#I just happen to be extremely particular

[ikuzeminna]

you should totally check out msgw abridged on opmeat dot com if you haven't already ^^

I've seen it. The edits are very impressive and the whole production shows how much effort has been put into it. Credit were credit is due. But its humor is not my cup of tea. Vulgarities are a dealbreaker for me, so I pass.

I like my parodies clean which is why I've only warmed up to the original, YGOTAS. Sorry.

There was one other group by the way who tried to do an abridged series of GW on Youtube, called "Gundam Wing the Abridge-ning". Production quality is poorer and similar jokes appear but I find their take on Zechs funnier. By and large not my cup of tea again though.

But someone less prudish than me might enjoy it.

[treasureplcnet]

also quite obsessed with karl being as detached from the story as he is. there's nothing that makes him have to be the detective that has to be involved, but he unknowingly dooms himself by agreeing to work with the KYAL cult. every other detective basically deals with elias head on except weissman, who only meets him right before he kills him. like he's right when he says "by my choices" because everything that leads him to being mixed up with the mannix cult is himself. it's the gambling debts and the choice to do the dirty work for an organisation he knows nothing about. he's the only one that doesn't encounter that body doing police work and it's specifically because he's told to cover it up. he gets himself into the mess and eventually fixes it but the fact that esther always dies in the doomed timelines and he's always too late even if he starts wanting to change things ("till this child. esther.") it just makes me very ill

[serufu]

Chainsaw Man is one of my favorite stories because it never shies away from the hard questions. How do you form meaningful relationships after sexual trauma? How do you escape the cycle of abuse when it becomes more comfortable to you than "normal" life? How are the bonds you forge and the family you build stronger than what you were born into? And now, its newest philosophical quandary, just how cursed would elephants look if the concept and existence of ears were erased from the world!

[batsplat]

wait, is there a dovi/jorge feud???? i didn't know this!! also thank you so much for all you do for this community ❤️

not the only ask I've gotten about this and... look, rather than doing a proper write up that would take forever, I'm just gonna give my top ten fun... facts? bits of trivia. tidbits related to the two of them. quite long tidbits, on second glance. the highlight reel, if you will

(1) that time andrea dovizioso made 14 year old jorge lorenzo cry

the two of them already raced each other before the start of their grand prix careers, competing for the first time in 2001 in the cev when dovi was around 15 and jorge around 14. in riveras tobia's biography, here's jorge talking about their first fight:

I led the way at the start and Dovizioso and I escaped. It was our first head-to-head encounter, the first time we raced each other. My dad had heard that Dovi was a really clever rider and he warned me before the race. But just like in 1998 at Jerez, with Olive, I acted like a dummy and pushed for the whole race. I kept looking behind me to see the bastard still there! It was impossible to shake him off, he was watching me the whole race until the last lap. Three comers from the end I could hear his engine getting closer and I saw his shadow to my left, but he didn't come past. I thought to myself "This guy is going to try something in a second!" I decided I had to on a tighter line and close the door. Sure enough, Dovi went wider through that comer and then dived up the inside. I didn't close the door in time and tried to get in his slipstream, desperately hoping I could get him the next corner, but I ran wide and he won. I came back in tears, I didn't even want to go to the podium, I felt so cheated. I'd been on the limit for the whole race and I felt like I deserved the win more than he did.

so that's a nice and positive start! there's something charming about how even fifteen year old dovi was an absolute menace on last laps

also about that race:

'Jorge beat Dovi in Braga but in the previous race at Most, what a tantrum!' recalls Juanito, laughing. 'He didn't even want to go to the podium, he was crying like a baby! I can still see Dani (Antatriain) talking to him, trying to convince him. In the end he went but he didn't want to look at anybody.'

(2) the photo finish

in 2004, they were rivals in 125cc - a year in which dovi claimed the title and jorge was p4 in the standings. in the very first grand prix ever at the lusail circuit (pretty eventful weekend, you have to say), jorge and dovi crossed the line at the exact same moment

(3) dovi's top three favourite career win

dovi and jorge progressed through the categories at the exact same rate, and after their 125cc rivalry they continued fighting in 250cc. they were title rivals in both 2006 and 2007, with jorge's aprilia winning out both times against dovi's underpowered honda. (the general pattern was that dovi clawed back a bunch of points from jorge in the wet - jorge, with perhaps the exception of a few years in the premier class until around 2013, has never been much of a wet weather racers, while it's always been one of dovi's strongest traits.) for dovi's 300th career start in 2019, he was asked what his top three wins were - and one of his picks was from way back when in 2007

I'd recommend the race! which... well, I did in the race rec post - and I can only reiterate that these two kids do not acknowledge each other, not good vibes at all

(4) jorge's thoughts on young dovi from 2008

Jorge has a lot of respect for Andrea Dovizioso and feels that his two 250cc world titles have even more prestige because he had to beat the Italian to win them. 'You wouldn't label Dovizioso as fast, particularly, but he's much faster than he looks. He doesn't set many pole positions but he is always up front in a race, fighting to win. He is very intelligent and you can't trust him an inch on the last lap. He has been faithful to Honda, he has great belief in them. His negative side is that he tends to play the victim too much. He'll say that if his bike had a better engine or if it was a bit faster he would win. He's even said that if he was on the same bike as me he'd give me a hiding. I think he looks for excuses too often sometimes, but as a rider and a person I don't have a bad word to say about him.'

some dovi traits read as very familiar, from how he's a better racer than qualifier to the intelligence to the last lap prowess. as for jorge saying dovi plays victim too much? well

also this:

ER: Don't you think that Dovizioso wanted to be World Champion too in 2006 and 2007? Don't you think he gave everything to achieve it? JL: He will think he gave his maximum but he will be lying to himself because nobody does that. Nobody gets close to their maximum, not even me. He will think that he didn't win because he was riding a Honda. There are very few sportsmen who will say, I deserve what happened to me and there are no excuses. I didn't know how to do any better and I've done things wrong.' That is the only way to be the best, the only way. People who make excuses don't get to the top. I know riders who haven't made it for just that reason.

plus ça change

(5) jorge's thoughts on young dovi from 2018

when they were doing their thing as ducati teammates (bickering), here is one of the things jorge said about dovi:

dovi's been trying to undermine jorge's morale his WHOLE career... even when they were but teenagers... love it when you can really tell someone's been sitting on something for over a decade

(6) "also lorenzo is not my friend"

both of them moved up to motogp in 2008, jorge with factory yamaha and dovi with satellite honda. dovi had a very strong rookie season and finished in p5, only sixteen points behind jorge in p4 (who after a promising first few races had spent a lot of time that season crashing). after that, their fortunes diverged. dovi did not have a particularly happy time in the factory honda team and needed to do some shrewd negotiating to be retained by them for 2011 in that three-man squad, while jorge of course won the championship in 2010

here's a deep cut from 2011, a season where much of the excitement and drama was caused by marco simoncelli alone. jorge had exchanged tense words with sic in estoril, one race before simoncelli was responsible for a crash where dani broke his collarbone. the crash and sic's subsequent penalty meant that the three-way fight between jorge, dovi and valentino became one for the podium, with dovi and valentino eventually grabbing the two remaining spots behind casey. but during the race, jorge had executed a... questionable manoeuvre on dovi, one that did have some similarities to the sic/dani incident. given jorge's strong previous comments on racing standards, unsurprisingly the journalists pounced on this incident in the post-race presser and ask the podium sitters about it. here is the clip:

in this clip, dovi essentially says it was a dangerous move from jorge, but he wasn't sure what jorge's intent had been and he needs to watch the footage again. valentino (who had been the most outspokenly critical of sic of the three of them earlier in the presser) takes the opportunity presented to him to have a bit of a potshot at jorge. he says that dovi doesn't have the best relationship with sic but jorge had done something pretty similar in the race... at which point dovi goes "also lorenzo is not my friend"

which, you know. not exactly a major incident, but I find it very charming dovi felt the need to clarify that, actually, he doesn't like either of them. valentino also adds that by jorge's own standards, surely he too should have gotten a penalty. not exactly a meeting of jorge's biggest fans hm

(7) mapping eight-gate

well I can't leave it out, can I

so in 2017 jorge switches from yamaha to ducati and does not have a great time of it. a lot of weekends, he's just too slow, other times he shoots to the front of a race at the start (typically not great news for the rest of the field in his yamaha days) and then chews up his tyres before gradually dropping like a stone back through the field. at some point that year it became a bit of a running gag - especially when you saw he was the only big name to be picking a soft tyre and just went... buddy we ALL know how this is gonna end....

while this was happening, his teammate dovi was for the first time in his premier class career in championship contention. an extremely close title fight throughout the year with five protagonists until pretty late in the season, it eventually went to a title decider in valencia between dovi and marc. you know, the kind of year where every point counts. the race where marc put a bit of daylight between himself and dovi was phillip island, with marc winning a great dogfight out front while dovi had a bit of a horror show of a weekend. this meant that a lot would have to go right for dovi to have a chance of still winning the title... and sepang was already a match point race for marc

ducati had not won a championship since their 2007 title, courtesy of one casey stoner. after that year, their bike became steadily less competitive every season, reaching a nadir around the 2011-13-ish period. so by the time 2017 rolled around, they wanted this so so badly - even if they wouldn't have expected dovi to lead the charge. dovi had only narrowly beaten out iannone in the 'who's going to be fired for our shiny new lorenzo hire' contest of 2016, and really it was supposed to be jorge who was carrying ducati's dreams on his shoulders. but, never mind, they were throwing everything behind dovi now... no stone left unturned

which brings us, of course, to the subject of team orders. this discourse really took off at the penultimate race of the season at sepang, but was already brewing before that - and in phillip island, satellite ducati rider redding had been told early in the race to let dovi past

here from marc at sepang:

dovi had been in great form all weekend at sepang - and with his wet weather prowess being what it was, really there shouldn't have been any need for team orders at all. but he got a sluggish start, and the race unfolded from there... until eventually jorge was in first, dovi was in second and marc in fourth. in those positions, marc would have clinched the title there

and then, jorge got a message on his dashboard. suggested mapping: mapping 8. pit boards and dashboards and all sorts of boards will feature various codes during races, most of them completely innocuous - but of course they are a healthy source of all sorts of conspiracies. the timing of this one was certainly... notable, and speculation immediately started about how it might be a way of telling jorge that he should swap positions with dovi

jorge didn't end up letting dovi pass - it is questionable whether he really would have done so with what would have been his first ducati win on the line. in the end, he made a mistake that let dovi through so that dovi claimed the win anyway, keeping himself in mathematical contention in valencia. and jorge did say afterwards he was keeping dovi's title hopes in mind, kind of

jorge also said he hadn't gotten any message indicating team orders, and of course nobody at ducati confirmed that mapping eight did have anything to do with team orders

for what it's worth, this is what dovi said about their relationship at this stage:

lovely! let's see what the vibes are like a few months later

anyway, onto valencia. this race was pretty boring despite being a title decider, but the jorge/dovi bits were just unequivocally the weekend's most enjoyable aspect and rather nicely spiced up the whole thing. dovi's chances were always slim going in, given he'd have to win the race and marc would have to barely get any points at all... but still, you never know, right? marc could always crash (narrator: he did almost crash). jorge plays coy early in the weekend about the whole 'helping dovi out thing', and basically just started putting in place...? ... very specific conditions...? under which he'd help:

so during the actual race, dovi got stuck behind jorge in p5, with marc ahead of both of them. valencia is traditionally not a fantastic track to overtake at... so even if dovi had been faster, it's not like he'd have an easy time clearing jorge and cracking on. but they were beginning to drift further away from dani in p3 as ducati watched on, increasingly unamused by what was happening - and the tv cameras were of course kind enough to repeatedly show the ducati box looking deeply unamused. again, they went for the good old mapping eight message, which, hey, that could mean anything! they sure did keep showing it to jorge though, almost like he wasn't paying attention to it

eventually, they abandon all subtlety and go for a pit board message that does just straight-up tell jorge to swap positions. jorge kept ignoring the messages, lap after lap, and he never ended up letting dovi past. eventually they both crashed and marc claimed the title with a p3 finish, so it wouldn't have mattered anyway, but... still. the feeling was that this might things rather awkward inside of ducati

publicly, ducati was extremely keen to smooth over the whole controversy, saying they totally weren't mad at jorge blatantly ignoring team orders. jorge had, after all, explained to them (and the media, repeatedly) that he had totally been intending to help dovi by dragging him closer to dani

Giving his take on events, Lorenzo acknowledged that he ignored Ducati’s instruction because he felt Dovizioso’s chances would be boosted by having him directly ahead. “Even looking at this [dashboard] suggestion, I keep pushing until the end, because I knew it was the best thing for me, for Ducati and for Dovi,” said Lorenzo. “I helped him to improve his pace by one or two tenths, to be as close as possible to the first group. My intention was, and it was the case, that we arrive at the first group. If he had the option to win, I would have gone wide and let him pass. But unfortunately it was not like that. Maybe in some corners Dovi was close and I slow down a little bit his pace, but in general terms, having my wheel in front of him made him improve slightly his pace. I helped him stayed closer to the front group. “I knew Dovi was struggling, I knew his pace during all the weekend, and I knew he was making the best pace of the weekend just in the race. It was [because of the] help from my wheel. I’m happy because I was not wrong. If I was wrong and slowing him, I would be very sorry. But it’s not like that, my feeling was true.”

which, you know. is it really that easy to tell how much faster you are than someone who's sitting on your rear tyre? who's to say. dovi did certainly seem rather keen to get past

anyhow, of course there were plenty of fun dramatics post-race:

'our rider ignored team suggestions not team orders' is a great line, fairs. there's plenty more of this from ducati, some excellent spin doctoring - and dovi was extremely magnanimous about what had happened:

the whole thing was pretty undignified from all non-dovi parties, but it was also very funny so who's to say if it was bad or not

(8) runner-up-gate

let's check in on them in 2018, the second and ultimately last year in which they were teammates. remember that 'undermining morale' quote from above? those are from early 2018, after dovi says he wouldn't be surprised to see jorge elsewhere the following season. so, once jorge has complained that dovi had been trying to put him down his entire career, comes this:

so that's something. jorge, dovi and dani have a three-in-one crash in jerez, after which some fingers are pointed but it all remains fairly civil, and a bit later dovi says that jorge's approach doesn't work at ducati:

by the summer break, jorge's results had gotten better, but it was already too late to save the relationship with ducati and they parted ways. anyway, here's dovi and jorge having another go at it:

And while a rough patch for Dovizioso coupled with breakthrough back-to-back wins for Lorenzo in Mugello and Barcelona have now left the pair just three points apart in the standings, Dovizioso refused to back down from his claim when speaking to Spanish sports daily Marca ahead of the upcoming Brno race. “He’s won two races,” Dovizioso said. “Winning two races does not solve the problem of a year and a half. Lorenzo was not signed to win two races. Therefore I do not change my mind.” When the comments were put to Lorenzo, the three-time champion offered an ardent retort, stating that Dovizioso's rhetoric was proof of the claim he'd made back in April. “I'm a bit fed up with this situation, mainly because when I had trouble and he was winning, I was down there applauding,” Lorenzo told Spanish broadcaster Movistar. “What I said in Argentina - and the comments caused a big surprise - you can see that I was right. “He tried to undermine me, or downplay what I achieve or just attack me. As you can see, I wasn't lying. He's still doing it and now he says my method is not good, according to him.” Lorenzo intimated that Dovizioso was in no position to criticise him, as the Italian could do no better than runner-up to Marc Marquez in a 'perfect' 2017 season. He said: “I think my method has not worked too bad in my career. I've won three MotoGP titles and have 46 wins.” “In my second year in Ducati I'm usually faster than him, but maybe I should look at his method closer if in his best season, with everything going perfectly, he was second. Otherwise he's fourth or seventh usually. I'd tell him to leave me to go my way and to focus on his own and everything will be better, because when you have an angry Lorenzo it's usually worse for you.” 

fair to say that by this point the pretence at civility has mostly been dropped. I'm rather fond of the "lorenzo was not signed to win two races" line, though "when you have an angry lorenzo it's usually worse for you" is also really strong stuff. dovi tries to restore a little bit of peace:

Responding in turn to Lorenzo's tirade, Dovizioso sought to play down the conflict. “Jorge has his ideas and I think they are based on particular things. I don't think like him, but it's not a problem,” he told Movistar. “Everybody creates their own ideas based on what they see and how they live. “I don't think he has everything clear in his head about what's happened, but we continue the relationship that we started last year with respect, there's no particular problem. If he thinks this way, that's his problem."

so basically the classic 'idk what he's on about but it's not my problem' approach to attempting to defuse feuds

(9) twitter-gate

there's a few more on-track battles where it's nicely obvious how badly they want to beat each other, with jorge beating marc just ahead of dovi in austria and then dovi beating jorge in brno. jorge's season is increasingly derailed by injuries, which sets the stage for their next big spat:

The row was sparked by Dovizioso's comments to Sky Italia after qualifying at Sepang on Saturday, as he was asked what he thought of Lorenzo having to pull out of the Malaysian GP weekend with injury. "I don't know the details, I don't want to get into this, it's a bit of a strange situation," said Dovizioso."It happens often in Ducati or to certain riders, but I don't understand the details and I don't want to get into it and give my opinion." When it was put to him he was offering 'cryptic words', he added: "I leave things there, it's not my problem."

pretty vague, yeah. but anyway, I'm sure jorge had a proportionate response to this

Dovizioso's comments prompted a series of irate posts from Lorenzo on Twitter, with his first reaction being "Thank you very much @AndreaDovizioso! You are a real gentleman!". In his next post, he went on to call Dovizioso "an exemplary teammate", adding: "You applaud him under the podium when he wins and then... (That's right, he does not give his opinion, it's not his problem)." After that, Lorenzo labelled Dovizioso "envious" and described him as "a world champion... in 125cc."

the podium thing really bothered him, don't you think. their ducati in-fighting follows that general pattern where dovi says something... a little shady, a little ambiguous, where his intentions aren't entirely obvious... at which point jorge goes all in at fighting back and has a go at dovi - often not as much for what dovi is actually saying, but what jorge thinks dovi is implying. which is based on his understanding of dovi, the image of dovi he's built up in his head over the years, so that he is... predisposed to think ill of the intentions of the 'intelligent' dovi who always knows exactly what he's saying

again, dovi tried to downplay the argument, while simultaneously not exhibiting much patience for jorge's stance:

After the Malaysian GP, Dovizioso was asked about Lorenzo's responses to his comments, and the Italian accused his teammate of reading too much into headlines. He said: “Why should I talk to Lorenzo? I do not waste time on these things. He makes the usual mistake of giving too much importance to what is written, even without the context. "I have not pointed my finger at anyone and I have no problem with Jorge."

if I were ducati, I probably would've let the whole thing blow over given jorge was off soon anyway. but they decided the whole thing was so bad they had to organise a peace summit

Asked about the situation, Ducati sporting director Paolo Ciabatti admitted to Motorsport.com that the Bologna marque has already planned to sit its two riders on Tuesday in Milan to make it clear what its priorities are. Ciabatti said: “It is clear that the interests of Ducati come before personal problems between riders. On Tuesday we will be together in Milan, for the EICMA [motorcycle show] and we have in mind to spend half an hour to sit and talk to Jorge and Andrea. "We want to avoid similar things to what happened last weekend. "I understand that these kinds of situations can happen. Sometimes riders get nervous during a Grand Prix weekend and on a rainy day, with tricky conditions, sometimes they say things they shouldn’t have said."

god knows how that turned out

(10) wow, you guys aren't gonna let this go, huh

late 2020 and jorge's career is already over, while dovi's looks like it will be... paused, at the very least. which is always a good time to check in with riders on how they feel about their rivals - if they're still being nasty you know that shit was personal. from december:

some quality petty material here. "I can't understand his somewhat peculiar mind" vs "he was envious of me since 250cc, but I wanted to give our relationship a chance". note too jorge talking again about how generous he had been in the face of dovi's 2017 successes, and how he feels like this was not reciprocated at all. jorge's complaints don't stop there:

merry christmas!

not the only rider jorge has beefed with post-retirement, but compare and contrast with how he really hasn't been doing any of that with some of his biggest career rivals. valentino, marc, dani - sure, he still talks about the controversies he's had with them pretty regularly (to put it lightly), and he's hardly free of complaints... but mostly it's a distinctly nostalgic tone he's adopting with these guys. admittedly, it helps that none of those three have gone out of their way to say anything particularly inflammatory about jorge. still, the absolute lack of any sort of rapprochement with dovi of all people is pretty funny

bonus: that time when jorge skittled all of marc's rivals

you know how in catalunya 2019, jorge took out like? all of marc's major rivals in that era including himself in one go? with half a decade of hindsight, this was kind of hilarious, and it did also feature jorge having to eat a hell of a lot of humble pie and go to the three other blokes to apologise. anyway I have a lovingly assembled set of screenshots of all three of them emoting in their boxes after the incident, all suffering some form of an existential crisis. here is dovi contemplating the bleak realities of our brief lives on this planet:

truly one of the world's least enthusiastic waves

bonus 2: another one for old time's sake

already posted this elsewhere, but this from late 2023 made me laugh

"jorge came to ducati and thought he was going to beat everything, but in the end he didn't" uh huh

[qwainte]

WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME THAT THE QUEEN OF THE ASCENDANT GIRLIES NOW HATES THE GAME AND INSISTS ASTARION IS A HORRIBLY WRITTEN CHARACTER OMFG

[zeb-z]

to be fair, I don't think qroier not trusting qbad is particularly new haha. i think it's been going on for a while even before purgatory. the only thing purgatory did with that particularly relationship is it gave qroier an excuse to be more vocal in his annoyance

( @lucienff the themes of these are similar so I’m answering the ask and responding in one post instead of the comments, hope you don’t mind :3 )

I agree with the read that Roier didn’t particularly trust Bad before, but I think that at a baseline, Roier doesn’t have much trust with most anyone to begin with. I think everything that had happened with Spreen back in the beginning of the server is something that is a large cause in that, because its still something he is suffering from months later - it’s just in true Roier fashion, it’s something he doesn’t really talk about to others. He’s only recently shared it and talked about it with Cellbit.

But even then, he had a respect for Bad. When the eggs first went missing, and they were both visibly affected by the stress, they had moments of somewhat acknowledging the other, but sticking to the script of “oh I’m fine” yknow what I mean? And before purgatory, yeah, there was no doubt that Bad cared for the eggs, and could be trusted in that regard.

But post Purgatory, I think that baseline trust has been shaken. He doesn’t let Bad see Pepito when he visited the castle, makes excuses for him to leave, and then afterwards talks to himself about how he’s angry that everyone seems to have forgotten Purgatory (both in the context that he also doesn’t trust Pepito, and he doesn’t want Bad coming up to him as if the past two weeks didn’t happen). When Leo wakes up, and Bad is around trying to talk with them, he makes a point of pulling her away. Of putting himself between Leo and Bad. And it’s in the subtle, usual jesting way he’s done before with Bad (“you can only drink lava once yknow. sure, try it, I’m not going though!” and “stranger danger Leo, stranger danger!” etc etc. said with enough dramatics it keeps it lighthearted, because that’s what Roier does).

I don’t think Roier is actively thinking he should mistrust Bad with the eggs specifically. I don’t think that he thinks Bad doesn’t care about the eggs. I just think he hasn’t fully trusted Bad before, and now since Purgatory he doesn’t trust him at all, for good reason - Bad was very much an instigator and a cause for both his own torment and his family’s (Jaiden namely, what with the spawn killing, and Cellbit, Foolish). It’s no longer a ‘this guy is a thorn in my side and I don’t trust him’ kinda petty drama between islanders. It’s a ‘this guy went back on the deal to keep the score 50/50 and did so under the impression we as the losing team could die’ kind of situation. A ‘we spent the past few weeks in hell and this guy repeatedly not only killed, but went over the top in tormenting my family and myself, I don’t trust him’ kind of situation. It’s not an excuse to be petty or properly annoyed, it’s a result of how Bad burned all his bridges in purgatory. It’s in large part a trauma response.

It doesn’t matter that Bad has never once been a threat to Leo, that he’s taken care of her multiple times, that he has always checked in with the eggs and cared for them - it matters that Leo is his sister, that Pepito is under his care, and he Does Not Trust Bad.

[kenzan-kiwami]

to be completely frank i think most of the people i've seen with major complaints regarding RGG 8's story are forgetting that 99% of what they're saying can be applied across the whole series

[quatregats]

I am kind of fascinated by the Hornblower-not-matching-his-setting, though. I think that's actually been one of the things that I've thought about the most, especially in books where it's been particularly egregious (Beat to Quarters/The Happy Return, Ship of the Line, etc.). Did Forester just happen to stumble upon a brilliant character and, not realizing what a brilliant character he was, just carry on unknowingly writing him into his Swashbuckling Adventure Stories? Did he know that Hornblower was so delightfully complex but didn't know what to do with him? Did he know what to do with him but couldn't? It's also interesting to think about in the context of canon—how much of the Hornblower we see is also distorted through the lens of being a Hero of Our Glorious British Empire? How much more cruel or ignorant does he become from other perspectives? Yes, he has moral dilemmas, but if we step outside of the moral dilemmas as the books present them, what other narratives might we see?

[sockdooe]

Does anyone wanna talk about Shance aus or headcanons with me ;-;

Please I’ve been dying

[vounoura]

I do think a Mercar Rook having utterly no ties to Dock Town other than a more vague 'Neve and I are from the same city but different parts' is a bit of a lost opportunity ngl

[mochiwrites]

Woowwowowow mochi PLEASE update (i kid, i kid)

I was gonna message you though because I have not forgotten how you somehow claimed to make “my diamonds are right here!!” angsty and I can’t stop wondering about it LMAO

I was Hoping to have had the next llau chapter out by now but the motivation to write it hasn’t been there lately so I’ve mostly been chipping away at it. so gonna have to wait longer on that one. the diamonds bit will make sense when the chapter goes out but for now I offer this as a small hint in the direction I’m going

I’ll get to the diamonds bit soon

[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

[moe-broey]

Moe ref I made today to sorta update its look, to how I've been drawing it lately (focusing on the face!)

Biggest update is getting rid of the bottom lashes, and giving it creases/just the eyebags instead... and also committing to giving it facial hair! So creatureful........ (the chin hairs make me think of goats... the little hairs beneath the side burns make me think of whiskers.....)

Also

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

having a lot of allie X and similar in my hoard of songs that inevitably end up going in my playlists for abusive ship dynamics is wild, because then you get haunting high-voiced trauma pop but it's just like, scranky scooby doo villains. anyway pericky blast

[dutybcrne]

Me BSing hcs like: The fact that Kae is not only able to create a shield when he is dangerously low HP but also the fact that he is able to regenerate HP when he hits opponents with Frostgnaw is definitely due to him receiving his Vision when Diluc had tried to kill him in their Confrontation...but could it be possible that his familial ties to the Abyss Order could have influenced that HP drain of his-

[dragonji]

damn that talking about your feelings shit really does Suck Tremendously huh.