#“I'm still fond of you”

[mooseyspooky]

I'm still obsessed with this Kevin Cummins article from 2002, don't mind me. (This one, I mean)

This shoot was in 1989

And this picture of Terrence Stamp was featured on the cover for What Difference Does It Make? in 1984.

A song, in many ways, about Johnny:

[kimtaegis]

three superheroes, anpanman! for @sopekooks ♡

cr. jung-koook

[vizabel]

we can't keep doing this bill

[rainbow-nijisaki]

(2022)

More from the old account.

[a-casual-egg]

I made a post about it already, but I think a Peri and Au-Pair drones friendship would be cute

[sassypantsjaxon]

Nobody asked about my soulmate's scar au that I'm bringing back for one piece, but I'm telling you anyway. Like any good soulmate au, there's an identifier to let people know who their soulmate is. In this case, it's the first time someone touches their soulmate it causes a scar. So casual touch is little more taboo, and sometimes people will wear gloves if they're not ready to meet their soulmate. Other than that, things are pretty much the same.

Luffy is still the same overly excited, physically affectionate idiot. He has no concept of personal space and often forgets other people might not want to be touched.

It's just another thing that Dadan and Makino and the Mayor get to scold Luffy for as he's growing up. Shanks probably thinks it's hilarious

Zoro's the same old Zoro. He doesn't care. If he meets his soulmate, it's fine. If he doesn't, that's fine too

Nami wears gloves and gets kinda weird about people touching her

Usopp has his soulmate by the time he sets out to sea. Everything's fine with her, but he regrets leaving before realizing they were soulmates

Sanji wears gloves. Constantly. While he's working. Fighting. Eating. He has a pair he wears while he's sleeping. He never bathes with the other guys but there's a (mostly) joking bet about if he even undresses for that

Nami still dresses in her t shirts and shorts, so the gloves are really the only signifier that she doesn't want any physical contact, whereas Sanji is fully covered in his three piece suits. He is not taking any chances.

After Arlong Park, once Nami realizes that having friends and letting people care about her is a thing she's allowed to do, she stops wearing her gloves.

Vivi is wearing gloves when they meet her, because if she's going to find her soulmate, she doesn't want it to be while she's working for Baroque Works

She joins the Straw Hats, and she still wears them usually, but she's not quite as rigid as Nami was with hers

Chopper is a reindeer and animals don't have soulmates like that, but with the human human fruit, he really has no idea if that's changed anything for him? he's not really interested in having a soulmate anyway, so he'll cross that bridge if it ever comes up

Robin doesn't really like being touched, but there's no point in her wearing gloves when they wouldn't carry over to all the extra hands she can grow. She doesn't even know if touching her soulmate with her extra hands would be able to create a scar

She doesn't really believe she has a soulmate anyway, so...

Franky also doesn't know how finding his soulmate will work since so much of his body is artificial. Can his prosthetics leave a scar? Can his skin be scarred? He has no idea

Brook doesn't need to worry about finding his soulmate since he doesn't even have skin to scar (skeleton joke!)

For real though, he never talks about if he found his soulmate in his first life, and they don't ask him about it

Jimbei also doesn't talk about soulmates and, again, the rest of them don't pry

They meet Law at Punk Hazard and he is just as serious about keeping himself covered as Sanji is.

Somewhere between Punk Haz and Dressrosa someone asks them if this is some North Blue thing. They both immediately say yes. They are both lying through their teeth and are now wondering what the other one gains from covering for them

Neither of them are gaining anything, they're just both really weird about the idea of meeting their soulmates

[sysig]

Two big softies(?) (Patreon)

[gunsatthaphan]

but anyway let's talk about my favorite part of the ep (and maybe the whole series) real quick because the way Ray acknowledges that Sand never stopped caring for him? he knows how much he hurt him and that he can't help it, he acknowledges that being with him takes patience, that he needs help and him saying and yet you're still here while Sand is not actually sitting across from him to witness his biggest turning point and to hear all the things he deserves to hear breaks me so much but like in the best way because man what a scene. jfc.

[stardryad]

Here's the commissioned piece for the latest chapter of Dragonhearted (by @lordoftherazzles ) !! Go read it and give some love to in on AO3 ❤️

[sf-bl]

Art-a-day Day 22: was working on a completely different pic, then for some reason decided to launch into this with very visibly zero planning, and now my battery is flat so ... yeah I'm not fixing this.

CCEO AU: AI Jack in the desert, being Rhys, or at least some version of Rhys who has to stop every couple of minutes because he remembered he has skin. [Putting these here to bring the AU all into one tag: https://sf-bl.tumblr.com/tagged/cyber%20ceos mostly Rhack, totally out-of-sequence]

[busaikuknee]

it is still so funny to me that the initial pitch for bcc was "we're going to train the next generation of wrestlers" and after a year they still have. one protege. dril voice please help me budget my combat club is dying

[hiridraws]

alcor <3

transcendence au recently popped back up and got me in a chokehold for the past week or so, and naturally i had to draw my beloved little guy <3

[batsplat]

hello, i have a question. what is the difference betwwen a hard and a dangerous racer? is there some sort of characteristics like how succesful a racer is or is more of a "a dangerous racer races on the limit and that's dangerous. a hard racer races on the limit but. its just a hard racer". thank you for answering!

completely in the eye of the beholder, I'm afraid. it's a perpetual debate, and one where everyone draws the line differently... very much a case of one man's dangerous manoeuvre is another one's hard but fair overtake... that being said! I'll have a go at coming up with a general framework with which people assess this stuff

let's bring in two strawmen, which feels like the most direct way to illustrate the possible stances you can take on this debate. to be clear, nobody really fits neatly in either ideological category - but, well, these are pretty much the two most extreme positions anyone could have:

when people are describing something as 'hard racing' (as opposed to... idk, 'clean' racing), they are usually talking about a) contact between the two bikes, and/or b) an action that forces the other bike to take evasive action. what constitutes forcing evasive action? well, this is all very nebulous and hard to define - there's crossing another rider's racing line, making them pick up the bike mid-corner, forcing them wide/off-track, not yielding in situations where one of you will have to yield to avoid a crash... but this is always an assessment that will depend on the specific circumstances. not every block pass is considered hard racing, for instance, even though you are quite literally 'blocking' the other bike. contact is the more straightforward one... if you initiate a move that leads to contact, then most people would agree this is 'hard' racing

so say you are in the 'A' camp. according to this line of thinking, pretty much every contact is 'dangerous' riding and should not be allowed. here's what gibernau said about jerez 2005, included in the sete post:

let's not discuss the merits of the jerez 2005 move specifically here - this is an expression of a broader ideological position. "this is not a contact sport" "it's not about hitting another guy"... so, according to this stance, actions that knowingly result in contact should not be acceptable and as a result need to be penalised. taken to the logical extreme, any and all 'hard racing' is dangerous

let's go to the other extreme, 'B'. let's say you're very pro-hard racing, to the point where you think that contact is more than fine and that it is unreasonable to call it 'dangerous'. sure, of course it is dangerous, but inherently all motorcycle racing has a lot of risk attached. racing that involves contact is basically acceptable. even within this extreme, my lovely venn diagram allows for some actual 'dangerous' riding - either behaviour that is wholly irresponsible during races... or stuff that doesn't count as hard racing because it's not 'racing'. here are some examples:

stuff that happens during races but is like... egregious misbehaviour. cf romano fenati pulling a rival's brake lever during a race - obviously dangerous and no longer really exists within the confines of actual racing

in either races or non-race sessions - not following proper safety procedures like for instance ignoring yellow flags. again, should be pretty obvious why that's dangerous

poor behaviour in non-race sessions,the general tag for not exhibiting appropriate care, awareness for your environment, all that stuff... the extreme example is marc barrelling into the back of another rider after the chequered flag had been waved in friday practise at phillip island 2011 (more on that here). it's also things like faffing about on the racing line, see the pecco mugello dramatics

so, yes, everyone will agree that there's some stuff that counts as 'dangerous riding' that's distinct from 'hard racing' just because it's not actual racing. that's the most straightforward stuff... but yeah, anyway, those are basically the two extreme positions you can take. you can say that all contact is bad and dangerous, that any time you're forcing another rider to take evasive action and are making a pass that isn't 1000% clean, you are putting others at unnecessary risk. or, you can say, hey, everything goes, rubbing is racing on steroids - sure, there's a small category of things that aren't acceptable, mainly stuff that isn't actually racing, but otherwise you should be allowed to brute force yourself past riders whenever you please

obviously, they're strawmen for a reason. basically nobody holds either of these positions in their entirety - and in race situations, there's always going to be actions that are seen as hard racing by some and as dangerous by others. so, unfortunately, we're going to have to dig a little deeper here, and figure out by what metrics people draw the line between hard and dangerous. let's... hey, how about we bring in casey stoner, just this once. as a treat. here's what he said after laguna '08:

“I’ve been in hard racing all my life, some very aggressive racing, but today was a little bit too much. I nearly went in the gravel so many times and I don’t think it was necessary.”

hard racing? casey's done that before. some very aggressive racing? no issue. but what valentino did at laguna was "a little bit too much" and not "necessary". the specific thing casey cites is nearly going into the gravel - and indeed, forcing other riders wide/off-track is one of the types of racing behaviour that most finely straddles the line between 'hard' and 'dangerous'. for other examples, see suzuka 2001 in which biaggi forced valentino off-track and valentino flipped him off when he eventually got past (a few more details here), qatar 2012 where marc forced luthi off-track and got slapped after the race (here) and sepang 2015, where... uh. you know. or how about argentina 2018 where... look, I think you get the point - plenty of controversy comes from forcing your opponent's bike into places where it's simply not supposed to be

while we're at it, let's throw in a little excerpt from casey's autobiography about the race:

A lot of it was fair racing, he was out-braking me on the inside and riding better than me around a lot of the track. If it had all been like that I would cop it sweet. But a couple of moves off camera added to my frustration. I risked running off the track, and racing at the limits like that as we were I even became worried about my safety.

(does have to be said that the pair of them spend... relatively little time off-camera, never when the bikes seem to be particularly close - but of course the problem this statement creates is that by definition you can't judge any footage you don't have access to)

so, let's strip away the details and think about what casey is actually talking about here. it's a risk/reward calculation. this is what's at the heart of this riding standards debate: what level of risk is acceptable for what level of reward? there are situations in which there is inherently a higher level of risk in a way that isn't caused by either party - influenced by the circuit layout, what the weather is like, how hard you're both pushing aka how much on the 'limit' you are, and so on. but even if that risk isn't your 'fault', if you are riding at very high speeds on a dangerous track, you can still be considered a dangerous rider if you're not exercising appropriate levels of caution

so, let's break it down even further and try and come up with some basic criteria by which people judge whether a specific move is 'hard' or 'dangerous'. how about this: (1) does the action have a reasonable chance of coming off, (2) is the risk you're taking proportionate to the reward, and (3) is the move likely to cause serious harm to you or the other rider. let's take them one by one

listen, it needs to be plausible that you're going to be able to pull this move off. if you're firing the bike from fifty miles back into a gap that doesn't exist, then this is by definition an unnecessary risk. you are not going to do yourself any good and you are also not going to do the other rider any good. (sometimes it might be in your interest to crash the other rider out so you might as well, but unsurprisingly this is frowned upon. see the 1998 250cc title decider.) obviously, this is going to be affected by your skill level - if you're a mid rider, there will be fewer moves that are 'plausible' for you than for the best riders

this is basically the common sense metric. if you are riding in a pack, make sure to keep in mind that crashing in this situation could get ugly. if you are fighting for p5, maybe a different approach is fitting than fighting for p1. if you can make an overtake a lap later as long as you're patient, in a way that's a lot safer than doing it now, perhaps just do that instead. don't be silly in the wet! this comes down to stakes, whether it's worth it, how likely the move is to succeed... and also what the consequences would be if you got it wrong, for both yourself and other riders. you're making an overall judgement based on all of those factors... sometimes you need to take risk, but it's better to make sure that risk is reasonably sensible

however high the potential rewards are, there's a certain level of risk that is no longer acceptable, where the 'risk/reward calculation' stuff has to be thrown out of the window because the reward no longer matters. this is basically the catch-all for 'wholly irresponsible riding' - anything that's just going too far

so, uh. obviously everything described above is super subjective... but that's what people are judging in my opinion, this is the standards they are using in their head to determine where they draw the line. so, as an example, to bring back the stuff from this post about the inter-alien ideological differences:

and again, this is also what the debate after aragon 2013 was about:

if you think aragon 2013 is unacceptable to the point of being dangerous, then you probably take quite a hard line view and think pretty much any action that could lead to contact needs to be stamped down on. while that contact did have unpleasant consequences for the other party (dani wasn't able to walk for several days and his title bid was basically over), it is perhaps a little worse than could have been reasonably expected in that situation. in that sense, there's a bit of surface level similarity with jerez 2005... there, valentino made the pass for the win at the last corner, knowing he would probably bump into sete while doing so. neither rider is knocked off their bike (though sete has to leave the track) and it is at a slow corner, with relatively 'light' contact. unfortunately, as a result of where valentino's bike impacted sete's body and sete's preexisting shoulder issues, it ended up injuring sete (see here for valentino learning of this perhaps a little later than was ideal and only after he'd taken the piss out of sete for dramatically clutching his arm). at aragon 2013, marc was harrying dani and sticking very close to his rear tyre as he applied pressure to his teammate before he made a small misjudgement, getting his braking a little wrong and clipping the back of dani's bike. he happened to cut a crucial wire in the process, causing dani to highside a few moments later

these aren't equivalent situations and each have their own risk/reward profile. but the basic point is this: inviting contact with another rider will always generate more risk, and can always have unintended consequences... even when the action is relatively innocuous and the rider would not have expected this outcome. if you are in the 'all passes should be clean passes' school, this risk is fundamentally unacceptable. even trickier - what if contact is made as a result of a move you initiated but the other rider could have avoided? of course, you started it, but they could have yielded... and maybe they should have, maybe that would have been the wise, the sensible thing to do in that situation. it's always important to remember that at least two riders are involved in all these situations - and there are many cases where contact and/or crashing is not 100% the fault of any one party. so, for instance, there are several moments in laguna 2008 that are so risky in part because casey is also refusing to yield. that's not to necessarily imply any blame or fault! of course, it might not be ideal for the most aggressive riders being able to bully everyone else as they please because they know they can generally rely on everyone else being more sensible and yielding. but the differing outcomes resulting from the choices made by the 'other' rider will always help influence perception of any race situation - a move that is seen as 'hard but fair' might have been seen as considerably more dangerous if the other party hadn't yielded

and yes... yes, there is absolutely a question of your success rate. this links back to point (1) - is the move plausible? there are moves that aren't really considered examples of 'hard racing' and certainly not dangerous... because they worked. take valentino's last corner move at catalunya 2009, at a corner where you don't traditionally overtake (remember, before the race jorge was going around tempting fate by saying that if you're ahead by that point you're sorted). sure, he goes for a gap that exists, but it could easily have gone wrong - and if a lot of other riders had tried that, then it would have. how do you think yamaha would have felt if valentino had taken both yamaha riders out at the very end of the race to allow ducati to claim an unlikely victory and an increased championship lead? here's another one: misano 2017 and marc making a last lap move in treacherous conditions to snatch the win. no contact required to make that risky as shit - and if stuff like that goes wrong too often they call you an idiot at best and dangerous at worst. of course, both valentino and marc have had moments where they very much did not pull off moves they were intending, which is how we get ambition outweighing talent and 'I hope he can learn from this one and improve for the future', among other hits. but, relative to the amount of risk they're regularly taking in their racing, they get a lot of reward for their troubles... because they're very good at what they do. the risk/reward calculation is one that they... uh, can both be very adept at, but it's also one that's fundamentally easier when you're skilled enough to pull off a lot of moves that would be beyond the capabilities of other riders. it's when you don't know how to judge your moments, when you keep trying moves that you can't pull off - that's where other riders will start having a problem with you

which is where we get to reputation! how different incidents are judged will also depend on the existing reputations of the riders involved and whether they are seen as 'fair' racers or not (an even more nebulous term, if possible), versus hard racers, dangerous racers... often, this is a question of quantity too - with certain riders on the grid, you will notice they're involved in controversial incidents disproportionately often. how likely people are to pay you the benefit of the doubt... how likely they are to believe you as to what your intent was in a certain situation, perhaps the most nebulous concept of them all. 'hard' and 'dangerous' aren't assessments that are made in isolation, and how severely riders are judged will often depend on their pasts and how those pasts are perceived by others

where you get into really sticky territory is... okay, both valentino and marc have more often than not (arguably) been able to stay on the right side of 'the line', where their moves might be hard but aren't putting anyone else in active danger - but that's because they are at least theoretically capable of exhibiting a good sense of judgement and are also good at what they're doing, as covered above. here's a question: do they bear any responsibility for when younger and/or worse riders copy their moves and/or general approach to racing, with worse consequences? when they have been criticised, when they are called dangerous, at times it's not just what they're doing in the moment... it's what they're inspiring. so you've got stuff like this from sete:

even more drastically than that, after the death of a fifteen year old rider in supersport in 2021, one of his fellow rider said this about marc (which marc unsurprisingly strongly pushed back on):

(just worth remembering, this is a rider who did walk away from the sport as a result and was clearly deeply affected by what happened - the marc comments were part of a longer statement that got overshadowed by this part and the resulting controversy)

setting aside the merits or lack thereof of these specific assertions, what of the general questions they raise... can you be a dangerous rider in an indirect fashion like this, by the very nature of your legacy? are riders who helped bring about a more aggressive baseline standard of racing in any way responsible for anything that happens as a result of this standard? (even worse, there's a line of succession here - after all, who was marc's biggest inspiration?) or does individual responsibility reign supreme here? athletes are by design only interested in their own successes, aren't they - and 'legacy' is so abstract, how can anyone know how others will be influenced by what they do? how can we even begin to assess how big an influence individual riders really are? let's not forget that there will be other factors - riders in the past have discussed how particular characteristics of the moto2 class have bred more aggressive racing, or the influence of the size of motogp bikes, or how difficult it is these days to overtake in a completely 'clean' manner, or the rules themselves and to what extent they have actually been enforced etc etc... maybe there's also an element of people focusing on the easiest, most visible explanation in the form of star riders, without giving proper consideration to the underlying factors that will influence an era's style of riding. again, how you feel about all of this will vary from person to person - but part of the hard vs dangerous debate is inherently forward-looking. and it's hardly just legacy... your hard/dangerous moves may also be setting a precedent in the present. to what extent is it the duty of riders to worry about that?

so then, that's what I've got. how you draw the distinction between hard racing and dangerous riding will come down to your individual ideological position and what you think racing even entails. do you think all contact is objectionable? do you think only the most extreme of transgressions - most of which don't qualify as 'racing' per se - should be labelled dangerous? somewhere in between? everyone will draw the line in a different place, according to the situation and their individual biases and understanding of events. it comes down, generally speaking, to how you judge the risks and rewards of a certain move, whether you think what a rider attempted was 'worth' it. all of which depends on whether the rider could realistically have managed whatever action they were attempting, whether the potential rewards were proportionate to the risks, or whether the whole thing was just too flat out dangerous to ever be worth it... of course, none of these are objective standards by which you can assess the racing, but they should give you a rough indication of what people are even talking about when they're distinguishing between hard and dangerous racing. riders as individuals are also far from consistent in their stances (surely not!) so you do have to play it by ear a lot of the times... and while there are plenty incidents where the majority can agree whether it is 'hard' or 'dangerous', there are plenty more where you're going to get a lot of contradictory opinions. no definitive answers here - unfortunately a lot of the time you'll just have to make your own mind up

[reinabeestudio]

I keep reading their name as 'Saffron' so, the funnie colors 💥

At first I thought it was a pun on 'Sin fin' (endless in Spanish). Fitting since, well. Y'know. The Loops(tm) (<- said like The Horrors)

(*In Stars And Time by @insertdisc5)

[hastalavistabyebye]

Hey wait. It's been two fics where I mention my B Squad, but I still didn't really told y'all about them ! Let's change that.

B Squad is Fox's squad, or well as much as possible with him being the Marshall and overworked to hell and back.

The "B" stands for Black ops. Their existence is a Guard secret because obviously the Coruscant Guard does no spying or other undercover missions :) If you ask a Corrie what the "B" stand for tho, you will never, ever lack answers. Banana Squad, Been there done that, Band of idiots, Brilliant and Beautiful, Brats, Boring, Bolo-ball.... (You can guess which suggestions are from the Squad themselves and which are from their guard siblings).

They absolutely are pranksters (as much pranksters as the Guard can allow themselves and as often as they can while being often into undercover missions and off world...). In a post war, no order 66 au, they will, absolutely and very dutifully, drive the GAR mad (without letting them know who exactly it is who's driving them mad).

So who are they ? A quick review of those idiots.

-Fox obviously (they always call him Boss. It might or might not have spread in all the Guard.)

-Sergeant Thunder (called the Captain). She died during the first year of the war, before being able to get promoted to the rank she deserved (lieutenant because she would have fight tooth and nails against being a captain). She was the one in charge of the Squad for Fox.

-Mick (called the Sergeant, or Sarge). The most level head and calm of them all. He was promoted to Sergeant after Thunder. All of the Squad hate it. Do not underestimate him, he's as much a little shit as the others. And a great pilot (only have the right to drive when under dire times. Let's say he has a tendency to love loopings). Also Howzer's vod'ika.

-Visor (called the Slicer). None of the Squad nicknames really correspond to their roles, especially not Visor and Marker's. All of them are great shots, know how to slice, masters at disguise (and always get their hands on nice civies things for the rest of the guard)... They all have a favorite but no real specialty. Visor thought that being the Slicer was stylish. They love crosswords and are the youngest.

-Marker (called the Bait, because baits are important. It follows the same logic as Visor really). He has a wild imagination and love to tell stories to calm down and distract his vode, especially the Shinies and the ones stuck in medbay.

The Squad don't do solely black ops, they also help with the rest of the Guard's duties (all hands on desk and all that). All of them also do their best to cheer up as much as possible their siblings.

They will have to find a new member one day, because they can't stay three (with the occasional, rarer and rarer, Fox appearance) during missions. But none of them want to just replace Thunder.

Edit : Oh shit I forgot one thing !!! Thunder was a little bit pyromaniac on the edges. Just a bit.

[piningpercussionist]

transfem scott getting lots of support from ramona and kim in the early 2000's when shit's very taboo but they all 3 have a fire forged bond and lord if they aren't going to make sure they're all as happy as they can be because they've come this far and I dunno it just makes me happy all three of them

YES YES YES

It makes me very happy as well,,

Like I've said before. General Trans Scott enthusiast here- I love the idea of their little support network *violent coughing* I (we?) mean polycule *violent coughing* so fucking much.

Ramona I think has a bit of a more gentle hand with reassuring Scott with gender issues, but sometimes she just can't help herself from some pointed banter or teasing- how could you with someone so dense? (Said w affection)

And then Kim I think is more blunt. But like, in a good way mostly, you know? The kinda blunt that makes you snap to attention and go "Oh. Yeah that was silly of me." And if Ramona's started some sort of banter? Kim is SO piling on. Maybe sometimes she's a bit TOO blunt with it- but it's only because she's so firm in her support. She wants Scott to Get It Together- and be happier for it. So if some ribbing now and again is in order, then goddamnit she will do so! Anything to crack that shell.

And ohhh can you imagine how they would react to some transphobic bullshit?? Unholy terror would be driven into the offender before they walk off with an absurd amount of coins between them. I can feel it in my bones. Scott doesn't even have to lift a finger (if the transphobe is even noticed/processed at all, bc I honestly can see Scott just. Not realizing someone's being transphobic.) Kim giving someone a lashing with her tongue as distraction and then Ramona coming in with the hammer- BAM! Free Money! Paying literally with your life for your transphobia. A Better And Just World.

And of course (transfem Scott more specifically, here,) the way Scott would start to flourish under their support... cagey and maybe a little (perhaps a lot-) resistant to start- but Kim's blunt affirmations and no nonsense attitude for bullshit (which is what Scott insisting on "being cis" would be, c'mon now,) and Ramona's also low bullshit tolerance but less Stabby (bc I won't lie, that's probably how Kim's comments would feel,) assurances? Ough... My Heart... Be Still-

I would Kill for them, Your Honor-

(Ran out of tags so putting this in the body of the post- I am SO tired someone pls sound off if this isn't as coherent as I am hoping this is. I WAS trying to nap and get the extra sleep I desperately needed but the writing bug... it Bit Me.... only a little but enough to stop that process-)