#and they're just really easy to talk to

[cactusdodes]

.

[fluentisonus]

working in a factory has you thinking so much about the insane chain of labor & transport that goes into making literally anything

[ywpd-translations]

Ride 794: The culmination race

Pag 1

1: “There are people who you don't meet often, but when you do meet them you get along really well”

2: I heard that from a classmate a long time ago

And I thought “there's no way that there are people like that”

4: There's some strange people

5: It's funny, if they asked me now

Pag 2

1: I'd answer “of course there are”!!

Pag 3

1: “One of them lives in Chiba”, I'd say!!

2: One day, that guy was collapsed on Hakone and I helped him

3: Unexpectedly, he also rode a bike

4: We met again at CSP

5: Like me

6: he's a climber

Pag 4

1: We rarely meet

but when we do meet

2: We laugh

Pag 5

1: at the same silly things

2: Sakamichi-kun!! It's you!!

Pag 6

1: They passed the 1km left point!!

Manami and Mountain King!

Just a few minutes until they reach the mountain line!!

Soon!

Goo Hakogaku!!

Take it, Chiba!!

Pag 7

1: They're still neck and neck!!

Amazing, neither of them is yielding!!

It's a race of willpower!!

2: Until the mountain line

3: 800m left!!

4: My hands

5: are becoming numb

6: But I'll keep doing my best!!

Pag 8

2: Wh-wh-what do I do

My heart is pounding in my chest....

3: They're arriving!!

Huh!? They're arriving!? Wait, my heart isn't ready

Not yet

Not yet!? Not yet!!

4: Why am I so nervous....

Even though I'm not the one running

Pag 9

1: Even though the one who's running and having a hard time is Sangaku...

2: I'll drink this lemon tea the old lady at the ryokan gave me, and I'll calm down

3: Ohh, you're going to cheer at the Inter High?

Oh, and you come from Kanagawa!?

Yes, well

That's amazing

4: It's delicious

5: But

6: I'm stuck on one thing

7: Was it really a good thing that I came here to cheer?

Pag 10

1: One month ago

2: Kanagawa Prefecture, Hakone Academy

3: Ah

4: Class rep

5: Huh? From above!?

Huh, where is this voice coming from!?

The boys' toilets

Ah!?

Pag 11

1: Wait a moment, there's something I wanna ask you

Toi... ah!?

2: Huh!? Wait!? What!? Directly!?

Use the inside stairs... be caref....

2: Hop

Okay I get it, I get it, I'll come there

4: You know the other day... while I was running... a butterfly was flying,. And then I thought “oh, it's gone?”

And then when I went home and took off my jersey, it came out of it fluttering

What- you just came down the second floor so smoothly and started making conversation!!

Pag 12

1: Am I not amazing like a magician!?

Boys are strong...

Ah, yes yes, that's true

2: Is that all you wanted to tell me? I've been asked to go to the audiovisual room to bring these documents

3: Are you coming to the Inter High?

5: Huh

6: “Something he wanted to ask”

This year

Ah

7: “Inter High”

Pag 13

1: You came to the Inter High every year

I didn't know you liked road racing so much, Class rep

I...

2: I always thought

You even passed me a drink on the mountain last year

I thought

3: After last year's Inter High ended

4: I kept thinking about it even on the train home

5: that it was because I went to see him that Sangaku...

6: lost

Pag 14

1: I know it's unrelated... but, at the same place, screaming the same words

This year it'll be in Kyushu thought, so it's far...

2: It's small, it's a small thing, but if it gets in Sangaku's way

Hakogaku is going by plane, so it's easy

3: If he was even just a little distracted because of me and that made a small difference

(Win, Sangaku!!

Win, Sangaku!!)

4: Then I think it's better if I don't go this year

6: Because I want him to win

Pag 15

1: Ah, as expected Kyushu is too over-budget

That's not... ah... uhm

2: …. yeah, sorry

3: Well, I'll tell you the highlights

There'll be a camera, so you can watch videos

4: Watch it

The first day's mountain

“The first day's... mountain”

5: I think Sakamichi-kun will probably there too

“Sakamichi-kun”... the guy with the round glasses

6: We'll probably fight there

I think

Pag 16

1: It will be the culmination race of these three years

2: “Culmination”!!

3: “Of these three years”...!!

4: Such heavy words... this is Sangaku being serious

Culmination....!?

Pag 17

1: We have to fulfill our promise, so I'm sure Sakamichi-kun will come

2: “Sakamichi-kun”... they must be... close friends....

3: I think it'll probably end up being our best race

4: A... are you close friends!? You.. you and that Sakamichi-kun!?

5: Hahaha

Well, I guess

6: Even though we only contact each other two or three times a year

And that's being close friends!?

7: I lost against him during our first year... Hakogaku ended up losing, so I resented him

But I was blaming the wrong thing, because after all it was because of my lack of ability, wasn't it?

8: Now we often talk after races

Is... that so

9: But why don't you send more texts to each other? Is- is he really a close friend!?

Of course!!

Pag 18

1: After all we both “like hills”

Pag 19

2: Come see me if you can save money

Ye... yeah

3: Sangaku's smiling face that day was incredibly persuasive

I really wanted to see you race

4: So I came

to Kyushu!!

5: But

7: I really don't want to move forward, after all

It's enough if I can just see him a little... from behind here

Pag 20

1: What are you doing

2: Hyaa I'm sorry!!

I'm sorry for not paying attention to who was behind me! I'll just lean down a little!

Why don't you move forward?

3: Huh

4: Isn't he

5: a close friend of yours, and you used to always listen to his nonsense?

To... Toudou-san!!

[sunciv]

noone (and i mean noone) will convince me that this:

wasn't followed by some intense makeout

[sallymew4]

kids when they hear that their dad is back in town VS. kids when theyre hanging out with a conman that accidentally stole their wallet once

im not even joking btw

bonus heres me being crazy about them in dms ^^^

[voiider]

We started rewatching Young Justice recently and all of the "sidekicks" were upset at being treated like children and being kept in the dark and not having access to information and i just?? I don't think Batman would believe in withholding information from Robin

Dick gets into everything everywhere all of the time there is no peace or privacy from him. And Bruce has never dealt with children before how is he supposed to know whats 'appropriate' for a child to know or have access to.

Speedy: it's such bs that they don't trust us with information Robin: haha what? Green Arrow: It's hard keeping information from my partner/subordinate but it's for his own good. He's a child and he can't be trusted with that sort of power yet. Do you struggle with Robin wanting access to information he doesn't have the clearance for? Batman, who's never kept a single secret from Dick and couldn't if he tried: um. yeah. absolutely.

[batsplat]

do you know why vale seems to have a soft spot for pedrosa?

there's not any single one reason, I don't think, but here's are a few contributing factors that come to mind:

history! in large part because of the honda link, dani's the alien he's known the longest... valentino was the number one honda rider at a time at which dani was honda's rising star. photo on the right is from the 2001 honda celebrations at the last race of the season (when dani was sixteen); from oxley's valentino rossi: all his races: "that night vale celebrated in style at a raucous honda victory party, where he taught honda youngsters daijiro kato and dani pedrosa how to drink". they've known each other forever! valentino was getting teenage dani drunk! quite natural to be fond of someone you've seen grow up like that, even if they are being moulded to be your next big rival

circumstance! the way it basically works with valentino is that if you want to have a feud with him, you generally need to have a title fight with him when you’re already ‘established’ rivals (ignore marc, that’s its own thing, 2015 is a freaky season). biaggi and valentino were enemies headed into 2001 and then were worse enemies, he was cool with sete in year one but not year two, mostly *wiggles hand* the same with casey and jorge… feuds aren't build overnight. valentino and dani weren’t ever really direct title rivals - closest they got was 2006 and 2008, but in both cases valentino probably didn’t see dani as his main problem that year. there wasn't really any competitive necessity for valentino to get nasty... also with one or two notable exceptions, valentino did kinda have dani handled in their actual wheel-to-wheel fights, which let’s face it probably didn’t hurt

yapping! so this is just a theory but it’s one I believe strongly in. you know how valentino loves to talk, right? the thing about pressers and podiums is that you're always going to have a few regular attendees, if you will, corresponding to the front runners in any given year. now, unfortunately for valentino, there were periods of time where almost every other regular attendee was someone he had pretty active beef with. that doesn’t mean he always avoided yapping at them, but relatively speaking you want a guy you can build up some good repartee with to pass the time. dani was his guy… less complicated than casey and jorge, plus dani is polite enough to go along with it and maybe even enjoy chatting to valentino (it’s been known to happen). pressers can be boring and at podiums you're still full of adrenaline, valentino wants to share a joke with someone! my completely unscientific sense is that valentino does this a lot with dani around 2008-ish to 2012, then for two years marc is the number one yap victim, then for a while it’s a bit…? oddly valentino does seem to chat quite a lot with jorge in 2015... he likes to throw in a quirky behavioural pattern sometimes to keep you guessing. anyway then in 2016 he is Actively Ignoring two of these men so vale goes!! hi there dani!! and takes it from there (though the field is more mixed up post-2015 so he becomes more of an opportunistic yapper). in general, valentino will chat to pretty much anyone with A Few Exceptions, but he does usually have a bit of an order of preference

dani’s personality! now, obviously dani is very much capable of feuds, but he’s not that naturally combative a character. valentino generally needs a competitive justification for beef, though some personal animosity can help too… but he never really hated any of that trio of young riders to come through. valentino's known dani forever, he’s been around dani a fair bit because of their respective statuses in the sport, dani isn’t going out of his way to pick fights with valentino, so no reason not to get on! he does clearly quite like chatting to dani and seems pretty fond of him even towards the start of the alien era, at a time in which it was broadly expected that dani not casey would emerge as vale's primary challenger... god knows if the relationship would have soured if dani had assumed that mantle (probably at least a little lol) but failing that, valentino does just seem to quite like him. y’know, sometimes it’s like that

They Have Also Had Their Disagreements, But There Hasn’t Been Much Cause For It To Escalate Further. these disagreements have tended to be over racing standards, where dani is generally in the ‘you people are all insane’ camp and valentino is generally in the ‘ah it’s fine’ camp (though, obviously, there is nuance here… cf vale also criticising sic over the le mans 2011 incident that left dani with the broken collarbone). generally, they don't get into direct conflict over it, more of an underlying difference in positions (hey, aragon 2013 is an example)... but there’s been dani’s suggestion that valentino’s sepang 2015 stance is inconsistent with his generally laissez faire approach, and also some other isolated little scuffles over the years like say 2017 aragon (see below). pretty small scale stuff in the grand scheme of things and if you've been on-track rivals for that long it's kinda inevitable you'll eventually disagree about some stuff, but perhaps worth bringing up

went through all of the alien combos in my head and these two slot in just behind dani/casey as probably the two most consistently beef-free inter-alien relationships? dani/casey gets extra credit for surviving The Teammate Test. but, y'know, the thing about valentino is that he's a sociable, outgoing guy... he likes talking to people... he's actually interested in them... he's a decent conversationalist, easy to get on with, all that stuff. so if you expose valentino to this nice fella who at most was like... perhaps a bit more reserved towards the start of his time in the premier class (partly due to his mentor's approach), but really was generally pretty chill... well, if valentino isn't given any reason to hate dani, then default state is that he won't. good on them etc

[writing-with-olive]

How to call your representatives in 10 minutes or less

1: Pick a bill you want to call about. If you don't have one off the top of your head, go to your state's legislature website or congress.gov and type in a keyword about a topic you're interested in, and pick one that looks of note to you.

2: Check if the bill is in the house or senate (HB means house bill unless it's already passed and is now in the senate, vice versa for SB)

3: Figure out who's your representative(s) in that chamber. State sites will have a "who's my representative" field somewhere, and you can find your federal reps here. Put their contacts into your phone so you don't have to do this step again

4a: If you want to, you can stop here and go ahead and call your representative. You can come up with an elaborate script if you want, but my conversations often go like this if I have not checked whether or not my rep is on the subcommittee where the bill's probably sitting at. It rarely goes over 2.5 minutes

Staffer: Hello, this is the office of [lawmaker]. Me: Hi, I'm calling as a constituent of [lawmaker] about [house/senate bill, bill number, bill name]. I wanted to express my [support/lack of support] for it, and was hoping you could pass along the message to [lawmaker] that as [his/her] constituent I would like [her/him] to vote [in favor/against] [bill name]. Staffer: Thank you so much for calling and voicing your opinion. I will let you know that the bill is currently [insert information about what subcommittee it's stuck in], but when it comes down for a floor vote, I'll be sure your voice is heard in the discussion. Can I get your name, and a phone number or email address? Me: My name is [name], my phone number is [number I called them from] Them: Alright, well thank you again for calling in today, and I'll be sure to pass this along Me: Thank you so much. Have a good day Staffer: You too, bu-bye *hangs up*

note: they are legally obligated to tally a yea/nae count of constituents calling/writing in and have to share it with reps

4b: If you want to call about bills that your representative currently has some direct sway over, check what subcommittees they're a part of. If you type their name in to this site and scroll down, you can find a list.

5: On the bill, there will be a line (or tab) that says activity, and says where it was most recently referred to, and see if one of your rep's subcommittee assignments is on there

6a: If they're on that subcommittee, great! go ahead and call using the same script as above

6b: If they're not on that subcommittee, click the "get alerts" button to get automatic updates if movement happens, or set a reminder to check back later and see if it's moved

[lupins-hehim-pussy]

I wanna know ur Fontaine msq criticisms 👁️👁️👂I’m all ears

I'm not sure if you wanted me to talk about this secretly or publicly but! Here I go!

The TLDR: Fontaine MSQ aestheticised prison, poverty, child abuse, the justice system/court and didn't properly address any of it.

More:

Focalors/Furina has way too much of a sympathetic angle for a dictator who's lets people drown with her inaction.

Neuvillette feels Bad for sentencing some people to death/prison, but that's it. He's one of the most powerful people in Fontaine. If he felt like there are systemic injustices, I.E sending an abused Child to prison, he should be the first person to DO something about it, not just cry and be sad so the audience can be like aw, that's complex character writing isn't it? No it's not! And guilt doesn't absolve you!!!!!!! (These are stuff we deal with in OTCOJ read my fic now /j)

Meropide has children in it, both Sentenced there (Wriothesley) and BORN THERE (Lanoire), and this is just a quirk of the place. Not only that, Meropide accepts prisoners of all genders and crimes. There are abusers and abuse victims in one place. Do you know how bad that is? How much potential for crimes to happen in a place like that— oh wait, Meropide isn't under Fontaine's jurisdiction. If you are assaulted as an inmate it literally means nothing to the court.

Wriothesley had no qualifications when he took over. Depending on how long he lived on the streets, how old he was when he killed his parents, how old he was when he was first taken in by the orphanage, etc, the man might never have more than 4–5 years of formal education. Sigewinne probably had to teach him how to write reports. And do Meropide's spreadsheets. Edit because I forgot to elaborate on this one: This isn't a point brought up anywhere, which is bad, because when poverty and incarceration robs you of a proper education (and the rights to vote in many places too, too, by the way), it reduces your prospects for jobs, reduces many people's ability to get a home etc etc. Wriothesley was just, narratively, Given his position.

Meropide is an industrialized prison, and they portray this as a good thing. Prisoners are paid in coupons for their labour, and this is also portrayed as a good thing.

The One-Meal-A-Day reform was something Paimon gushed about being so great of a perk, that people might want to go to jail for food (could be interesting and reflective of systemic poverty if MHY had brains, but they don't, so I was just Pissed because essentially all Paimon wanted to say was "Prison isn't so bad, but still don't go to prison guys! Prison labour is really hard!"). By the way, in most real-world prisons they are obligated to feed you three meals a day. Because that's how much food a human needs. MHY went with one meal just so they can say "if you want to eat more, you have to work." And then the welfare meal is a goddamn gacha. So imagine you're a starving child who's too weak to work in the fucking robot assembly line, and you wander up for your first meal in 24 hours, only to luck in with a shit one. I'd kill myself.

They wrote Wriothesley, who's a victim of the system, into a guy who's say shit like "I'm the Duke I can do whatever I want" for a cool moment where he choke-slams an inmate (I know he was a bad guy. But also, in copaganda when cops are violent/disregarding protocols, they are always only portrayed to do that against bad guys, so what does our critical thinking tells us about this one?) They wrote Wriothesley, who was an inmate of a prison so bad, so notorious that it is the literal boogeyman of Fontaine, that has a legal (???) fighting pit, with an administrator who abuses his position to be unreasonable, to willingly stay in the place and become an Administrator who would choke-slam an inmate while saying a cool line about how he has the power to do whatever he wants. They wrote him, the guy who had to be fed on the streets by melusines, to think one-meal-a-day was a good enough reform (while he spends god-knows how much on his boat). This wasn't a victim-turns-into-abuser narrative either, they want all this to be seen as positive character growth.

And then, the final kicker is, they gloss over his entire abuse. You can only read about these shit in his profile, which most people don't because they don't Have Him or doesn't care to unlock it/read it online, and they jammed his entire backstory into a flaccid info-dump at the end of his character story quest. This man isn't Allowed to feel abused and neglected and show any reaction to it within the narrative of Fontaine itself, because if they actually Gave Weight to what happened to him, they'd have to confront THE FUCKING JUSTICE SYSTEM they had NO PLANS on criticising. I don't think they ever explicitly said the fucking Crime-Theatre nonsense was Bad either.

I could go on, but this is already so long. But yeah, I hope this gave you an idea.

[adriartts]

more side character designs now to the tune of the Kil sisters

[someobscurereference]

Insane over the awakening trio again. We fought a war together, saved each other multiple times, and I know for a fact I can trust you with my life. We have never learned to socialize normally so we can't interact in a normal environment for five seconds without dunking on each other. I would follow you through time and space and abandon everything with you. You are the living reminder of every awful thing that have ever happened to me. Our traumas make us hurt each other at every turn. We're the only ones who know what lead to each other becoming Like That. Our jobs are barely in the same area and we don't even hang out that much outside of necessities. You are all I have left. I cannot fucking understand you. I am the only one in this entire world who has the ability to even try to.

x

[ieidolon]

now that i'm playing dragon age: veilguard i understand hbomberguy so much better. think i could probably do a 3.5 hours long video called "dragon age: the veilguard is FINE and here's why"

[gamebunny-advance]

.:・°☆. NSR NPC Icon Garden ☆.。.:・

Free to use.

Bonus alts of Zed and Amal under the cut.

[icewindandboringhorror]

"We can get through this by working together, reach out to your friends, community is all we have, a social network will be your security in the world, now is the time to lean on others!"

I do agree, and it's scientifically sound (pretty sure there is data about how people with better social networks live longer and etc) but also....augh..... what about the severe social issues, difficulty to leave the house, physical issues which lead to like zero socialization energy a majority of the time, etc. etc. Social support can be a replacement for structural support, but.. I guess I just wish it didn't have to be. Community is extremely difficult to build, even moreso if you're someone who has issues with social cues or group conversations or even just being around others in the first place. And blah, nuance, of course I'm just complaining or maybe being too negative or maybe misunderstanding, but, I hardly have the energy to brush my hair once every 2 months.. how am I supposed to maintain a wide social network and be active in a Community and Join Groups lol... sometimes it kind of feels like "er.. well if thats my only option then...... ruh roh". It's overwhelming

[my-thoughts-and-junk]

hate when i see a youtube video that's like 'analyzing why [thing] is bad!' and you watch the video and they just say nothing for twenty minutes

[trentcrimminallybeautiful]

i think about the whole "love that" exchange a lot.