else was that they'd basically been given a freebie. a clear run at the title, as long as they could beat all the other non-rossi challengers. for a number of blokes at honda, this was the big year. biaggi, gibernau, anyone else who was feeling brave - this was the time. and honda, right, were going all in on this. rossi had the audacity, the nerve, the sheer disrespect to turn his back on them and imagine he could win without them. every rider dreamt of being decked in their colours, and valentino had walked away. they were going to throw all the considerable money and resources at their disposal behind a small army of riders, tasked not only with beating rossi but humiliating him

this is all a bit of an exaggeration, but not too much of one. as then-yamaha rider and then-valentino friend marco melandri put it in 2003, "if valentino did come to yamaha at least he would be able to give them direction with development, but he would not have a chance of winning". the best-placed yamaha rider in the 2003 championship standings had been carlos checa in seventh, and all yamaha riders combined had achieved a grand total of one podium finish that whole year. generally speaking, however, once this kind of idle speculation of 'oh imagine if he moved' actually becomes reality, the conversation does shift accordingly, and so the initial consensus of 'surely he can't win on a yamaha' of much of 2003 was already beginning to crack by the time they actually arrived at welkom. and the relationship with honda really did end on a pretty sour note, not least because valentino's former employers refused to let vale test the yamaha before his contract expired at the end of 2003 - which is generally a pretty decent barometer of whether a rider and team are parting on good terms. as valentino put it: "their attitude pissed me off. it will cost me four races, but I always knew things would be like that". in the end, obviously he was still able to make good use of the pre-season testing he did have and he was not cost "four races" - and at the very latest people had to reassess their outlook on the season when he hit the track at welkom. if anything, his immediate pace that weekend was distinctly un-valentino-like - who needs to already be fast on a friday? - and he led every session and qualified on pole. and then, he went and achieved what still remains possibly the greatest victory of his career after a thrilling battle with old foe biaggi right to the very end. sete was a very distant third

^sete drenching vale at welkom. I am once again going to do 2004 prop and let you know that some of the best races are available free online: welkom, mugello, catalunya, assen and qatar are all on youtube (they should upload phillip island but ah well)

of course, valentino did not have it all his own way that year. of course, sete was not suddenly replaced by biaggi as vale's prime challenger. but yes, sete will have had to readjust his expectations of valentino's season the same as everyone else. after welkom, the conversation shifted definitively from 'surely not' to 'could he really...?' - and all other contenders were informed in no uncertain terms that they were not to be granted a rossi-free season. that being said, of course this still very much looked like sete's best chance. of course this wasn't going to be as straightforward as valentino's past titles. perhaps, even, welkom had provided a somewhat illusory picture of what the competitive landscape actually looked like that season. perhaps people had been too hasty to hand the title to valentino again after welkom. a wet weather specialist, sete secured victory in a rainy jerez, while valentino struggled to get his yamaha to work in the wet and finished fourth - his first time off the podium in twenty four races. at le mans, another race in tricky conditions, sete won once again and extended his championship lead while valentino took another fourth place. the spectacle of welkom might have been a flash in the pan; it might be time to reassess the kinds of results valentino could achieve on a regular basis with that machinery

^left: valentino having fun in the wet of jerez; right: valentino's wood-themed helmet for mugello, because if you finish fourth you get a wooden medal

what followed was a pivotal stretch of three races that turned valentino's 2004 title bid from a dream to something that felt increasingly plausible, even likely. all three of these races were extremely closely fought. all three of them are very enjoyable to watch. all three of them are freely available on youtube dot com. first, they headed to mugello, a big one for both sete and valentino. valentino had won the last two races at mugello and it was the race that was more important to him than any other - so if you're sete, where better to stamp your authority on the season? the race ended up having a little bit of everything: a ferocious multi-rider scrap, a duel between the two main title contenders, a red flag and a restart due to the worsening meteorological situation that resulted in another multi-rider scrap. valentino had to make full use of his skills as well as his composure to go out and in essence win two entirely different races. after the second start he fell back as far as seventh as he figured out the grip conditions, taking his time to fuck around before eventually fucking off (or as much as you can fuck off when you only have two and a half laps left). still, sete managed to salvage a second place result and limited the points damage

^2004 is as close to a perfect season as you can get, but there is one major factor that holds it back: the colour schemes of the title contenders. extremely similar combinations of blue with a little yellow from guys who aren't even in the same factory, let alone teammates - and jorge was always way easier to distinguish from valentino than this mess. what makes this extra stupid is that valentino's actual teammate that year, carlos checa, had a RED livery and RED leathers so. okay. great job guys. anyway, cracking race, split into two halves (or well. four fifths and a fifth). apparently, sete overtook valentino at some point under a yellow flag - or, at least, valentino says he did, which is something he remembers just in time for that year's sepang press conference

so a home victory secured and a hat trick of mugello wins - time to head back to sete land and fight it out in catalunya. top five valentino catalunya duel for sure, a pretty crowded category. sete had led every single session going into the race, but in the end he came out second best in a fight that went on until the very last lap. no longer was valentino willing to let sete get the better of him in head-to-head combat, and the victory was even sweeter coming as it did on sete's home turf - and indeed valentino would establish a bit of a tradition of beating spaniards at that track. the tide was turning and increasingly it did look like valentino might actually achieve the impossible

"One hundred and five thousand screaming Spaniards roar on their hero Sete Gibernau. He's something of an unexpected hero really. After so many years in grand prix, he lived in the shadow of Alex Criville. Criville's retired, Gibernau is on the Honda, and Gibernau is leading the world championship."

^excerpt from the catalunya 2004 commentary

and then, the next race: time for assen

^still friendly and chatting before the first real trial their relationship faces. by the by, the commentary for this race references a cartoon proposing that all that valentino needs to do to keep sete behind him is to attach a mirror to the back of his bike - because sete would be too busy posing. which gives you a general sense of the tone people used to discuss sete with

coming into this race, sete had gotten two consecutive second places to valentino. his championship lead had shrunk to five points. valentino had already gotten the yamaha into race-winning shape sooner than anyone had expected, and now it increasingly looked like he might be able to achieve the week-to-week results that won championships. it also did not help that sete's defeats had come in direct duels with valentino - in the early days of that rivalry, this exact type of duel had been how sete had announced himself as a serious threat. if it came down to another direct fight between the two of them, sete badly wanted to get a win over his rival, not just for points but for pride. and valentino, conversely, wanted to press home the advantage, to bite harder when his opponent was already bleeding. if you will

this turned into a bit of a three-way tussle between those two and barros, but then barros crashed out and it was just the two of them - going into the very last lap with sete ahead. valentino, who was having to risk far more on the yamaha than he ever did on the honda, made a lunge up the inside of turn 12 and almost binned it in the following corner. nearly losing the front resulted in contact with sete, where sete's front wheel hit the rear of vale's bike and damaged the front mudguard - and in the end sete backed off just a touch, allowing vale to cross the line with almost half a second in hand

valentino was enthusiastic in his celebrations, shall we say, whereas sete... well. sete did not look thrilled. gone were the usual parc fermé exchanges, no more hugs or friendly handshakes or kisses. sete suffered his way through the podium celebrations as the wettest of wet blankets, popping the champagne for about half a second and staying rooted in place while valentino carried on doing his thing. the natural assumption would be that sete was furious not just at losing but at the manner in which the pass for the victory was executed, out of control and in a way that could have easily resulted in a crash for both of them. valentino certainly assumed as much, saying that sete was "for sure a little bit angry" (clip here, also includes sete's statement). but when it was sete's turn to speak... he just said he was frustrated at losing, as anyone would be in his situation. which, well, doesn't quite fit in with his reaction, and also doesn't entirely match up with other statements he made at the time. there are two more sets of quotes from the protagonists of the race, though I can't determine with absolute certainty in which order these things were said. here's the first (article dated day of the race):

Gibernau lost vital time in that clash and was not able to challenge on the remainder of the lap but Rossi insists he did not deliberately block the Telefonica Movistar Honda rider. "I came into the bend a little too quickly and I slightly lost control of the front of my Yamaha, which explains why I touched him, but it wasn't intentional," he said. Gibernau did not use the incident as an excuse for his defeat. "To be overtaken in the final meters after dominating the race, it's obviously gutting," said the Spaniard. "I was angry about the way he overtook me. His manoeuvre really was risky. He said he didn't do it on purpose, but it doesn't take away my disappointment."

and here's the second (article dated the day after the race):

"I made a mistake and had to brake early or I would have crashed," said Rossi, explaining why he slowed so suddenly in front of the Spaniard. "I did not even feel Sete touch me. He was very angry, but I explained what happened." For his part, and after having chance to cool down, Gibernau appeared to accept that the contact hadn't been deliberate. "I had a good chance right until the end but we touched on the last lap - Valentino explained that he almost fell and, if that's the case, then there's nothing for me to say," shrugged Sete. "These things happen in racing. We had a good battle in another great race."

if that indeed is the order in which their statements were delivered, this whole episode feels like an interesting exercise in passive aggressive feuding - sete could have of course simply gone up to valentino, supposedly his friend, and asked for an explanation, or stated his objections openly when asked about them in the presser. instead, it seems to have been valentino who offered his explanations after sete had denied even having any issue with the overtake, with sete contradicting himself later by saying he had been angry. even then, sete said it didn't "take away my disappointment", which suggests not all was forgiven. from parc fermé to the podium to the press conference, he'd used every part of his body with full effect to express his displeasure with the notable exception of his mouth. this incident hasn't really been brought up by either party since, but as far as the eye test goes the relationship sure seemed like it was pretty strained by this. with the benefit of hindsight, it stands out as a turning point in their rivalry, the first time the veneer of the gracious loser was well and truly discarded and a sour note was added to the relationship. this was also the race where the championship lead was taken away from gibernau on countback, which incidentally was the last time an independent rider led the world championship standings until... uh... *squints at notes* argentina 2018

^already post-assen - but no reason not to be civil, right? what's a little last lap assen controversy between friends. scholars will note that this is the race after which valentino engaged in some unsavoury parc fermé activities with sete's then-teammate colin edwards

for the sake of brevity, the next part of the season is mostly going to be skipped over, but to give you the sparknotes version: sete's results grew more inconsistent, and valentino gained more of an advantage, despite still having to over-ride the bike in a way that helped cause his dnf in rio (his first dnf since brno 2002 and his first non-mechanical dnf since mugello 2001). apart from a brief period where biaggi seemed like he was going to reinsert himself in the title fight, plus a sete win in brno, for the most part the tide had clearly turned in valentino's favour and that yamaha title was looking more and more like a certainty. so let's pick up the narrative at the next major flashpoint between the pair of them, at motogp's first visit to qatar

I've already written up a post that gives more information on that race and the specifics of the controversy, so I'll forgo another detailed summary of events here. the basic facts we have at our disposal are that valentino's team, whether to his knowledge or not, rubbered up his spot of the grid, and he was then penalised for it. he worked his way up from the back of the grid before crashing out of fourth place. sete won, reducing the gap separating the two riders at the top of the standings to a mere fourteen points with three rounds to go. valentino was furious at sete, at honda, at the stewards, at pretty much everyone. here are some of his remarks:

"Gibernau's victory is not real. They stole the match from us with the shameful farce of the penalty. A truly incredible situation occurred. Everyone cleans the starting 'box'. Is there a written rule? In Rio we all went to wash the track, which was dirty. The same thing happened here. In F1 the cars skid, the asphalt is cleaned with the motorbikes. After Friday's practice [before the Saturday race] we saw Biaggi's mechanics cleaning the track and we thought it was a good idea. We cleaned the track and Honda screwed up. The others have to attach themselves to something. Gibernau and his chief suspension mechanic didn't hesitate to snitch like kids. Something ridiculous. I didn't expect to get to this point. In the race I gave a lot in the early stages, after two corners I was eighth and after four laps I was already in fourth position. I spent a lot and relaxed for a moment. Unfortunately I went wide and couldn't find the curb anymore. I made a mistake, but I wouldn't have made such a mistake if I had started from the front. I hope to make up for it in Malaysia, fortunately I didn't get hurt in the crash. It went well for the finger, when I saw the blood I was scared. But the finger didn't explode."

^some of these websites have a habit of collating a bunch of different answers into one paragraph of remarks but personally I am choosing to believe he did actually deliver this as a single monologue

valentino also said he had been looking for an excuse not to speak to sete, called him a child, saying sete had essentially stabbed him in the back. and of course, so the legend goes, he infamously vowed that sete would never win another race again

who snitched?

everything up until now has been more or less just summarising events as they happened - but now we enter considerably murkier waters. we do not definitively know one way or another what happened in qatar, who said what, who was responsible for what. let's get the less important mystery out of the way first: did valentino really curse sete?

no, not in the sense of 'did valentino rossi really perform black magic' - more the question of if he ever really said it. a lot of journalists who are otherwise at least mildly reputable seem to take it as read, but also a lot of journalists are motivated to believe he said it because it makes for a fantastic story. when did he say it? to whom? one source talks about it being at the press conference of the following race, which I know for a fact is not the case. here's a source that is one of the ones to have swayed me more to the side of 'yeah maybe he did say it':

Rossi then did an interview with Italian TV. He’d hurt his little finger, really mashed it up, in the crash. And he famously said “I will make sure Gibernau will never win another race because of this”. We’ve all got a soft spot for Valentino, and I can remember thinking ‘oh God, I wouldn’t have said that if I were you. I really wouldn’t have said that…’

I know this is objectively not a lot to go on, but at least it's a commentator/journalist who was there at the time, claiming they remember finding out about it, giving a little detail about to whom it supposedly was said ('italian tv') and having an immediate response to it that they are also remembering. obviously, this too could be bogus. but, well, at the end of the day I'm with the journalists here: I too want it to be true because it is indeed a fantastic story. there has also been the suggestion, again poorly sourced, that valentino has denied saying this - or, and this genuinely would be my favourite option of them all, that he said he only meant it for that year. hate it when I place a curse on someone and it accidentally lasts too long

now that I've done my due diligence, here's the good bit: beyond a certain point, it does not matter whether valentino actually said it or not. what mattered is that everyone thought he said it - and, crucially, as 2005 wore on, it became ever more part of the discourse. it was part of the reporting of races: could gibernau finally break the curse? it was discussed extensively in the commentary: we're back in qatar, do curses have an expiration date of a year or not? there is no way that within the claustrophobic world of the motogp paddock sete would have been been able to avoid it, let alone be unaware of it entirely. (incidentally, the fact that this is the case and I've not been able to find a better source of valentino denying it makes me again feel like he did actually say it - though I suppose it'd also be pretty funny if he hadn't said it but was like. actually this is working out quite nicely for me.) assuming for a moment that valentino is not capable of literally cursing people, the 'real effect' the curse can have is only in tormenting its victim through the mere knowledge of its supposed existence

but we're getting ahead of ourselves here. whether the curse existed or not, it could only have the effect it had if valentino fulfilled its initial promise - by denying sete another win that season while securing the title for himself. so let's just quickly recap where we're at: three rounds to go, fourteen points between the two contenders. valentino went back to italy to try and fix the fucked up finger and presumably to cool off a bit. the motogp media did what it does best and spent the entire week hyping up the drama. and there was, of course, another mystery everyone was still trying to get to the bottom of: was sete really involved in valentino's penalty?

let's first tack on another question: does it even matter? of course, the truth has never been established with 100% certainty either way, and all it does is give the two parties a reason to blow up a friendship that was already getting a little bit strained. either way, the relationship between them was ruined; either way, valentino crushed sete. not just that - whether it really happened or not is one thing, but I feel just a touch more confident in asserting that valentino believed it happened, just from my extreme vibes-based analysis of how genuinely furious he seemed and how he was still referring to sete's dirty games a whole eleven years later. which, of course, doesn't in itself really tell us one way or another what actually happened. valentino can convince himself of all manner of things. if anything, his track record as well as how ruthlessly he exploited the situation to his own advantage count against believing his version of events. and, at the end of the day, only one of valentino and sete can speak to sete's involvement in the protest that caused the penalty with complete certainty. it's not valentino

and in a way, it doesn't really matter. sete is unsettled either way - because even if he did have some hand in the penalty, this is the kind of low level petty snitching athletes and their teams constantly engage in. I cannot imagine he would have thought valentino would react as he did. quite honestly, I'm not sure sete could have conceived of a rival reacting like that to anything. if sete was responsible, then valentino still managed to escalate to a level of hostility sete would never have been able to match, let alone be comfortable with. obviously, it would not be in his interest to retroactively admit any involvement in the matter, not least because he saw how valentino responded to the mere assumption of sete's guilt. it does, however, still matter in evaluating sete's assertions that the relationship between them changed more or less from one day to the next (which *gestures at the above wall of text* I'm not entirely convinced by), and in judging whether this is a feud that's entirely built on the back of valentino's delusions. was sete really completely unaware and, a separate question - was it an unreasonable assumption from valentino that he was involved? if both of those questions are answered in the affirmative, then you do have to say what follows must have been absolutely bonkers from sete's perspective. I mean, it's kind of bonkers anyway, but. y'know. even more so

the problem with actually evaluating the claims are that basically every source about it frames the whole thing differently and often in contradictory ways, to the point where even valentino's actual allegation has been shrouded in the mists of time. different journalists and commentators and authors after the fact have confidently asserted that either hrc or sete's gresini team lodged the protest - some seem to take it as read that sete did indeed have some kind of role in it, and there is no indication whether they have some kind of privileged information that backs this up or whether this is simply valentino's influence making itself felt. hrc is obviously a likely suspect, given they canonically hate valentino and are praying for his downfall and have invested a whole lot already to bring it about. then again, gresini are the ones who are actually in this championship battle - and, of course, there's the distinct possibility that all parts of honda were involved in this together. other figures that have been brought up are gresini team principal fausto gresini who it has been claimed was personally involved in making the protest - this from the stuart barker biography, which treats it essentially as established fact. the barker biography also says that yamaha was not found to be breaking any specific rules, but race direction said it was against the 'spirit' of the sport, which... okay, I'd also be pretty annoyed to be penalised for that, especially at that stage of the season. while it is of course possible that sete was not involved in his own team's actions, it does seem a little less likely that he would not have at the very least been informed. to add another twist, one version of the story that has cropped up more than once is that valentino's allegation was that sete and his crew chief juan martinez went to hrc to get them to go to race direction. also, it may be that ducati protested both valentino and biaggi (who was definitely breaking the rules). which, good on them

unfortunately this is pretty inconclusive stuff and at a certain point it feels like you have nothing better than gut feeling to rely on to choose which narrative is more convincing to you. which is annoying! where's the substantial evidence! nowhere, it appears, not that I've been able to find it - but there is one more tangible source that I haven't brought up until now. you see, dorna, in their infinite commitment to the bit, have been kind enough to make the thursday press conference at the very next race one of the very few of that era that they have uploaded in its entirety. I am talking, of course, of the pre-event press conference at sepang

^posing for a friendly post-presser photo <3 two guys just chillin' having fun having a laff

if you are an aficionado of awkward and tense and kind of awful press conferences, then you will have an excellent time with this one. I've uploaded pretty much all of the relevant bits that I'll link to as I go; they're not obligatory watching to understand the rest of the post as I will be covering them here anyway, but they sure are interesting (and funny, which is really the most important thing)

first, let's set the scene: four blokes sitting at a table. the seat at its centre sits empty. the championship leader has not yet arrived when the press conference starts, removing the opportunity for one of the most sacred rituals that preempts any motogp press conference: the vibe check. a lot has happened and a lot has been said since the relevant parties last saw each other face to face and it is unclear where the vibes will be at when the reunion happens. will they acknowledge each other? make eye contact? shake hands? speak to each other? the journalists have not had a chance to find out. and one of the two involved parties has not either

after some softball questions relevant to 'racing' and 'points' in 'motogp' and its 'title fight', the moderator finally gets to the bit everyone's actually here for: the drama [1]. at this point, sete dates both the presser and himself by saying he's been trying to block everything out with his "mp3", before expressing his sympathy for valentino and saying he doesn't hold any of valentino's words spoken in the heat of the moment against him. at some point, he delivers a couple of lines that possess the kind of concentrated narrative juice you get a sugar high from, saying "we all know valentino. I know how he really is, he's a good guy". just as he finishes answering the question, his eyes flick over to the side - and the camera pans over to valentino entering the room with a slight smirk and of course his big ass sunglasses still very much adorning his face

nicky hayden sits to valentino's left and is interviewed before valentino is - while valentino does not acknowledge sete, who is sitting to his right. when he is questioned [2], valentino initially sounds like he is intending to turn the page on the whole affair and if anything doesn't particularly want to comment any further on what has happened. he also manages to deliver a truly classic motogp rider line, saying "I have a hole in the finger, but I think it is not a big problem for ride this weekend". right! but already here, it becomes swiftly clear that he is still furious at what happened and aggrieved by the penalty. he caps things off with a nice line saying that at least he wasn't actually slower than 'gibernau' in qatar, before turning around and shaking hayden's hand and chatting to him

it immediately becomes clear that all the questions from the floor are going to be about the same thing [3], and sete looks miserably uncomfortable while valentino just comes across as incredibly surly, his smile at times taking on a mildly murderous quality. one journalist fires off an all time classic presser question with "in qatar you say you were searching for an excuse to not talk any more with sete" and again valentino side steps, half-making it sound like he's willing to move on - while sete continues to strike a conciliatory note, continues to stress how it was all just the heat of the moment. but a follow-up question to valentino gives the journalists and sete the clearest indication that this, in fact, is really happening. valentino says this is not in the past, that he'd already said what he thinks last week and is standing by it. sete looks over at him - with disbelief, with incredulity, with the air of a man who really can't quite believe the turn this has taken

if there had been any lingering doubt at how unfairly treated valentino feels, he dispels it in his answer about stewarding decisions [4]. at the end of his exchange with the reporter about it, he brings up an incident where sete overtook under a yellow flag in mugello - which, quite honestly, I had not known about and I haven't found any reference to, so maybe nobody did spot it at the time if it indeed happened. remember, valentino had gone through not one but two bad run-ins with the yellow flag situation the year before, costing him a win at donington and making him ride at his limit to reclaim the win at phillip island. did he speak about this mugello situation at the time, or has he really just carried it around with him silently for months? a professional grudge-carrier, you have to say, a true master at the art. at the next question, valentino continues putting space between himself and sete [5], saying they have been rivals for a long time and that "it's the same condition" (i.e. situation). the friendship isn't just gone, it's so gone it might as well have never existed. if you really want to read more into this than the short response deserves, you could argue he's saying the facade has been lifted, that the true nature of the rivalry has been revealed at last

and now, we get to the critical part: sete is invited to explain himself and tell the press whether he had any involvement in the penalty or not [6]. he's clearly put a lot of thought into this in the past week and decided what he should focus on is that he wanted all the grid slots to be cleaned in the interest of safety. interestingly, he says "they" blocked him from doing that, but it's unclear whether he means gresini or someone else within honda. (presumably honda couldn't have known valentino's team would fuck about with a scooter, and remember camel honda rider biaggi also got a penalty so probably not some kind of company-wide internal memo.) (I mean I guess it'd also be funny if there had been a company-wide internal memo but nobody had thought to send it to biaggi.) sete's argument is basically that he'd be a hypocrite if he'd helped lodge a protest after he himself wanted the grid slots cleaned up - but given that valentino is quite literally calling him a backstabbing bastard, I imagine he wouldn't consider adding the hypocrite tag a bridge too far. the safety commission element of it all is kind of interesting, given as we've established valentino will likely have attended too. if sete raised this at the meeting and valentino did end up discussing it with his team, did vale end up feeling suckered into making a bad choice? probably not, just a thought

anyway, back to gibernau's response. as the journalist who asked the initial question notes, this is all a lot of waffling without a clear, firm denial (I'm paraphrasing) - and a clear, firm denial would generally be a good way to go about these things. in his next answer, sete again fails to just keep things simple, though again he denies any personal involvement. and then, the journalist asks sete to account for his team, including the fact that apparently one of sete's mechanics gave evidence to race direction... and sete says he can only speak for himself

so there we have it. that's the best singular piece of actual evidence I've got for sete's involvement, and at least comes close to confirming that somebody in gresini was involved in the protest, however tangentially. obviously, this in no way confirms sete was himself involved. at least it does give valentino an ever so slightly more reasonable basis of suspicion, though obviously it all just raises more questions like 'why was a gresini mechanic even giving evidence and what about'. that bit is then of course immediately followed by an exchange that's as good a confirmation as we're going to get that it was hrc not gresini who made the protest. so. yeah. I've got nothing. we don't know. draw your own conclusions. the presser ends with another question for good measure about the relationship between the two riders. sete first tells them, more or less, that it's none of their business before sharing a nice laugh with valentino about how valentino is never going to talk to him again

cursed

the thing about that press conference is that it's all well and good and fun to use it to try and piece together what really happened at qatar, but there are more interesting things to say about it. it is in that press conference that valentino well and truly begun the process of breaking sete, and he did so completely deliberately. it's quite the little show featuring two guys who are entirely aware that they are surrounded by cameras and reporters and are reacting accordingly. sete is committed to being dignified, to being unflappable, to being magnanimous: whatever valentino said, he will forgive him. he is happy to move on. but as the press conference progresses, he is slowly made to realise that his opponent is the one who is not ready to forgive and is not ready to play nice - not even for the cameras. especially not in front of the cameras

^his poor pinkie finger :(

sete must have felt on top of the world after qatar. he had clawed back 25 points. a championship that had already seemed lost suddenly felt like it might be in his grasp once again. valentino could complain and whine and be furious for italian television, but surely this is the kind of thing that blows over. for too long, sete is under the mistaken impression that they will move on from this. for too long in that presser, sete is playing at respectability while valentino has already progressed to open hostility. it's unnerving, of course it is, to suddenly be completely cold-shouldered and ignored by a man you had thought you were on reasonably good terms with a week ago. it's unnerving for it all to happen in front of cameras, when for so long you have been striving to present a cordial, friendly, civilised image of a rivalry. him and valentino don't do all that nasty business, not like valentino and biaggi. sete's better than that and valentino has grown up a bit - this is one of those ideal rivalries people are always going on about, the ones that are ferocious on-track but respectful and even warm off it. and so, despite everything valentino had said to the press over the past week, he still manages to completely blindside sete in the moment. he still manages to leave him unsettled, and even disoriented

and so we get to the race itself, pivotal for sete and his championship hopes. to still have a chance at clinching the title, he really needs to be fighting at the sharp end of all three of the remaining races. alas, it is not to be. valentino is reinvigorated after the humiliation of qatar and coasts through the weekend on a wave of irreverent indignation - telling reporters after qualifying on pole that this result had been important "especially since it means we know which part of the grid to clean tonight". he thrives in the chaos and the frenzied speculation and the seething tension - whereas sete is nowhere to be found all weekend. valentino wins with a comfortable margin while sete finishes a lowly seventh place. a healthy thirty point lead in the championship has been restored. now, then, in victory valentino has been provided with the opportunity to really twist in the knife. sete comes up alongside him on the cooldown lap, clearly wanting to shake hands - and valentino completely ignores him, does not as much as glance in his direction. then, he stops for one of those whimsical planned celebrations that he's ever so fond of, and he cleans his grid slot with a helpfully provided broom. as valentino says afterwards, "this time I wanted to destroy the morale of everybody". and if that wasn't enough, he adds in the post-race press conference "for me, sete did the best race of the season. he has given me a lot of points, which is like a big present. I am really grateful". charming as ever

^he also came up with his own cleaning crew founded with his trusty crew chief jerry burgess, 'la rapida', and had shirts mocked up - to 'eliminate dirt from motogp'. so nice to have a supportive crew chief, isn't it? from valentino after the race: "I've been working with jeremy for four years, together we've seen all sorts of things and when I arrived here I saw him with an incredible face, disgusted, saddened. he and the team said we had to react and so we did". and as jb put it, "valentino is the sort of rider I wouldn't want to get angry. he can take you apart on the track". the text on the shirt: "we clear out rats. we disinfect, clear drains and clean starting grids. we also do night jobs - all done in six seconds [aka the qualifying penalty he'd received]"

two races to go, and it's match point rossi. he finishes first or second at phillip island and the championship is his for certain - if he doesn't do so and sete wins the race, it's hello title decider. there is barely any doubt left in people's minds, then, about who the 2004 champion will be... but it's not a done deal. in the very worst case scenario, valentino enters the final round with a slender six point advantage. he's not safe yet. he's not safe yet on the very first lap, which, it has to be said, is a lot of fun. vale gets a better start than sete does from pole, but sete overtakes him around the outside and vale is quickly pushed to third - then fourth, at which point he runs off track and makes a risky excursion into the dirt. at the very next corner, he makes a downhill overtake on two ducatis at once, and sets about hunting down sete who has built up an advantage of over a second

so, in fittingly dramatic fashion, the race comes down to a duel between the two of them, valentino stalking sete around the track lap after lap. if valentino holds his ground, the championship is his - but sete takes the win and can go into the next season with new confidence and self-belief and hope for something better. valentino does not just want to avenge the injustice of qatar; this is an investment for the future. a way of telling sete that he has not just lost this season but that he will always lose, when fighting valentino. there is a promise to be kept, after all - whether it was only supposed to apply to that season or not, valentino refuses to let sete win another race. they exchange overtakes but sete is still just about in the lead when they enter the final lap. it is here that valentino makes his move, not once but twice to make it stick. his riding in that last lap isn't egregiously reckless but certainly not risk-free, and could have ended with him in the gravel and the championship still undecided in valencia. but he's not and it isn't - and just like his first premier class title (a comparison valentino himself makes in his autobiography), his first title with yamaha is sealed on the last lap of phillip island. his championship-winning shirt is uncharacteristically stark, reading simply 'che spettacolo' ('what a spectacle/show') - and he's not wrong. this has been a show, it's been a miracle, and in the end it's been theatre. he's sealed the title in style while also getting his revenge. it's winning in the most satisfying manner you can win anything: by beating somebody you loathe. celebrations are nice, but isn't there just something special about seeing the person you despise look so wholly miserable?

sete puts on a brave face, determined to be above valentino's pettiness. he goes over, shakes valentino's hand. valentino accepts. of course he does - he's won. sete was a few corners away from denying valentino's curse before it had ever really sunk its claws in. would it have changed things, if he could simply have regained a little confidence and found his bearings again after the psychological onslaught of the sepang weekend? maybe, maybe not. of course, looking at valentino's 2005 season, you have to say valentino was almost certainly operating on a level no version of sete would have been able to match. but there's still a lot of room between 'fighting for a championship' and 'becoming a shell of the rider you once were' - and if things had gone a little differently, you do also have to say that a championship as open as 2006 was could have represented opportunity for all manner of rider. if only he'd been able to cauterise the wound in phillip island, rather than letting valentino dig his teeth in even further

^at least capirossi's having a good time :D

the championship sealed and there's but one round to go. once again the paddock must regrettably visit a track that some critics have described as 'drab' and 'soulless' and 'the enemy of good racing', and one at which valentino has only won once before. but the way to tease out a special performance from valentino is generally to give him a point to prove, add in a little spite to get the fires spitting, and he wins at the circuit for the second (and last) time of his career. in front of the spanish fans too, which must have felt particularly satisfying - and the race itself isn't all too bad in the first half (the way valentino gets past gibernau/biaggi is quite funny). home hero sete takes fourth, and that's a wrap on the 2004 championship

there's something deceptively comfortable about the final numbers: 304 points to 257. 47 points. no problem. but sports isn't just numbers; it's the story those numbers tell. valentino was furious in qatar and he made a mistake and he ended up in a position where things don't have to go all that differently for him to lose the title. the momentum was on the side of his enemy, whose confidence and morale had been given a much-needed boost. the genius of the entire sepang weekend, from the press conference to his jibes in interviews to his dominance performance-wise to the cold shoulder to the pointed celebrations, was that they all worked together to stop that momentum cold

maybe it didn't make much of a difference - valentino was always in the stronger position given he both had a points advantage and was the faster man. but faster men have lost championships before. ignore raw pace and performance edge and all of that: valentino wrested control of the intangibles - momentum, self-belief, all of those abstract things that defy rational analysis - and brought them firmly back onto his side. sete spent the entire weekend off balance, unsettled, forced to discuss things that made him uncomfortable, engulfed in a media storm he was ill-suited to coping with. all the while, valentino relished it and used it to spur himself on. by the time sete had regrouped in phillip island and was far cooler - if still respectful - towards valentino, it was already too late

in the interest of eventually finishing this post, we're not going to cover sete's downfall in that much depth. but there is still one last critical blow that valentino has to inflict to truly bring an end to the gibernau experiment. the very first race of 2005 was one that valentino particularly wanted to win - not just to inform his competitors that this year would be more of the same, but also because they were once again on sete's home soil. time for jerez

^new year, new sete! this time he's going to show that italian upstart what's what

as ever, the media had done its best to hype up this new season. sete would be getting full support from the factory (which, yes, feels like maybe they should have considered providing a touch earlier) and he made it clear he was ready for the challenges ahead, ready to get revenge and all that. the spanish had grown fonder of their unexpected challenger too, and showed up in full force to support their man in the opening race. of course, a lot of people quietly agreed that realistically speaking, the competitive picture was looking pretty ominous. 2004 should have been the season in which valentino got the yamaha project up and running, setting up a title challenge in 2005. but he was ahead of schedule and surely the yamaha would only get stronger. still, you never know, right? that's why we line up on sunday etc etc

valentino stole pole position from sete right at the end of qualifying, but crashed in warm-up and ended up using his second bike, which is never ideal. the start was already feisty from both parties, and for a while valentino was relegated back to third. but sooner rather than later, he assumed his familiar position sitting right on sete's rear tyre, showing sete his wheel here and there just to remind him where he was. remember the whole sachsenring debacle after which valentino told himself that he wasn't going to leave it that late again? well, he was actually nice and sensible here, and made a move with two laps to go, successfully passing sete for the lead

which should have been the end of it. nice and clinical, a lovely relatively stress-free culmination of a whole race's work where valentino had diligently studied his opponent's strengths and weaknesses and had formulated his plan accordingly. job done, another win on the board to start the season. except then valentino decided to make things interesting again on the very last lap by out-braking himself on the back straight and running it wide into turn 6, allowing sete back through. there's a slightly frenetic energy with which valentino immediately hops back onto sete's rear wheel, already a touch of desperation about his lunge on the inside of turn 11 where he briefly goes past - but he's in too hot and sete's back in front

what all this means is that valentino really only has one opportunity left at turn 13 and barely any time to conceive of it. there's no planning or calculation or strategy here. valentino has one option to attack if he wants to win this race. it's a dive that is instinctive rather than planned - the only calculation here is that he would rather crash them both out than let sete win the race. back then (and a bit ironic from a modern point of view), valentino's infamous dangled leg was seen as evidence that he was out of control, doing anything he could to get the bike stopped while going for a gap that wasn't really there to be gone for. they make contact, valentino manages to get the bike turned and sete goes off into the gravel, but can get the bike back on track to finish second. valentino does a wheelie over the line. sete makes a thumbs down gesture

the spanish fans decide pretty quickly whose side they're taking in this. there's booing, whistling as valentino completes his victory lap, going full ham as he pumps his fists and claps at them and does a thumbs up and waves and puts his hand on his hip and all the rest of it as they scream at him. parc fermé is tense, the eye of the storm in the midst of the deafening roars of the crowd, with sete giving vale a couple of long looks as he gets off the bike. it's all big drama, everyone consulting their teams, talks of appeals to race direction, valentino grimly satisfied while sete is aggrieved, furious - stretching out his arm, clutching it, shaking his head while shaking teammate melandri's hand. he approaches valentino, says a few words to him as he walks past - valentino is not particularly interested in engaging in conversation. the crowd demands valentino's disqualification, and also call him a son of a whore. they're also obviously still booing. and whistling. lots of noise

on their way to the podium, sete is making tortured progress, pausing for a moment in the stairwell to clutch at his arm. at this point, valentino takes a moment to take the piss out of his rival, turning to the camera with a big smile and gesturing at sete. eventually they make it to the podium and vale laps up the displeasure of the spanish crowd. valentino smirks while sete goes for a sort of pained dignity, thanking the spanish crowd for their support, claiming the moral victory and all that. the italian anthem is almost inaudible

^sete always tried to go for a kind of stoically disapproving vibe, helped along this time by his pain in the shoulder. unfortunately for him, he does just come across as thoroughly defeated. which he was

the problem that sete faces here is that, while valentino is obviously more accustomed to a rather friendlier reception, it's also not like he particularly minds the spaniards giving him a hard time. valentino has claimed his fourth victory in succession, and has done so by once again denying sete on the very last lap. he has sent a message that this new season will be exactly the same as the last and that he remains exactly as determined to make sete's life miserable. while he does seem to think sete is playing up the shoulder injury, in general sete's solemn grimaces are like catnip to him. just before the anthem, he reaches out to shake first melandri's hand and then sete's - and sete hesitates, before extending his arm to the fullest extent to shake valentino's hand with about as little proximity as is physically possible. it's good sportsmanship, but it does also as good as tell valentino he's not going to kick up too big a fuss. in a way, whatever choice he made would have played into valentino's hands. even though this time sete may have directly confronted valentino, he's still not prepared to escalate things beyond that... and valentino knows it

^one of the classic rancid vibes podiums. the hands on hips at the ceaseless spanish booing is a nice touch

this choice to avoid further escalation is one sete continues to abide by in the press conference, echoing the assen presser from the year before beat for beat. again, valentino comments that it was a great battle, that sete is surely angry but, essentially, it is what it is ("this is the racing"). again, sete congratulates valentino for the win, but refrains from complaining about valentino's actions during the race. he has since said that he talked to race direction about it and was incredibly disillusioned about their choice not to penalise valentino - but again, not a whisper of it to the media with valentino sitting next to him

the one thing he did say was that he hoped he'd be fit to race in estoril because of his shoulder. remember the whole clutching at his arm routine where valentino (and the commentators) were kinda taking the mickey out of sete's comically pained expressions? well, um, turns out he did have a lot of pre-existing shoulder problems, and indeed that was the bit of his body that caused him considerable problems for the rest of his motogp career:

Gibernau dislocated his collarbone when he crashed out of the lead of the 2002 Portuguese Grand Prix on a Suzuki GSV-R, suffered a left shoulder tendon injury during his last turn clash with Valentino Rossi at Jerez 2005, then damaged the same shoulder further when he fell in practice for the following Estoril round. At the 2006 Catalan Grand Prix, Gibernau broke his left collarbone after spectacularly tangling with Ducati team-mate Loris Capirossi at the start of the race. Gibernau required a further operation shortly after when the titanium plate inserted to help his collarbone heal was found to have weakened. The new plate was in turn damaged when Gibernau hit Casey Stoner's fallen Honda in the penultimate round of the season, again at Estoril, marking the end of Gibernau's factory Ducati - and, it seemed - MotoGP career. Before making his 2009 MotoGP comeback, Gibernau had the metal plate removed from his collarbone, only to suffer shoulder ligament damage during training - forcing him to miss the final pre-season test.

well, anyway, after the controversy has had two weeks to continue on full steam, valentino does strike a somewhat more contrite note in the estoril pre-event press conference. he says he hadn't been aware of the whole shoulder situation and that sete had been unlucky given it had been a light touch in a slow corner... but having rewatched the footage he can see how, yes, maybe the contact could have hurt sete. these things happen, right? and at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter for valentino, because the controversy blows over. what remains is the blow (psychological rather than physical) he dealt sete. what remains is that he won and sete lost, again, and sete has still failed to win since qatar

"And I really think that as long as he wins this race, even if he only takes five points back off Valentino Rossi, he will be happy with that, because it's all about getting back to winning ways. He hasn't won since Qatar last October. He's got to take a victory, just to get his season back on course. Valentino Rossi is going to take a lot of stopping, and really all he can do is try and win this race in front of his home crowd." [...] "That race in Qatar, and the problems they had in that race with Valentino Rossi crashing out after having to start from the back of the grid was really when all the problems started, didn't it, for Sete Gibernau. [...] But really that's where his problems started, both on and off the track for Sete Gibernau after that race victory in Qatar. I really can't believe he would've believed that was going to happen. He was so, so pleased to win that race." [...] "This is a big big thirteen laps for Sete Gibernau, isn't it. If he can hold off Valentino Rossi, psychologically, it would be a very very big victory for him."

^excerpts from the catalunya 2005 commentary, the sixth round of the season. valentino had said in the presser after the preceding race that he expected biaggi and melandri to be his main rivals that season. sete leads for almost the entire race before valentino makes his race-winning overtake with three laps to go and smashes the previous circuit record on that lap

what remains is one failure after another. an important thing to stress when we talk about a 'curse' is that sete gibernau did not suddenly stop being a frontrunner after qatar 2004. he qualified on pole five times in 2005 (same as valentino, funnily enough - his average grid position was actually better than vale's, 2.82 v 4.12). even so, things go from bad to worse for sete. often valentino does his own dirty work in stopping sete when he's getting a bit too close to that elusive victory, winning a close duel in catalunya, pressuring sete into a mistake at the sachsenring, that kind of thing. often, he does not even have to. sometimes he took himself out, like crashing out of the lead in the wet conditions he was once so very skilled at in estoril (not helping his injured shoulder) or in donington park, where valentino went on to deliver perhaps the finest wet weather performance of his career to take the win

"I don't think anyone can be to blame for crashing out in these conditions, can they. [...] It really is at that stage of the season for Sete Gibernau where it's all or nothing, really just got to try and win races. We're now twelve races since his last victory at Qatar. Valentino Rossi promised after that race that Gibernau would never win another race and well it seems to be coming true so far."

^excerpt from the donington park 2005 commentary, the ninth race of the season, where sete crashed out of the lead in horrendous wet conditions

valentino's favoured way of winning races played into his hands here. pressure, pressure, pressure - preferably exerted from right behind his victim, with the knowledge that valentino is waiting and studying and ready to pounce on any mistake. even if you don't make any, he'll probably get you anyway. the effect of these defeats becomes nicely cumulative, where even the knowledge that valentino will be coming (even if he isn't there yet), that eventually he will try and pass you (even if he hasn't done so yet), is enough to make his opponents self-destruct before he even has to lift a finger. what he does to sete is the most extreme version of how that tactic typically works, by slowly eating away at sete's confidence and composure and self-belief until the eventual error feels increasingly inevitable. valentino knows it is coming, sete knows it is coming, and they both play their parts accordingly

"But Rossi straight after Gibernau, now he'll start those pressure games. Pressure is on Sete Gibernau. He has not won a race for a year; the last race win was here. And the man he doesn't speak to, he doesn't speak back to him either, Valentino Rossi, behind him, and Rossi will start exerting the pressure Rossi-style as we know." [...] "A year ago, wasn't it, it doesn't seem that long ago, doesn't it, that Sete Gibernau was so delighted to win the race here. And Valentino Rossi really left in a strop, didn't he. But there we are, Sete Gibernau - but we've seen it before, and Rossi seems so have this ability to faze him, out at the front, put pressure on him." [...] "Well, Nick, you said at the start of this race that Valentino Rossi has plenty of motivation to win this race here. He wants to take ten wins for Yamaha, it would be the first Yamaha rider ever to do that in the premier class. He wants to end a drought almost in his terms, certainly since he became a Yamaha rider - he's never gone three races without winning a race before, but that could happen today if Gibernau holds this out. And of course the one thing he really wants to stop is Sete Gibernau from winning a race one year on from the day that Rossi said he would never win another one for the rest of his career." "How long does a g-'s curse take, I mean, is it just a year, the g-'s curse and then does it come off? Because if it is then he's just about right, isn't he? [...] Perhaps the curse is gone; perhaps this is just what Sete Gibernau needed."

^excerpts from the qatar 2005 commentary, the fourteenth round of the season. sete looked like he was making a break for it ahead of valentino and then melandri. six laps to go melandri almost causes valentino to crash and costs valentino over a second, but it doesn't matter. this time it's melandri who has the honours of coaxing a mistake out of sete, who goes off into the gravel as melandri passes him. valentino overtakes melandri for the victory

sometimes, he did just seem cursed in the truest sense of the word. his bike running out of fuel on the last lap while he's still fighting valentino for the victory. mechanical dnf's. other riders barging him out of the way before valentino even has the chance to. he switched manufacturers for 2006, getting a spot on the ducati factory team: his last race with honda was ended by an engine failure and his first race with ducati was ended by an electronics failure. a freak boot protector malfunction that left his foot bleeding halfway through the race. a nasty crash in catalunya, followed by his ambulance crashing into a bus fifty metres in front of the hospital entrance. in the end, it was probably the injury caused by casey stoner bringing him down in estoril that pushed him definitively into retiring - after he was dropped by ducati in favour of casey. so it goes

obviously, valentino cannot be held responsible for anything in that last paragraph. you can't mind game your opponent into having their engine blow up, at least I don't think you can. the stuff before that is fair game. what valentino did in jerez essentially stopped the title fight before it could even get started. it was ruthlessly effective in removing sete as a significant player at the top of the sport. sure, it's always hard to attribute a competitive decline such as this one to any single factor. but if ever there was a time to maybe just blame one person...

sete more often than not has kept his silence about the rivalry. in 2005, he generally did not go much further than saying that the whole thing was one-sided and started by valentino, see this (from one of oxley's books):

But don't ask me about him as a person, I'll only speak about him from a professional point of view, that's about it. I don't know why he's got a problem with me because I've never had a problem with him. I've always had a lot of respect for everyone on the grid, I just wish everyone shared that respect, because once you lose respect you lose everything.

on a similar topic, at some point he has also spoken about the qatar controversy again, saying the following:

He blamed me but it was nothing I did. Of course I didn't report him - I didn't even see what happened. I'd had a very good relationship with Valentino for many years but after that it just came around.

in 2009, at the time of sete's ultimately short-lived motogp comeback, he went along with the slight farce of a reconciliation, shaking valentino's hand and talking to him with cameras watching - the season after valentino had regained his crown in '08. but it is fair to say not all is forgotten. at times, he has done his best to draw a line under jerez and continues to refrain from criticising valentino publicly, like this from 2017:

The Catalan avoids criticizing the Italian for any controversial maneuver, such as that of Jerez 2005. "At the time I was living, based on my values, principles and education, I tried to do things as well as I knew how. And I am very proud of what I did ." Sete explains what it means to battle Vale. "We did very nice things fighting against a phenomenon, he may be the best in the history of motorcycling. I am proud to have fought face to face with a guy who is a phenomenon," he explains.

(obviously, you can read this as valentino not following whatever values, principles or education he might have possessed.) at other times, he's been a little more openly critical. in 2020, he still did not criticise valentino as much as he did the response to the overtake, which he felt set a bad precedent and has contributed to the normalisation of a more aggressive style of racing in the years since:

I don't know how many times we've talked about that corner, but the more time goes by the more I understand after that, things change. Many people were seeing that move, and from that moment on it opened the door for it to happen many more times. At the end of the race, both of us did what we thought was best for the championship, and my opinion can be whatever. But since then things have changed in MotoGP and racing is understood, which I don't agree [with].

he also adds this:

When asked if race direction would have looked into that incident had it happened today, Gibernau responded: "To tell you the truth, no. I don't think so. "I've got different thoughts on that side, which are mine, and like I said I don't need to be right or wrong. Everyone has his own thoughts, and if I put myself now in a situation where I was watching a race and I saw what happened there [at Jerez] where two guys risking their own lives touched each other in a difficult last corner, and I was looking at it with my son who would like to become a road racer, and everyone would give the victory to a guy that has touched another one, I wouldn't be wanting that to happen. "I don't want anyone to get hurt. It's one of my priorities and it's how I understand sport and racing. MotoGP is already so dangerous that in my opinion we should all put together our know how to avoid these type of situations. Is it difficult to do? Yes. Is it impossible to do? I don't think so. It's responsibility to whoever is in charge of the championship and to put the rules where we need to stay away from this type of situation because, like I say, we're risking more than just a crash."

and even more recently, in 2023, he's spoken about the jerez race being the source of his disillusionment:

If I'm telling the truth, Jerez 2005 made me lose my enthusiasm for being in the races. I tried to maintain it until the beginning of 2006, with Ducati, and when we could have won, a mechanic left a gear screw unadjusted and the gear lever fell off. That day, in Jerez 2005, I mentally retired. Valentino went inside and took me out. They didn't penalize him. It's my personal opinion, everyone will have their own opinion and it must be respected, but I think that this is not a contact sport.

also in 2023, in a separate interview, he said this:

But he didn't get a punishment or anything, and then I started to lose my faith in the sport. [...] I couldn't understand how, y'know this was not a contact sport, I couldn't understand... things happen in the championship and things had been going on inside and everything and I just lost my - started to lose my illusion in the racing.

which is later in the same interview followed by this (which is partly about his woes in 2006 - he also talked about the moment with the gear screw, but I think pinpoints that rather than jerez as the day he mentally retired):

I had done such a big effort to put myself to a position to where, I was fighting against my own demons, I was fighting against the championship, I thought no one's helping here. I was fighting against one of the top guys in the history of racing, which was Valentino, and I just thought, but, Valentino doesn't even need to do what he's doing to win, and no one is saying nothing. There was many things there and I just couldn't understand... I'm fighting against everything, you know, and I was expecting the championship to just be a little more neutral on that side, just to say, if someone does something wrong you've got to say, in my opinion, it's not a contact sport; it's already dangerous enough to being able to say you can hit someone and say, wow, that was a great move. [...] Everyone is brave on a MotoGP bike. Moto3, Moto2, MotoGP, from the first guy to the last guy, you cannot pinpoint on TV and say how brave this guy was by hitting another guy. Because if I'm a dad watching that I would not want my son to be in a championship like this. Because it's not bravery, it's not about hitting another guy - if you want to do that, go boxing. [...] And from a guy like Valentino, which is, a superstar, why accept that? I think it was wrong, in my opinion, he didn't need to do that. Since then, many things have been happening because of that movement. Because kids saw that and said that's the way to do it. And then Marquez is doing it to this guy, and the other guy is doing it to the other guy, and you get killed in racing. It's already dangerous. We should stay away from that. That's why I never understood - it got to a point where I just - oh man. It's nothing to do with me here any more, you know, and I just left racing and I retired.

for the most part, then, sete is still quite contained in his criticisms of valentino, focusing on the jerez incident and not really delving into what happened the year prior to that. he mainly questions why valentino even felt the need to do what he did to sete, and suggests valentino set a bad example to others - especially kids watching, especially future riders. his criticisms also concern motogp as a sport, those who set the rules and those who regulate them, in not doing anything to stamp down on this kind of racing. he says he felt like he lacked support from the entirety of the sport and eventually decided that he'd had enough

I haven't added this block of text just because I enjoy transcribing large portions of three hour long podcast interviews that didn't really need to be three hours long (apparently the most tried and tested method of getting riders to share their more candid thoughts about anything) - but because this, uh, average-length tumblr post wouldn't really feel complete without it. it's all very well and good to talk about how sete was mentally 'broken' by what valentino did to him. you can have whatever opinion you want about the thoughts sete expresses here on riding standards and acceptable levels of aggression. you can also maybe doubt whether it really was just 'disillusionment' with race direction's approach to valentino's jerez pass that caused his competitive decline - obviously, three hour confessional podcast interview or not, this is a narrative he's still chosen for a reason and it sells himself and his career in a certain way. but - but - especially given the exact circumstances in which his rise to title challenger status occurred and how heavily he involved himself in the safety commission... well, at the very least I'm not going to leave it out. should he have made his complaints publicly known at the time, if this is something he felt so strongly about? is this level of criticism warranted by that specific jerez move? it's tough, because from the modern perspective of course I too have gotten used to a kind of racing where that level of contact is fairly normalised - which two riders this century have played a disproportionate role in bringing about. on the one hand, valentino is right in his defence that relatively speaking, this is far from the fastest or hardest contact out there. on the other hand, it's a move that was made with the knowledge it would result in contact. and in doing so, he injured sete, because that's what can happen even as a result of relatively 'light' touches. make up your own mind! it's not an easy topic to address, and I most certainly wouldn't be able to do it justice here. let's wrap this up

of delusion and despair

valentino has always been intensely aware of the power of narratives and takes care in how he tells his own story. the most literal version in which anyone can tell their own story is, obviously, by publishing an autobiography - which he did in 2005, covering everything up until his first title with yamaha at the end of 2004. it is not presented in chronological order and is instead organised in a far more loose thematic manner, with valentino not feeling any compulsion to give all parts of his life anywhere close to equal attention. still, when you read it, certain omissions do jump out at you - and the exclusion of gibernau is perhaps the most remarkable. you could say it's because he doesn't want to speak ill of his rivals, but he has no problem going into a fair bit of detail about his feud with biaggi. you could say it's because the gibernau rivalry was still going on at time of writing, but the same is more or less true about biaggi who placed third in the 2004 championship. there is not a single paragraph in his autobiography devoted to the relationship with gibernau. every mention of him is just that: a mention. a name thrown in without care when discussing something else entirely. you are told vale passed gibernau to win the 2004 championship - but if you read the autobiography without any other knowledge of valentino, you'd be forgiven for not realising gibernau had been his title rival at all

yes, within the grand context of his career, biaggi does have to be seen as a more significant rival... but this narrative was still being written in late 2004, at a time in which valentino had committed himself to destroying sete. maybe valentino doesn't want to comment on controversies that are still bubbling along, but the sheer extent of the erasure feels far more deliberate than that. this is somebody who had been valentino's friend for years, enough so that they spent time with each other outside of work, went on holidays together, blokes who for all intents and purposes truly liked each other's company. somebody who had been his closest rival for two years, who had pushed him closer than anyone else had in his title runs, who he had experienced some of his greatest career defeats and victories against. according to the narrative presented by the autobiography, he might as well be just any other rider. it's worse than fury, worse than loathing: it's disinterest

(it has to be said, quite possibly the funniest omission is when he's talking about how "angry and disappointed" he was after qatar because of, and I quote, "honda having lodged an appeal". ... anyone else you thought was involved, valentino? .....?)

which is quite the punishment to enact. one reason why this rivalry is so tricky to analyse is, yes, it's one that's quite old by now, but also because we are drawing from a far smaller sample size of valentino comments - almost all of which were provided at the time - when you compare it to any of his other major rivalries. sure, he still talks about jerez 2005, when he's asked about it - though it might as well just have been another fun race, another dramatic victory, another controversial overtake, rather than anything that had any greater significance. (of course, there is also a clip of him forgetting about the race entirely when thinking about last corner overtakes in the premier class with sete in the room - which you can read into if you so choose.) he's talked plenty over the years about his first yamaha title in 2004, but not about the man he beat to secure it. this was his closest title battle of the ones he won (just pipping 2009), but he might as well have won it against a faceless amalgamation of the honda corporation rather than an actual living breathing rival. it's as if that title battle started and ended in welkom, where it was biaggi not gibernau who valentino had to best. even though publicly the two of them set aside their feud in 2009 and valentino even said then that they could be friends again, this feels like lip service more than anything else. in 2015 at jerez, valentino was questioned about the parallels to his relationship with a certain other rival, who was friendly with valentino at the time but had crashed out while battling vale in the previous race. valentino in response acknowledged his past good friendship with sete, but said it was different: after qatar his relationship with sete had gotten worse as a result of how sete had "played a dirty game". if he had not changed his mind about sete's character eleven years after the fact, why would he have reevaluated in the years since?

it is fair to say that gibernau was the least talented of valentino's major rivals, the least substantial figure in terms of his accomplishments in grand prix racing. biaggi is a four time 250cc champion; nobody needs to be reminded of the achievements of stoner, lorenzo or marquez. sete is the rival who wasn't even supposed to exist; he was catapulted into the position essentially overnight by tragedy. and yet, even acknowledging that, it feels like he is under-discussed in the canon of valentino feuds given the sheer quality of their on-track output (let's face it, there are more great vale/sete battles than there are for say vale/casey) and the high drama of their closest title fight. yes, you can say that's because it is one of the older and less well-remembered rivalries, because it is not quite as dramatic and significant as the biaggi feud... but still, it's quite the disparity. given the power valentino holds in writing the stories within the sport, how can you not conclude that he has played a helping hand in this erasure? being ignored is a far greater indignity than being despised - and after 2004 valentino has barely even offered sete the honour of his hatred

^sete tried to breathe new life into his motogp career by switching to ducati, but his campaign was derailed by injuries. it was probably scant consolation in his miserable 2006 season, but valentino himself was pretty cursed that year. their last on-track battle came at phillip island, in the series' first bike swap race while valentino was fighting tooth and nail to save his doomed title defence. it's admittedly one of like twenty things that happen in that race, but it is quite funny how sete really came back to life just in time to make valentino's life harder when he really didn't need him to. valentino overtook sete on the final corner of the race for the final podium spot

of course, it is a hell of a lot easier to erase a rivalry when you win it so conclusively. in truth, as an opponent, valentino got the measure of sete fairly quickly. he never lost another direct duel against sete after sachsenring 2003, having essentially vowed as much to himself even when they were nominally still on good terms. the 2004 championship was as close as it was because of valentino's unequivocally inferior machinery and the somewhat less consistent results he achieved as a consequence - but even there, when they fought directly for the win in mugello, catalunya, assen and phillip island, each time valentino came out on top. (you can argue about brno '04 - I'd say it doesn't really count since sete ended up running away with the race with a massive tyre advantage.) still, you don't have to be winning all your direct duels with your opponents to be winning the championship - and at the end of the day, sete did come tantalisingly close to a title, or at the very least forcing a title decider. whatever it is that differentiates 'very good riders' from 'champions' is what sete is lacking. he has something in him... a self consciousness, a self awareness even, that is lethal to professional athletes. he was stuck trying to manage the image of his rivalry with valentino, when valentino was moving in for the kill. valentino too is heavily aware of image, is heavily invested in how he tells his own story - but more often than not, he manages to use it as a weapon to spur himself onwards to further success. when valentino did so once again in late 2004, sete stumbled

it is not novel to suggest that valentino needs enemies to motivate himself. plenty of people within the sport have said it, including his fellow riders. that's what's always worth remembering about the 'mind games' - sure, it's great if he unnerves his opponents, but often it is about providing himself with someone to hate though there are exceptions to this, which I have a lot of thoughts about relating to one casey stoner. valentino needs to have a reason to do what he does; it's not enough to win for the sake of winning if there's no story. in 2003, he had more or less won motogp and was finding it harder and harder to motivate himself, admitting repeatedly that he was losing his joy and passion for racing. yes, this was one of the main factors that led to the move to yamaha: to give himself a reason to keep going. but it was also just the right moment for another rival to emerge from nowhere and give valentino somebody new to focus his attentions on. when you read the limited autobiography mentions of sete and his interactions with valentino in 2003, it seems hard not to conclude valentino was already feeling a little less kindly towards sete by the end of that year. the relationship did not survive contact with a true title fight, where valentino found himself pushed closer to the limit than he ever had before. the moment he was in real danger, he blew up the relationship and walked away with literal full points for the remainder of the season. at the very next race to start off the new season, he made sure sete would never be a threat to him again

it's natural to conclude from all of this that the feud was built entirely on the back of valentino's delusions, of valentino inventing a concrete reason to despise sete that was based on his mental list of sete's past transgressions, imagined or otherwise. and maybe it was. did sete really snitch? did valentino really think he did? what was it that convinced valentino of sete's guilt? and even if sete was involved, was this really a proportionate response? this is where a lack of evidence and both parties' reticence to discuss the incident in the years since works against us. but - looking beyond the specifics of what happened in qatar, it does feel likely that the relationship would have deteriorated beyond what we saw in assen anyway. that's what a close title fight tends to do to the people involved. isn't it?

sete makes for a suitable foil to valentino because he too intensely concerns himself with how he is perceived. when vale takes on sete, one pretty boy to another, they are both a little too aware of the artifice of what they are doing, a little too concerned with the optics, the image, the spectacle. rivals, friends, enemies - how far apart are any of those things, really? can we be friends if you desperately covet what I have? if you take pleasure at the thought of my downfall? is this oft-touted ideal of a 'respectful' rivalry inevitably nothing but a facade for the ugly reality that lies beneath? 2004 is what happens when their relationship is actually tested - because now they are finally fighting for something real and they both know it. this is what happens in assen, when valentino decides he needs to win at any cost, when sete realises they are not playing the game by the same rules. sete had been performing graciousness and valentino calls him on his bluff

the best rivalries transform both parties; neither side should be allowed to emerge unchanged from the battle they share. sete entered valentino's life as a competitor at a time when everything was a little too easy and as a result a little too hard for valentino. at a time when valentino felt dissatisfied, underappreciated, judged harshly from all sides and pinned down by the weight of the world's glares. the blows sete inflicted on valentino were primarily symbolic, hurting valentino's pride and reputation rather than his title bid in 2003, which was never under any realistic threat. when valentino was at his lowest that season, he responded by bringing the joy back, reverting to type, with a new haircut and an ironic gag of a celebration and a daring victory to boot. in 2004, however, valentino changed. he had to - he was on a worse bike than his opponents that he was wrestling towards a title it had no right to be winning that year. he didn't have the kind of margin for error any more that he could afford in his honda years, no more foolishness like at the sachsenring. so he became a little tougher and a little meaner and a lot more aggressive in his racing. he shed some of the insouciance that both him and sete have at times been accused of and got down to the serious business of winning. not joylessly - after all there are few things more enjoyable than crushing the enemy. still, it's fine to be a clown prince in your downtime, not when you're barging title rivals aside in assen

it is here, then, at assen, that sete makes a critical, fatal mistake. because sete is torn in two: he wants to be the gracious rival, but he also thinks what valentino did is wrong and wants to communicate as much to the world. maybe it's because it clashes with sete's understanding of racing, maybe it's simply because sete is bitter that he lost - who's to say. except sete can't bring himself to actually say any of this. he chooses the worst possible strategy against valentino: silent disapproval and annoyance and frustration, played up for the television cameras, but without offering a single word of actual complaint until later, when valentino had already offered his explanations and half-apologies. so what valentino takes away from this is twofold. for one, he comes to believe that sete has a problem with his racing and cannot graciously accept his defeat, entirely failing to match valentino's magnanimity on the (rare) occasions when he loses. but unfortunately for sete, what valentino also learns is that - when it comes down to it - sete will not stand up for himself. valentino knows he can do this again

in sepang sete attempts to take the high ground once more, to allow valentino his transgressions and foibles and temper, to be calm in the face of vale's fury, to be the better man. in australia sete pulls himself together to shake hands with valentino, to be respectful of his rival's accomplishments and graceful in defeat, to be the better man. in jerez sete is beyond angry, furious enough to actually approach valentino in parc fermé and say a few words to him, but he still shakes valentino's hand on the podium and refuses to complain directly about him in the press conference - because he is determined to be the better man. does he think he can shame valentino into being different from what he is? if so, it is an unfortunate miscalculation. you cannot claim a moral victory against somebody who does not give a shit

for valentino, at least half the joy of racing has always been about beating the opposition. a new rival is presented to him out of nowhere - and out of him valentino fashions himself an enemy. sete was one of the first people to offer valentino advice when vale entered the premier class, but this was not the last thing valentino learned from him. because what valentino did to gibernau was different than what he did to biaggi. this was not just trying to get a rise out of a bloke he disliked every time he got half a chance. this was not valentino slowly chipping away at his victim's patience and self-control and sanity. what valentino does to gibernau is far more sudden and far more targeted and gets a far more immediate effect. he emerges from qatar weakened and on the back foot and within eight days flips the situation so that he is once again the one in command. sete, who had very much exerted himself in presenting the relationship in a certain way to the world, who wanted so badly for this to be a certain kind of rivalry, ever so respectful - well, valentino found out just where to hurt him. he did it with his sudden public coldness towards sete, with carefully chosen remarks to the press to make clear that nothing had been forgiven, with the jibes and the taunts at each and every stage of his victory. he married the off-track theatre with on-track strategy as well as pure performance, directly disrupting and disturbing sete whenever necessary - the kind of combination he would later find so useful in fending off first casey then lorenzo. it's no coincidence that his three most famous career overtakes are ones that are also so significant in how they affected valentino's fortunes in the aftermath of his victory. laguna 2008 and catalunya 2009 represent complete shifts in momentum within their respective seasons that his rivals never quite recovered from. jerez 2005 ends the title battle at the very first race. and it's not just sete's season that didn't recover - it's his career

of course, it's easier to mess with someone when you have the measure of them in performance. that's always something to keep in mind when talking about mental resilience: it's easier to bounce back from your rival being an asshole to you if you're just really, really good at what you do. valentino always understood himself that any 'mind games' had to be backed up by on-track performance; he's openly stated that all of his off-track "work" on his opponents only gets results if it's paired with being strong on the bike. and he himself lost his cool in qatar - but it helped that he knew he had what it took to bounce back. this was never a rivalry of equals; there was never any question between the two of them who the better rider was. all that being said: it's a really good rivalry! guys, there's some really great races. sete was a serious challenger and he did pose a serious threat to valentino, which you can tell because otherwise valentino never would have needed to do any of this. he made valentino grow as a rider and... do you make someone 'grow as a person' if you make them better at psychological warfare? yes, I think so. actually

valentino became a more accomplished rider for having experienced the sachsenring debacle, and he became a more accomplished rider as a result of the qatar fiasco. he motivated himself to become better because he wanted to defeat sete so badly, and isn't there something compelling about that? valentino was willing to take risks at phillip island that could have resulted in a title decider, was willing to make himself extremely unpopular with the spanish crowd at jerez (not something he has typically had much experience with) - all because he needed to crush sete, to destroy him so completely he could erase him entirely. at the end of the day, there's a bunch of reasons why this rivalry doesn't get the attention it deserve. one of them, however, is that valentino seems to be pretty happy with this state of affairs, and has spent the better part of two decades deeply disinterested in paying sete his dues. don't let him have his way

#sete gibernau #valentino rossi #// #sg15 #vr46 #sete ask yay #right I'm aware this is a topic nobody else actually cares about That Much but I had fun and that's what matters #you'd never believe this but there's quite a lot of this I ended up cutting. like I do have More Thoughts I fear #I don't love this as a piece of writing and it runs into some major tonal issues at some stages but well! post like nobody's reading etc #I feel like every time I try and add a read more it fucks the formatting of the pictures but I'm gonna trust it's. Fine