#AND THAT'S WHAT MAKES ME INSANE ABOUT THIS IN PARTICULAR

[flinny-so]

As someone with extremely high pattern recognition; I was in a terrible mood the other day. I felt like WW3 is gonna happen for sure and shit's gonna be f**ked completely. That is because Elon didn't seem to get any blowback at all for his salute and Trump reversed all of the little progress Biden made.

Now I think things are gonna be fine in the end because now I see that enough people realize now that Trump is actually gonna do the fascism thing and does not have any qualms of selling out the american people and actively make life worse for every ordinary person. Elon, who's pseudopresident, also qualified himself as a walking civilization hazard.

Everything is gonna be fine, I think, because people only put up with so much and we're already seen how much everyone celebrated Luigi. They're not gonna get away with this indefinitely in a country with more guns than people.

Especially exiting climate agreements, exiting solar energy programs, all the orders he reversed, deregulation is the second most worrying for me.

LGBTQI+ issues of course is not gonna get much better (in particular the availability of drugs, safety of queer kids in school. I don't think they'll touch queer marriage though.) AND let's not forget the constitutional rights of US birthright they're trying to reverse? Crazy. But they are already getting rebuffed for that.

The biggest police union also critisized him for pardoning the January 6 protestors.

Throwing immigrants out of the country is gonna blow back sepctacularly if they really do that. Even conservative farmers are already warning that those people farm all of y'alls food.

These people need to leave office. Especially Elon. Trump needs a puppeteer that is not absolutely stupid and insane the way whoever is telling him what to do now is. (I'm assuming it's the project 2025 guys and the billionaires, you know, some of the worst and dumbest people on the planet) He's a senile, evil man that's a loose cannon. You're probably not gonna manage to topple him because that would mean to throw the whole democracy facade out the window but maybe you'll manage to get him to be more normal (And I can't believe I'm saying this) a little more like last time, best case less insane than back then.

But until then it looks grim not gonna lie and even with the good outcome it's probably not gonna be pretty. This is not a time to be polite. F**k cordiality. The democrats that think they can collab with Trump? They're selling you out. F**k them. You need to make the mfs that justify this evil insanity cry. Roast them so hard that they cry at home and are gonna tell their mom about it. And if they don't stop then and especially if you see them infecting and emboldening other people with this brain disease, tell them you're gonna kick their asses (I say it like that to be polite) if they don't stop. And keep to your word. Sometimes people absolutely need to get their asses kicked. I'm sorry.

Be loud, do not let these people get away with behaving in that way. They need to learn a lesson and at least see that this is gonna make people hate them. And they deserve it.

seeing posts like “is anyone with high pattern recognition really anxious right now?”

girl idk how to break it to you but we are at “that’s right, it goes in the square hole” levels of pattern recognition rn

[impactrueno]

some stuff about lydia's jacket in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. hope you guys are ready for another thinkpiece no one asked for:

right so. colleen atwood decided to give lydia (and rory) these garments that seemed so unfinished it was distracting me. but i know there's a reason for every costume choice, so i watched this super short rundown she gave about a few of the outfits in one of the promotional videos for the movie, but i was disappointed that she didn't say anything about this one. i knew i had to draw it at some point so i really needed to know what it's supposed to be. a friend who went to the Afterlife Experience prop exhibition even took photos of the damn thing up close at my request, just so i could take a closer look and see if i could figure it out. but nothing. i didn't know how to draw it and it was driving me insane. i felt stupid. like what am i missing here

months later here i am, browsing pinterest for my beetlejuice inspo boards and i randomly find it and others like it:

and this is how i learned that these were created by british designer elena dawson. the way this article described this style made everything make sense:

Her Victorian frocks with unfinished seams and hanging fabric strips speak of ghostly things, simultaneously ephemeral and imprinted with history, the stuff of Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter, a witchy presence in the world that no longer cares for fairy tales.

more:

Maybe it is this ghostly presence that informs Dawson’s work, which reflects her fascination with death. “The relation between clothing, ritual, and death is of great interest to me,” says she. “In some respects, through clothing I am also working through my relationship to death.”

and the way she described it herself:

“When you work on alterations you are really tearing the guts out of the garment, performing a sort of autopsy—you really get to see a garment at its most vulnerable point. Observing this state of semi deconstruction in the making of a garment or shoe is what I like to retain in my finished work.“

oh my god.

the clothes are lydia. they are purposefully incomplete.

lydia's whole deal in the movie was that she was messed up from of all the shit she's been through to the point where she's no longer herself. the events in her life have been slowly picking the threads of what kept her together, what makes her her. delia has this great line that basically sums up lydia's pathos in the movie: "you need to take back your life from those hanger-onners, from this thing," meaning rory and beetlejuice. "where's the obnoxious little goth girl who tormented me all those years ago? it's time to find her."

i'd wager they made rory wear the same style of deconstructed jacket for the funeral specifically because he was trying to come off like this was a tragedy to him just as much, that he's "vulnerable" like the deetz women right now. you know, his whole modus operandi and all (unnecessarily large handkerchief included.) interestingly enough, lydia does NOT wear the loose thread jacket that would match rory's coat here. her own outfit is still by the same designer though, so it's like...they match, but also don't. they're in a relationship, but don't fit together.

according to interviews, using elena dawson designs was winona ryder and justin theroux's idea that they brought up to colleen atwood, and can i just say that i love how much input they had on their characters? justin in particular had SO much fun playing rory, his interviews are great. he owned the role. he knows a lot about fashion, so he was the first one to suggest this look and vibe for him.

as for winona, she wore dawson herself multiple times during the promotional tour for the movie. like, this is just her actual wardrobe. you can tell she had fun trying to emulate lydia's bangs and ponytail with these fits too.

i don't know much about fashion, honestly. but i love character design and telling a story through a character's clothes. so obviously i'm nerding out about this hardcore. perhaps i should learn more about fashion so i can do cool stuff like this too.

[diggity-didge]

Reassigning the Main Six Ninja Weapons Because I Lowkey Hate Them

The more I watch Ninjago, the more I realize one thing: I hate the weapons assigned to the ninja. Like, LOATHE them.

So, to fix that, here's me reassigning the ninja weapons that fit their element/fighting style/overall vibes more!

Before I start, I will acknowledge that: a) Ninjago is meant to sell toy sets. I get it. The weapons were probably chosen off of what stereotypical ninja weapon looks coolest, and b) that being a Lego restricts what can be made (it’s hard to make Lego gauntlets the size of a minifigure. I get it.), and c) I’m insane and really enjoy the different types of premodern combat weapons the world has to offer and they probably thought people over the age of 11 wouldn’t get quite as invested into Ninjago as I would.

Anyways. Me being a hater outweighs all those disclaimers. This post is a little bit of an essay, so I put everything under the cut.

Cole: I'm starting with Cole because he is, by far, the WORST. He's the reason I made this post.

What screams "rocks, dirt, earth and superstrength" more than a scythe? Just about every other option! In the show, Cole barely even uses his scythe, opting to instead throw hands, which makes so much more sense for someone with SUPERSTRENGTH. Scythes are notoriously not actually weapons and are not good at being a viable weapon. They are hard to inflict damage with due to their limited range and shape of the blade, and the blade can be snapped off with enough force (which Cole has in spades). Piercing an enemy is difficult as the point of a scythe is curved and flat and very small, and very far away from the user so accuracy is also difficult. Big sweeping strikes are not optimal as they are easy to block or evade. If he was the elemental ninja of nature or plants or whatever, he'd get a pass for aesthetics because farmers use scythes.

The solution is to lean into Cole’s strength: strength. Give him gauntlets, like Vi from Arcane or Generator Rex. He's a close range brick shithouse, might as well make him even more of one. Other options for the “boxer on steroids” theme include push daggers (small knives designed for in-between the fingers) or, to really push home the "ninja" bit, give him Chinese deer horn knives.

But, gauntlets aren’t the only weapon associated with feats of strength. To keep with the original scythe having a handle, he could also be given a large hammer or axe, like Amy Rose or Hilda from Fire Emblem: 3 Houses. He’s big and strong and needs something that can handle-and dish out- that same power.

Jay: the second worst offender. He, to me, is the opposite of Cole- the unstoppable force to Cole's immovable object. He is based around speed and long range, and NUNCHAKU ARE ONLY ONE OF THOSE THINGS. It's also very difficult to conduct electricity with such a short weapon, when chain lightning is basically thee lightning attack.

Give him a chain whip (metal is a conductor, after all) or a rope dart. Something that can be thrown far and whipped around (WHIP? LIKE HIT SONG AND NINJAGO THEME WEEKEND WHI-). It’s also a very flashy and eye catching weapon that needs quite a bit of movement and precision to use, and I think it suits Jay’s personality well! He’s a very intelligent character and something that needs precision and maybe even calculations would fit him. Rope darts in particular are, well, as quick as lightning. Speed is his greatest ally, and the wide range and high flexibility allotted to him serves to only make his job easier.

Zane: Shuriken aren’t the worst thing, but they also don’t fit Zane. He's a versatile fighter when it comes to range and never uses his shuriken close-up since they’re typically used as throwing weapons and are too small to really be good at defensive maneuvers.

I would give him either a polearm or chakrams- both weapons that can be either short or long range and take skill to master. (Chakrams are circular blades that originate from India and Southeast Asia that can be thrown or used as hand to hand weapons.) I could also see Zane using throwing knives- once again, they are both long- and short-range weapons that a user can have multiple at a time. In fan art, I usually see him drawn with a bow and arrow (I’m only on season five so I don’t know if he does switch to a bow as his go to weapon), but unless he’s Legolas, if an enemy gets close, he’s cooked.

Lloyd: Lloyd suffers from Specialest Character Syndrome, where the Specialest Character gets the most boring weapon because that’s the most easily identifiable one. He has a katana, which, yeah, cool, he’s a ninja…BORING!! I think he should get Jay’s nunchaku. One of the biggest themes around Lloyd is duality. He’s the green ninja, he’s the golden ninja. He’s so young, but also old after being forcefully aged. He’s a human…but half oni. He’s the son of Garmadon, but the protector of Ninjago, etc. Having a double-grip weapon symbolizes that and allows for enough speed and enough brute strength for him to use effectively. And it’s very ninja.

Kai: Specialest Character Syndrome #2. He’s the Main Guy, and as the Main Guy of a Team, he gets to be red. And have a sword. And have fire powers. It’s just how these things work. It’s cliched, yes, but fire is an interesting element. It’s quick, but devastating. Strong and painful, but not solid.

A sword allows for quick, successive strikes, but also allows for heavy and powerful swings. It’s a good balance, and very unassuming. For someone like Kai, who thought he was the Green Ninja and likes being the center of attention, having such a simple and basic weapon and being forced to learn it’s actually a good choice with a lot of versatility would work. (I can practically hear him complaining: “but, Sensei, even Jay’s weapon is cooler than mine!”) I think he should stick with the sword! There are lots of types depending on the area of the world and time period, so this allows a lot of flexibility.

Nya: I'm not that far into the series so I actually haven't seen her become a ninja and am going off of vibes alone.

Make her spear a trident. Guys. C’mon. It's RIGHT THERE. I think a spear fits the elegant and fluid nature of water, and trident goes with the theme! Yeah, it’s a little obvious, but sometimes you just gotta commit to the bit.

[livingincolorsagain]

fuck it friday snippet saturday? is that a thing?

tagged by @capseycartwright, thank you so much for the tag lorna! <33. for this i picked a doc at random lol, so here’s a snippet from an idiot4idiot buddie wip where eddie ‘comes out’ to buck by ‘asking him out’ to go to a gay club together. ft. jealous insane oblivious buck, because this is me after all, and also everyone being so so done with them

no pressure tagging @saryasy @stevethehairington @confessionseddie @inell @letthesunburnyourskin <33

The club is Eddie’s idea, which Buck would look back on later and want to ram his head into a fucking wall.

In hindsight, Eddie was a little nervous when he suggested that particular club, and Buck took it as him trying to be a good friend and ally while also being uncomfortable with the idea of the two of them alone at a gay club, so he took it upon himself to invite Maddie, Chimney, Hen, and Karen to come with, ignoring the way Maddie’s eye twitched when he told her about the whole thing.

So here they are now, on a breezy Saturday night, and Buck is sitting with one side pressed up against Hen and the other empty because Eddie is at the bar, grabbing them a new round of drinks, leaning a little over the counter, and every head that has turned to look at him as he walked over is still staring, because he’s wearing tight pants and leaning over, and it’s making his ass more pronounced, and Buck isn’t staring, but also he isn’t not staring, and really, he didn’t even know Eddie wore such tight pants outside of work, which is always bad and distracting enough, not for Buck, obviously, just in general, and—

A guy slides over to Eddie’s side, leaning back on the bar, his eyes going up and down the length of Eddie’s body before they pause at his face. Buck can’t really see Eddie’s face, but he can see the satisfied look on the stranger’s face, and suddenly he regrets agreeing to come here at all. They need to leave, probably. Immediately. The club isn’t even that good, he’s not sure why Eddie wanted to come here. Buck is bored. He just needs to find where Maddie and Karen are, they’re still probably dancing together, and then they will leave, and he will go home with Eddie, maybe have a beer or two as they sit around the kitchen table and talk about nothing for an hour or so. But instead he has to watch as the stranger tilts his head and looks at Eddie like he wants to devour him, which is just—

“There’s steam coming out of your ears,” Hen says drily, and Buck blinks, eyes dry like he hasn’t blinked in a very long time.

“What?” He asks, trying to turn to look at her, but just as he’s about to, Eddie throws his head back laughing and Buck feels himself sitting up straighter, ears perked up even though it’s impossible for him to hear what they’re talking about from all the way across the club. He should probably go check on Eddie. It’s been so long and he really does need that drink.

“I’m gonna go see what’s taking Eddie so long,” he says, still not taking his eyes off them.

“I think we can see just fine from over here.”

“I’m just gonna check on him.”

“He looks perfectly fine.”

“We don’t know that, we can’t see his face.”

“We can, you’ve just been staring at his ass all night.”

Buck’s eye twitches. “Yeah, let me go see what’s going on.”

[ghostlymarauder]

On that same note, you know what I elso love about Epic???? The late-motivs, they're are the most perfect thing ever

So, this is a list (in no particular order) of the late-motivs throughout the musical:

(Disclaimer: I'm not adding things like Telemachus' sword making the rhythm to the chorus of Little Wolf in the song Odysseus because that's just insane omfg)

Mutiny + Survive (During the part where Eurylochus is talking about the Sun Cows the rhythm of the verses it's the exact same as the ones from Survive)

Gods Game + Warrior of the Mind (Before Athena begs Zeus to release Odysseus from Calipsos' wrath, the melody that plays is the one from Warrior of the Man) (took me too long to notice that one, unfortunately)

Gods Game + Thunder Bringer (After Athena wins Zeus' game, his verse it's essentially the same as the ones from Thunder Bringer)

Would You Fall in Love With Me Again? + Just A Man (After Penelope's final verse, the melody that plays it's the chorus from Just A Man)

Remember Them + Warrior of the Man (When Athena tell Ody to kill Polyphemus, the start is the same as the one from Warrior of the Mind)

Six Hundred Strike + Full Speed Ahead

Dangerous + Full Speed Ahead

Six Hundred Strike + Monster (When Ody is fighting Poseidon, there's a short late-motiv to the song Monster)

Every song where Penelope is mentioned + The Horse and The Infant (After the first song, Penelope's name becomes a regular late-motiv)

My Goodbye + Warrior of the Mind (The rhythm to one of the moments where Athena says 'my goodbye' it's the same as the one from 'warrior of the mind')

The Challenge + Hold Them Down (Of course, the late-motiv is the challenge in itself, BUT I ALSO WANT TO MENTION that Penelope says 'my husband's old bow' with husband as a present thing and the bow as the old thing while in Hold Them Down they say 'the old king's bow')

Odysseus + Hold Them Down (When Telemachus gets to where suitors are and they start to fight)

Mutiny + Luck Runs Out (When they betray Ody they sing a verse that resembles to the ones from Luck Runs Out)

Dangerous + Keep Your Friends Close (When Hermes gives him the wind bag he says something along the lines of 'keeps this bag closed if you want to get home, sir' which the wind also says in Keep Your Friends Close)

The Underworld + Ruthlessness

Get in the Water + Ruthlessness

Six Hundred Strike + Ruthlessness

Done For + Puppeteer

There Are Other Ways + Puppeteer (I think in both songs there's a late-motiv, if not, it's only in Done For)

Different Beast + Suffering (When they say 'we won't take more suffering from you' is a late-motiv to when the siren tells Ody 'I can take the suffering fron you'

Ruthlessness + Just A Man (After Poseidon kills most of the men)

I want to make a particular mention to Ody saying 'I'm the darkness moment' when he reveals his name to the Cyclops and the Poseidon telling him the same thing in Ruthlessness

I want to make another particular mention to Telemachus saying 'give me sirens and a cyclops' in Legendary because omg that's just what your father it's fighting somewhere around the globe

There's probably more, so I'll add onto the list as I notice late-motivs. Also, for reference I wrote this initial list at once and mostly off the top of my head, so that's how obsessed I am with Epic.

Honestly, one of my favorite parts about Epic it's when someone replies "what" to whatever Odysseus or anyone else is saying. So, I'm making a list of the songs where this happens:

Polyphemus (Ody being surprised that the Cyclop still wants to kill them after he just straight-up lied to Polyphemus because he didn't trust him will never cease to amuse me)

Storm

Keep Your Friends Close

Ruthlessness (Poseidon offended 'what' when Ody says all he has to do is open the wind bag lives rent-freen in my mind)

Puppeteer (I actually think this is the best one, like Odysseus sounds so dumbfounded and I love it)

Not Longer You

Perhaps I'm missing one or two songs, so, I'll probably add more songs once I listen to Epic again (for reference, I've listened to that fucking musical about a hundred times in the last few weeks, Jorge Rivera-Herrans is the vane of my fucking existence (but I love him so damn much))

[imminent-danger-came]

IVE ONLY SEEN ONE PERSON POINT THIS OUT BUT MK TRIES TO PUNCH MACAQUE DISGUISED AS WUKONG BEFORE HE EVEN REALIZES ITS WUKONG. I CAN FEEL THE MK AND SWK FIGHT IN MY BONES. Also can you imagine with like that one art post Mei asks MK who HE wants to be, not a reflection of somebody, not the Monkie Kid, not the Harbringer of Chaos and HE REPLIES WITH HIS REAL NAME I WOULD GO INSANE

I'm like. 85% sure that person was me afasdfafsd. I know I've mentioned it before somewhere!

Because it's like, MK feels extremely abandoned and hurt by Wukong during s2. MK's line of "Fine! Then just leave! At least my friends will never abandon me!" in 2x01 Sleep Bug is VERY telling, and it also makes me sob when put together with 3x10 The Samadhi Fire:

MK: "NO! Mei is my best friend—I'd never abandon her when she needs me! We're heroes! It's what we do!"

And 4x02 New Adventures:

MK: “You don’t know! We’d risk it for sure! I won’t abandon them when they need us.”

MK's own low self-worth combined with Wukong's tendency to leave in the worst way possible, which was only further exacerbated by the Lady Bone Demon's manipulation.

And I think MK's experiences and feelings throughout s2 made him resolve to never make his friends feel abandoned.

But of course, since this is Lego Monkie Kid, it's more interesting than just that—because MK leaves at the end of s4. It was out of fear, sure, but so was Wukong leaving in s2 and at the end of s3. MK does exactly what he set out not to do, making the same mistakes his mentor has, literally going to isolate himself on Flower Fruit Mountain for an undetermined amount of time.

It's things like this that make the question of "Who is MK" so intriguing, because that's who MK want's to be. He want's to be himself. But who is that person?

Is MK just like Wukong? Is he a harbinger of chaos? Is he just a noodle delivery boy? Is he Monkie Kid? What if you remove all those labels? What's left? What is he?

(Plus the whole "I just want to be me—to be MK!" "Yeah well...we all know where that leads." interaction between MK and the curse in 4x07)

And now that we've thrown MK's mysterious past and ominous future into the mix, we are in for a FULL on identity crisis spiral next season.

And well, when it comes down to it, MK was willing and ready to fight Wukong in s2. The lmk writers are fantastic at paying off several arcs all at the same time (see all of 3x10, which literally had the culmination of Mei's, MK's, Wukong's, and Macaque's arcs all in one. It's fucking phenomenal), and this is partly due to the time constraints of the show as a whole, but it's also just damn good writing. MK's past, his identity, the hurt he's experienced across every season—that's all going to come to a head. I also imagine it's going to happen right along side Mei, Wukong, and Macaque's arcs once again, because that's just how this show do. It do insane shit.

I also happen to be a believer in "Samadhi Fire Part 3", in which we get another 3x10 and 4x08 parallel to round it all up, and I am waiting, WAITING, for Mei to repeat MK's words back at him:

“Mei! You have to stop. I know you’re upset, and that’s okay! I know what it’s like to have a power you don’t know how to control—to feel like the fate of the world is in your hands and you have no idea what to do! But you always have my back, and help me through it. We, will figure this out! Together!” (3x10 The Samadhi Fire)

((Which, MK himself is repeating Mei's words back at her, with "But we're going to figure this out." I NEED A POSITIVE FEEDBACK FRIEND LOOP BABY))

But yeah. I'M WAITING MAN. WE HAVE THE SAME BONE FEELINGS.

[art-soboro]

a flood of miracles wouldn't be enough because you called my name

[isalabells]

- And we pulled that stupid prank on you. - Wiener schnitzel and sauerkraut. - Yeah, we thought we were so clever. Eva von Braun, right? But you– you just set it aside, and you put your head down and got to work.

FOR ALL MANKIND 1.02 He Built the Saturn V || 3.03 All In

[ccbatman]

actually so sick how they made steph into a martyr for everything wrong with gotham when she lived her whole life trying to prove that she was everything right

[lord-squiggletits]

The other day I saw something that actually made the fandom's complete lack of acknowledgement towards Megatron grooming/brainwashing Tarn make a lot of sense, which was essentially a comment that implied something along the lines of 'Tarn made himself worse.'

Which like, I guess makes sense as a justification? If you just write off Dying of the Light and Tarn's entire existence as him just "choosing" to be "worse" I guess it's easy to just blame Tarn and coddle Megatron as the victim of the whole thing.

As opposed to the actual truth of canon which is that Tarn was not always Tarn, Tarn used to be Damus, Damus was nothing like Tarn at all, and it was Megatron's direct, malicious, targeted intervention that took Damus (normal guy) and made him into Tarn (zealot freak). And that the DJD wasn't Tarn's creation, it was Megatron's creation, because Megatron not only wrote the DJD rulebook but also directly trained them (at least the initial members of the DJD, including Tarn) to be brutal, sadistic killers. And that Tarn's mental breakdown in Dying of the Light and subsequent deathhunt on Megatron was just Tarn continuing to fulfill the role Megatron assigned to him, which was to hunt down traitors to the Decepticon cause and make them pay in pain and death. In other words, that Tarn was literally carrying out the exact purpose that Megatron groomed him for, in service to the ideology that Megatron shaped to be centered entirely around ruthlessness, cruelty, and subjugation. And that everything Tarn did as an evil person was merely a logical extension of the ideology Megatron brainwashed him into carrying out, not him randomly deciding to "make himself worse" one day bc he was angy at his daddy.

But sure. I guess, from a certain, very zoomed in and granular perspective, Tarn is evil because he just chose to be that way and no one could've possibly predicted him turning on his master who reshaped his entire life to serve his will and then abandoned him. It's not like Megatron radicalized him for no reason and then built him to be a ticking time bomb or anything. No, Tarn just... decided to make himself worse. One day, for no reason at all. Mmmkay.

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

sometimes i wish i had just imprinted on some regular modern IP characters like a normal person instead of rotating medieval irish figures in my brain at all times like a freak because it makes it really hard to explain a bunch of things about me. like. i'm starting a new type of therapy soon. and it is absolutely going to come up. and they'll be like "do you ever use fictional characters as a proxy to think about this" or whatever bc that's a question therapists ask in these kinds of situations. and i'll be like. yeah but it's fucking cú chulainn so uhhh here's a primer and a bibliography so you can understand exactly why this is an unhinged thing to say

[kyouka-supremacy]

(╥﹏╥)

[batsplat]

bat splat thank youuu for saying the pecco jorge rivalry is just for pecco as opposed to having the specter of Vale hanging over it. I want to ask tho, I have been seeing people say the only reason pecco wins the race is because he copies jorge's setup throughout friday/saturday/Sprint. Wanted your opinion on this because I have also heard that Pecco gives decent engineering input and builds his race slowly over the weekend. Was just confused about how much data sharing can actually help, and how much does it help with the ducati specifically!! Have a nice day, love your posts

have a good day too, anon!! and I will gladly spread the pecco narrative independence agenda!! it's something I really do like about the rivalry - expanded a bit in the comments under this, but it's neat to have something that really is Just Pecco's. from inception it's very much his own rivalry, his own narrative... idk, this sport is too reliant on valentino to provide any kind of narrative tension, and it's just sort of refreshing to see this multi-year narrative play out that has fuck all to do with that guy. enough

on the set-up copying, obviously that is bullshit. I mean, to be clear, I'm sure pecco absolutely copies the set-ups of other ducati riders, but that's very much a mutual process - it's something that benefits all the ducati riders, and they've all openly spoken about this. it's very helpful to be able to see the data from seven other riders!! that's a big part of why ducati has been so bloody good!! the main difference is that jorge tends to be faster from the start of the weekend, whereas pecco tends to take time to reach his level. which I suppose makes some people draw the conclusion that pecco is only fast once he's copied someone's set-up. again, this isn't the case - it is just a difference in approaches. points come... well, unfortunately, not just on sunday anymore, but they certainly do not come on a friday. pecco knows this, which is also why sometimes he's not even trying to top an fp1 session - this year there have been quite a few instances of jorge but not pecco throwing on a fresh set of tyres towards the end of fp1 and setting a particularly impressive lap time. there's also nothing wrong with THAT approach, jorge is playing to his strengths, but at a certain point we're just talking different run plans

(there is also a very obvious logical fallacy with this line of reasoning. if you are copying someone's set-up, then by definition you have the same set-up as them. and if you beat someone with the same set-up, then it stands to reason that you were riding better than them. sure, you can argue the success is less earned because your team... idk, just lazed around all weekend, but at the end of the day surely you still cannot be a bad rider if you are getting more out of another rider's set-up than they themselves are able to manage)

and yeah, pecco is known for giving good feedback! just being a good learner in general. here, actually, a little throwback from start of 2019 where pecco's crew chief gabarrini (who also ofc has worked with casey, lorenzo and briefly with marc) compared pecco and marc:

"A driver - all of them do this - starts at a certain level and ends the day at a higher level. What makes the difference is starting again where you were. Few have this quality: it often happens that a driver sets good times - without knowing why, without being aware of how he got there. The 'good' ones, on the other hand, have this characteristic: they achieve a result and know why they did it," explained the chief technician. Gabarrini even goes so far as to compare the MotoGP rookie with the current world champion: "I saw this quality in Márquez: I was with him when he made his debut in the MotoGP World Championship. His ability to not forget what he had learned impressed me. Once he had understood an aspect of the riding style, the set-up or any other thing to be faster, he had it in him forever. Pecco also has this quality." "In Valencia we started with a base similar to the one Lorenzo used: on paper it suited Bagnaia, based on what you could understand when you saw him riding a Moto2 bike. From then on, the normal changes to the set-up were made so that he could ride the bike as he liked. In the meantime, Pecco has worked enormously to adapt his style to the Ducati."

and there you have it - pecco's good at progressively getting better at stuff, including over the course of the weekend. as for the set-up copying thing, partly it's just typical competitive paranoia (even though it feels like the fans are currently doing it more than the riders). back in the day, valentino and jorge used to have the world's dumbest arguments about this every other week. led to one of my all time fave messy jb moments:

god I miss that guy so badly. they don't do ride-or-die like that anymore

the point is that both sides were engaging in pretty silly mudslinging, just kind of for the vibes of it. valentino/jb trying to get under jorge's skin and jorge a bit more earnestly aggrieved. as ever, if you want to read more about how that particular era of jorge/valentino unfolded, see here. this is just to say, this kind of faffing about is a tale as old as time and it's always a bit silly... you had jorge say that it was impossible for them anyway to copy each other's data in the very same answer as he accused valentino of copying his set-up. like, I'm sorry, I am not going to take this seriously. a lot of sports is about having dumb arguments

and yeah, again, pecco does gradually build up his level over the weekend. more of a valentino than a casey, it's fair to say. and that'll hurt him in the sprint format - which I talked about a bit recently while going through casey's latest interview about how sprints are satan's providence:

so yeah, casey thinks that if anything there isn't enough time to work on set-up, and mat oxley thinks it's rubbish to say pecco relies on sprint data to be better on sunday. (as I said in that post, I do find it fun if unsurprising that casey is so virulently anti-sprints, because you'd think a lot of aspects of the format - including less time for everyone for working on set-ups - really would have suited him. keeping it real.) so on the whole... y'know. maybe he just gets better over the course of the weekend. it's been known to happen. there's actually some pretty significant ways in which the current version of the sport isn't all that pecco-friendly, from the shitty michelin front tyre we're keeping for another year to the sprint format we appear to be stuck with. it's just that he also happens to be on the best bike - and the fact that he's winning a lot but simultaneously isn't highly rated by fans makes people want to believe that the current series is 100% ideal for him

a lot of fans are loathe to admit pecco might actually be a good rider so they'll find basically everything to justify that prior. including getting into increasingly conspiratorial territory. but my actual take is this - if pecco has been gaming the system so expertly that he is somehow the only guy able to take full advantage of everyone else's data, so shrewd and cunning that he can spread magic dust on his bike so that he suddenly leaps ahead of jorge, such a dastardly operator that he can steal the set-up that poor jorge perfected on friday morning to fix his bike five minutes before the sunday race, then... good. I support it. I hope he's cheating. the more unearned the success is, the better in my books. long live corporate espionage and foul play

[quietwingsinthesky]

Irks me a little bit whenever Dean torturing in Hell is positioned as his own fault, or even really his choice to do. We get given the solid number, 30 years of torture for him and 10 inflicting it on other people (which was also more torture for him because it’s Hell, the torture evolves, it doesn’t stop), and we get told that wasn’t long enough. That John held out longer. That angels were going to pull Dean out of Hell and if he’d just held on a few years more, the seal wouldn’t have been broken.

But that isn’t true, right? We know Heaven wanted the seal broken, ergo Dean wasn’t getting saved until it was. Until it, and he, we’re thoroughly broken and usable by Heaven to achieve their own ends (ie to make him into a good (obedient) Michael sword.) So, it wouldn’t have mattered how long he held out in Apocalyptic terms because the game (that he didn’t know he was playing) was rigged against him.

But more importantly for Dean, the amount of time he managed not to break literally does not matter. Because it was never going to be long enough. Thirty years, forty, a hundred, a thousand, it does not matter how long he held out because the breaking itself is the unforgivable part to him and the breaking was always inevitable.

Anyway. There’s my Dean meta for the year. Eat up, I guess.

[sandinmybed]

some of yall are incapable of simply saying you dislike something. you have to dress it up in social justice language and make it into a Moral Issue rather than just owning and acknowledging that it's not your taste even though other people like it. which is fine btw.

[tpup]

hope one day someone loves me enough to think my butthole is pretty