#and i hope to make more next year :3

[nomadic-star]

one last woy image compilation for the year made by yours truly

[deoidesign]

Time and Time Again comes back tonight!

Thank you all for being so patient with me, I know it was a long hiatus.

My health was struggling, my arm was (is) hurting, and I decided it wasn't worth it. I'd rather be slow!

So thank you for giving me that grace, and I hope you'll be there with me for the rest of the series.

[cementcornfield]

Did you see the clip of Joe yesterday?

Is it a clip now? Oh lord....was it funny at least?

It was the first time he ever used the F word in a conference.

He cursed? Y'all lying...I be trying to get him to curse, he don't curse when I'm talking to him...

[sluckythewizard]

YOU JUST HƎARD IT FROM [HIS MOUTH] FOR SURƎ!!!

[honeyspotpie]

Dndadders is it too early to be placing bets on which season 3 PC will receive the in-character patreon EP/album treatment.... Guys...

[kagooleo]

first dates aren't always perfect 💐🌺🌸

[kreftropod]

How to reference 🖍️ update

Got distracted and made an update for the "How to Reference: The difference between Tracing, Copying and Referencing" guide I made a few years back. Please enjoy some new examples of tracing, copying and referencing in a variety of styles (still images available via the link above).

Also a new Photo Manipulation example.

Original Photo(s) by Sas R. - #1, #2

[moonkhao]

gmmtv is not splitting their line-up announcement into two parts this year

[gunsatthaphan]

~ Monthly BL Breakdown: April 2024 ~ 

🌷 Happy May!!! ☀️

Disclaimer: ALL shows can be streamed here or here, as well as on Youtube and other platforms. For more info on where to watch what, check out this post! 

New breakdowns are coming at the end of every month - feel free to add stuff! -> previous breakdowns

What came out this month? (green = seen/currently watching)

🌟 Love is Like a Cat - April 1st (South Korea / Thailand) 

🌟 We Are - April 3rd (Thailand) ✅

🌟 Memory in the Letter - April 6th (Thailand) 

🌟 Living With Him - April 11th (Japan) 

🌟 Gray Shelter - April 11th (South Korea) 

🌟 Beating Again - April 13th (Thailand)

🌟 Blue Boys - April 15th (South Korea)

🌟 At 25:00 in Alasaka - April 18th (Japan)

🌟 GMMTV2024 Part 2 (lineup event) - April 23rd (Thailand) ✅

🌟 Boys Be Brave - April 25th (South Korea) 

🌟 CHANGE2561 2024 lineup event - April 25th (Thailand) ✅

🌟 My Stand-In - April 26th (Thailand) ✅

🌟 City Boy Log Vol. 3 - April 30th (South Korea)

New series & movie announcements

🎥 The Fridge - Date TBA (Thailand)

🎥 Flavor of Us (starring Benjamin B., Dome W. & others) - Date TBA (Thailand)

🎥 Children's Day - Date TBA (Taiwan)

🎥 Blue Time - Date TBA (China, possibly censored)

🎥 Bad Guy My Boss - Date TBA (Thailand)

🎥 Oriental Magician In The Ent. Circle - Date TBA (Taiwan)

🎥 Under the Oak Tree - Date TBA (Vietnam)

🎥 Invitation - Date TBA (Thailand)

🎥 The Love Matter - Date TBA (Thailand)

🎥 I Saw You in My Dream - Date TBA (Thailand)

🎥 I Wish You the Best - Date TBA (Thailand)

🎥 Impression of Youth - Date TBA (Taiwan)

🎥 Meet You at the Blossom - Date TBA (Taiwan)

Other news from the BL world

❗️ The production company Studio WabiSabi announced that their actors Boun N., Prem W., Santa P., Sammy C., Yacht P. and Stamp P. have terminated their contracts and will no longer be artists under the company on April 15th. Shortly after, GMMTV announced the 6 of them as newly signed artists, along with the disclosure that BounPrem's upcoming BL Vampire Project is now being produced under GMMTV, who now also own all broadcasting rights; WabiSabi will function as a co-producer. New S. stated on Twitter that the decisions had been long in the making, as well as the fact that WabiSabi no longer functions as a management agency for actors and is now a mere production company. He also denied the rumors that the company is shutting down. Shortly after the transfer of the Wabi Sabi actors, actor Fluke Jeeratch (formerly Pongsakorn) joined GMMTV as well.

❗️ The Filipino BL Gameboys is getting a third season. An air date has not been confirmed.

❗️ P Ekkapop and Pan Jirachot, the lead actors from Kiseki Chapter 2, have announced a new project together. Details are unknown.

❗️ Actor Barcode Tinnasit has announced his departure from his agency Be On Cloud.

❗️ After some confusion, the Korean production company Studio X+U announced that their upcoming series Fragile - which was initially advertized as a Korean SKAM remake - is in fact not connected to the Norwegian web series and is instead a standalone series, which focuses on the life of a group of teenagers. According to ZUM News, there was supposed to be a Korean SKAM remake based on the Norwegian original, which was however cancelled due to unknown reasons. Fragile was created as a substitution.

❗️ GMMTV held their 2024 part 2 event on April 23rd. The following BL projects were announced:

The Heart Killers (starring FirstKhao & JoongDunk)

Perfect10 Liners (starring ForceBook, PerthChimon, JuniorMark)

Heart That Skips a Beat (starring EstWilliam)

Revamp (starring BounPrem, formerly known as Vampire Project)

Sweet Tooth, Good Dentist (starring MarkOhm)

The Ex-Morning (starring KristSingto)

❗️ The production company CHANGE2561 held their 2024 lineup event on April 25th. The following BL projects were announced:

This Love Doesn't Have Long Beans (starring SailubPon)

Goddess Bless You From Death (starring PavelPooh)

I’m The Most Beautiful Count (starring PingSupanut)

Pit Babe Season 2

Upcoming series & movies for May

👉🏻 You Made My Day (starring Tar A. and Bom T. from I Will Knock You) - May 3rd (Thailand)

👉🏻 Inverse Identity / Upside Down - Mary 3rd (China)

👉🏻 Wandee Goodday - May 4th (Thailand)

👉🏻 A Balloon's Landing - May 10th (Taiwan)

👉🏻 City of Stars: Special Episode - May 10th (Thailand, cinema release)

👉🏻 The Time of Fever (Unintentional Love Story spinoff) - May 15th (South Korea)

👉🏻 Blossom Campus - May 16th (South Korea)

👉🏻 OMG! Vampire - May 19th (Thailand)

👉🏻 Manji Reverse - May 24th (Japan)

👉🏻 My Biker 2 - May 28th (Thailand)

[nebulanightsky]

can we all agree that the sexy man poll is rigged this year

:/

Like everyone’s pretty much voting for error and ink so they can go head to head which is kinda annoying..but that’s just my opinion

Pretty much most of my friends are voting for Error this year cause, dang, that man was in the second place 2 times in a row 😭 they're making sure that Error won this year

[brutal-nemesis]

E&T: Deep in the Bowels of Gluttony

I am forcing more CAVE WHUMP into your enclosure (with an added dash of inspiration from my favorite national park that I can never visit ✨)

Suggested Vibe: Duma’s Scourge from Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia (youtube)

←Previous - Masterlist - Next→

Ingredients: a lot of gore. eating is involved in the goriness if you couldn’t tell. it is also very gross. Wow! Oh and there is a little bit of burning

By the time Erebus finished crying, his hand had grown back.

He hadn’t even realized it at first, too caught up with gut-wrenching sobs to be aware of anything else besides how much his head hurt, how hard it was to breathe, how terrified he was to be in this strange place all alone, how he might never make it back home, or even back to his cell, how hopeless he felt, how-how-And then he’d noticed the stump of his left hand, no longer ending in a jagged tear, little strings of skin dangling off of it, but a-it was growing, it had to be, those little white nubs poking out of the mass of muscle had to be the bones of his hand, bones that had definitely been…Before he knew it he was crying in earnest again, his body’s sudden strange capability to repair itself overshadowed by the trauma of the past hour, fear and exhaustion replacing awe and relief, because even if he could heal, it didn’t change the fact that he was stuck here, now saddled with the possibility that not even death could set him free.

If there was one good thing about this world, it was the fact that he was more alone than he’d ever been, and no one knocked on the door to interrupt his crying, no one commented on the redness of his eyes or asked him if he was okay too soon after he’d started to calm down. He caught his breath slowly, peacefully, washing the tears off his face using the fresh water from one of the pools near the sea, scrubbing the dried blood from his perfectly healed arm, revealing a ring of scar tissue around his wrist. The thought that neither of these hands were the ones he was born with almost sent him into another spiral, but he shook his head and put it out of his mind. That was enough for today. 

Today…Frowning, he looked up at the sky. Its blackness hadn’t changed in the slightest since he’d arrived here, and something told him it wouldn’t anytime soon. Even back in the windowless cell, he’d had meals and Neteri’s visits to help him keep track of the passage of time, but now there was just…nothing. It was all down to whatever cycle of waking and sleeping he fell into, and given how tired he was now, he was ready to get that started. 

Walking back to his pack, left at the base of the cliffs, he noticed his leg was no longer in pain, either. Once he arrived, he pulled the knife out and used it to slice the stitches still woven through his flesh, wincing a bit as he pulled the thread out. The holes left behind healed quickly enough that he could ignore them and busy himself finding a good place to lay his bedroll for the…night? For now. 

He ended up settling down along the cliffside, too afraid to lie out in the open despite how quiet it was here, and it wasn’t long before his exhausted body gave in to sleep.

When Erebus woke up, the sky was the same empty black as before, and it was impossible to tell how long he’d slept for, but he felt rested enough despite the circumstances. So now he was just supposed to…wander until he found something? He considered flying to get a better idea of what was around, but he decided it would be better to save his strength for the next fight. Since crossing the sea was out of the question, he headed back into the rocky maze he’d first arrived in. Eventually, he found himself at the entrance to a cave, a gaping hole in the side of the mountain rising even higher than the cliffs around him.

If the demons were tied to elements like their counterparts, the dragons, then whatever one was tied to the element of earth was definitely in that cave. His instincts screamed at him not to go into the dark, cramped space where his wings likely would be more of a hindrance than a help, but if he was going to get out of this place, then he’d have to go in eventually. So best to get it over with while he was here.

Erebus had never been inside of a cave, but he’d heard about how beautiful they could be, and…how dangerous. But he’d be okay. He could heal, for some reason. He’d be fine. He could handle this. He had to.

Burying his doubts, Erebus headed inside the cave, almost immediately tripping over a small, rounded protrusion of stone. They littered the ground, and the ceiling, too, their lengths varying. He’d have to take care to avoid them, then. 

Soon enough, though, the ground began to slope downwards, and the dim gray light streaming in from the cave’s entrance began to fade, not enough for even his new eyes to see with. It wasn’t long before he was stumbling along in the dark, unsure how much progress he was making, or if he was even headed in the right direction. He could be a couple steps away from a dead end, for all he knew. Or even a cl-At that moment, Erebus’s boot caught on a rock, his desperate grasps for something to catch himself on meeting empty air, and now he was falling, spinning, bouncing off the uneven stone, everything was slippery enough to slide out of his grasp but hard enough to break his bones, faster and faster until-

Cold. Deep cold, water, he was underwater, he had to get to the surface, had to find it in this spinning dark void, no way to tell which way is up, which way is death, swimming flailing reaching-his hand broke the surface, and he worked his way up desperately, his sodden clothes and heavy sword making it difficult, but he made it, he breathed, he coughed, he dragged himself out and laid on the bumpy stone next to the water’s edge, panting as his body throbbed and stung with a hundred cuts and bruises. Of course he hurt himself before even finding the demon. Of course. If only he had some way to know if he was even going in the right direction, but no, he was just supposed to stumble around in the dark.

One of his horns hurt, and upon poking at it gently, he found that the tip had broken off, exposing the tender flesh inside. Not like they served any purpose, besides telling him where…wait. What he wanted most was to get out of here and go home. To get out of here, he’d have to fight all the demons. Starting with the one hidden somewhere in this cave. So, by that logic, what he wanted most was to find the demon in these caves. He closed his eyes, not that it changed anything, and drilled that thought into his head. He needed to find that demon. Wanted to. Had to.

Erebus couldn’t help but smile as his horns started to tingle ever-so-slightly. 

It took some time to get used to navigating the cave based on the feeling in his horns. The changes in sensation were rather subtle, so it was difficult to tell immediately after changing course if he was heading the right way. It would have been much easier if he could take a direct path, but the twists and turns of the cave forced him to switch directions constantly, sometimes leading him to dead ends or passages he was too large to squeeze through. Progress was slow, but he was making progress, he was, the tingling was stronger now, his scrapes and bruises from his fall earlier had healed, and his clothes were beginning to dry, despite the cave air being rather cool.

Well, now that he thought about it, the air had grown warmer than when he’d first entered. He’d been so freezing from his wet clothes that he hadn’t realized it until now, but it was definitely getting warmer. That had to be a good thing, right? It wasn’t getting any lighter, unfortunately, so he was still stuck feeling his way along through the darkness, nothing but the tingling sensation in his horns to guide him, but at least he wasn’t shivering as much anymore.

It was getting warmer and warmer, hot now, and humid, the stickiness of the air reminding him of summers back home. Were caves supposed to be this hot? He’d been grateful for the warmth at first, but now he was sweating profusely, the thick, moist air making it somewhat difficult to breathe as he clambered up slopes and squeezed through small gaps, the feeling in his horns growing so intense he was starting to get a headache, made even worse by the slightly rotten smell that was starting to permeate the air.

Erebus stopped at the edge of some sort of drop-off. It was impossible to tell how far down it went, only that it was longer than his arm. He’d been scared of this, of having to fly while blind. Out of breath, he sat to rest for a moment, letting the slight breeze cool him off a tiny bit, wishing it didn’t smell so rancid.

Wait…breeze?

The air was moving, pulsing past him in a hot wave, and then a cooler gust in the opposite direction. It was rhythmic, over and over, back and forth, in and…in and out. 

Breathing. It was breathing.

If-if Erebus could feel its breathing, and the intense heat from its body, its stench, then it must be close, just off that ledge maybe, after all this time wandering around in the dark he’d finally found the next demon. With renewed energy, he stood and drew his sword. He’d have to approach this carefully, making sure he didn’t fly straight into the wall instead of hitting his target. After waving his hand over his head and not feeling anything above him, Erebus carefully took flight. It was difficult to move so slowly in the air, especially as he started to head down, but he didn’t want to risk falling who knows how far and landing on who knows what. 

Feeling his feet catch on something, he tried to land, but the ground beneath was slippery and almost gave way beneath him, causing him to fall for the second time today. Thankfully, he landed on something soft, though it was weirdly wet and sort of slimy, like…Erebus cried out and scurried back, but everything he touched was the same, squishy and warm and smooth and…and…It was flesh. All around him. He-he’d somehow flown into the demon’s mouth, he must have, its breath was rushing by him with even more force now, the nauseating scent of rot all around him. He had to get out. He just had to fly up. He could do this. He’d be fine. 

But…where was his sword?

He’d dropped it in his panic, like an idiot, and now he needed to find it. He wouldn’t stand a chance against the demons without it, and then he’d never be able to go home, never see another person again, he couldn’t accept that, he had to calm down, had to focus. He wanted that sword more than anything. It was his way out.

His stomach sank when his horns told him his sword was below him.

There wasn’t any choice but to fall further into the belly of the beast in order to kill it.

He took his time lowering himself, but it was more difficult than before. The heat was making his head throb, not to mention the toll all this flying was taking on him. Being unable to glide was putting a lot more strain on his wings than he’d realized, and though he couldn’t quite feel it through the sheen of sweat covering his face, he tasted the blood dripping out of his nose. By the time the buzzing in his horns peaked and his hand wrapped around the cool hilt of the sword, the world was starting to spin, and he all but collapsed next to the blade, which had buried itself partway in the fleshy ground. 

Erebus didn’t know if he had the energy to stand. The heat and all of that careful flying had sapped all of his strength, leaving him sprawled on the hot, soft flesh of the demon’s insides. Was this it? Was he just stuck here until he fell further and ended up digested? The healing he had for some reason was slow, probably too slow to keep up with stomach acid. He breathed in deeply as the slightly cooler air coming in rushed past him, trying to calm himself down. The demon’s breaths were deep and long, so they were difficult for Erebus to match perfectly, but he tried anyway, the less rancid-smelling air coming in making him feel a little better somehow. But why would…memories of dust, Neteri’s forehead against his, the puff of her breath against his cheeks. Sharing breath. He was sharing breath with this huge demon, gaining a little of its life force as he did so. 

Once he felt well enough to stand, he did so, holding onto his sword for support. He could do this. After bracing himself as best as he could, he started to pull, wincing at the awful squelching sound the blade made as it slid out of the flesh it was buried in. It came out with a sickening pop, squirting what Erebus could only assume was blood all over him. Some of it even landed in his mouth, and it…it tasted good. Really good, like a rich, meaty stew. 

His empty stomach started to growl.

This was a demon. Not a person.

He hadn’t eaten in over a day.

No one would ever know.

He needed energy.

Hands shaking, he pulled out his knife.

Just a little bit. 

It was warm, wet, chewy, almost rubbery, the texture making him gag slightly, but he didn’t care, not when it tasted this good, buttery and savory, little hints of spice dancing through it, shifting from one flavor to another, and he was powerless to stop, grabbing more and slicing it off, shoving it in his mouth before he’d even finished chewing the last bite, his hands and face slick with that delicious blood, the perfect sauce to go with his meat, the fingers on his right hand had grown claws at some point, and now he was tearing away at the walls with his hand, ripping chunks off with his teeth, continuing to slice and shred long after he’d eaten his fill, even as the ground below started to shake, a guttural roar drowning out the sounds of flesh tearing and blood dripping, the force of it sending Erebus to the ground, snapping him out of whatever trance he’d been in.

What…what had he just done?

How could he be sure there wasn’t anyone else out there in the blackness? 

He could feel the ghosts of his parents watching him, watching their son turn into the monster he looked like. 

He had to get out of here. 

The walls shifted and pulsed as the demon’s breath sped up, roars and moans sounding out so loudly around him it made his head hurt. Its mouth might be closed now, trapping him inside. He’d have to find another way. Or just…make his own.

A large section of one of the walls had already been ravaged, cut and torn away during his frenzied eating, so he resumed work on it, slicing away chunks with his sword now, tossing them to the side instead of bringing them to his mouth. Progress was faster when he could focus, but it was almost impossible to tell how far he’d come, how much he’d carved away, how close he was to breaking through the skin. He came across a more rubbery section and ended up having to almost saw away at it, blood spurting all over him as he went, as if he wasn’t already covered in it. How whole body felt so sticky and sweaty and gross, and all he could think about was washing off somehow after he got out of here.

Blood was flowing out steadily now, coming out with more and more force, and soon enough it was all Erebus could do to hold onto his sword, his anchor buried in the fleshy wall, praying he wouldn’t get swept away by the jet of hot, sticky, delicious-smelling blood. H-he must’ve cut into a major blood vessel. Those shot blood out like crazy, from what he remembered. Maybe this would be enough to kill the demon? Then he’d just be…trapped inside its corpse. For now, it was still very much alive, its roars and moans starting to get louder, more desperate.

All of a sudden, the ground beneath him lurched, and Erebus’s sword slipped out of the cut it was in, sending him tumbling backwards, the river of blood sweeping him away before he could try to stand up, stab the floor, do anything to save himself, but he had to, he couldn’t fall any further down, couldn’t lose the tunnel he’d carved out in this sweltering blackness, couldn’t sink into the sea of blood and digestive acid that was likely waiting for him below, he had to stop somehow, the sword was too long, his wings couldn’t generate lift, nothing to do but desperately scratch at the slippery ground below, dig his claws in, deeper, deeper, deeper, hold on, arm trembling with the effort, he couldn’t afford to let go, to fall, the blood was coming with less force now, the tremors not as frequent, just a little bit longer until…

The great beast fell silent, fell still, its blood merely trickling by now, dripping in imitation of the water in the cave surrounding it. 

Erebus dragged himself to his feet, coughing up blood. He’d tried to keep his mouth closed during the whole ordeal, but some had still made its way in. Was the demon actually dead? It was hard to tell for sure, but he supposed it didn’t matter. He had to get out of here regardless, and any other escape route besides his tunnel was out of the question. Nothing to do but resume work, then, and hope he could get out of here soon.

Time crawled by as Erebus hacked away at the wall, and just when he was starting to think he wasn’t headed towards the surface of this thing’s body, his sword met with a different sort of resistance than before. It wasn’t like the blood vessel, more stretchy and tough, but he was pretty sure he was able to poke through, and soon enough he’d made a gap large enough for him to squeeze through. He didn’t realize how hot it’d been in there until he was sitting outside it, the cave air unbelievably refreshing after being swallowed up by that rancid heat. 

After feeling around a bit, Erebus decided he must be on the demon’s back or something. The slope down was pretty steep, enough that he wasn’t sure he could walk down effectively in the dark. His wings were still exhausted from flying earlier, so…scooting down very carefully it was. For the first time today, he was able to move downwards at a reasonable pace, not having to be careful of random rocks jutting out of the floor or ceiling. He was starting to get a bit excited to leave these caves and be able to see again. The water in the sloth demon’s domain would be perfect for washing all of this blood off of him, and there were few things he loved more than feeling clean. Already, he was starting to realize everything he’d taken for granted in his previous captivity.

He’d taken light for granted, too, and the moment he saw it, the moment he could see at all, he teared up a bit, but that might have just been because it was bright. Navigating the rest of the way down the demon’s body was much easier now that he could see, and it wasn’t long before he was back on solid ground, nearly running towards the cave exit. Finally. 

The dark, starless sky was a welcome sight, almost as beautiful to him as the small pools of water a little ways away. He was lucky this exit dumped him out closer to the water than the entrance he’d originally gone through had been. Curious, Erebus looked down at himself, and couldn’t help but wince in disgust. He was covered from head to toe in blood, most of it dried to a brownish-red, cracking a bit around his joints, little pieces of the demon’s flesh caked on here and there. His hair was sticky and matted with it, and the coppery, still tempting tang of it was all he could smell and taste. He’d never been so revoltingly filthy, and he was secretly glad no one was here to see it. 

It was a quick walk to the nearest pool of water, and while it looked a bit different than the other little pools from before, he paid it no mind. Water was water. He fell to his knees in front of it and stuck his hands in, ready to-HOT! Erebus pulled his hands out of the fiery water, screaming as they burned so intensely he could feel it in his very bones. All he could do was lie on his side and wait for them to heal, tears streaming from his eyes as he wailed. None of the water in the sloth demon’s domain had even been warm, so why was it nearly boiling all of a sudden? Unless he wasn’t…

“You really wanted to make a good first impression on me, didn’t you, intruder?”

Blinking away tears, Erebus looked in the direction of the familiar voice, his blood running cold when he saw who had spoken.

It was Shiori.

Next→

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@suspicious-whumping-egg @befuddled-calico-whump @whump-in-the-closet​ @pumpkinsncoffee​ @aryox

[batsplat]

casey also talks about sepang 2015 what do you think of that

oh in that podcast? uh... lemme listen again...

yeah idk it's not really anything new I'd say? he's said basically all the same stuff in more interesting and extensive ways elsewhere. I think casey inevitably has a very 'well feuding is bad and helps nobody' point of view, has expressed that before in the past, does it here again, and he's also drawn a parallel between himself and marc on several occasions. which... well, of course there's similarities in terms of public discourse or whatever, but the parallel really falls apart whenever casey argues the feuds cost valentino. like, I do think it's sometimes important to just. keep in mind. it's interesting that casey draws this comparison in his mind but that doesn't necessarily means he's right about this. I'm not sure how you'd argue that starting a feud with casey cost valentino anything competitively? you can argue it didn't help him I guess, and then we can have a debate about the ins and outs of the 2008 season. we can also have an argument that in a hypothetical world where casey isn't ill in 2009, valentino doesn't break his leg and casey isn't on a piece of junk in 2010, and valentino isn't on a piece of junk in 2011-12, then actually maybe valentino sparking open animosity with casey COULD have cost him. but we don't know that! didn't happen! I wish we could have found out, but we never got the chance! as it stands, the tally on this is pretty straightforward: casey won the title when things were reasonably civil between them in 2007, and valentino took control of the following season at the exact moment he worsened the relationship between the pair of them in 2008. obviously, it's all more complicated than that and casey would of course argue laguna didn't negatively affect his subsequent performances... but it certainly didn't help them. like, at the very worst valentino escalating tensions in 2008 is a complete net neutral. after 2009, them being bitchy to each other every other tuesday was completely competitively irrelevant beyond maybe affecting how they approached occasionally fighting for a podium position. hey, maybe casey used that feud to fire himself up through sheer spite throughout the later stages of his career, but that doesn't actually support his anti-feud stance - it's basically the exact same thing as what valentino does. they're both quite similar in that regard! always so hungry to prove a point, to show how someone else is wrong. kinda half the point with this feuding business is to get yourself going, get yourself motivated, yeah. he straight up openly admits to using yamaha's repeat rejection of him as a way of giving himself motivation, and at the end of the day that's really not all that different?

anyway, what else does casey say... oh yeah, that him and the other aliens were already kinda prepared for this and had learned vale's tricks. that valentino had only been able to get into the minds of the previous generation. welllllll *wiggles hand* sure, I mean, he did clearly have to change his approach... he couldn't just use the exact same playbook to get to them, either on-track or off-track. but that's why he did change up the playbook... again, whether you want to believe valentino won his final two titles 'in the head' rather than just through pure pace kinda depends on how you assess the evidence, but it is at the very least a debate. and, y'know, it's always worth remembering that valentino's most important mind games with casey didn't happen in a press conference... it was on the track. and the on-track stuff really is just embedded in how valentino approaches winning. speaking of aliens, this is what dani and jorge have said:

like, valentino's entire approach to his riding, even to the way he's setting his bike up, is deliberately about directly fucking with you... he's not actually always trying to be faster than you as much as he's trying to give himself the tools to make your life miserable, to pressure you into mistakes, etc etc... and again, especially with casey (if anything because he was so mentally sturdy), the off-track stuff was really just window dressing. (I know they bicker a lot after 2009 but it's just so fundamentally irrelevant to actual on-track competition.) so you can be aware of those tricks, but it also doesn't necessarily help you when someone's being nasty to you on-track in a way you just fully do not enjoy. which is what it was like for casey! for casey, a lot of this comes back to the truly unpleasant context of how he was perceived by the public, how he was treated as mentally weak or 'broken' or whatever partly because he had the misfortune of coming up against a bloke who had the reputation for breaking rivals. I think it's quite natural to end up with a bit of a hardliner 'actually I've never been mentally affected by a result in my life' stance - and of course casey is a lot tougher than a lot of people give him credit for. that being said. sometimes your rivals affect you, shit happens, it's part of the game. it's fundamentally a nice idea to think that valentino's tactics weren't just morally wrong but also ineffective, which is kind of the appeal of this narrative, right? you want to believe you're above that, you want to believe you were adequately prepared and wise to valentino's tactic. it's unsurprising and understandable that casey does tend to tell the story that way, but again it's *wiggles hand* also hard to describe it as completely factual

uh. what else. oh I'm thrilled casey does canonically know valentino and marc were friends, he has said he wasn't following motogp too much during that time period so you couldn't be sure of that. does this mean anything? does it tell you anything? well, no, but it's just a pleasing thought to me. I like that. oh also 'provoking particularly aggressive riders isn't a good idea' is kinda a funny take from casey? like, he of all people would hate the idea of being cowed by someone's reputation like that... casey's right that provoking fast riders can potentially be dangerous, but y'know I do think that's probably not news to anyone almost nine years later. um. that's all I've got I think

[raiiny-bay]

my favorite edits - 2023 edition 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9

[everythingsbetterunderthestars]

Help for some reason my brain decided to have tons of fanfiction ideas except I literally DO NOT HAVE THE TIME to write them at this point in my life so for now I’m just playing them out in my head 24/7 waiting for the holidays to come so I can start up on at least ONE project because I quite frankly CANNOT LIVE LIKE THIS ANYMORE

[chromxena]

joined a local choir and ah, singing with other people is just so fun and nice and beautiful <3

[mortellanarts]

2023 go bye bye