#and explains quite a bit about him

[thestarsarecool]

“When Linda first came over from America I was on the front cover of the Observer, I think it was, and someone sent it round to me and I was quite chuffed to be on there. I had it pinned on the wall or somethin’, and she said, ‘GOD,’ and she couldn’t believe I’d actually noticed I was on the cover. She said ‘You don’t seriously get into all that, do you?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I’m sorry but I do. I’m not great like you thought I was. I’m just like…Christ, I’m so frigging ordinary, it’s terrifying.’”

— Paul McCartney, Melody Maker, April 1st, 1978

[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

[perenlop]

anyways i always find it more admirable when a fanwork takes an unlikable character and actually uses it to flesh them out or give them a chance to be more nuanced, rather than just bashing them like a piñata every five minutes

[several-ravens]

thank you tim for telling jonathan what i've been saying for a week

"shut up" and "fuck you" and that a bit of sympathy would have been nice and that he should have been fired weeks ago

but somehow it didn't feel right

[chimeric-art]

One would think, with the cacophony of chimes and bells sounding every hour in a clock shop, that the passing of time would be impossible to ignore. And yet Amelie had ceased to notice the metered chaos of the shop, especially when she was absorbed in her work--she had no clue what hour, day, or season it was. All she knew were the tiny teeth of clockwork gears and twist of screws as time stretched on unnoticed.

Her companion, on the other hand, was painfully aware that it was well past 3am. Silky found her eclipsing focus both endearing and obstructing. He was affectionately banished from her "workshop"--the small space behind the shop counter, its mess hidden from the storefront by a simple drape--due to...past incidents. Expensive ones.

This did not stop him from making as much of a nuisance of himself as possible.

"Silky," Amelie warned tensely--he had been drumming his heels loudly on the countertop, because of course he was sitting somewhere he shouldn't be.

"Yes~?" he returned with as much sweetness and innocence he could possibly muster.

"You don't have to wait for me to finish here," she pointed out, still not looking up from her project.

"But I want to be with you," he pouted over the clack-clack of his heels.

"That's fine, but I need you to be quiet." She sighed. "I have to finish this, the client is picking it up in the morning."

"But Ame~~" he whined softly, a look of sincere hurt on his face. She flinched, just barely, but it was enough for Silky to know he had won. Sure enough, she took a slow, deep breath and set down her tools, pushed away from her desk, stiff joints popping loud enough for him to hear. Grumbling under her breath about needy spiders, she massaged the back of her sore neck and opened a drawer to pull out a familiar coil of thickly woven puppeteer string.

Silky tried and failed to mask his anticipation. His long white braid thumped the counter like an excited dog wagging its tail.

Depending on whose hands wielded it, puppeteer string could be used for creation or destruction. Shadows tended to regard it with wariness, the way humans might pay special attention to a sharp knife--a tool, a weapon, a gift? It all depended on the puppeteer.  

Amelie would never claim to be a puppeteer, of course; she had no talent or interest in shaping shadows. The string was a gift from the king of shadows himself, as insurance just in case Silky lost control of himself and needed to be restrained.

Although they had not had to use it in emergency yet, they had agreed it best to practice her technique with handling the strings and tying knots--the string was sharp and could easily cut either of them if mishandled, one of the reasons Amelie tended to wear gloves while using it.

What they didn't expect during their practice was for such restraint to be strangely pacifying for the spider.

Obediently, he folded his legs underneath himself and clasped his hands together before him. With practiced ease, Amelie looped and tugged the string in meticulous patterns about his body, her stern, solid focus trained on him for a change. He shivered at the careful way she tightened the knots until they were just shy of uncomfortable--enough to hold him very, very still in his chosen position.

When she was satisfied she stepped back to appraise her work, and he relished in the way her keen gaze raked over him, searching for flaws, for mistakes, and--finding none--she softened and stepped close again, a gloved palm tenderly cupping his cheek.

"You're so pretty, Silky," she murmured, and pressed a quick kiss to the top of his head. Silky's whole body flexed against its bindings, fiercely yearning to reach out, capture, devour in response, but the knots held firm and left him maddeningly immobile as she stepped away. His eyes--wide with desire, flooded with shadow--followed her like a predator...and she met them with a smile.

And then she returned to her work desk. This time, though, she would occasionally break her work trance to glance at him (patiently, achingly waiting in stillness) with a mix of satisfaction and affection he felt to his core.

[tardis--dreams]

When proofreading the journal (on friday night) i commented on one slightly sexist and outdated term to be replaced by a neutral and more inclusive term. I've been having nightmares because of this

[feuer-bluete]

John Marston with his stallion, Buck.

[mayplantstarrwaters]

And here's something I have never posted here, yet I always wanted to. My oc, who's also my son - Axel Ronnell. Gonna Melsplain some briefs about him here (I will update this later)

Axel Ronnell, or Ace, is a late 60s - 70s rock musician, poet who formed Cruel Heaven, a dark psychedelia, progressive, hard rock band (I will also explain more about them sometime since this post is mainly focus about Ace).

Ace is the lead guitarist of the band but sometimes he also plays keyboard, flute, sitar and lots of other instrument. He's also responsible for composing most songs for the band.

Another thing Ace is mostly known for aside from being a musician was his passion with poems and literature. Having to lose his interest toward Christianity at a young age, he sorta became deeply spiritual and developed a healthy respect for occultist literature and culture. Aside from that, he also loves mythology, gothic novel, modernist poetry. His interest in classic and mystic literature reflected in his music quite occasionally (even his band's theme was based on his main interest with occult)

Ace was also interest in art too, as he'd spend his freetime sketching things in his mind, but he prefer to be coverted with it

Ace's personality is a mix of a both chaos, and peace. He was clever, his intelligence shine through his music, his poems, his nature to the point it could be described as insane, insanely astounding. Sometimes Axel could be a bit ruthless, erratic, and cold toward people as he wasn't really fond with being around. But not many knows that it's just a mask he put on to cover his true true self. Though he was always opened up about his views, opinion, but no one really knows Axel, as he was very withdrawal about his personality. Most of the time, Axel tend to be quite shy, awkward and somewhat vulnerable, especially when it came to receive affections or mostly, love.

Ace was an active bisexual throughout his life. His interest in witchcraft was the first way for him to build his trust and explore deeper into his sexuality, as he later in life got to appraise it by dating people with the same gender as his

Though Ace was mostly famous for being a very heavy rocker, not many known that he also played alots of jazz before developing himself into a rock musician. Prior to his rockstar day, Ace started his career by being a session musicians for a few jazz artists, and sometimes pop singers too. Even in his Cruel Heaven's days, Ace sometimes still love to combine jazz and blues into his music but he tend to got experimental with it

[yunwooz]

[dtaegis]

there's something i've been thinking about since i came home. i'm feeling empty about that guy

[reikunrei]

sleepy bc I accidentally stayed up late monologuing to myself about how free! really should have ended for the nth time 🥴

[idiaa-shroxd]

YOUR WRITING IS SO PRETTY I COULD EAT IT. YOU CHARACTERIZE THE CHARACTERS SO WELL TOO!!!

thank you so much!! ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ happy you think my writing is very pretty!! and also makes me happy you think my characterization was correct.

when writing for characters always take a bit of extra time to ensure they sound good? thinking about having an actual conversation with them for a minute and what they’d do! ♧ personally a big fan of viginettes since that reveals a lot of a character more than mainstory.

Σ('◉⌓◉’) mini (huge) rant within the tags of the way of my process to understand a character!!

[lollitree]

is Liro gonna become a bug type specialist or just really love bug pokemon? Like are they gonna become a mono-bug trainer (including the obviously bug type pondo)?

She just really loves bug pokemon! A lot of the cooler bug type pokemon are in later gens, so I didn't want to go a full bug team, plus I think it's more interesting if it's not just bug types!

[johnbleepingzoidberg]

ANY of the heart ones for Craig I’d love to know but I’ll send ❤️ and 🤍 - add Gruff’s if you want too, I haven’t met them yet!!!

❤️ RED HEART — what are three of your oc's positive traits?

CRAIG

He's smart. He isn't a mechanic/engineer for nothing-- though he's crass and rude and a little worse-for-wear he does have a brain in there. Problem-solver, though a lot of times he'll drag his feet when he's the one that has to be the problem-solver.

Dependable. If you finally get in his good graces you'll have his loyalty for life....but it'll take a bit to get there, especially if you've gotten on his bad side in the past, or if he decides he doesn't like you upon first meeting you. He has a tendency to judge with very little to go off of, and is slow to loosen up on grudges he holds, but once he does, you're golden.

Resilient and crafty. Ties into his intelligence. There's a reason he's survived as long as he has-- he can patch himself up and make do. Knocked onto his ass? He gets right back up. Turned into a human? He mourns his old self then fights to figure out all this dumb human shit so he can get back to his mission of taking down Tabitha.

🤍 WHITE HEART — what are three of your oc's neutral/questionable traits?

CRAIG

Craig's very independent. He's lived most of his life alone so, as a result, he's learned how to fend and provide for himself, especially during the Wipeout where the entire world was thrust into a sink-or-swim situation where only the strongest made it. Self-sufficient, but also incredibly stubborn and won't accept help from others, preferring to rely on himself. It takes him a bit to warm up to others and accept that others care for him and want to be around him.

He's also very intense and opinionated-- if he has something to say about you, he will say it. No beating around the bush here, which either helps cut through awkward scenarios everyone else is tip-toeing around, or puts him on everyone's shit list. But hey, man gets things done.

Tying all this together in a nice little bow is the fact he's also stubborn as hell. A bit stuck in his ways and will do what needs to be done to get where he needs to be. So, another survival thing, questionable in that he gets the job done, but he also sticks around in bad/sketchy situations for far longer than he should because he couldn't be bothered-- such as raising in the ranks in a job he knows has sketchy shit going on in the background, because what else is he gonna do with himself? He finally has stability, and he's just gonna give it up? Also made his whole recovery after The Incident a whole thing, because going from a robot to a human is absolutely something that'd be tough to get used to. Once again putting him on people's shit lists.

[hippo-pot]

i'm being so normal about OMitB. Mabel as the hearing counterpart to the Deaf character is not pissing me off. because i am normal

[michaelgruberfan]

To the random people who saw the ACL tour in like 2009 or whatever and didnt like Michael Zach GROW UP!!!