#to add on to my first paragraph it’s also interesting how there are a lot of posts like
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it’s interesting how in fandom mind a standard rape by a main character is irredeemable but a standard murder by a main character doesn’t even register as one most of the time. i suppose it’s the effect of a long history of cool murder which has desensitized the audience but of course it would be disingenuous for me to pretend that rape and murder are framed equally in fiction. like in real life i think we and the legal system agree that rape is very bad but murder is basically the worst thing ever - whereas in many media universes murder is framed as so unremarkable that the audiences might not even see it as murder (and more often then not also framed to look extremely uhh badass and cool) but rape is given enormous narrative & emotional weight. maybe because rape is a terrifying reality that’s never far from us but getting sliced in half by a valyrian steel sword is something we don’t really see happening anytime soon?
anyway this is a post about how twitter’s only “you can’t like this character” character so far is aegon, who has killed no one but raped one, possibly many, whereas his relatives who have a kill count per episode are huge fan favorites. this is also of course a post lamenting people holding morality as a guide to what characters people can like and which are evil monsters no one should express any interest in or else you’re a rape apologist or something but i think we already have enough of these posts on tumblr? like talking about how it’s insane to try to police media enjoyment online & infer anything about people because they like controversial characters and also how it’s even more insane (and probably impossible. and sad.) to limit yourself to caring about characters who are good and pure and all that, i feel like that’s covered. at least in my mutual bubble i am preaching to the choir when i say that these are not people - these are lines of text that the author has decided to portray doing such or such thing for there to be a story - and the point of enjoying fiction is not to be constantly weighing who is morally good so you can be exclusively on their side (imagine doing that for hotd.. haha… ha…)
#honestly the only actual crime a character can commit in my eyes is to be boring#like what’s the point then. you’re not making me feel anything except tired can we get back to your problematic cousins#but anyway back to complaining about the audience. imagine trying to side with the good guys in a show that 1) has no good guys 😭#my posts#to add on to my first paragraph it’s also interesting how there are a lot of posts like#’i love when characters are messy i love when characters kill etc etc’ but the same posters are outraged and repulsed when a character#actually does something messy (like rape. torture. being mean to their fave). it’s all very superficial like their idea of a messy#character is someone slightly edgy (daemon for example) but who never does anything most people would find genuinely upsetting#whereas disaster guys like larys or aegon (or viserys. but the real viserys not the fandom’s girl dad peepaw viserys)#or criston or otto are instantly disliked by them#for being cunts and problematique#and they start making their callout posts like the people liking these characters are… unaware of their terrible actions?#like that’s only possible explanation for liking them? that you haven’t realized / been made aware that they’re BAD and unrighteous?#and reading a callout post will make them go ‘oh my god they’re right! aegon really is a piece of shit! how could i have associated w him!’#like i don’t think they get what makes a character interesting (hint it’s the essence of what they usually denounce in their callouts)#boy am i glad not to be one of those posters who can only enjoy sanitized content or else they turn into the puritan police 😮💨😮💨😮💨
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Echo brain comic?? My beloved?
this one's pretty new and id like to in the least get some segments drawn up if i can
i went balls deep in depth about my personal ideas of Echo's structure and how it works, it has much more writing rn then art lemme get some snippets:
tech and echo begin digging around in his wiring as echo's health has lately began to decline rapidly. Blood transfusions are becoming daily, exhaustion occurs much quicker, and newest to the issues are these seemingly random seizures. They've attempted many outside options at remedying the problem but it was becoming urgently clear that the only way to get answers would be to open up his system and understand exactly how his body operates from the inside out. Echo is mostly on edge because he fears finding the answer that is he's just doomed to die soon, and that his body was in no way sustainable outside of that fridge. He fears the idea of dying so much that he has manic considerations of being put back in some sort of stasis chamber. Death, which he never feared prior to the citadel, but now he's come to be you know uhhh quite traumatized from it. But he also hates the idea of that fridge!! caught between two terrible options, wowie
here ill add some more breakdown of that in a read more if anyone is interested in paragraphs of bullshit:
as for a brief descriptor on the shit on his head and body, from this paragraph:
Tech: these rivets across your skull are not simple ports one can just plug into. They're a very unique structure, containing an extremely delicate, but long system of thin metallic fibers wiring throughout your brain. These 'rivets' then act as anchors to those metal fibers, which then respond to very specific electric signals that we can access at the nodes on the surface here. If the signals sent are not exact. Well.
Echo: yeah I get it I get it.
and some write up on how Tech begins to diagnose the problem:
Eventually Tech will find his way into deeper functions of the brain, finding shortcuts that were already developed by the Techno Union scientists for the sake of their own equipment likely. Categorized sections for monitoring all sorts of chemicals and levels within Echo's body, most of which were left on an automatic function to regulate.
Tech begins to understand that the key issue is that this program, and these automatic functions, were fitted for exactly the stasis chamber Echo had been put in, and if they want to begin fixing Echos phsyical body, he would have to start going in and coding line for line, functions that pertain to the body on a sustainability outside that fridge. Some functions were completely turned off, being that Echo was getting fed certain synthesized chemicals thru the machine, his brain had to be telling itself NOT to produce said things naturally.
But it's all very finicky work that requires continuous maintenance and updates, not much unlike a patch update to any other computer program, except this is Echo's life. It's an impossible amount of code to do in any short time frame, and so Tech will begin splicing lines of code from similar organic droids with systems of similar complexity.
They handle these sessions once per week, giving time for Echo's body to catch up and adjust. At first he begins feeling some nausea, his heart rate starts rising, but he insists something feels good about it and urges Tech to keep going. Echo begins to feel warmth back in his body, his mood increases, after about a month hair begins to grow again, muscle mass fills in what once was skeletal limbs, nail beds regain a lively shine. Besides a few errors in updates like over producing a chemical or small bouts of insomnia, everything seems On Course.
and then:
So now we get into the meat of the drama, which is a lot of Echo mania and identity issues:
By this point Tech has outfitted much easier screw on parts so they can go in and out of this program faster (the set up previously was hours of work) so pulling that up he theorizes that he will have to do more then just reverse programs that the Techno Union set up. Tech now believes he'll have to create NEW systems, as the old program appears to be getting corrupted from all of Tech's editing. The seizures are, at this point to their best guess, coming from this. That parts of his brain are literally crashing, and soon he's going to start having more serious issues like bro is gonna just have a massive stroke at some point. Tech points that out all regular voice and Echo is just 'great im back in the mental swamp'
Now that Echo's learned that he has corrupted files eating away at his brain, and that the chance of having a massive stroke is like inevitable, he's back to feeling like anxious shit. It doesn't help that this will take Tech a lot of time to figure out. Truthfully he's putting as much effort as he can into it, but this is when Echo begins to get Really mentally unwell. He's both worrying and also trying NOT to worry out of fear that it's going to complicate the program even more. Echo begins to have identity issues, coming to rely more on the mechanics then the organics that make him. He doesn't feel like a human with robot parts anymore, he feels like a robot with human parts.
and it keeps going like there's parts where echo is begging Tech to up programs on dopamine generation and Tech has to turn him down cause that would just be creating an addiction problem, situations where Echo starts trying to mess with his own brain, situations where he tries to kill Tech, its a lot of rambling but im not a writer, like i can't write for shit and I'd like to try and draw it instead
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hey it's nanowrimo. i have tips bc i've done it about 34 times.
Don't edit. Ever. Stop it. If you just decide to start a new project half thru this one with all new characters, no problem. pick up and keep writing as if you'd already written the first half of that.
"but i spelled it wrong" whatever. "but the grammar" whatever. make it exist first. no time for sense. think like you're working on a typewriter. no backspace. only forward go.
Don't re-read further than a paragraph or two backwards. "did i mention the gun before?" listen - it doesn't matter. if you need there to be a gun there, the gun is there. put it back in once you finish the book.
"i forgot the specifics of X thing i already wrote" whatever. change it, make a note/comment to figure it out later, and just write what makes sense for the moment. "no raquel it's legit the characters name and origin" idc that character is now reborn as Claudius from Elsewhere. it's fine.
only you see your mistakes. nobody else knows. one of the ways writing and dance overlap - only you know the choreography. nobody else will know if you miss a step, so just keep dancing and pretend you meant to do it like that.
it's an illusion that you need to write linearly - from point A to point B to point C. Nah; that's just timeline propaganda. I've written a LOT of books out of order and just reordered them once i've finished. if you have a scene you'd LOVE to write but can't get there yet because of plot, just fuckin write the scene. I've always found its easier to establish "point F" "point J" and "Point A" and then wiggle my way between those scenes.
write what you WANT to write. 230 pages of smut? of well-researched discussion on bread? whatever. the point is to strengthen muscles however you can.
if you miss a day, a week, whatever. not the end of the world. we all have dry days. also time is a myth so u can do this challenge whenever u want.
as soon as you try to write for a specific audience, you kill your voice. you are writing for yourself. stop thinking about how people will take ur book. it don't matter. what matter is u, enjoying writing. i luv u.
play to your strengths. i have characters talk so much because i don't know how to write a plot if it kills me but i'm really good at dialogue so.
i love a flight of fancy. write a poem in there. shift tactics and write in code. keep it fun for yourself.
see what happens if you shift something major about ur main characters - gender, wealth, superpowers. or if you change point-of-view. or if you kill everyone in a big explosion. do NOT edit anything before this or after it. often these little weird one-off exercises teach me what interests me about what i'm working on. it is never what i thought. plus it is a fun way to add like 1k words.
stretch.
it's for fun and for practice. stop doing that project if it's giving you anxiety. once my nano was literally 50k words of half-started stories. just things i tried and tried and tried and wasn't able to flesh out. oops. but i am now 50k words of a better writer.
add dragons?
read books/listen to books on tape/etc. people often make the mistake of "buckling down" to just write. you need inspiration. you need to like. fill up on words. you need to remember how it feels to lose yourself in a story.
i don't have the time or space to really talk about this in this post but a lot of creative people turn to drugs/alcohol because it can help you be more creative. this is harmful, and walking a blade that only cuts deep. if you notice you and your loved ones are turning more to substances, please know i love you and i hope you are able to get help soon. i feel like this almost never gets mentioned because it's kind of a hazy underbelly to art. you are always more important than the work.
on that note. drink your fukin. water.
don't talk about a story until you've finished it. once you tell the story, it exists already, and isn't about discovery. i usually have a very canned "haha we'll see" response.
grapes :) tasty snack.
i love you be free.
#edit: the command not to talk about it is from personal experience!#i have heard Otherwise in the tags so i will edit to say:#if you've noticed that you tend to like Talk A Lot about ur piece but never WRITE it -#consider voice-to-text#also#u might be like me and ... need to figure it out on the PAGE and not OUT LOUD#i am often an auditory processor so i wont tell people specifics but i'll be like#huh. so i have a character who is in love .... and they don't know it#and my friend will be like ''oh they should kiss' and meanwhile#somehow#saying it out loud im like#yeah thank u ur right the dress SHOULD be purple that's what the problem has been <3#idk!!! it's up to you!!! my suggestion is to say LESS until you know for a FACT that saying MORE works better for you#-- always better to slowly unspool in ur exploration of that#than to accidentally talk too much and get Bored Of Project#idk idk idk#i have adhd so every book surprises me bc im like#wait where did any of this even COME FROM#and whatever little gremlin in my brain that writes is like :)#''heyyy girlie.......''#WHICH IS A LONG WAY TO SAY:#i didn't know about Not Talking About It as an option until i'd ruined a few projects!!#but there are people who need to do the other thing!!! and i love us both!!!!#wow brains are so funny!!!!
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six quick and easy hacks to 🆙 the quality of your fanfiction!
as promised, here it is! i’m not here to tell you how to plot out your story, or how to write your characters’ personalities. the tips i’m sharing are more on formatting and structure, secret (not really) cheat codes to instantaneously make your already written work even better!
my qualifications? being a tumblr hag for over five years (my even more embarrassing pre k-pop writeblr included!) so i’ve unlocked quite a bit of secrets and discovered some eurekas throughout my time here HAHAHAH. anyway, let’s start!
#1 VARIETY IN PARAGRAPH LENGTHS, SENTENCE LENGTHS, AND SENTENCE STARTERS.
nothing turns me off more than seeing paragraph blocks after paragraph blocks when looking for some new fics to read, especially when you’re reading from a cramped up device such as your phone.
when i write a lengthy paragraph, i try to follow it up with a one-liner, or a mid-sized one. but it’s something i consciously keep track of— when i noticed that, “oh, this gdoc is getting a little too wordy, a little too chunky,” i make sure that my next paragraph is significantly shorter than the current one because it keeps the entire page interesting. one to two sentences of lines of paragraphs after another and another doesn’t look pretty. chunks of paragraphs after paragraphs is boring.
make your pages visually dynamic by ensuring variety.
like this, for example.
→ fic: home for the bitchless.
seeing a large chunk of text and a singular line immediately after also sort of forces your reader to stick around and read an otherwise intimidating lengthy paragraph because— oh! what could have possibly led to that singular like of dialogue or thought! #subtlemanipulation you get me? 😔🤙
this rule of mine applies to sentences and phrases within the paragraph as well!
→ fic: love vomit.
and as a bonus, you can use paragraph breaks and cuts to your advantage! manipulating the way a sentence or paragraph ends in a certain way makes your works more rhythmic! and, when you play it around the right way, abrupt cuts and breaks also add the right mood and drama to your work!
→ drabble: the boy who cried wolf.
part three of tip number one (one…we’re still at number one…) is on sentence and paragraph starters. i keep it as a rule of thumb that if i start a paragraph with “you,” or with someones name, i don’t use it again in the next one to avoid monotony. it’s a very miniscule thing really, and i doubt that people notice this HAHAHA but this is something i religiously swear by because repetitions like this are visually boring.
→ wip: sunwater.
of course, this can’t be avoided all the time, and repeating the sentence starter “You” or any other pronoun, word, or phrase can be intentionally utilized to strongly drive a point. just don’t overdo it!
→ drabble: patience, patience.
→ blurb: monsters don’t hide under the bed.
→ fic: the psychology of strawberries.
there are other good and strategic uses for repetitions as well! we’ll get to that later.
lastly, variety in sentence and paragraph starters doesn’t simply mean changing up the first word. things can still get really boring even if you use “you” or a character’s name interchangeably if your sentence structure remains the same.
this, for example, is monotonous.
the structure (and length) of all three sentences are the same. A does this. B does this. A does this. and even if you switch things up but still use the same sentence structure, it still falls flat. case in point, below, a structure i often see in a lot of fics i stumble across.
those are flat. those are boring. they don’t…you know…make you feel something, even when you follow the rule of not using the same starter twice. let me try improving it by adding more variety in the sentences (+ adding a tip that i’ll be discussing right after!)
the word “He” here is used twice to create a rhythm and draw emphasis, but the rest of the excerpt maintains a sense of variety to make the narrative more interesting and compelling to read.
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#2 PICK A POV AND STICK WITH IT.
before i start a scene, a drabble, or blurb, the first question i ask myself is, “whose point of view do i want it to be in?”
one, it’s a lot neater, more organized, than omniscient point of views in my opinion (unless you’re like a super fucking skilled writer of course HAHAHHA). two, it allows for a bit of mystery, suspense, and engagement because you don’t have access to what other people are thinking about, and three— in line with the first tip— when you know whose brain you’re in when writing, it allows for more dynamic narrations, gives you an excuse to be messy because our internal thoughts are messy as well, and makes the writing a hell of a lot easier when you’re focused on monologuing one person alone!
when writing shorter fics, drabbles, or blurbs, i swear by this rule, no excuses HAHAHAH but when writing longer fics, sometimes i switch around the point of views per scene, just to make a more well rounded story.
sometimes, the point of view doesn’t even have to be any of the main character’s! writing from an external POV is also really fun and adds another layer of interest. see example below, a Jeonghan breakup fic written exclusively from the perspective of the outsiders. very fun idea!
breakup scene written in Seungcheol’s POV.
another squabble written in Seungkwan’s POV.
→ wip: the breakup soup.
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#3 REPETITIONS AND THEMES = COHESIVENESS.
this section contains tricks on how to wrap up your fics into one cohesive little present with a pretty ribbon on top!
first is the use of repetition. use a cool funky line at the beginning of your story, and reuse/rehash/revise it at the end for a neat finish, especially when you have trouble figuring out a way to end your story (lifesaving hack! trust me!)
i use this mostly in my shorter works—
→ drabble: you’re my bucket list.
→ blurb: louder.
—but it works just as well with longer fics, especially when the repetition is all throughout, and not just at the start and finish.
→ fic: mogi.
sometimes, it doesn’t even have to be a repeated phrase or line! it can be a little gimmick and it’d still work to make your fic cohesive! for example, in the fic below, i use the giving of strawberry candy/strawberry kisses to tie all the different scenes together because this was initially a set of separate drabble ideas wrapped into one long fic.
→ fic: the psychology of strawberries.
and for this one (another ricky fic….yes…..) i use the whole cat metaphor to do the same.
→ drabble: yours to keep.
the next tip to make your work cohesive is to grab a singular theme, object, whatever, and take advantage of it for your narration HAHAHAHHA this can be better explained by looking at the examples below.
theme: citrus.
→ drabble: citrus in the morning.
theme: storm.
→ blurb: blizzard.
the above examples are my shorter works, but it can work for longer fics as well! just check out this 36k word monster HAHAHAHHA.
theme: seasons.
→ fic: love vomit.
these are very simple ways to make your fic more put together! even if it’s just a simply blurb about a confession, adding a theme to aid the imagery bumps your fic quality to a +++++
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#4 THROW AWAY THE Y/N’S!
now this one is quite honestly just a personal nitpick HAHAHHAHA but seeing the word Y/N when i’m reading something really pulls me out of my immersion. (and i only stopped using Y/N’s in my fics at the start of my 2023 comeback….so if you see my older works still using it…hahahha please don’t prosecute me).
anyway, you can do this either by embedding it in the narration—
→ fic: star studded baggage.
—or by using nicknames and titles instead!
→ wip: the breakup soup.
→ fic: can’t handle this.
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#5 GET INTO THE (UN)NECESSARY SPECIFICS.
instead of just saying “Your professor called you,” grab a random last name and say “Prof Yoon asked to see you in his office.” instead of saying you went to the cafe, the mall, the store, grab an actual place or make one up because no one in the world says “they’re going to the cafe to grab a frappe,” (unless the store’s name is actually The Cafe). people say they’re going to Dunkin Donuts or Coffeebreak or wherever.
sure it’s not plot relevant, sure it’s not integral, but little things like this make your narrative and dialogue a lot more realistic and less awkward. it makes it seem like your characters are actually living inside a world of their own.
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#6 GRAMMAR AND FORMATTING.
these are given HAHA but when i talk about grammar, i mean making sure that the commas and periods are consistently inside the quotation marks when writing dialogue. i mean minimizing the use of italics because overusing it can ruin the reading experience of a good piece (i was guilty of this too!) and i mean making sure that the use of tenses are consistent all throughout (unless if it’s a creative and plot choice), because all these things really matter if you want your fic, drabble, or blurb to be of overall high quality.
and that’s basically it! hope these tips help somehow...hope i’m not revealing my secrets for naught and someone can actually put them to good use HHAHAHHA what’s most important obviously is that you’re having fun with what you’re writing…etc. etc. insert inspirational you can do it speech here.
anyway, happy new year! and happy reading and writing<33
#writing hacks ft. my self promos HAHAHAHHAHA#tomorrow x together x reader#enhypen x reader#nct x reader#seventeeen x reader#zerobaseone x reader#riize x reader
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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 ed.: for some reason phillip island has been uploaded to facebook)
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
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...how good is Bill at flirting? because I used to think he must have at least been decent, given that he seems to have a lot of exes. but the most recent snippet has me really reconsidering that assumption.
He's decently successful at flirting in general.
He's not as good at flirting with humans.
He's hooked up with humans via dreams before but typically that's if they hit on him first, which means he already knows what part they expect him to play: act godly. Because that's what they usually think he is. Flirting as a human is new territory.
Do you know who "your eye is beautiful, it would look even better in my mouth" would work on? An eye-bat. Do you know who his last ex was? An eye-bat.
Bill's had literally a million exes, but when you're a trillion years old if you have a million exes you could also have a billion strikeouts. His partners are self-selective: they're the kind of people who are into what Bill brings to the table. They're people who look at a flat yellow plate with noodle limbs and an eyeball inside a mouth and think "hot." He gets in monsterfucker 4 monsterfucker relationships, with creatures who have compatible romantic/sexual interests. Human-on-human flirting is new to him.
In the reblogged add-on to the snippet, the punchline in the paragraph immediately after what I shared is gonna be that the line actually works, to Mabel's bafflement—because Bill recognized he's currently flirting with someone who's as big a freak as he is.
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xie lian: cultivation and emotional repression -> delayed trauma reaction
cw non-descriptive talk about self-harm for the first few paragraphs (really nothing graphic, just mentions)
i was thinking about whether xie lian would self-harm or not in canonverse (he does harm himself in many ways but i was thinking of our contemporary trend of self-harming through cutting) and i thought he probably wouldn't since it probably wouldn't fit in the path he follows.
I think what reminded me of this was the funny subtitle in the new episode (S2 E01) "I can't drink too much or I'll go crazy" (something like that). the phrasing is funny so i remembered it. We tend to focus a lot on the sexual abstainance of his path, but his path is generally about avoiding vices and keeping his heart and mind still as a lake. or something. promiscuity and alcohol are forbidden, but so are other drugs, so is gambling, and i wouldn't be surprised if harming himself on purpose was forbidden too.
of course, xie lian repeatedly harms himself on purpose, quite a lot and quite deeply, but he always somewhat has an excuse, it's never simply gratuitous. there's always a reason: he stabs himself to escape the land of the tender, he almost swallows a sword when trying to catch the fetus spirit, he's hurt by eming when he jumps between lqq and hua cheng, there are probably other examples we could find, but it's never simply because he wants the pain.
so anyway. i came to the conclusion that harming himself on purpose probably counted as a not very in touch with his cultivation, and from then on wondered about his overall mental health. the thing about xie lian is that he is constantly detached from his... past slash emotions. he rationally knows things but he keeps them at a distance (there is a lot to be said about this and his relationship with hua cheng, from start to finish, but i'll keep this for another time).
I was thinking about how his cultivation most likely played a role in that. to be honest, it's not a bad thing at all, because going through the things he went through (even besides/after book 4), anyone else would have gone insane. but he didn't.
i always wondered about why exactly xie lian didn't give up on his cultivation rules while in banishment. because he wasn't cultivating anymore. he could have stopped following the rules. but he didn't. i always found that very interesting. i came up with several possible reasons, but i could add a new one to the list: maybe it was something that helped him not go insane.
he did not actively cultivate, but following the rules and doing his best to keep his spirit pure might have "helped" him repress the... well, the trauma. it's also a natural reaction, to be honest, but because xie lian cultivates, i think it's interesting to think about how it could have impacted this process.
Anyway. So to sum it up, I wondered about whether Xie Lian could self-harm or not, came with the conclusion that he couldn't and that cultivation also led to emotional repression (to keep a pure mind), and now, my final point:
What if the moment Xie Lian breaks his cultivation is also the moment he starts feeling all of his repressed emotions?
something very common in traumatized people is that they start feeling the effects of trauma or realizing the extent of their trauma once they are out of the situation. i always thought this would be the case with xie lian - once hua cheng is back, all is back to normal, he can live a happy life, and boom, the weight of everything that has ever happened to him gets in the way (and they sort it out, of course), but I never knew what would be the exact trigger, when it could start exactly.
now that i made the link between cultivation and repression, i definitely think it would be interesting to see Xie Lian break his cultivation, have sex with Hua Cheng, maybe marking the beginning of their married life, and then from then on, as he lets go gradually, he starts feeling the mental effects. I thought he could even think it was a bad idea, get worried about the effect of breaking his cultivation, wondering what is happening to him. they would research and eventually realize - maybe as Xie Lian processes it a bit more - that it's just a natural reaction.
i think that's all i wanted to say! this was quite long but i thought it was interesting. let me know your thoughts on this, whether you agree or not. disclaimer that I'm not chinese and do not know enough about chinese culture/philosophy to really know if this interpretation is really correct (mostly the talk about cultivation) (although it is undeniable that xie lian's cultivation in tgcf has EffectsTM on him) (maybe that will be for another post)
#tgcf thoughts#tgcf#xie lian#tgcf xie lian#tgcf meta#天官赐福#tgcf analysis#mxtx tgcf#mxtx#mine#heaven official's blessing#hualian#tgcf novel#tian guan ci fu
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1-4 ending JP -> ENG comparison
Keep in mind:
-Notes are in small text
-The / is meant to separate paragraphs (I'll use it when it gets too visually messy)
Disclaimer : I only studied Japanese for a little while. AA dialogue is pretty simple though. Also English isn't my native language either. Feel free to correct me on anything wrong here. Also note that I'm not trying to make the translations sound natural, I'm mostly trying to explain what the words are saying, sometimes I'll be more literal than others. Translation =/= localization.
Phoenix
終わったな、御剣‥‥。
Owatta na, Mitsurugi...
So, it's finally over,
Edgeworth.
Edgeworth
‥‥‥‥‥‥
…
成歩堂。
Naruhodou.
Wright.
Phoenix
ん？
N?
Yeah?
Edgeworth:
‥‥‥‥‥‥
…
‥‥その‥‥、
なんと言えばいいのか‥‥。
...Sono... nan to ieba ii no ka...
I…
I'm not sure how to say this.
Maya
そういうときはね。
“ありがとう”って言うんだよ！
Sou iu toki wa ne.
"Arigatou" tte iun da yo!
I know! I know!
Try "thank you."
Edgeworth
そ、そうなのか。
So, Sou na no ka.
I… I see.
‥‥‥‥‥‥
…
あ、ありがとう、成歩堂。
A, Arigatou, Naruhodou.
Th-thank you, Wright.
Phoenix
ど、どういたしまして。
Do, douitashimashite.
Y-you're welcome.
They sound fairly stiff here. Phoenix's response isn't exactly formal by Japanese standards... I'd say it's casual/formal, but the stuttering makes it stiffer, I feel. Also compared to how they behave in 3-5, I think it's very different. Will elaborate in a future post when I get to analyze that dialogue.
Maya
うーん‥‥イマイチ、
ハリアイがないなあ‥‥。
Uun... imaichi,
hariai ga nai naa..
I think you could have
done better than that!
Edgeworth
ム‥‥スマン。
こういうの、ニガテで‥‥。
Mu... Suman.
Kouiu no, nigate de...
Oof! S-sorry…
I'm not good at this sort of thing.
Maya
もう！ ダメだなあ、御剣検事は。
Mou! Dame da naa, Mitsurugi Kenji wa.
You got a lot to learn,
Edgeworth!
Phoenix
（‥‥やれやれ‥‥）
(...Yareyare...)
(Dear, dear…)
(this is not at all important but I noticed it's an expression Phoenix uses a lot: yare yare...)
Gumshoe
うおおおおおおおおおおおおおっ！
Uoooooooooooooh!
Whoooooooooooooop!
さすがッス！ 自分が見込んだ
だけのコトはあったッス！
Sasuga ssu! Jibun ga mikonda
dake no koto wa atta ssu!
Amazing, pal! You pulled
through just like I thought
you would!
糸鋸 圭介。この恩は一生、
わすれないッス！
Itonoko Keisuke. Kono on wa isshou,
wasurenai ssu!
I'll never forget this!
I owe you one, pal.
今夜は、パーッとやるッス！
自分がゴチソウするッス！
Kon'ya wa, paa tto yaru ssu!
Jibun ga gochisou suru ssu!
And tonight, let's party!
Dinner's on me!
今月から給料がちょっぴり
下がったッスが、気にしねッス！
Kongetsu kara kyuuryou ga choppiri
sagatta ssu ga, ki ni shine ssu!
Yeah, my salary went down
a bit this month…
But who cares!
Maya
ほらほらほら、御剣検事。
イトノコ刑事を見ならうの！
Hora hora hora, Mitsurugi Kenji.
Itonoko Keiji wo minarau no!
See, Mr. Edgeworth?
You should take a lesson
from Detective Gumshoe!
あんな感じにやると、カンシャの
キモチが伝わるんだよ！
Anna kanji ni yaru to, kansha no
kimochi ga tsutawarun da yo!
That's how you say
"thank you"!
Edgeworth
‥‥ム。
な‥‥なるほど。
...Mu.
Na.... Naruhodo.
Mmm.
I… I see.
Note how he basically says Wright's butchered JP name, which is a pun for the game (it means 'I see' / 'I understand') but it also means that the gap between them is somewhat getting narrower. It could just be for comic relief, but...note that when he attempts to thank him the first time, he calls out to him with 'Naruhodou', but now on his second attempt he says 'Naruhodo' before trying to thank him. Unfortunately the subtletly and ambiguity of this cannot be localized. By the way, he also uses 'Naruhodo' before the final trial in T&T, will elaborate on in at a later date. (I don't know whether there are other times other than these two, I haven't analyzed enough transcripts yet)
コホン。
Gohon.
ahem
う、うおおおおおおおおおっ！
U, Uooooooooh!
Whooooooooooooop!
This is, and I'm completely serious here, one of my most favourite scenes.
Note the difference between Edgeworth's and Gumshoe's shouts: in the JP, 4 'O's are missing in Edgeworth's shout, while in ENG, 1 'O' is missing - the localization was careful enough to add that tiny difference, and although I am not sure why they reduced it to one single 'O', it's still interesting they differentiated them all the same.
‥‥‥‥‥‥
…
ダメだ。‥‥ヤッパリ、
私なんか‥‥。
Dame da. ...Yappari,
Watashi nanka...
I… I feel foolish.
literal translation: No, that's not right. As I thought, / someone like me...
*'someone like me...' : the underlying message seems to be: 'As I thought, something like this/acting like this wouldn't fit someone like me'
Maya
まあまあ、少しずつ
慣れていきましょうよ。
Maa maa, sukoshi zutsu
narete ikimashou yo.
Don't worry. Take it
a little at a time.
You'll get used to it.
more literal translation: Come on, come on, little by little / let's get used to it!
It seems to me Maya says it in a way to mean something like they'll do it together, so he shouldn't worry - implying he's not alone (anymore), again Japanese can be subtle so I'm not sure, but considering Maya's empathic character, I'd say that's what she meant. In any case, she's trying to encourage him. Very sweet!
Phoenix
（こんなスナオな御剣を
見るの、１５年ぶりだな‥‥）
(Konna sunao na Mitsurugi o
miru no, juugo-nen buri da na...)
(It's been fifteen years
since I've seen Edgeworth
this… unguarded.)
more literal translation: It's been 15 years... since I've seen Edgeworth (act) this honest (with his feelings)...
Phoenix is saying that it's been a long time since he's seen Edgeworth be honest/sincere with his feelings/upfront with his feelings. The localization gets the meaning across very nicely.
Lotta
おっ、いたいた！
O, ita ita!
Hey, y'all!
Maya
あ、ナツミさん！
A, Natsumi-san!
Lotta!
Lotta
いやー、アンタら。
カッコよかったでー。
Iya, antara.
Kakkoyokatta de.
Y'all were great in there!
Phoenix
ありがとうございます。
Arigatou gozaimasu.
Thank you!
Lotta
おッ。ニイちゃん。
無罪、おめでと！
Oo, Niichan.
Muzai, omedetou!
Yo, Edgeworth!
Congrats!
Edgeworth
ム‥‥お、おおきに。
Mu... o, ookini.
Er… thank y'all very much.
ookini = 'thank you a lot' in Kansai dialect (which is the dialect Lotta uses)
I find it adorably funny that first he tries to imitate Gumshoe to thank people and now he's trying Lotta's ways...
Lotta
ウチには、最初から
わかってたんやで！
Uchi ni wa, saisho kara
wakattetan ya de!
I knew you were innocent
from the start, of course.
あんたが無罪だ、ってなあ！
Anta ga muzai da, tte naa!
Just look at you! You wouldn't
stick your hand in the cookie
jar even if no one was there!
The ENG adds a lot here which wasn't in the original. in the JP, she basically only says: 'From the start, / I knew! / That you were innocent!!'
(I think this is mostly done to convey Lotta's character, since the dialect wouldn't have been enough here to convey that I believe)
Edgeworth
‥‥たしか、初日の
検察側の証人だったような‥‥。
...Tashika, shonichi no
kensatsu-gawa no shounin datta you na...
You… were the witness
on the first day of the
trial, weren't you.
Lotta
まま。まあまあ。
細かいこと、気にしなさんな！
Ma ma. Maa maa.
Komakai koto, ki ni shinasan na!
Yeah, well, let bygones
be bygones, eh?
Phoenix
そういえば、ナツミさん‥‥、
今は、何を‥‥？
Sou ieba, Natsumi-san...,
Ima wa, nani o...?
Speaking of which, what
are you doing now, Lotta?
Lotta
おー、今か？
大学にもどったで。
Oo, ima ka?
Daigaku ni modotta de.
Who, me? Aww, I went
back to college.
スクープカメラマンになる夢は、
もうオシマイや。
Sukūpu kameraman ni naru yume wa,
mō oshimai ya.
I gave up trying to be
an investigative photographer
pretty quick.
Phoenix
そうなんですか‥‥。
Sou nan desu ka...
Really? That's too bad.
Lotta
あれ？
Are?
Huh?
Phoenix
？
?
Lotta
あそこにいるの、公園の
マンジュウ屋、ちゃうか？
Asoko ni iru no,
kōen no manjū-ya, chau ka?
Isn't that the hotdog
guy from the park?
Phoenix
‥‥え？
...E?
Huh?
Larry
‥‥死ぬんだぁ‥‥。
...Shinun daa...
It's over, Nick!
My life is over!
Phoenix
な、なんでおまえが
そんなカオしてるんだよ！
Na, nande omae ga
sonna kao shiteru nda yo!
Wh-why the sad face,
Larry!? What happened
now!?
Larry
成歩堂ぉ‥‥。
オレ、そろそろ死ぬからさぁ。
Naruhodouo...
Ore, sorosoro shinu kara saa.
Oh, Nick…
I'm not long for this world.
(Just funny how he drags Naruhodou's name out in a wail here.)
Phoenix
い、いやいやいや。
I, iya iya iya.
Uh… you don't look sick…
literally like 'n, nonono' but meaning something more like 'wa, wait wait wait' - it sounds like he's about done with Larry's histrionics and possibly shaking his head in denial...
Larry
カズミがよお‥‥パリ
暮らすって言い出して‥‥、
Kazumi ga yoo...Pari
kurasu tte iidashite...
It's Kiyance! Sh-she's goin'
to live in Paris! Paris, Nick!
置いていかれちまったんだよぉぉ！
Oiteikarechimattan da yooo!
She's leaving me behind!!!
Phoenix
（‥‥やれやれ‥‥）
(...Yare yare...)
(Larry, Larry…)
I noticed Phoenix uses this expression a lot. It's quite funny to me, reminds me of an old man that is about done with his youngings' shenanigans.
Larry
お。御剣。いたのか。
O. Mitsurugi. Ita no ka.
Yo, Edgey! There you are!
Edgeworth
ム。そりゃまあ、いる。
Mu. Sorya maa, iru.
Um, yes, here I am.
Larry
おめでとうな、御剣。
‥‥コレ、オレからのお祝い！
Omedetou na, Mitsurugi.
...Kore, ore kara no oiwai!
Congrats, Edgey!
Here… a little gift from
me in celebration!
Edgeworth
“お祝い”？ ‥‥めずらしいな。
"Oiwai"? ...Mezurashii na.
Celebration? That's unusual
for you.
Gumshoe
お。アンタも後で来るッス！
ゴチソウするッス！
O. Anta mo ato de kuru ssu!
Gochisou suru ssu!
Harry Butz! You come along
tonight too! My treat, pal!
Larry
は、はあ。
楽しみにしてます。
Ha, haa.
Tanoshiminishitemasu.
Huh? Uh… thanks!
Looking forward to it!
（オイ、成歩堂）
(Oi, Naruhodou)
(Yo, yo, Nick!)
（アイツ、オレを取り調べした
刑事だぜ‥‥）
(Aitsu, ore o toriirabeshita keiji da ze...)
(That's the suit that
questioned me!)
（ゴチソウって、まさか
カツ丼じゃねえだろうな‥‥）
(Gochisōtte, masaka
katsudon ja nee darou na...)
(When he says treat… that's
not police-talk for prison
food, right? Right?)
Phoenix
そ、それはないと思うぞ。
So, sore wa nai to omou zo.
Uh, I think you'll
be fine, Larry.
Edgeworth
‥‥成歩堂。
...Naruhodou.
Wright…
Phoenix
ん？ どうした？
N? Doushita?
Yeah? What's up?
Edgeworth
‥‥金が入っているぞ。
矢張がくれた封筒。
...Kane ga haitte iru zo.
Yahari ga kureta fūtō.
That envelope that Larry
gave me. It's got money
in it.
Phoenix
そりゃそうだろ。
“お祝い”だからな。
Sorya sou daro.
"Oiwai" dakara na.
Well, yeah. That's not that
strange. People give money
away to celebrate sometimes.
Edgeworth
３８００円だ。
3800 en da.
It's $38.00, Wright.
Phoenix
‥‥また、ずいぶんハンパな
金額だな‥‥。
...Mata, zuibun hanpa na
kingaku da na...
Huh. What a weird amount.
I mean, it's not a little,
but it's not a lot either.
‥‥‥‥‥‥
…
３８００円？
3800 en?
$38.00 exactly?
Maya
‥‥ななな、なるほどくん！
...Na na na, Naruhodo-kun!
N-N-Nick!
小学校のころ、御剣検事が盗まれた
給食費って、たしか‥‥！
Shōgakkō no koro, Mitsurugi-Kenji ga nusumareta
kyūshoku-hi tte, tashika...!
Wasn't that exactly the amount
of lunch money that was stolen
from Mr. Edgeworth in school!?
Phoenix
さ‥‥３８００円‥‥？
Sa... 3800 en...?
$38…!
ままま、まさか‥‥
Ma ma ma, masaka....
No…
(I think the shock-induced stuttering in this line might be meant to parallel Maya's previous one. Cute!)
‥‥‥‥まさかああああッ！
矢張、お前ェェェェッ！
...Masakaaaaa!
Yahari, omaeeee!
No!!!
Larry, it was you!!!
There is a fun pun lost in translation here.
Larry's JP name, Yahari, means 'after all/as expected/as I thought' - so Larry's name can be intended both as a vocative and a figure of speech here.
"After all, it was you!" = "Larry, it was you!"
The phrases basically overlap in JP, as if he were saying them at the same time.
Edgeworth
何をイロめきたっている？
成歩堂。
Nani o iromekitatte iru?
Naruhodou.
What are you so surprised
about, Wright?
Phoenix
え？
E?
Huh?
Edgeworth
たしかに矢張は、あの日
カゼで学校を休んでいた。
Tashika ni Yahari wa, ano hi
Kaze de gakkou wo yasunde ita.
Larry was absent that day
from school, right?
だが、だからといって
犯人でないという理由にはならん。
Daga, dakara to itte
hannin de nai to iu riyuu ni wa naran.
But that doesn't automatically
rule him out as a suspect.
Phoenix
え！
What?
Edgeworth
１５年前の、あの日。
15 nen mae no, ano hi.
Think back to that day,
fifteen years ago.
休んだはいいが、タイクツだった
矢張は、学校に来てみたのだろう。
Yasunda hai ga, taikutsu datta
Yahari wa, gakkou ni kite mita no darou.
Larry took the day off, but
he was bored, he came in to
school anyway.
そして、まあ‥‥、ちょっと
手が伸びてしまったんだろうな。
Soshite, maa..., chotto
te ga nobite shimatta ndarou na.
Then he saw the money
lying there… and the
rest is history.
Larry
伸びちまったんだろうねえ、
イヤハヤ、これが‥‥。
Nobichimattan darou nee,
iyahaya, kore ga...
I never was good at History!
Heh…
The joke is a bit different here, Edgeworth jokes that Larry's hand must have 'stretched out' , but I suppose 'slipped' is more apt. And Larry is like 'Yeah, guess it must have slipped!' The translation would be something like:
Edgeworth: And, well, / his hand must have ended up slipping (must have slipped).
Larry: Yeah, guess it must have slipped, / eheh, well...
Phoenix
‥‥‥‥‥‥
…
御剣‥‥まさかお前、
‥‥知ってたのか？
Mitsurugi... Masaka omae,
...Shitteta no ka?
Edgeworth… you didn't
know, did you?
Edgeworth
‥‥アヤシイとは思っていた。
...Ayashii to wa omotteita.
I suspected.
literal translation: I thought it was suspicious.
(I find it endearing that he suspected but didn't say anything - despite how he acts, Edgeworth is really a softie most times, even towards Larry who he has the rightful urge to murder more often than not)
いつもの矢張なら、
お前をかばうのはオカシイ。
Itsumo no Yahari nara,
Omae o kabau no wa okashii.
I just couldn't picture Larry
protecting you like he did
that day.
みんなといっしょになって、
ここぞとばかり責めたてただろう。
Minna to issho ni natte,
Kokozo to bakari semetate daro.
Everyone else was saying
you did it. The whole class
was against you, remember?
Phoenix
‥‥うむむむむ。
... Umumumumu.
Yeah… too well.
Phoenix's blabbering is hilarious here. He's in utter denial. Like he's nodding at what he's saying but he's refusing the knowledge to enter his brain.
Edgeworth
成歩堂。もしかしたら
お前は知らないかもしれないが、
Naruhodou. Moshikashitara
Omae wa shiranai kamoshirenai ga,
Wright, you may not know this,
but we used to have a saying
back in school.
この男は、こう言われていたんだ。
“事件のカゲにヤッパリ矢張”と。
Kono otoko wa, kou iwarete ita nda.
"Jiken no kage ni yappari Yabari" to.
"When something smells,
it's usually the Butz."
The saying actually means :
'In the shadow of an incident/trouble, after all, there is Larry'
There is the usual pun 'yappari Yahari' so I think the localization of the saying and his name was done very well to render the original meaning.
Phoenix
そのコトバなら、イヤというほど
思い知らされてるよ！
Sono kotoba nara, iya to iu hodo
omoishirasa reteru yo!
I know, I know.
I would translate this more to:
'If you're saying that, why didn't you tell me!'
Edgeworth
‥‥いやあ、成歩堂。まさか、
キミが気づいていなかったとは。
...Iyaa, Naruhodou. Masaka,
Kimi ga kizuite inakatta to wa.
Really, Wright. I'm surprised
you didn't figure it out!
'...Why, Wright. It can't be, / you hadn't realized.'
This is so funny to me, in both versions. In JP it sounds a bit more teasing and cocky, but still.
It sounds like to Edgeworth, shouting objection and reprimanding his classmates and teacher as a 9 year old was no big deal. So he didn't care to mention, thought Phoenix would figure it out. If not, no big deal.
To Phoenix, it was life-changing. Phoenix is having a (mid) life crisis.
Larry
意外だねこりゃあ。
Igai da ne koryaa.
Well, this is sure an
unexpected turn of
events, eh?
Phoenix
‥‥御剣。
... Mitsurugi.
Edgeworth…
Edgeworth
ん？
N?
Hmm?
Phoenix
言えよ！
Ieyo!
You should have told me!
Here it may look like a whole different thing but it's mostly that there is no other natural way to translate this. 'Ieyo' is just the imperative of the verb 'ieru', 'to tell'.
It kinda gives the feeling of 'But (then) tell me, dammit!'
Maya
まあまあ、なるほどくん。
もう１５年前のコトでしょ？
Maa maa, Naruhodo-kun.
Mou juugo-nen mae no koto desho?
Now, now, Nick. It was
fifteen years ago!
これって“じこう”ってヤツ
だよね？ 御剣検事。
Kore tte "jikou" tte yatsu
da yo ne? Mitsurugi Kenji.
Don't you think the "statute
of limitations" has run out,
Mr. Edgeworth?
Edgeworth
そういうこと、だな。
Souiu koto, da na.
I'd say so, yes.
Larry
そういうことだよ。
Souiu koto da yo.
There you have it!
In JP version, I found it funny how Larry parrots Edgeworth's words.
'Souiu koto' means 'it's like that'.
Phoenix
‥‥まったく‥‥。
...Mattaku,,,
Grr…
お前らにカンシャして弁護士に
なったぼくの立場はどうなるんだ？
Omaera ni kansha shite bengoshi ni
natta boku no tachiba wa dou narun da?
Where does that leave me!?
I became a defense attorney
because of what you two did!
Edgeworth
感動的なまでのお人よし、
といったところだろうか。
Kandō-teki na made no o-hito yoshi,
to itta tokoro darou ka.
Well, I'd call you a
goody-two-shoes to the
extreme.
Larry
とんだお調子モノ、とも
言えるよナ！
Tonda o-chōshimono, tomo
ieru yo na!
Yeah! And you get worked up
too easily, too!
Phoenix
し、死刑だ！
コイツを死刑にしてくれェッ！
Shi, shikei da!
Koitsu o shikei ni shite kuree!
D-death! The death sentence
for both of you!
‥‥こんなことなら、
検事になりゃよかったあ！
...Konna koto nara,
kenji ni narya yokattaa!
Man, if I only had known, I'd
have become a prosecutor!
Edgeworth
‥‥それは私も同じだ。
...Sore wa watashi mo onaji da.
The same goes for me, only
the other way around…
“もしかしたら、自分は父親を
撃ってしまったのかもしれない”
"Moshikashitara, jibun wa chichioya o
utte shimatta no kamoshirenai"
For the longest time,
I thought that I might
have killed my own father.
These are provided as literal phrases he thought:
'Could it be, I myself was the one that ended up shooting my father.'
“自分は罪人かもしれない”
"Jibun wa zainin kamoshirenai"
I thought I might be
a criminal.
"What if I'm a criminal, myself.'
‥‥私は、そういう自分を
罰する意味もあって検事になった。
…Watashi wa, sou iu jibun o
batsu suru imi mo atte kenji ni natta.
I became a prosecutor in
part to punish myself.
Basically the same, but instead of saying 'in part' he says that was one of the reasons.
He says he became a prosecutor for that reason as well (among others), the reason being that of punishing himself.
‥‥こんなことなら、
弁護士になりたかったよ。
...Konna koto nara,
bengoshi ni naritakatta yo.
If I had known the truth,
I might have become a
defense attorney after all.
'If it were like this (if I had known), I would have wished to become a defense attorney.'
The way he says it seems way more heartbreaking in Japanese.
Naritakatta = wanted to become, which here becomes 'I would have wanted to become' because of context. I translated it as 'would have wished' because it seems more apt here. Naritakatta expresses a desire for something you had wanted in the past. 'I would have gone for being a defense attorney'...
It indicates that someone wanted to become or achieve something at some point in the past, but for some reason, they were not able to fulfill that desire.
Phoenix
‥‥御剣。
... Mitsurugi.
Edgeworth…
Edgeworth
かわるか、成歩堂。
Kawaru ka, Naruhodou.
Want to switch, Wright?
Says the same thing... and it sounds so resigned in both versions. It's curt, and their conversation ends just like that. Breaks my heart.
#ace attorney#narumitsu#phoenix wright#miles edgeworth#wrightworth#aa musings#musings#aa localization
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please give writing tips too
sure love! everyone’s different so in no way would the same things work for all but these are some tips that have helped me improve and just you know expand my horizons.
feel free to add your own points to this to help people more!!
001. READ READ AND READ (I CAN’T STRESS ENOUGH ON THIS BUT THIS IS THE MAIN KEY). be it fics, or novels or normal story books even non-fiction. reading will help in expanding your vocabulary and grammar, and give you an idea on how to build words in different kinds of scenarios. how to set the mood and what kind of details will have the most impact.
002. for expanding your vocabulary i would suggest searching up words you come across and don’t know the meaning of. don’t skip them, search them up and try understanding what they mean and look through what other words have similar meanings(synonyms)
003. CONSTANTLY PRACTICE WRITING. even if you’re not going to post it anywhere, just try writing a little bit on different themes. in that way you will be able to find out more about your writing style and flair as well as what points you need to work on.
004. STOP HESITATING TO REWRITE. there’s hardly anything one gets right at the first shot. and the same goes for writing. rewriting pieces will help you figure out what you should’ve added that you didn’t the first time and how changing the order of words or adding new literary devices(metaphors, similes, anecdotes etc) can make more of an impact.
005. DON’T BE AFRAID TO EXPLORE DIFFERENT GENRES. just 100 words can also help with experience. search up different genres that interest you and try coming up with a short scenario if you can.
13 points more under the cut!
006. TRIAL AND ERROR. don’t be let down if you fail to write a specific type of au, theme or trope. it takes certain amount of time and experience to be able to write different genres or anything as such. you need to have exposure to that topic to be able to create imagination on it.
007. with that being said, when you pick up a certain trope, au, theme or any topic you want/plan to write on: DO PROPER AND A LOT OF RESEARCH. trust me, it helps a lot.
008. as well in relation to the point above when writing a story, make sure to plan a rough outline. what kind of characters you’re going for, what events are going to define your story, how do you want the ending and the beginning to be. what your protagonist(s) is going for, what all they would be facing throughout and such.
009. SET A MORAL/POINT OF VIEW YOU WANT TO CONVEY through your writing. it helps you have a basis, a particular aim and drive behind what you wish to leave an impression through. it could be anything complex like dark themes of toxicity or even anything as simple as comfort. you just need to know what you’re writing for.
010. for inspiration i would suggest, LISTENING TO SONGS. any song you’re listening to, try thinking of a story behind it. for example let’s take taylor swift’s “no body no crime” go through the lyrics, the vibe and think what type of story could have this as background music. or what kind of a story could have that type of no body no crime summary?
011. KNOW WHEN TO SHOW THINGS RATHER THAT TELLING THEM. too much of anything is never good. when writing, it’s important to keep the balance between descriptions, narratives and dialogues. try thinking what are the things that would be better when described, for example the relationship between your characters: it’s something which is better shown than told. like how they treat each other, how they see each other, their dynamics in general is not something that can be told through a big lengthy dialogue or JUST one paragraph(short drabbles being an exception)
012. an additional point to the one above would be, try keeping yourself in the reader’s position and see what pulls you in more. what makes you feel the emotions better.
013. PICTURE THE SETTING YOU WANT TO WRITE ON. close your eyes and think of any type of place that you would like to write the story in. a suburb? or an abandoned city for an apocalypse? this will help in brainstorming for ideas.
014. INTO THE CHARACTER’S MIND. this is a very important point. explore the world within the mind of the character, something that defines them. THIS IS ANOTHER BIG KEY TO IMPROVE, pull your readers into the character(s)’ mind, show them the fears, the memories, the feelings, the thoughts, the hopes and dreams. it helps them understand the character and get into the story.
015. when using dialogues keep in mind that the DIALOGUES SHOULD ALWAYS BE MEANINGFUL AND REALISTIC. unnecessary talks aren’t often attractive so write what is necessary, needed. even with humor, excessive fun is not always impressive. and short but impactful dialogues always literally always leave the best impression.
016. CHALLENGE YOURSELF. try starting off strong since the very beginning. strong meaning starting off with words that leave a lasting impression. or words that pull you in with intrigue.
017. LEARN TO PACE YOURSELF. first of all it’s okay to take a break. actually its very important. pushing yourself beyond limits would never give positive results. know when you need to stop, cause being tired is not going to give better ideas or better word building. let yourself go into writer’s block, don’t fight it. you’ll come back better than when you’re forcing yourself to stay put and continue.
018. and last but not least. KNOW THAT IMPROVEMENT TAKES TIME. don’t be disappointed or discouraged if you are not good today. not being good today doesn’t mean you won’t ever be good. keep trying and with little to little progress over time, you will see yourself getting there. don’t lose hope🤗! YOU CAN DO IT!!!
#﹙あり.﹚ 𝓯𝐚𝐞𝐫𝒾𝐞 𝓰𝐨𝐬𝐬𝒊𝐩 !#﹙⪩⪨.﹚ 𝒎𝒚 𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐥𝐬 ˃̵ᴗ˂̵#🦢̼ࣳ ⋆ ٫٫ ⁽ anon ₎#WRITINGtips#enhypen imagines#txt imagines
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There Will Come Soft Rains by @tunastime
Wedding Bands only need Three Gold Pieces by wisteriaworlds / @percivex
Where and How our Fires Burn by @plumelagoon
After a week of printing, cutting, and gluing, I have finally finished a long-held goal of mine to bind these three fanfics!
After the last mammoth bookbinding project, I wanted to do something simple for a change. So, I decided to bind some Rancher Duo fics for my personal enjoyment while using some of the cheapest materials and leftover stuff that I can find. While the overall binding process was comparatively simpler, there were also a few new tricks I use in the making of these ficbooks.
If I could sum it up, I would say that these ficbinds are a sort-of "working experiment". As in, experimenting in making, gluing, and putting what goes where at which sections of the book.
For starters, the endpapers of various feathers are just cut sections of present-wrapping paper I found at a store. I intended to use a different paper pattern for the inside cover/endpaper, but ran out of that and bought the feather one instead. Given how Jimmy is head-cannoned and written as a canary of death, it's serendipitously fitting.
I also went for simplicity at the spine; just a long piece of cardstock. Simple and effective, yet somehow it went wonky for one book when it came to gluing. Why? How? I don't know!
Experimentation was afoot from the title page alone. The first two fics are titled plainly, but I decided to place a semi-transparent visual of a feather at the last ficbind, just to test the visual look. I'd say it looks a lot more interesting and fits the fic's vibe, though I also like the simplicity of the last two title pages.
The front matter (or information page/s) was also a place where slight experiments were done, namely at keeping all the information contained to one page. If there is just too much info, can I make it a two-page spread without it looking like a boring wall of text? And lastly: is there enough room to add the AO3 logo and my own?
The second and third ficbinds use symbols as dividers between different sections of info, and the third ficbind has no logo - more on that later.
I then experimented on the first page: could I use pictures or visuals to set the mood for the fic? Each picture was taken from the internet and edited to fit the page, though it look me literal hours to find the right pictures to use in the first place.
The titles have a pop of red color to make for an interesting visual effect. Soft Rains and How Our Fires Burn also have drop caps at their opening paragraphs to see if it fits with the visual look and layout.
There Will Come Soft Rains was also the first time I did some fancy editing in regards to the letter-writing sections of the fic. The paper background was easy, but it took some time to find the exact fonts that could fit Tango and Jimmy's writing vibe. I also divided Tango and Jimmy's perspectives with thematic dividers - a cowboy hat and redstone block, naturally.
I then repeated the visual vibe at the opening pages for the ending. As Wedding Bells ended at the left page, the opposite right page was a singular photo that conveys the vibe of the fic's ending. Since the other two ficbinds ended at the right page, I tried to come up with a way of conveying the emotional touchstone of their endings and settled on a double-page spread of photos.
Setting the photos to that they seem to meet at the center was a bit finicky, and it ultimately did not print as a seamless whole. Still, I like the effect those photos give to the ending(s).
Same concept, but simplified at the End Notes. I ultimately feel the simplified visuals of the latter ficbinds ended up better than the complete picture of my first attempt.
Also, remember how one ficbind, Where and How Our Fires Burn, did not have the logos at the front matter / information page? That's because that fic was when I experimented with a colophon and placed the logos of AO3 and my own there. Thinking about it, I may not use this method if I want to make a simple bookbind that saves pages, but definitely will for bigger projects.
Full credits for all these fics to their writers!
#solidaritek#team rancher#rancher duo#jimmy solidarity#solidaritygaming#tangotek#bookbinding#fanbinding#ficbinding#my bookbinds#Keystone Publishing#MCYT
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Solo Leveling Episode 7 Thoughts
Excellent ep!!! Spoilery thoughts for the anime, novel, and manhwa below, CW: blood:
Jinwoo and Jinah are so cute together T-T I love them being close sibs. I mean obviously he helped essentially raise her since he was 14, when their dad disappeared and their mom was too ill to do everything, and then fully did so after he graduated because their mother was comatose, and I just... think about that a lot. This kid who has to raise another kid and never got to finish being a kid himself and had to immediately go into the workforce and give up going to university and he just wants her to have the opportunities he didn't and I just T-T
I feel like I accidentally am vibing with this because I got fried chicken on the way home from errands today, completely unaware this was going to be in the episode.
I love Jinah asking about him and how he's doing. Makes up for calling him a cheapskate >.< I mean to be fair to her, I grew up in a household that struggled for money and I was completely clueless about why we often didn't get stuff, though my parents really tried to spoil us to the extent they could. I do get it. It's realistic in my experience to react this way, especially when the younger person is kept clueless about finances. It's just T-T sometimes. But I do love that she cares about his mental health.
Jinwoo just processing his first murder(s) essentially alone cause he certainly didn't confide in Jinho and he is the older brother with a sister in high school who is just living a normal life and wants her to be happy and so cannot confide in Jinah and it kills me he kind of doesn't do this with anyone, ever T-T Sort of when the Hunters manager warns him, but not on an emotional level. I mean to be fair he's also kind of just, "I resented them for thinking they had a chance against me," which is pretty dark lol But he's obviously really conflicted about that cause these were humans.
Jinwoo has one goal and that is protecting the people he loves. He's pragmatic. I think it's interesting he doesn't focus as much on "they tried to kill me multiple times, it was self-defense and defense of another person". Just... "My family is what's important and I'd do it again if I have to." Which, yes, that's a consideration you can have.
I mean he "could" have incapacitated the Lizards, maybe, rather than killing them, but he's not trained to do that, lacked equipment for it, and in the moment it's hard to process that. It just bothers me he doesn't really do any actual emergency training or whatever other than just building up muscle, EXP, and fighting/movement skills. Even his healing solution is just... shove a potion in people's mouths and it's unclear if he has literally any training in first aid of any kind outside that time he helps Song Chiyul wrap his arm.
Also Jinwoo is still really cute :3 He's animated well.
Hehe learning about the detox, poor guy lol I honestly do love the detail that the system detects alcohol as a harmful substance. It's fun when stories add it in.
Jinah worried about him drinking too much T-T They love each other T-T I love themmm
(just skip down three paragraphs if you don't care about my rant about cellphones lol)
One criticism I have because I always focus on the appearance or absence of mobile phones in modern stories where they should be there: the novel focuses a decent amount on how Jinwoo's cellphone broke in the double dungeon, and he has to get a replacement specifically from the Korean Hunter's Association, and that is completely absent from both the manhwa and the anime, and the anime is compensating weirdly. The novel explains, "Hunter-issue smartphones used specialized technology, so Jinwoo had to put in a request directly with the association." (Vol 1, Chapter 4). So the phone does more than just allowing the Hunter's Association easy access to hunters (I think at one point it's shown it works inside the dungeons, when most technology does not, so I imagine it's powered somehow by mana/essence stones). Jinwoo doesn't have the money to speed up the process, so he has to wait for multiple weeks for them to provide him with a new one, and he forgets to take care of it until I think after he's out of the hospital, so that puts off the process even longer. This means: the association cannot contact him except via landline, and anyone with his cell number cannot do so either, unless, presumably, they have his landline number. In the novel, Jinwoo demands an explanation from Jinho for how Jinho has the number on the presumed landline (it's just called "phone" in the Yen press English translation, I don't know why he wouldn't have his cellphone if he has one in the anime outside his bedroom where Jinah is, and I can't imagine Jinho getting Jinah's cell number, or why the Association would have it other than maybe as an emergency contact, which, again, why would he get that number and I feel like Jinwoo would kill him if he did lol), and Jinho explains that he knows someone at the Association.
Most of this revolves initially around various people trying to contact Jinwoo during this non-cellphone time and not getting to him because he literally does not have a phone and, presumably, they don't have his landline number. The nurse whose number he got tries to contact him via his mobile and nearly gives up by the time he gets his phone back to see her messages. Like many related subplots, this is also part of showing that Jinwoo is just... bad at keeping in touch with people lol (I mean he explains, sadly, in the novel, "No one ever calls me anyway." (Vol 1, Chapter 4). But he gave this woman his number and ultimately decides to ignore her/not respond when he sees all the messages she sent him rather than saying literally anything like, "Sorry I was out of touch" or whatever, or just politely turning her down. He does this for most people: most of his interaction with his cellphone is to decide not to use it lol I can see why the manhwa dropped this plot nearly entirely (except for a later modification, which I really like) because it feels clunky. But it creates this weird scenario where... it's South Korea, Jinwoo doesn't have a ton of money but he's doing fine-ish enough to have a giant TV and a computer, and he needs his phone for work. Phones and mobile phones in particular exist in the anime (e.g., we see Woo Jinchul use one, Dongsoo crushes one). So one would ask: why does he not have a cellphone (and when/how did Jinho get his number)? And unrelated: why doesn't his email almost ever get used? The webnovel released in 2016, both would have been commonplace things then; I mean the guy goes onto a forum to ask if other people have leveled up in the novel; it would have been a lot simpler to have Jinho send him an email, though I guess I appreciate the added Jinwoo & Jinah bonding created by keeping this to some extent.
It doesn't ultimately matter in the grand scheme of things. It was really one of the weaker elements of the story and it's really incredibly minor. I can, again, see why the manhwa dropped it and why the anime is side-stepping it when considering what to adapt. But anyway, that was my aside of "how cellphone usage/lack of it when it should be there changes stories". (Also for the record, I think it's good he didn't respond to the nurse, in the end, because that entire plotline is really creepy and probably violates some ethics, but it's also so completely unnecessary).
Jinho pointing out the fight with the Lizards was self-defense :3 Good!
The "this cafe sells coffee" glamour shots are making me laugh, I don't know why lol
One thing that's always intrigued me with this series, and I don't know if this is common to the genre or something, maybe it is, is how much buildings are used as collateral. Like it is a simple truth that buildings are a very core part of value for wealthy people and organizations. Real estate is where big money is made. A lot of people in power literally control large chunks of your local real estate. But a similar story would probably just say like... "I can wire x money to you as needed". Instead this just upfront goes, "I'm rich, but here's this really big money item you could have: a building." It's just neat.
O.o Jinwoo doesn't take Jinho's offer. That's interesting. He does take the offer in both the novel and the manhwa, so I'm unsure about why the change? Maybe it combines into his realization that he needs to level up to face enemies past Cerberus and Jinho is a convenient way to do that.
Dongsoo's Japanese voice actor (Junichi Suwabe) has too pretty a voice for Dongsoo alkdjaldja Like he sounds unfairly beautiful aldkjalalkj (Unsurprising for the guy who voiced Viktor in Yuri on Ice) I don't precisely know what I expected him to sound like, and I'd love to see who they picked for the Korean dub, but alkdjal dang. To be fair... he did also voice Jaeha in Yona of the Dawn, and Grimmjow in Bleach, so I'm not that surprised the actor sounds good... I just. Wow. Salud. I don't know that this works for Dongsoo (at least for me) but he does at least sometimes play annoying dudes lol (I love you Jaeha and Grimmjow, and Viktor and Oda, but still aldkjalj).
Stop fatshaming your sister Jinwoo. You deserved that kick even if you did not at all feel it.
Bonding time ruined T-T
The way the buttons on the system get clicked is such a satisfying look/sound.
O.O oh, Jinwoo's learning about the Elixir of Life way early. That's intriguing! In the novel and manhwa he doesn't learn until way later. The anime is really focusing overall on making his goal centrally about caring for his family rather than more about improvement for the sake of improvement (I mean in the novel it feels kind of like 60/40 trade-off with the former being improvement). I get why the change: it makes him more sympathetic. And it also makes him look less strange for trying this difficult dungeon early, and for why he focuses so hard on getting back to it, even before he knew about the elixir. Also gives him a solid goal for season 2.
The gentle piano is lovely, and really sets the mood well. Jinwoo has a lot on the line: his mother's health, caring for his sister, beyond his own survival. The juxtaposition is really good.
As someone who loves Greek myths, I have seen a lot of designs for Cerberus (I have two plushie three-headed dogs, including the Cerberus from Hades the video game). Can't say I'm a fan of this design lol It's fine. It's functional. It's a very good remake of the manhwa design. I guess it just... didn't look as eh. It moves well and works, and the team did a good job. I think just... seeing more of it highlights how I really don't care for the design lol Dubu/the team were really good at designing some monsters, but not others.
The fight is really amazing and well-paced, though. Though it's an interesting change that the system is the one reminding Jinwoo about the gland during this fight, rather than him doing it on his own (he figures it out after discovering the detox in both the novel and manhwa). I like him making the connection on his own. Jinwoo can be a little thick a lot, but he is pretty intelligent, and that was one of his smarter moments. Ah well.
Will never get tired of his eyes glowing in shots. His wounds steaming as they heal is also a neat effect.
He's getting the Elixir of Life recipe early too :3 That makes sense. Would be weird if they bring that up early and don't reference it again for... goodness I don't even know that they'll come back to it before the season ends. I don't think we will, because I wouldn't be surprised if the season ends with the Igris fight. But it gives something to look forward to for maybe season 2.
Also he gets the dog collar :3 BUT... like the manhwa we don't see him put it on lol In the novel he's really nervous about people seeing him wear it, but canonically speaking, particularly since he never seems to take his armor off other than to exchange it for improved gear, he puts this on and wears an invisible dog collar through a good chunk of the story (until he gets a better neckpiece) lol Love it. Ah well. Would have been funny to see animated but they are generally sticking to the manhwa, so. It would be funny if I was proven wrong <.< Have him put on the collar, anime!!
All in all, a really good episode, with some great animation, some more lovely music, and some lovely moments between Jinwoo and Jinah. This continues the trend of modifying stuff in interesting ways. Looking forward to episode 8!
More episode thoughts:
S01E05
S01E06
S01E07 (you are here)
S01E08
S01E09
S01E10
S01E11
S01E12
#solo leveling#solo leveling spoilers#sung jinwoo#yoo jinho#woo jinchul#great episode#fallfthoughts#sung jinah#hwang dongsoo#나 혼자만 레벨업
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I honestly love the way you write your fanfics! I'm planning on writing my own but im not really good at writing one (I know this because of past works i did). Any tips to share?
LONG POST BELOW Also this is just my opinion, and I’d love to hear what everyone else thinks!
My best advice is to write the stories anyway. Even if you never post them, if you have something finished, you have something to edit. It's easier to see plotting mistakes, inconsistent character voices, and weak exposition in a finished piece.
The plotting process is different for everyone, and I don’t plug my story into a 3 Act outline, but it’s a good idea to have an understanding of some of these structures. Especially if you’re just starting out, it kind of gives you a base to build off of and gets you thinking about smaller sections of your story. I also always suggest knowing your middle before you even start writing. Many people (including myself lol) have really good beginning and ending ideas, but struggle to connect them. Even if it's just one sentence explaining the middle, then you at least have something to work off of. An unclear/unknown middle will kill a story, trust me.
Now, writing style is subjective, but I think what's around the style is what people focus on when they say ‘I don’t/do like this writing style’. For example, I started with poetry, so a lot of my prose reads like a poem in certain spots. Now, this gives me interesting sentences, but not good paragraphs. It’s the delicate balance of explanations around those sentences that’s typically the hardest part. Too much or too little can be glaringly obvious to a reader, and it can be hard to find a sweet spot. I personally struggle with too much when explaining action. I have an example below:
Example below is from an old personal work so be kind lol.
Brianna flicks the dead blunt over the banister and bumps Imani on the shoulder on her way back to the party. Imani nods in acknowledgment but she follows the blunt as long as she can to the ground below. She doesn’t see it land, but her eyes snag on single red cup. Her cup, she’s sure of it. How did she find herself in this cycle of shitty interactions that end with her buzzed and alone on this railing. Imani should be in there dancing, making memories that she’ll laugh about and decisions that she’ll regret. Not introspecting like some philosophical bitch.
Now, the above isn’t bad but it definitely has a chunky beginning.
Brianna bumps Imani in solidarity and flicks the dying blunt over the railing. Imani doesn’t look up when the girl leaves, instead, she tracks the faint glow as far down as she can. She doesn’t see it land, but her eyes snag on a single cup in a sea of red. It’s the one she dropped, she’s sure of it. How does she always find herself in this shitty cycle that ends with her buzzed and alone? She should be in there dancing, making memories and decisions that she’ll regret. Not introspecting like some philosophical bitch.
See? The first two sentences had too much explained action, so it took away from the scene and the solid sentences at the end. The second one condenses those actions into something more character driven. Which is another point to keep in mind: What can your character voice add to this scene? Even if you’re describing the world, you’re doing it from the POV of the character. What word choice would they use? Is it big or is it massive? Is it a warm sun or an unforgiving one? Even one line of character observation in a paragraph can change the entire feel.
Even in the example above “bump in solidarity” hints at the conversation before this sentence. You don’t have to read it to know Brianna was comforting her about something. Just the fact that Imani sees it as a solidarity motion tells you everything you need to know.
I don’t know if that helps, but those are some of my broad tips that I keep in mind when I’m writing.
#writing#writing process#writblr#personal writing#writing tips#long post#writing excerpt#writing discussion#fiction writing#ao3#ao3 fanfic#fanfic#fanfiction#plotting#original characters
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hey so this is frankly wayy later than I thought it would be but my dear beloved mutual @briefcasejuice asked for batfam fic recs that are (in my opinion) accurate to canon characterization, and they specifically said they're most familiar with jason and damian so that's what they wanted me to focus on. he also asked for no ship fic so it's all batfamily focused
many of these are repeats but that's just because they're so damn good
first and foremost, Make a Little Birdhouse in Your Soul, which I have said on the record is my favorite Jason fic and I stand by it. I think it absolutely understands Jason to an extreme degree, and I like how it makes Jason take accountability for his actions. extremely believable character development, beautiful writing, and the sequel adds Damian into the mix absolutely beautifully
The 70 Days After Groundhog Day is another one I've recommended before. this one focuses on Jason & Dick's relationship. it's told through Dick's POV, but it's about the aftermath of a time loop that Jason was stuck in. cw that a couple of scenes deal heavily with past sexual assault/rape
I like Nests and Cages because I too find it incredibly interesting that Jason thought Shiva could have been his mother, and his ethnic ambiguity has simply never been brought up since. also I love Cass in this. anyway yeah it's just about Jason's parentage and him finding himself and on the way rejoining the batfam
Minefield is literally too much to explain in one paragraph, each fic is really its own thing. I'm linking it mostly for Harvest, in which Jason and Bruce spend a long time together more or less isolated on the Kents' farm. it's emotionally raw and incredibly authentic
3:16 is an au where Bruce actually really did die in Final Crisis, and focuses on Dick's developing relationship with Damian. it's incredibly steeped in various canons and also will hurt your soul. it's incomplete but still updating semi-regularly, and also frankly because almost every chapter is a standalone you can read it as a collection of short stories most of the time
Assassins and Animal Crossing is about Damian playing Animal Crossing. I figure we all deserve some fluff considering how absolutely insanely emotional this list has been so far. and will continue to be.
one of my absolute favorite dynamics to explore is Tim and Damian's, which is done incredibly well in The Study of Birds. Damian and Tim find out they have something in common - they both enjoy birding. character development ensues
and a couple last Jason focused fics, both featuring the rebirth outlaws team - first is Retrogade Motion, which is The de-aging fic in my eyes, it just does so much with the concept and doesn't cop out on the consequences. second is we're a gang, friends, which relies heavily on both post-crisis continuity and early rebirth before sort of doing its own thing for a bit there.
and here's another fluff fic that's not incredibly rooted in a canon but makes me laugh just to close us out - Life in the Fast Lane. I just like it a lot.
enjoy :D
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Hey! I think youre an amazing writer and i really look up to you. Ive been reading your works since reylo, you inspired me to write my own reylo stuff. I think youre wonderful and could read your works over and over again. I was just wondering if I could ask you advice. I'm trying to get into writing second person pov fanfic, but I'm terrible at it. I can write it from third person or first person no problem. I was wondering if you had any tips.
oh thank you, i really appreciate that!!! and im so glad you're giving writing a shot!! honestly it's so tough to actually make the decision to sit down and write something and then show it to other people (and it's very scary and kind of humbling as you get better and better and look back at your old work haha) so that's so awesome!!
i actually wrote so much beneath this so i needed the "read more" lmaooo
actually, i'll tell you what, when you first transition from writing 1st or 3rd person to writing in 2nd person, it feels weird and abnormal, but i've actually grown to love 2nd pov. i just love the way it sounds in my head when i'm constructing a sentence. and tbh there's actually not a huge difference from writing 1st and 2nd pov in my opinion.
like my general thoughts around 2nd pov are:
obviously since it's an internal dialogue (like the perspective is rooted in the person you're writing from rather than some omniscient 3rd pov), while you can still describe what's happening on the main character's face ("you purse your lips" "you frown, annoyed" etc), it's still coming from their perspective, so there's a level of depth there that other characters around them don't have. like Price in my western fic is a bit more mysterious on account of him not being a narrator figure in the story.
if you're using 2nd pov because you're writing an x reader fic, and you want to keep your reader character quite neutral, ensure that you're avoiding big descriptors like skin colour, hair texture/length, body size (unless you're specifically writing a fat reader or a reader with a specific body type, in which case, go wild!), height, etc. your reader character is never going to be 100% neutral, but just pay attention to any descriptors you add and you can make sure they're as neutral as can be.
this is probably obvious, but you don't have to start every sentence with "you did x" or "you said y" or whatever. you can still be loose and flexible with your sentences like you might be in a 3rd person narration. like, i'll take apart a paragraph from my fic and highlight where i've added the "you/your" pov:
The worry making your body tense and stiff finally releases once you’re alone. You curl up on the bed without pulling down the sheets or taking your dress off. The journey's left you weak, sapped of energy. Worn down to your base elements. Hardly unexpected after what you’ve gone through, after leaving behind a cooling body two states away. The days since have left you sick with worry, nerves shot when you consider how the authorities will look to you first, the maid, and find in your absence all the answers they need.
notice that i only started one sentence with "you" here. i think some people mistake using 2nd pov for thinking that the entire story/fic has to be a direct narration of what the character is doing (i.e. "you walk to the end of the hall and then you sit down. you notice a silver bullet on the table near you. you pick it up.") but that's not the case.
the narration is coming from this character, yes, but it's also still a story. this is hard to describe, but there's almost a weird, unconscious 3rd pov in the story at the same time, like you're looking down at this narrator and you're speaking through them, but you still have some externality. in order to tell an evocative, interesting story, you HAVE to know and notice at least a bit more than your narrator consciously does.
this kind of mirrors real life in a way actually because your brain picks up a lot of information that you as a person don't consciously absorb. it's why humans are able to have quick reflexes and dodge/duck things or whatever without realizing what they're doing. (look up "unconscious perception"). you can do this with 1st pov as well, but 1st pov is very useful for stream of consciousness stories or really getting into a character's head. 2nd pov is still governed by that narrator character, but it's picking up on other details and information in the surrounding environment.
anyway i hope this is in any way helpful haha - it's how i like to think of writing in 2nd pov!
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HERE WE GO! WELCOME TO THE PAGE PALS PROJECT! THIS IS YOUR CONVERSATION STARTER FOR CHAPTER ONE. FEEL FREE TO SEND IN ASKS OR JOIN THE DISCORD FOR MORE!
HANDY LINKS/INFO:
chapter: i. out of sand (baby girl)
wordcount: 10, 157
playlist: notes here
castles FAQ: here
g e n e r a l t h o u g h t s:
I felt very emotional, beginning this chapter. There is a sense of finality in this project that I hadn't quite grasped before. This is - in all probability - the last time I read this fic. This is the last time I read this chapter. A chapter I have read dozens of times in the past few years - every time I was stuck, every time I needed to 'get back in.' Most of these paragraphs roll off the tip of my tongue when I read them out loud, because I've seen them so many times. And, I know that for you, reading this, this might not be the last time. Because you will go back, re-read this fic as many times as you like for as long as the internet exists. But I won't. That's not how my brain works, and I need to put projects behind me. To make room for new ones. And, so there is a sense of excitement, yes, reaching the end, but also a sense of grief.
If everything goes well, and if I do post the last chapter when I intend to, castles will have been four years of my life, almost to the day. COVID came and went, so did a couple of jobs, a relationship, a parent. I recently listened to an interview from Alexandre Astier where he described meeting someone in a supermarket once, who asked for an autograph for her husband. 'Ah, he's a massive fan,' she said. 'Though, to be honest, I never got into your work myself.' He was talking about how, for 'normal' people, people who aren't artists, someone else's art is just that: something that you like or don't like. But, for us, it's a part of ourselves. It's thousands of hours of work. And, sometimes, I wonder what castles says about me. What these thousands of hours have come down to. If I die tomorrow, which I hope I do not, this is one the things that I will leave behind me. And, so: what does it say about me? I mean: beyond the politics and the feminism and the quirky little interests. I mean: me, as a person. What do castles readers know about me? I'm not sure I even want to know.
t h e r e - r e a d:
I really enjoyed re-reading this chapter. It's funny to me how for you guys, depending on when you started the fic, you might have read multiple versions of this. I didn't make any big changes, nothing massive, but I did add a couple of scenes/lines here and there throughout the years, I'm curious to see whether you will notice.
in terms of the chapter itself, i think one of the things i like most about it is how it flows. it has that very distinctive castles prose to it, with the timeline that moves back and forth, the run-on sentences, the spiralling in and out of scenes. i recently got a comment on ff.net (lol) that said the chapter was messy and unreadable. and i think in a way, i like that. because frankly, if that bothers you in chapter 1, then you're probably not the right person for this fic, you know? i think chapter one serves its function well. a first chapter is supposed to be an intro, a taste of what you will read next, and i think it is perfect in that. it introduces the plot, the dynamic between the characters. it's long enough to signal that this isn't a fic where you'll read fifteen chapters in half an hour. i think you can read chapter one and tell if this is a fic you'll enjoy or not. and, that's what i want, really. that's what a first chapter should do.
having said that, i think there are two things i want to specifically dive into.
t h e h y p o:
early in the writing of castles, i used to get a lot of criticism about my version of post-war harry and ginny. particularly, there seems to be a subsection of the hinny-shipping crowd that basically thinks that harry and ginny would just meet after the war, scream at each other (or, that at least, ginny would be angry at harry for leaving her behind), kiss and make up, and pour their hearts out to each other about past events. specifically, these people believe that ginny is very good at weeding secrets out of harry, at getting him to talk, and thus the events of castles are not canon compliant with both of these characters.
i feel like objectively, it's not really my place to say whether that's correct. i think multiple versions of the same thing can be 'correct' depending on how you write them. but, if that's what floats your boat, if you have a very strong headcanon about this, then fine - by all means, go read something else (again, that's also the point of chapter 1). but i think this hypothesis sort of stuck in my head for a while, in light of the comments i was getting, because i couldn't help but wonder if that version of things isn't simply an idealised version of reality.
because, to read the books strictly: 1) ginny's anger at harry isn't obvious. you could argue it is there but she's actually quite calm in the break up scene. i am not sure she is that angry with him, especially when you think that she's just been through a war, lost a brother, etc. i think ginny is someone who knows there is a time and place for anger, and who is also incredibly strong and resilient. she still kisses him even after the break-up, after he's clearly decided to leave her behind , so i'm not sure she would lash out in these circumstances. additionally, 2) there's actually not that much evidence that harry and ginny talk to each other - ever. they're a hot and heavy thing, but they don't share much emotional stuff on screen. you can interpret the 'sunlit days' however you want, in the absence of further information, but it's not a given that ginny ever shares anything of importance about her past or her traumas, like what happened with tom. the one scene everyone always points to is the 'lucky you' scene, but that's a mutual understanding more than it is a conversation. she actually never mentions anything beyond very utilitarian details meant to help harry realise he's not being possessed. and, harry never canonically tells ginny about anything of importance in his life either.
and so what all of these comments drove me to do, a few months ago (i think i added this in september 2023) was to link that to the theme of those early chapters of castles. because one of the key elements of chapters 1-3, specifically, is this idea of the lifeline. of the way harry and ginny have spent months, at this point, idealising each other, idealising their reunion, for it to later come crashing down on them. and so i thought i would use the opportunity of chapter one to 1) try and address the 'criticism' above, and 2) make it fit within the world of castles. it led to this:
In his head, their reunion would have been something sweet, like her lips moving against his, the taste of the raspberry-flavoured lip balm she used to wear the year before. He would have confessed to all of his sins, to almost dying, to Hallows and Horcruxes, to the fear and the nightmares, to leaving her behind. ‘I’m sorry,’ he would have said. ‘I am so, so sorry.’
And, he would have tried to explain like he did last year, that all he ever wanted was to protect her, to keep her safe, and she would have yelled. Shouted at the top of her lungs in a rapid succession of angry jabs about what an arsehole he was. ‘I can take care of myself!’ she would have thrown back. ‘You left me!’
He would have looked to his feet. With time, he hopes that they would have fixed it.
In reality, though, Ginny Weasley hands him a toothbrush that morning, as he sits back on his heels. Her stare digs holes into the side of his face and he wonders if, had he been Hermione or Luna (had he been a friend, still), she would have cajoled him. Handed him a wet towel for his forehead. Instead, she closes the door behind her on her way out. ‘You should shower,’ she says.
i love the sort of whiplash effect this scenes gives, of the fantasy v. post-war reality, which is obviously a massive theme in castles. and i also love the way it subtly signals that ginny might have changed (just like he has) throughout the war. because, obviously, she has, and we later find out why.
s e x a n d f u n e r a l s:
i cannot express how attached i am to that scene, and to that line in particular. i think there's a number of reasons for this:
first, it's the line that basically motivated me to start castles for real in 2020. i have said this before in other posts but i started drafting some sort of post-war hinny fic as early as 2007. i never finished anything, then when i was 17 (2010), i did a re-read and actually drafted something new. then dropped it again. and, that file transferred from laptop to laptop, from file to file for ten years without me touching it much. until covid came and i was looking through my drive, and i tenderly read what 17-year-old me had written back then, including this 'first time' sex scene which, to be honest, has mostly remained untouched in the final version of this. and, i remember finding it, reading it, and thinking the rest of what i had written was a bit cringe, but that one scene seemed to work. and then, i got to the (now famous) line: to him, the spring of '98 is about sex and funerals, and thought fuck, that's a good line. like, a really good line. and i didn't want to let it go to waste. and, so, four years later, here we are.
i think that line is a very good symbol of what this story is about. 'sex and funerals' - it's a metaphor for how life is about the good and the bad things. that they co-exist as one single entity, and that the beauty of what we do, of the way we live, resides somewhere in between. it's why i chose it as the summary back then, and why it is still the summary now. i really built the entire fic around that line. so, yeah, 17-year-old jo, you already had something going for you, darling.
l a s t l y:
a thought i had while re-reading (and please don't come at me for this), is that... this could have been a one-shot. like, it really could have. i finished chapter 1 and there's a sort of finality to it, isn't there? like, i'm glad i continued this fic, but part of me thinks that all i've been trying to say in the past four years actually is in this chapter. obviously, not as detailed or subtle, but it's there, you know? it could have been a one-shot, lmao.
but anyway, i'm curious, did you guys enjoy your re-read? did you notice the changes i made throughout the years? did you enjoy them? feel free to send me an ask or join the discord server to discuss. i'm so excited to get this discussion started and hear your thoughts!
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Some thoughts about writing dialogue (coming from someone who basically transcribed the Blue9 MCC stream for fic purposes):
Real life dialogue is messy. People make mistakes, voices overlap, it gets unintelligible, people repeat themselves instinctively (even if they get their point across the first time)
And this is about Blue9 - four streamers (people who talk as a living) with effective communication / chemistry. It's still messy at times because that's simply how people communicate, especially in fast paced / stressful scenarios
Which makes it a bit tricky to translate to text, because if you repeat dialogue too much, it looks tacky even though it sounds perfectly normal.
Juggling between character voices in tense moments is also annoying because in audio form, you instinctively know who's speaking. But in text form, you have to add indicators so you just can't have paragraphs of dialogue (unlike speaking scenes between two characters)
^ although that could work if your characters have distinctive speaking styles (or mentioning characters by the name in the dialogue), but that also relies on the readers' knowledge of their speaking styles
^ even worse when it's a group and the voices are overlapping. The more characters you have to juggle in a scene, the more it feels like "[Character A] said" then "[Character B] said" and on it goes. It's already difficult to transcribe when it's a group of 5/6 and they're all talking.
At least there's one set of she/her pronouns in the Blue9 team. Actually this is partially why I like writing about men and women - it's easier to juggle pronouns (my skill issue lol)
I tried to keep it as close to canon as possible, but sometimes you have to edit down and add bits of exposition for clarity's sake. Like if you watch the stream, it makes sense. The repetition and messiness adds to the experience, honestly, But if you read the transcript, it doesn't work the best.
Tone is such a big thing. It comes instinctively in audio format, but it really is difficult to describe it in text sometimes, especially when it's a tense moment and you have to keep pushing forward instead of spending words to describe tone.
The good thing about writing about streamers is that if you use the right cues, readers can pick it up and picture that specific tone in their head. The bad thing is that this depends on the readers' knowledge and how good you are at describing. (The bad bad thing about this personally is that my OCs have weak character voices because I don't have canon basis.)
^ Bits of informality like stretching syllables and italics help. Like "oooh" is fundamentally different from "oh" and that is different from "ohhhh". And sometimes irl people do stretch syllables or pronounce them differently for humorous effect, but it can look unprofessional on text. (Like Scar's "a-maize-ing".) <- actually this can create distinctive character speaking styles and it's a cue to let readers immediately know who's speaking
Back to the action thing. These streamers are playing in a vc and they all hear each other, but realistically in action scenes, characters are gonna be in different places. There's volume to care about and voices getting lost in the chaos. But when writing, your focus is to push the story forward sooo realism is definitely not the priority
... Yeah. I'm giving my characters high quality communicators. And excellent hearing.
Dialogue in text is... intentional? You can see it in people snarking movies for having unrealistic dialogue. Its purpose is to convey something clearly. Dialogue in everyday life can contain a lot of blunders but that doesn't translate well in storytelling because we expect to learn something from dialogue. That's why it's there.
Transcribing videos and turning them into text based stories is an interesting exercise (and one that I keep on doing lol). It makes you more aware of the gap between irl and written dialogue and why there's a gap.
Godspeed to people who write dialogue between a group during an action scene. We all praise comms in MCC but it does give me a headache to write hahahaha.
#writing#ria.txt#tbh mcc is fun to transcribe bc the bit before each game is basically exposition time and the general strategy gets laid out#aka. outline of what's about to happen (or what should happen)#but when writing the chaos and action between a huge group... dear Lord#long post
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