#also. goated story

[canine-economy]

On Swansea’s (often understated) role in Mouthwashing

I say this as a big swansea fan but I don’t rlly understand why ppl are acting like he’s not also complicit in what happened to Anya? AUs where “Anya tells Swansea” and he jumps to violently defend her don’t make sense to me because canonically she does tell him, as he admits to Jimmy. But swansea represents another way of interacting with the capitalist heteropatriarchy that ALSO harms victims: holistic jadedness and resignation.

Swansea is across the board unkind to the Tulpar crew. We can’t forget that he calls anya a “so-called nurse”

and says this to Jimmy, which (if unintentionally) reiterates Jimmy’s own warped perception of Anya’s usefulness and competence. This allows Jimmy to feel justified in his imagination of the nurse’s inferiority. Swansea’s clear lack of respect for Jimmy does less to hurt Jimmy than his lack of respect for Anya harms Anya, because at the end of the day, Swansea’s attitude is contextualized by the violent culture it exists in and he does nothing to reconcile with that when Jimmy becomes the captain. His resignation can thus be weaponized even by Jimmy, a man who Swansea disrespects but whose power he doesn’t try to meaningfully jeopardize, because his across-the-board disdain punches people already marginalized by the environment twice as hard as it does those with power.

Swansea doesn’t position himself as an ally, he positions himself as willfully uninvolved in everything, an observer to the shitshow ride to hell. Just because he dislikes Jimmy doesn’t mean he aligns with Anya. He makes it clear that he’s not on her side, either. After a life of doing what he felt was expected of him, Swansea on the Tulpar looks out for Swansea and Swansea’s comfort. In trying to situate himself outside of the politics of it all as an older white man, he simply allows them to play out. The toxic culture keeps existing, playing out in the microcosm that is this freighter, and Swansea in all his experience recognizes that shit has hit the fan and elects to coast through it, even explicitly numbing himself to it by breaking his sobriety. It is, of course, hard to force yourself to be sober—to see clearly. But had Swansea forced himself to get involved sooner, he might have set a precedent for Daisuke to recognize Jimmy’s abuse, which could have saved Daisuke’s life as well as created a safe space for Anya. But Swansea’s inaction forces both victims to confront an abuser on their own, unable to reap benefits from his privilege and experience.

Jimmy is clearly intimidated by swansea in a way he is not by Anya, Daisuke, or a post-crash Curly (Swansea, for example, physically manifests as an aggressor in Jimmy’s “responsibility sequences”, and Jimmy ties Swansea up to avoid what he sees as the real possibility of pushback that he doesn’t conceive of Anya being able to do). Swansea has a power he does not act on or with until it is far, far too late. In fact, he acknowledges in his final monologue that he was dissatisfied with the discomfort with opening his eyes and living an exemplary “good man”s life. The best days of his life are ones in which he’s belligerently drunk—days in which he didn’t have to hold himself accountable. He regrets the life he spent performing for higher-ups and we watch him reject it by scorning Captain Jimmy, but he also doesn’t want to be held responsible for helping other people when it’s their turn to endure the expectations and violence from similar (if not the same) higher powers. Tragically, he possesses the hindsight to recognize that how he acted on the Tulpar consequently wasn’t what Daisuke needed out of a role model, leading to Daisuke becoming a victim. His hands-off approach to emotional engagement with his young male intern (another symptom of patriarchal gender norms) may have been to avoid Daisuke turning out miserable and jaded like himself, but it doesn’t actually indicate to an already-confused Daisuke what the dangers of that attitude are. Swansea never admits his own shortcomings in a tangible way which, had they come from a man with experience and prestige like himself, may have shifted that culture that failed Anya. She comes to him with the story not because he has situated himself as any earnest friend, but likely out of desperation on a ship Jimmy now controls.

When we allow “the machine” (Swansea’s own words) to beat us down to the point that we don’t find it productive to challenge unjust power dynamics, we become complicit. I think too many people get hung up on his disdain for Jimmy and Jimmy’s fear of Swansea as a marker of allyship with Anya, but the truth is that Swansea. Is a bad ally. He’s hardly one at all. His long stint in the demanding capitalist environment molded a perfectly complicit result out of him, as it aspires to do, even if Swansea bitterly recognizes that. Jimmy’s overt violence from a position of power is a different and much more brutal approach to abuse enabled by people who have been left too tired and bitter to care that he does it. A man who could’ve intimidated and even threatened Jimmy is too resigned to try until there is literally nobody but himself left to fight for, which is an attitude carefully cultivated among the lower rungs of hierarchies to keep the top safe. Swansea in particular seems very unhappy with the capitalistic, patriarchal expectations laid out for him as a father, husband, and laborer. His decision to just stop trying and spare himself the grief instead of questioning why those expectations exist and how they would hurt the others onboard only delays him being directly targeted by Jimmy and doesn’t interrupt the latter’s violence.

Not a single man in mouthwashing is innocent in Anya’s victimhood. This is a statement tentatively uninclusive of Daisuke, because I think the game very deliberately positions him outside of manhood through his youth and thus struggling with the concept of “fitting in” to the patriarchy. Curly, Jimmy, and Swansea all represent different failures that ultimately perpetuate Anya’s suffering and force her to defend herself and finally take her life into her own hands. A holistic analysis of rape culture in MW necessarily engages with all three of them. Only not being a friend and ally to rapists and other male abusers isn’t enough, and Swansea proves it.

[therekinperson]

5 - Peer into the Darkness - @/stych-stychu's Cotltober

[2] [4]

[starrysharks]

hotel manager

[fraternum-momentum]

Who is your favorite Wrestler? :3c I've been getting into the WWE. It's so campy and dramatic and fun. Everyone always brings up how it's fake, and yeah that's low-key true, but the athleticism is real! They are REALLY getting tossed around and thrown into the announcer table! PUT SOME RESPECT ON THEIR NAMES

im actually not a big superfan of wrestling QJHS my little brother just makes me watch wrestling with him and i kinda got invested in some of the storylines, supereyepatchwolf's videos made me more interested in it tho :]

BUT OFC ITS RHEA RIPLEY CMON HAVE U SEEN HERRRR LIKE FUKCJHVWDHBWDBBD PLEAQSWWEEE PLEASWWEE IM ON MY HANDS AND KNEES PLEQQSSWEEEEEEEEEE

her current storyline with dominik is SOOO dgshit though like what is this telenovela bullshit why is liz and rhea fighting over A MANNNN AND DOMINIK OF ALL PEOPLE like cant they just kiss each other instead ?????? like cmooon what is this,,,,,, didn't they used to be in a tag team togetherrrrr

EDIT:

ALSO JADE CARGILL BC HELLO ??????????????? thats mother right there idk whats happening with her beef with damage ctrl but all im saying is that it shouldve been me getting tossed around and getting beaten up i mean what ahahaha

GOLDEN LOVERS 🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️ their whole storyline is insane thank u youtube wolfman for telling their story i owe them my life

BUT YES !!!! i used to be one of those annoying people who said 'arhmmm u know it's fake, right? ☝️🤓' and yes. yes, we all know it's fake,,,,, it's called kayfabe,,,,, like think of as theater, and they have to be in character at all times, in and out the stage. but it's super intense theater where they all do the stunts and stuff :3 it's super cool

(without context this is so funny 😭 ishowspeed barked at randy orton this is my favorite moment evrrr)

[lemongogo]

[lynzishell]

The Present 🧡 Chestnut Ridge

Prev // Next

Transcript below the cut:

Danny: Papa? Joseph: Hm? Danny: Do I have a grandma or grandpa?

Joseph: Uh, well, you do, that would be my parents, but they died before you were born. Danny: Oh. What were their names? Joseph: My dad was Luis, and my mom was Adriana. Danny: Did my mom have parents? Joseph: Of course. Unfortunately, I never met ‘em, so I don’t know anything about ‘em.

Joseph: What’s with all the questions today, anyway? Danny: We were supposed to do a family tree in class, but I couldn’t finish mine. Joseph: Your teacher won’t give you a low score for it, will she? Danny: No, she said it was okay, but that I should ask you.

Danny: So, is anyone in our family alive? Joseph: I have a brother, so he would be your uncle. He’s alive, he just lives far away. Danny: What’s his name? Joseph: Julian.

Danny: Does Julian have any kids? Joseph: No, no kids. Danny: Hm. I wish I had a brother. Joseph: …

Danny: Then I’d have someone to play with and we could— Joseph: Hey, Danny, how ‘bout you go feed Daisy and get washed up for supper while I finish up out here, okay? Danny: Okay.

[thelastspeecher]

[livelaughloveluci]

pls tell me those goats have summoned Lucifer AT LEAST ONCE

[r-aindr0p]

Are there any fae-like creatures in french myths?

I know about the story of a giant black wolf that terrorized France back in the day, but that’s all I can remember.

Legends and stories including wolves are in fact really widespread in european culture since middle age ! But yeah the most well known in France is the Beast of Gévaudan which was described as massive ! (and the one from Le petit chaperon rouge/Little red riding hood)

Concerning other creatures and fairies/faes in french legends and stories, we do have

Mélusine : fairies mentioned a bit everywhere in France, they are mostly described as women with a scaly tail lower body and are sometimes associated with mermaids or vouivres. (far from how they look like in genshin impact)

Vouivre : not to be mistaken with wyverns, vouivres are creatures described as snakes with bat wings, sometimes they are depicted having rear legs and wings (and they look very goofy like that imo). These creatures can be aquatic and in some descriptions, possess a big jewel on their forehead.

Tarasque : a creature from provencal legends, which lived in a swamp near Tarascon and terrorized and ate people. It's most popular description was of a big creature with a spiked turtle shell, six bear legs, horse ears, bull chest, lion head, a human face and a twisted tail. Legend says Ste. Marthe tamed the beast. (I swear they were just being attacked by bowser this is the same creature)

These are the one I depicted roughly in the pic above but there are many more creatures depending on the different regions of France ! (There's a lot of fairies and fantasy like creature in stories from bretagne/brittany) Some others that I find either fun or cool are :

Meneurs de loup : which translates to wolf leaders are people told to be able to talk to wolves and even transform into one, either because they are werewolves or they made a pact with the devil. (it's kinda giving spice and wolf vibes and I love that story sm)

Jambe crue/Came-cruse : Roaming in the Pyrénées at night, this thing is a single leg with an eye on the knee that eats people and runs very fast. (Idk why this one is so funny to me but oddly terrifying as well)

[bonefall]

all this christian warriors talk reminds me of that one tumblr user who didnt/couldnt? listen to music as a child so they imagined warrior cats amvs to the church hymns

Iirc that person would nod off in church and imagine AMVs to the hymns, it wasn't that they were banned from music

But that happens too. Raise your hand if you ever had a family member freak out when they learned about something magic/satanic/heretical about some kind of media you were interested in 🖐

[arts-and-drafts]

Wherever You May Go (Hermit!Tommy AU)

Summary; Continuation of ‘Minecraft Championships’, in which TFC discovers a stowaway in his strip mine.

(Title from ‘Follow You’ by Imagine Dragons! I highly recommend reading ‘Minecraft Championships’ first to understand what’s going on! This one has been in the drafts for a WHILE and I had just recently finished it. This won’t be the last iteration of this little storyline! Enjoy!)

((And don’t worry, Come Morning Light is still in progress!))

CWs; Mentions of death, mentions of violence, slight body horror

-

Tubbo didn’t know what he was thinking when he ran through that portal.

He considered himself to be a smart man. He always tried to think rationally, to let logic decide his best move, and let it back up his choices when he did rarely make an emotional decision. Very seldom was he moved by his heart and his heart alone.

That all flew out the window when he heard Tommy scream.

His best friend, who he thought dead, cried out for help. And like the gods themselves puppeted him, Tubbo ran to his aid.

He didn’t bother squashing down the terrible hope rising in his throat, that he was actually hearing his dead best friend’s voice instead of him finally having lost it from stress. Tubbo ran, hope and fear blindingly bright in his chest, shoving any Player in his way aside with little care.

Please. Please. Please.

Tubbo pushed through the last people in his way, and froze.

Tommy.

Tommy was wrapped in the arms of three other players, all comforting him with words Tubbo couldn’t hear. All he could do was stare as his dead best friend smiled, shakily, tears streaming down his face as he answered back.

He barely took into account that the portal back to the Dream SMP was gone. His attention was all on the boy that made up Tubbo’s other half, alive, alive, alive.

The Players surrounding Tommy helped him off the floor, the avian among them draping his great gray wings over the backs of the entire party, shielding their faces from view.

Tubbo made an aborted cry in the back of his throat, jerking forward like his bones and muscles had been replaced with decrepit redstone machines, barely clinging to function.

The group containing Tommy didn’t notice, and seamlessly passed through the portal back to the place Tommy must have been since he die—went missing, the place Tubbo had no idea how to reach to try talk to Tommy again and beg for his forgiveness.

But now the gateway to his best friend was right in front of him.

Tubbo broke into a desperate sprint, throwing himself at the pure-white portal with the desperation of a dying man.

His vision went white, all encompassed by the void between worlds, where he simultaneously existed and didn’t all at once.

And then Tubbo tripped, landing hard on the ground that materialized right under him.

He groaned, his head spinning from the transition of being and not-being and back again.

Tubbo tried to raise a hand to his head, and his entire body lanced through with wrongness that he swiftly recognized to be the work of whitelist magic.

Panic reared its head in Tubbo’s mind, but he shoved it down, his meticulously logical side rising to his aid. With eyes that were becoming increasingly hard to keep open, Tubbo scanned through the lines of code in his communicator screen.

A Player with limited knowledge of how the world operated would not see the code behind the comms, but Tubbo had delved into the magic that made up the fabric of existence since he was small.

Tubbo knew he was on a time crunch. Even the worst-maintained whitelist could discorporate a Player in time, and based on the fact that Tubbo could already feel his atoms destabilizing, this whitelist was very maintained.

Still, he willed himself not to panic, drowning out the instinct roaring in his ears to fight for his life. It would not help him here; there was nothing tangible to fight against.

Tubbo located the string of magic in the code that was tearing him apart, a very powerful enchantment that attacked his being like a white blood cell destroying a virus. It was too powerful to cancel out, so Tubbo didn’t even try; instead, he attempted something he had never done before.

Tubbo mentally reached out to the magic, and embraced it, tangling the data in his veins with the enchantment that was attacking him, knotting them together so tightly that they were indistinguishable.

It was messy, and imprecise, but Tubbo kept a calm mind through the entire process, even as he felt his consciousness beginning to slip into nothingness. He continued to wind himself into the code of this server’s existence, knitting himself into the fabric of reality stitch by excruciating stitch.

Then, all of the sudden, with a SNAP that echoed through Tubbo’s very being, the magic of the whitelist pulled taut, unknotting itself, and Tubbo felt the data in his soul smooth out with it.

Tubbo let out a ragged gasp, his eyes flying open as feeling returned into his limbs. He coughed roughly, scrabbling at the earth underneath him to pull himself off the ground onto his shaking hands and knees. He choked and gasped for breath, willing himself to recover faster from being nearly disintegrated.

He took a minute to just exist, shivering and shaking as he tried to calm his body into functioning again.

Eventually his senses returned to him, and Tubbo raised his eyes.

He looked out to a great ocean, surrounding him on all sides. He was laid upon a cheerfully sunny sandy beach, with a chest to his left and a simple farm of carrots beside it.

There was a handwritten sign beside the chest, displaying the words ‘Take what you need!’ in curly handwriting that made Tubbo’s dyslexia flare up.

Tubbo shakily rose to his feet, and made his way to the chest, opening it to see loaves of bread and a few oak-wood boats inside.

He took a breath, raising his head to glance around at the empty ocean.

This must be the server’s spawn. Tommy nor the other Players he was with were here—which made sense, though it set a deep itch of urgency in Tubbo’s bones. They probably spawned back in their beds after coming through the portal.

Leaving Tubbo stranded alone, with no idea where to go from here.

He inhaled sharply, willing his despair to ebb away into the back of his mind. He summoned his compass from his inventory, glancing down at it before he psyched himself out too much to look.

The needle was still. After spinning uselessly in the SMP for an entire year, it was finally pointing straight and true, towards the boy Tubbo thought dead by cause of his own actions.

Tommy was alive.

Tubbo let out a breath that was between a laugh and a cry.

It wasn’t a dream, a hallucination or a snap of the psyche. Tommy was alive.

Tubbo pushed the bangs out of his eyes, looking up at the direction the needle pointed.

Tommy was just beyond the horizon. He was here all along, wherever ‘here’ was, and now Tubbo was too.

Tubbo grabbed a boat from the chest, and as much bread as he could carry, throwing the wooden item against the water and jumping in as soon as it expanded to size.

I’m coming, Tom.

-

TFC knew his mines like the back of his hand.

They were just as rough and aged as his hand too, but still, he had memorized each one of them. Strip mines that had long been given up on, once the dwarf had run out of torches or ran out of durability on his pickaxes. He had no reason to venture down once he was comfortable with resources, but still, he walked the lengths of his underground tunnels often.

He felt most at home with rock over his head, and he traveled his handmade mines so much that he could recount the route of them all with his eyes closed.

It was how he knew someone had disturbed them, and done so recently.

Now, he was no stranger to the other hermits accidentally breaking into his mines during digging out room for their own projects. The matter was always dealt with amicably, with the offending hermit patching up the tunnels like they were never disturbed and redirecting their dig site out of the way.

However, they never failed to mention it to TFC, even if he wasn’t around at the time of the incident.

So when the dwarf noticed perfectly smooth stone innocuously laid among the walls of one of his strip mines, he knew he was dealing with someone else entirely.

To even the most careful eye, there was no hint of disruption along the mine wall. But that was precisely why TFC noticed it.

Being one arm short, he wasn’t the most graceful with his pickaxe. He carved the rock rough and uneven, making sure there was enough room for him and the torches, but leaving the edges of the tunnel untidy, because it was work to make it look all pretty and he didn’t mind it how it was.

Whoever had squirreled away in his mine, though, thought otherwise. Or perhaps they didn’t even notice the rougher stone, too focused on covering their tracks to care.

TFC hummed to himself as he hobbled down the tunnels, his rough tune echoing off the stone and carrying his voice far into the mine.

He leisurely came to a stop where the stone smoothed out, where he’d been hearing quiet footsteps up until he halted. The owner of said footsteps didn’t make another noise as soon as they registered TFC wasn’t either, a smart move to ensuring they stayed hidden.

Unfortunately, they didn’t account for the sharp hearing of a dwarf, nor said dwarf’s attention to detail.

TFC let the quiet linger for a moment, only sighing when there was no movement to be heard for several minutes.

“Alright,” TFC finally said, keeping his tone light of any accusation. “Who’s down here?”

The someone in the walls, predictably, didn’t reply. TFC cleared his throat.

“C’mon, now. I’m not gonna be mad. Just wanna know who I’m dealing with.” TFC tried again.

The silence continued on. TFC was debating fully sitting against the wall and waiting out the Player, infinitely patient as he was, but then a quiet voice spoke up through the rock.

“You first.” A young voice demanded in clearly false bravado, and TFC chuckled.

“Sure, if that’ll help.” He agreed, making sure his tone wasn’t too rough. “I’m Tinfoil Chef. Everyone calls me TFC.”

The young voice was quiet for a beat.

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” They spoke again, that same brave streak hiding their trepidation. TFC raised an eyebrow.

“Tellin’ the truth about my name, or that I ain’t gonna hurt ya?” He countered. The kid in the walls made an aborted noise.

“Cuz the answer is the same for both.” TFC continued, sparing the confusion for the kid. “It’s the truth. I just wanna know who’s in my mines.”

The voice was quiet for a few moments. TFC wondered if he’d have to speak again to keep the conversation going, to assure the kid further that he wasn’t going to do anything to them, but then they finally replied.

“Tubbo.” The kid said quietly, almost incoherent. “I’m Tubbo.”

TFC nodded. “Well, Tubbo, nice to meet ya.” He said. “What’re you doing down here in the walls?”

Tubbo was quiet.

TFC waited.

“I’m hiding.” Tubbo finally answered, sounding a bit sheepish. TFC hummed thoughtfully.

“I see.” He said slowly, thinking through his options. He truthfully wasn’t one to get into other people’s business; he tended to stay out of the server-wide shenanigans, and interacted with the other hermits very rarely. He would be perfectly content to leave his and Tubbo’s conversation there, after he’d gotten the answers he needed.

He had a feeling, though, that this kid shouldn’t be by themself.

“Well,” TFC spoke again, shifting his weight to his good leg. “You don’t have to hide all the way down here.”

“People rarely come around my place.” He continued. “You can hide and be comfortable too, at least.”

Tubbo was quiet, though TFC could practically hear the gears turning in their head.

“Why would you help me?” They asked, a bit abrasively, and TFC was reminded starkly of Tommy.

Huh. If he had a diamond for every kid that unexplainably showed up one day on Hermitcraft, he’d now be two diamonds richer.

“Just…seems like the right thing to do.” TFC answered honestly, shrugging. “I know it ain’t comfortable down here for most other than me.”

There was silence from the kid again.

Then, the stone wall broke, and the tip of an iron sword pointed warningly into the hall, held by a small goat hybrid with lapis-blue eyes.

TFC blinked.

“What are ya planning to do with that, exactly?” TFC asked neutrally, keeping his hands at his sides. The kid’s brows furrowed.

“It’s just insurance,” They said, their young voice firm. “I wouldn’t try anything if I were you.”

TFC blinked again, and then let out a laugh.

The kid’s face twisted to shock and uncertainty, obviously caught off guard by the dwarf’s reaction.

“You can point that thing at me if it’ll make you feel better, kid.” TFC amended. “But I’m not gonna hurt you. You can believe me if you want to.”

And with that, he turned and started walking back down the mine the way he came, his gate just as unhurried. He heard the kid behind him pause and then climb out of the hole in the wall, keeping a steady pace a few blocks behind.

Tubbo paused entirely when they made it to the ladder leading back up to TFC’s house. The dwarf turned back to them and gestured to the ladder.

“It takes me a good year or two to get up there.” TFC joked. “You first.”

Tubbo narrowed his eyes. “Not a chance.” He replied firmly. TFC shrugged.

“Suit yourself.” He answered, and promptly turned his back to the kid again to begin the process of arduously climbing the ladder with only one functioning arm and leg.

After he climbed a few blocks up, he finally heard the ladder creak behind him as the kid started his ascent, and he smiled to himself. Maybe Tubbo would be more inclined to trust him after the agonizing few minutes he’d be stuck behind TFC’s slow-moving butt.

TFC finally pulled himself through the hatch in his house floor, slowly rising to his feet and moving away from the hatch to his chests. He heard Tubbo emerge from the trapdoor soon after, the kid getting to his feet much quicker than the old dwarf and notably keeping his distance.

TFC grabbed some wool and wood from his chests, meandering to his crafting table. Tubbo shifted behind him.

“Where…are we, exactly?” The kid asked, his brave act lowering slightly.

“My very humble abode.” TFC answered, arranging the wool and wood methodically on his crafting table. Tubbo made a noise in his throat.

“No, I mean—what server?” He tried again. TFC collected the bed he constructed and turned back to the kid, holding it out to them with a slight smile.

“Hermitcraft.”

[keeps-ache]

pals and other things :D

[sunshikilo]

recently rereading some past mcsm fanfics and was once again enchanted by crawlout through the fallout by @silversilence14 and @aquaticnaho . so jesse doodles from that fic and also a scene from the end of chapter 50 thats so cute it makes me sick 😷

LINK BTW READ IT https://archiveofourown.org/works/12549108/chapters/28579108

[batsplat]

https://es.motorsport.com/motogp/news/acosta-visita-ktm-quien-manda-entender-lugar-correcto/10633133/

i couldn’t find an english version of this but I think you can translate it.

maybe i interpreted it wrong but to me it seems like a way to put pressure on ktm. he’s basically saying that if ktm don’t take the necessary step forward to allow him to fight for the title he’s not going to stay here forever and just trust the project. furthermore, it seems to me to be yet another proof that a kind of hierarchy has arisen among ktm riders, despite how much ktm denies it. because i have never seen binder go all the way to austria and say publicly that he wants to check if the project is going well. the news of starlacchini's departure seems to me to be a sign that there are big changes underway at ktm, but we don't know if they are positive or negative. i think that ktm must be very careful not to let the hare escape, because the boy seems very smart and with very clear ideas. what do you think?🤔

anon cheers for sending me this, my eyebrows gradually disappeared above my hairline as I read this. love this, it's fantastic. and yours is definitely not a wrong interpretation whatsoever like he basically... is just saying that? when he isn't saying it, the article sure is! plus, it sounds like pedro's not entirely sure himself whether those internal changes are positive or negative! sounds like he's looking for some more information on that front!

low-key 'what tf is going on at ktm' has been one of THE best storylines this season. top two/three depending on whether you consider 'what tf is going on with the title fight' and 'what tf is going on at ducati' to be the same or separate stories. we've even had a real swing DURING the season from 'has this bike always been good and the riders are just worse than we thought' to 'does this bike just suck now'. like, ignore the acosta of it all for a second, binder was getting a second place in qatar, there were three ktm's in the top ten in portimao (though binder should've been like... seventh not fourth on merit but never mind that). they're nowhere right now! even if acosta has made the other three ktm's panic, binder hasn't suddenly forgotten how to ride a bike. this bike does seem to have some serious gremlins, to my understanding there's some serious chattering problems not dissimilar to what the gp24's were dealing with earlier this season? and pedro's just been better at riding around those issues. but these last few weekends have just generally been bad! pedro's had a bunch of kinda scrappy weekends that feel like what you get when a rider is trying to over-ride an uncompetitive package plus rookie exuberance. a bit more error prone, though generally you look back at the end of each weekend and would say he was fairly comfortably the fastest ktm. and the way it's worked out is at the same time as the on-track situation has gotten *bleh*, it's also signed up what on paper should be a very strong rider line-up for next year, with two high profile signings from other factories. like, there's a very real possibility that pedro doing slightly silly things for a few races has suckered in Certain Riders into thinking that bike is actually better than anyone thought and it turns out that, no, this is all going in a deeply unpromising direction. who knows! very excited to find out

anyway, obviously one guy who is also extremely invested in the 'is ktm actually shit' question is one pedro acosta, who really should be fighting for the title next year. I do get why he signed that two year deal! but also... before we get into the article, it's worth remembering that. y'know. pedro's not an idiot. he did sign with ktm knowing what kind of pull he has, but also I reckon there's probably a certain degree of wariness towards that entire organisation and how they operate? pepperidge farm remembers pedro's long-standing friendship with remy gardner, who was fired by ktm during his rookie season in 2022 and had been deeply, deeply unhappy within that organisation. at phillip island that year, remy's last home race, pedro celebrated the podium by donning the racing number of his good friend:

like!! here's what pedro said about his friend's situation in the middle of the season:

obviously pedro's stuck with ktm, but you'd have to imagine he would've at least been paying attention to that whole saga, no? ktm's treatment of its riders is one of those things that hasn't bitten it in the arse yet (though they have lost riders before through a combination of misfortune and incompetence, cf one jorge martin), but there's always a risk that eventually it will start doing so. last year, when ktm had its whole 'whoops why do we have five riders under contract' saga, there were definitely silly season rumours of pedro taking his services elsewhere. in the end, ktm forcibly made room for him, and obviously they've had a ridiculously successful start to their time together... but. pedro didn't go into that team with any naivety about how exactly they operate. and so we may have arrived to a slightly unprecedented place with a rookie where the factory might genuinely need the rider more than the rider needs them. ktm needs to keep pedro to win a title!! pedro didn't have fantastic options elsewhere, especially given the dominant factory looks like a closed shop for the next few years, and at least with ktm you know they're gonna be throwing a shit ton of money at any problem that arises (unlike with, say, aprilia). but at the end of the day, ktm cannot afford to lose pedro! whereas pedro can entirely plausibly win a title elsewhere. that gives him a LOT of pull

anyway, onto the article:

'the impression is that pedro will visit ktm' 'to understand if his bet on this manufacturer is correct' I would say that impression is correct! the parallel that immediately came to my mind was marc showing up at one of the races while he was still recovering from surgery in 2022 to 'inspect' what was going on at honda. and like, the ktm's had a poor few races, but this is... it does certainly feel quite pointed? cf "rome wasn't built in a day" - he knows progress might not be immediate, but he sure expects it to happen

"yes I have a one-way ticket but not a return ticket" lol

here's the rest of the article:

anyway, yeah, look - cynicism aside, it's kinda neat and cool that he's interested enough to actually go to the factory! it's fun that he's curious about it, that he wants to know what the actual process is of developing that bike, that he wants to meet the people involved! good on him! but of course it's also... yeah, a fact finding mission of sorts... I wouldn't go as far as to call it a power play, but it's pretty notable that you've got a rookie rider who wants to make sure he is very much a part of the conversations of where this project is going. he's integrating himself even more into that team! he wants them to explain how everything works to him! he feels that he's entitled to those explanations, and he's right! he's well aware of his own importance to the team - and is already willing to assert his status as the guy. this whole project needs to be organised around making him a title contender, sooner rather than later

which... isn't that the main thing that jumps out? he's impatient! he's hungry! he's confident enough in his own abilities and what he's doing that he knows he will be ready to fight for a title soon, if he isn't already! but as far as he's concerned, it's the team that's got to show him that they're actually making progress. also... I mean, it's worth pointing out that he isn't just going to the factory in austria, he's openly talking about going to the factory. just putting it out there! just making a bunch of pointed remarks about how he totally gets that ktm can't bridge that gap to ducati in a day, but he sure is interested in seeing how they are intending to make that progress! in itself, that's very much a choice, and it is a choice that's intended to exert public pressure on ktm. I can't remember which one specifically talked about this, but this week's podcasts described the vibes within the ktm camp as not good, a lot of frustration and annoyance at the current performance level. pedro's deciding to publicly make clear he's not willing to just wait around - and he's doing so only halfway through his rookie season. it's his first summer break as a motogp rider and his first priority isn't to rest, it's to make sure everything within the team is up to scratch. he's not even a factory team rider yet! but he's the factory's future and he knows it

also, when ktm says there's not an internal hierarchy and they totally love all their riders. look. all teams lie. ktm never does anything but lie. binder's been the golden boy for years, they gave him that extra long deal, and he still does have some credit in the bank for them to excuse some of the current rough edges. at the end of the day... this is brutal, but it stopped being his team around the time of cota. and as much as ktm value him - by ktm's standards of valuing anyone - he never had quite this pull. pedro's as close as ktm is ever going to get to having a world champion elect and he's not even willing to be patient for a year before taking control of that team. hope he has a fun trip to austria!

[goingtothebes]

it’s been months but i still haven’t stopped thinking about john vanderslice reposting this tweet.

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart

fantasy short story collection of dark and quirky fairytales, including:

sapphics working at a roadside attraction called the eternal staircase

a clique of teen girls dabbling in witchcraft told in first person plural

an outcasted goat girl and vampire who become a family

and women who turn into houses, a girl who regularly magically drowns, a boy made of thread,

interesting writing styles & illustrations included