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batsplat · 7 months ago

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hiiii <3 i just saw your casey race recs post and i was wondering if you had one with dovi or marc races too! i'm relative new to motogp and i don't know where to start watching!

thankk youuuu, i love your blog, i'm learning so much thanks to you 😭😭 also you're really funny 🫶

right, this one admittedly was trickier than the casey list. marc in particular has accumulated one hell of a body of work... not easy to do justice to. marc's won a lot, but his most enjoyable races aren't the ones where he gaps the field by about two minutes at cota. it's the ones where he's scrapping and brawling his way through and the whole thing is a bit of a mess. and there's a lot of races to choose from in that regard, against a whole host of different rivals

which is very nice for him, but that makes it impossible to do anything comparably comprehensive for marc without getting to a slightly ridiculous length. luckily, that's never stopped me before, and long is what you're getting. you asked about dovi so I'm gonna go with him first, because that's a somewhat easier to tackle body of work - and limit myself to a mere ten twenty five seven eight recs. then I'll get to marc, where I've limited myself to an extremely reasonable thirty three five races, not including any I already covered in the dovi section. if you're looking for something a little more specific, like idk wet weather or feuding or whatnot, lemme know

same warning as before: plenty of race results will be spoiled in the description. in honour of how worryingly long this list is, I've escalated to a three asterisk system: * means 'go check it out', ** means 'personal favourite', *** means 'classic race'

dovi

spoiler free top ten list: welkom 2004, turkey 2007, sepang 2008, silverstone 2010, mugello 2012, mugello 2017, austria 2017, sepang 2017, brno 2018, qatar 2019

*welkom 2004: dovi's first grand prix win. most of this race consists of a three-way battle between locatelli, dovi and casey (who eventually drops away a bit) at the circuit that kicks off dovi's 125cc title-winning season. the second half of this race is more exciting than the first, and you'll never guess how dovi wins a grand prix for the very first time. let's just say he wasn't leading going into the last corner and leave it at that

**turkey 2007: andrea dovizioso once again getting himself involved in a last lap battle? SURELY not. this race is so so much fun, though after the start it settles down for a bit - stick with it, because when it gets going, it really gets going. these kids are vicious with each other! half the joy of watching these old 250cc/125cc (or equivalent) races is hearing the stuff the commentators chat about, basically getting all the good gossip of the time... like say jorge telling the spanish press they shouldn't believe half the things he says about his rivals... or how he'd already been visibly pissed off after qualifying because he was starting from p2 rather than pole... also the kind of podium both me and the commies always massively enjoy, aka one where two people on it basically refuse to acknowledge each other. the vibes between jorge and dovi are NOT good here and it's a lot of fun to watch these children being so pissy with each other

^one of his favourite career victories against his main rival in 250cc, the defending champion jorge lorenzo, who was sporting the number one plate on a superior bike to dovi's honda machinery. more often than not over the course of their time in the sport, these two have not gotten on well at all. it remains one of the sport's defining tragedies that chupa chups did not sponsor jorge throughout his career

qatar 2008: his debut in motogp and a strong race. pleasingly he gets involved in a last lap fight, and does pick off one of the aliens

*sepang 2008: dovi's first premier class podium and an extremely deserving one that really showcased his abilities as a defensive rider, the latest of late brakers etc etc. fought with valentino, then led a train of four/five riders at one point, then was involved in a great late scuffle for third place that lasted until the very end

donington park 2009: first motogp win! has to be said the aliens... uh. none of them delivered their most dignified performances. but ignore those clowns - dovi's of course cemented his reputation as a highly skilled wet weather racer over the years, but this was his first time in the spotlight in the premier class. it would take him seven more years to acquire his next victory

*qatar 2010: a somewhat stronger season than his disappointing 2009 campaign, and the first race was certainly promising. dovi scraps with vale, scraps with nicky hayden, scraps with lorenzo... the racing is pretty decent too. includes the strange sight of seeing the ducati out-powered in a straight line down the lusail straight and I'm sorry but at that point ducati might as well have called it a season, like that was their ONE thing. anyway, dovi still rode well to take advantage of it

*silverstone 2010: once jorge hits the front following some initial resistance from dani, the fight for the win is basically over - but what's going on behind him is good enough to make up for it. bunch of different duels going on in the top seven, whether it's dovi and de puniet, hayden and pedrosa, spies and sic, and eventually casey shows up to join in on the fun too. another one where a bunch of riders are pleasingly close together and there's some real suspense about the final order late on (though the most dramatic action in the last lap is happening right behind dovi - not that you see most of it given the classic tv direction sin of instead giving us a nice prolonged shot of jorge doing a wheelie over the line and his crew celebrating. cheers guys). nice comeback ride for casey-enjoyers too (he wasn't enjoying it)

**sepang 2010: lot going on in this race. three-way fight for the win. valentino is eleventh after a few corners. he does not end the race in eleventh place. this is a good race both for dovi enjoyers and for enjoyers of the... uh. complicated vale/jorge dynamic (this race immediately followed motegi, a notable low point of their relationship). lovely little spite ride, for people who like that kind of thing. love the way it gradually builds up as valentino closes and closes and dovi is just sitting on jorge's rear wheel, and then it just nicely lights up around half distance. me and the commentators are once again having a great time. it is here that jorge seals the title, so it's all post-race smiles with just a hint of posturing

silverstone 2011: casey won this by several light years, but dovi demonstrated his pedigree as a wet racer once again. his race involved intense skirmishes first with jorge and then with sic, and it's fair to say he got the better of both of them

^two excellent wet weather racers and teammates for a single year in a three person repsol honda squad. when dovi was informed he would be let go by the factory team, he decided against accepting a demotion within honda and instead made the jump to yamaha's tech 3 satellite outfit for one year. this was the first time he raced outside of honda in his grand prix racing career. then, in 2013, valentino's return to yamaha made space within ducati. he was always going to have to be vale's replacement rather than his teammate - in 2011 while searching for a ride he said "I would never accept to be teamed up with valentino rossi. it would be pure masochism. there is no room for anybody at his side, he takes it from you and he takes it all. when rossi is ready to share the limelight it will be the end of his racing days". fittingly, dovi was valentino's last ever teammate in motogp

mugello 2011: this feels like one of those classic alien era races where the winner of the race is determined after about a lap. but... it's not! makes for an unexpectedly exciting race and also *ding* last lap overtake

*valencia 2011: this one should have gone on the casey list too, knew I'd missed some. anyhow, on dovi - a lot of dovi's best races during those years came in the wet. but this time he was already engaged in a nice little scrap with dani and ben spies before the rain came. the clash also had real stakes for dovi and dani's final championship positions, a point of personal pride given that dovi had been let go by honda and pedrosa had been retained. a race that accidentally gets exciting again at the end, quite the dramatic finish. this was an emotional podium at the first race after sic's death. dovi and sic had grown up racing each other - and while he stressed that they had never been friends, dovi went to sic's house two days after the crash to see his family and share his grief with them

assen 2012: another one that probably could have gone on my casey list too, actually, with the fight for the win between dani and casey lasting pretty far into the race. behind them, it's dovi putting pressure on spies, lying in wait to make the attack... and, thrilled to say, we do in fact have some last lap overtaking. we don't really get to see how this contest is resolved because the audience needs to see the race winner coast for half a lap, but nevertheless! this one also has extra significance because spies was a factory yamaha rider and dovi was with the satellite team. always a good idea to get your market value up during contract negotiation season

*mugello 2012: would put this on my casey list if I'd included some disaster rides, which this is for him. that bit of the season where he made some high profile errors and controversial passing attempts of his own (and there was an overtake he did apologise for post-race) (this is the last casey mention I promise). anyway, never mind him. this is another one of those alien era races where the winner pretty quickly checks out by a margin of around ninety nine years, and indeed is already waving to the crowd on the last lap. the racing behind him is not too bad though, dovi is involved in a long duel with bradl that hayden eventually joins, and casey isn't the only guy executing controversial passes

assen 2014: ducati was in a pretty sorry state in 2013 and it's still in a pretty sorry state in 2014. another wet race podium, very strong race from dovi where he does manage to stick with marc for a while there. lower down the order, valentino is executing a rather nifty comeback ride after making an erroneous tyre choice

**qatar 2015: a great race and one that nicely sets the tone for what some consider a fairly interesting season. marc goes wide in the first turn and jorge has some kind of visor issues, so we end up with the two ducatis and valentino having it out for the win

^valentino after qatar 2015 about the current era of racing. at the start of the season, it looked like the ducatis would be right in the mix - surely one of the two factory riders would be able to snag a victory sooner or later. it was not to be that year and the results for the rest of the season were largely disappointing, but ducati had clearly made a step forward

sepang 2016: dovi's 2015-16 must have been maddening. three consecutive p2's to start 2015 but drops off from there. rumours at the start of 2016 that jorge's sick of yamaha and speculation is ripe about who in ducati might be sent packing for him. it looks like dovi might well be headed for the door, except iannone did something extremely damaging to his case early that season - dovi was the safe pair of hands, not the guy ducati put their hopes in. they're handing out wins to anyone who rocks up that year and indeed dovi's soon-to-be-former teammate gets ducati's first victory in about a million miserable post-casey years. plenty of talk about who'll win next and marc and vale both point to dovi, but it's just not happening. sepang is the penultimate round of the season and by this point, at least a little order has been restored again - which is when dovi finally gets his win in the wet. still bonkers to think he had two premier class wins pre-2017 both in the wet and then he's runner-up three consecutive years, very gibernau of him. he earned it too, a long scrap in the race with valentino until vale's tyres went kaput

*mugello 2017: dovi begins his transformation into a genuine title threat here. it looked like lorenzo would lead the ducati charge as he had been hired to do at ducati's home circuit in mugello, a circuit he had always been strong at. in the early stages of the race, jorge fought valentino (fresh from his first motocross accident of the season and expected to struggle late in the race) for the lead. dovi had missed warm-up as he was suffering from food poisoning, but, as would happen repeatedly that season, jorge quickly slipped back down the order - and in the end it was dovi who took the fight to the yamahas. a home victory, his first dry win, and all while not at his best physically... no wonder it was one of dovi's favourite career wins

^the moment dovi replaced maverick vinales as marc's biggest threat that season

catalunya 2017: it took dovi seven years to win two races and a week to win his next two. this was the moment when yamaha really started falling apart and confirmed the looming realignment of the competitive landscape. it all came back to the tyres - as it often did in those years, but it was particularly extreme in the sweltering heat. winning a race with your tyre preservation skills on a bike that allows you to preserve those tyres doesn't make for the most thrilling of races, but hey, job well done. his teammate finished fourth, almost ten seconds back after leading on the first lap

***austria 2017: one of the classic marc/dovi duels. the best races between the two of them (unsurprisingly) tended to be at tracks that quite heavily favoured ducati - and austria was already establishing itself as a prime ducati hunting ground. which meant that marc was pretty happy to even find himself that high up in the order and doing damage limitation in terms of the points swing in the championship fight. does that mean he plays it safe while trying to snatch the win from dovi? not even going to bother to answer that question

*motegi 2017: another in the marc/dovi collection and one that reaffirmed dovi's status as a worthy challenger to marc. a dramatic last lap in treacherous conditions that goes down right to the very last corner

**sepang 2017: such an impressive win. the title was on the line... or rather, dovi knew that he basically had to win to even still give himself a chance. he was not helped out one bit by his teammate in this regard, but rode a fantastic race in the wet to eventually force the title decider (left field choice but this dovi win is the one that most impressed me, fully thought the title would be wrapped up here especially after a poor race in phillip island)

valencia 2017: has to go on here as it's the one title decider dovi has gotten himself involved in. marc had a comfortable 21 point margin, which meant that for dovi to win the title marc would've had to finish... uh p12 or lower I believe, and dovi would've had to win the race. straightforward for marc, right? well, title deciders have a tendency to get a bit weird and nervy, just because of the stakes involved... and you can tell from how marc's riding. this race is also really dull until about ten laps to go... thing about valencia is that even when it's looking like an overtake is coming it's basically guaranteed that it won't be. the funniest part of the race is jorge ignoring team orders to a ridiculously blatant extent and ducati attempting to psychically murder him

^dovi always knew the odds were against him going into valencia. this is the moment his title bid ends, ironically just after he'd finally been freed of lorenzo

*qatar 2018: dovi would never come as close to the title again as he did in 2017, but at the start of 2018 at least it looked like he could be a serious challenger once again. this is a great race, another last lap battle... trying not to get repetitive so here, have some of my race notes to change things up:

**brno 2018: for a while, this looks like we're building up for a nice little four-way fray between dovi, vale, marc and jorge (feat. crutchlow). dovi does what he always does when he's leading and goes at the slowest possible pace, and everybody else does what they always did in those years and lies in wait, while occasionally reshuffling the order at the front in the name of whimsy. and then the yamaha does what it always does and somehow burns out its tyres anyway even though they're crawling around the circuit. anyhow, once valentino has done his scheduled backwards slide and jorge has rejoined the fray, it shapes up as a nice little three-way fray between dovi, marc and jorge. appreciating dovi races is all about getting really into the idea of tyre preservation and knowing the last laps will probably be fun. extra little spice because by this point the jorge/dovi dynamic is... not great :)) and we get an appropriately feisty duel between those two in particular

^after his win at the season opener in qatar, dovi had struggled to continue the momentum from the previous season. he went into the race fourth in the standings behind marc, vale and maverick, already 77 points down on marc - and his teammate had recently won back-to-back races. an important win and the rest of his season was a lot stronger. and of course, he had the joy of beating jorge, a relationship that managed to deteriorate even further over the course of that year

*thailand 2018: minus the yamahas providing an early and a late cameo, this one's all about another marc and dovi duel. a lot of stalking and lurking and then marc makes his move with four laps to go. excellent last few laps with overtakes galore, including of course at the very last corner

**qatar 2019: perhaps the archetypal dovi race. runs a very slow pace at the front to just carefully manage the pace, which leads to a nicely bunched up field that keeps sniping at each other. the top three for much of the race of marc, dovi and rinsy switch around plenty of times. there's one moment where dovi just like. ups the pace simply to test if he can drop everyone and then fully drops it by a second the next lap when he can't. pretty funny in how blatant it was. also, don't want to shock you here but we do indeed have another last lap battle. top five at the end covered by .6 seconds

*austria 2019: the first lap is WILD and actually manages to delay the inevitable marc/dovi duel. fabio leads for a bit, and then you are reminded of exactly why he hasn't been able to shut up about top speed for the past few years, like man after a while I'd be traumatised too. another fun duel between marc and dovi, which ends with... that's right. a last lap battle. that was kind of what their rivalry was about by 2019, given there wasn't really a title fight any more (certainly not after jorge played bowling in catalunya) - but the races themselves were thrillers, a welcome remedy when marc's dominance was at its most stifling

austria 2020: just as a heads-up - this race includes a terrifying crash when the bikes of zarco and franky morbidelli almost fly straight into valentino and maverick. nobody was seriously injured but they were inches away from a life-threatening accident; it's by the grace of god stuff. the race was stopped and then restarted, which... bit tough to say whether that helped or hurt dovi. probably helped (though I reckon he was always winning this) - in part two mr tyre whisperer is chasing jack miller on soft tyres. what happens next will shock you. deeply odd race... a lot of 2020 races had a surreal vibe - you just have to kinda experience it for yourself. at one point there's a graphic on screen telling you dovi, zarco and stefan bradl are competing for the win. this is not the case

^once more with feeling: dovi's third win at the redbull ring and only win in 2020, just after he'd announced his decision to leave ducati. between injuries, being unable to make the new rear tyre work for him and the growing alienation from ducati, 2020 was not an easy season for dovi. in the end, he was not the one to take advantage of marc's absence, and his time as a top-level rider ended when him and ducati parted ways

marc

spoiler free top ten list: cota 2013, assen 2015, phillip island 2015, mugello 2016, misano 2017, phillip island 2017, argentina 2018, assen 2018, silverstone 2019, sachsenring 2021

mugello 2010: first grand prix win! once marc has worked his way through the field this develops into a tight four-way scuffle that continues until the very end, with marc winning by .039s

estoril 2010: absolute chaos race and also the penultimate race of the season with a tight and tense championship situation. marc does well to move up the order until the rain comes and the race is paused... and then my man bins it on the sighting lap. anyway who needs more than half a bike to win a race. one hell of a comeback ride with a nicely dramatic ending

phillip island 2011: marc had to start this race from the back of the grid as a result of a one minute time penalty. early in one of the practise sessions that weekend, he had crashed and had been forced to wait in the pits while the bike was repaired, but was then sent out with only a minute to go. he tried to get in a hot lap after the chequered flag was out, and barrelled into the back of another rider who was slowing down after a practise start. the other rider went to the hospital, though was not seriously injured, and marc ended up with only a cut - but both parties were very lucky to escape relatively unscathed and he was heavily criticised for it. he himself did not agree with the penalty, and his team lodged an unsuccessful appeal. this was also a big race in that year's championship fight (that marc eventually could not see out after his crash in sepang), presenting a huge opportunity for title rival bradl to gain a decisive points advantage. a very impressive comeback ride, as well as a good contest for the win

**qatar 2012: love a race that's a mess. the season opener, and also marc's first race back after the horror crash in sepang the previous year that had given him career-threatening diplopia. marc spends a fair portion of the race battling with iannone, one of his main rivals that year, and if I personally had to fight both baby marc and baby iannone I would simply leave. another bloke is so furious at marc he slaps his arm on the cooldown lap, which was in response to a very controversial pass down the straight where marc kinda ran him off track. both were reprimanded by race direction. the finish is ridiculously close. go watch it

^the cooldown lap slap - marc was involved in several controversies that year. at the end of the year, the fim updated its rulebook, widely seen as a response to marquez-related incidents and the controversial handling of them, and introduced the penalty point system. ironically, it was that system that resulted in valentino's back-of-the-grid penalty in valencia 2015. in early 2017, the penalty points were once again scrapped

motegi 2012: another comeback ride - this time, marc stalls at the start. does his thing and eventually has a late scrap with his main title rival pol espargaro for the win. good fun

valencia 2012: 'oh you can't overtake at valencia' 'oh all the races are boring' 'oh could they please kick it off the calendar come on we deserve a better race to end the season' is what only an idiot would say. marc's last moto2 race starts from p33 after being penalised for a practise collision. spectacular comeback rides are a funny calling card to have for the statistically strongest qualifier in motorcycling grand prix history, but reflects how much of a trouble magnet he was - especially in those days. he might not have a great reputation in the premier class, but he did calm down in 2013, relatively speaking. or, well, he certainly did things it was harder to penalise him for

*qatar 2013: marc's first premier class race. jorge basically fucks off at the front from the word go, but it's an exciting battle behind him - that of course eventually involves valentino, who as ever had worked his way through the pack from further down the grid. first race first podium simple as

*cota 2013: this was always going to go on the list given that it's marc's first premier class win. the race itself is fine, not the most exciting entry on this list, but still! obviously worth a watch

**jerez 2013: icl I feel like this race really benefits from watching jerez 2005 first. not only because 2005 is the better race, but because I think you need to picture twelve year old marc marquez watching this race and thinking it was just like. the coolest shit ever. the patriotism left his body that day. I will not talk about the 2005 race here, but to be clear I am with twelve year old marc marquez on this one. anyway, back to 2013: the race is decent, the infamous copycat overtake is great but arguably the parc fermé and podium vibes are even better. not only was he shameless, but he was shameless in a way he knew echoed his hero beat for beat. baby's first premier class controversy

^the infamous finger wag. marc tries to approach him again during the podium celebrations, but seems unbothered when he is rebuffed. jorge made clear throughout that season he thought marc should be penalised, repeatedly bringing up when jorge himself was given a one race ban and how it had taught him a lesson about responsible riding (some of his rivals in 250cc and premier class rookie season might have some thoughts on that). his criticisms continued well into the season, with tensions rising again after marc's overtake on dani in aragon led to dani crashing

**laguna seca 2013: can't leave this out. important to stress moto2/125cc never went there, so it was his first time at just this notoriously tricky track that was known to be incredibly hard to conquer (here is a clip of vale and marc talking about this in the sachsenring presser). I wouldn't say the race itself is all that great once marc does his thing at the corkscrew, but laguna's quite high up there on tracks you can mostly just enjoy watching bikes go around. big moment in the championship fight because it's when marc is racking up the points at the expense of the injured lorenzo/pedrosa

^2008: valentino stops during his victory lap to kiss the corkscrew where he overtook casey // 2013: marc gets his photo taken at the corkscrew a few days before he will overtake valentino there

*silverstone 2013: a jorge/marc contest for the victory with a dramatic ending, one of the best races that year. marc had dislocated his left collarbone in that morning's warm up, so there was added tension in whether he could hold up physically across a race stint - at a time when jorge (and dani) desperately needed to make up points. interesting continuation of the lorenzo/marquez arc that season in that jorge was a little more willing to match marc's aggression, whatever the problems he had with it

valencia 2013: not bad as valencia races go, actually. which is literally only because it's a title decider and the points situation is exciting, but well credit where it's due. proper tussle between the top three - jorge was so aggressive as he attempted to back marc up into the pack that journalists in the presser afterwards were essentially inviting marc to call jorge a hypocrite. obviously has sentimental value as it's where marc's first premier class title was sealed (even if it should have been sealed earlier but hey ho)

*qatar 2014: I found it quite tricky to make a few picks for 2014, because I feel like a lot of the races this year are in the category of 'fun but not all time epics', and it's hard to really choose between a bunch of them in terms of either significance or entertainment value. the first race of a ten race win streak feels as good a place to start as any, and represents the moment when marc really began stamping his authority on the series. in many ways, this race echoed the race of the previous year: jorge leading from the start, valentino charging through the field, marc somewhere in between. except this time jorge crashes and the fight between marc and valentino is for the victory. it lasts until the penultimate lap, and this time it's marc who comes out on top

le mans 2014: marc did try occasionally to keep things interesting. yes he consistently qualified very well, but sometimes he threw in a bad start or an awful first lap for the vibes. in this one, he ran very wide during the first lap (partly helped along by jorge) and ended up back down in tenth. the pace differential is too extreme for good battles but still, some nice overtaking

**catalunya 2014: see above - there's not all that much to separate this from say mugello or silverstone, so the tiebreaker is personal preference. a good, fun scrap that involves all four of marc, vale, jorge and dani at different stages - even if the end result by this point feels almost inevitable. it is here that valentino rather understandably attempts to strangle marc in parc fermé

^still a close contest with seven laps to go. plenty of overtakes, plenty of confusion relating to a yellow flag, and last lap contact

indianapolis 2014: last of the win streak, at a track that was never particularly popular with riders and typically short on good racing. for a while there at the start it looks like this race would deserve to go on the dovi list until valentino just. um. bumps him aside. and lets marc and jorge past both of them. and then lorenzo also bumps dovi aside. sorry dovi, yamaha decided you were not to be involved in this. the next few laps are good fun too, like by this point you can TELL how much both yamaha riders want this. no manners in sight. icl it's mainly the fact that it's closing out the win streak that has made me include it and the first few laps, because once it settles down it... sure does settle down. ignore this list and just pick a win from the 2014 win streak at random - if you enjoy that one, you'd probably enjoy them all

***assen 2015: probably my favourite marquez/rossi battle. really all you can ask from with a race with two protagonists: lasts the whole race, tense, high stakes, two guys who are particularly motivated to beat each other, several overtakes plus a hell of a lot of stalking and studying each other, and last lap controversy. involves cunning, a little bit of ambiguity in the intentions of both parties, some unresolved questions. an appointment with race direction. an awfully tense post-race press conference that the relationship of the protagonists could never quite recover from. the ideal race

***phillip island 2015: one of the best races of all time etc etc, though it may make you feel like somebody is repeatedly stabbing you with the sword of damocles. still, that's entirely to do with what follows, and the race itself is a fantastic four-rider battle with a murdered seagull and a late twist

**sepang 2015: well, obviously! the actual confrontation between marc and valentino is deeply counterproductive in terms of 'guys you're letting lorenzo/pedrosa escape, stop divebombing each other' and well the whole thing is all kinds of tragic. but the racing itself nicely showcased the complete lack of respect between the pair of them and there is something kind of mesmerising about seeing two all time great wheel-to-wheel fighters go at it, no holds barred. plus it's a major part of marc's story. it is what it is

argentina 2016: this probably isn't making a lot of top thirty something lists, but hey, sometimes you just need to watch a kind of stupid race. this race was kind of stupid. it has the dubious honour of being the first in the marc/vale walk of shame 'hey remember when you guys fought here last year' tour, and they do actually get to scrap it out a bit on track again - though that confrontation is defanged from the moment they have to switch bikes. the last corner incident is dumb but also funny. the podium has truly rancid vibes. I had a good time

^nobody else on that podium as much as twitches when marc goes down. blank faces when he jokes about it in the presser. kind of impressive really. same weekend

***mugello 2016: there is a moment when you think this race will end up being an extremely tight contest until the end between the three protagonists of the 2015 fiasco. then something extremely infuriating happens, and it ends up not being that. on the one hand you leave that race feeling a little robbed, on the other hand it did still feature a veryyy dramatic finish between two of the protagonists. excellent race

**catalunya 2016: the first proper post-2015 marc/vale battle, and at valentino's favourite location for enjoyable race-long duels. it's not like... I don't think of that particular category, I'd call it my absolute favourite - but that's a very high bar. no surprise that they both really really wanted to beat each other, and hey interpersonal animosity always adds a fun nice note to the racing

sachsenring 2016: the problem with the sachsenring is that it used to produce banger after banger race until some diminutive bloke called 'marc marquez' fucking ruined it. 2003 2006 2009 2010 2011 are certified classics, as good as it gets really, tight dramatic fights for the victory and podium positions and integral to the narrative arc of their respective seasons. you used to be able to rely on this track to give you a SHOW. but then that twat showed up and... tbh I can't even remember many of his wins there having particularly memorable racing behind him (I did quite like 2018), so maybe it's not only his fault (to be clear it is in large part his fault). anyway the 2016 edition is in that stretch of 2016 where everything just kind of. goes to shit. like they start just letting anyone win. jack miller won in assen that year. anarchy in motogp. it's the michelin tyres, it's the rain, and it's this bit of the season where marc starts running away with the title. this is another very messy race, more rain, and it's one that has convinced me once and for all that marc has actual plot armour at this circuit. there is a moment where you will go 'how does he win this race' and it's the moment where he goes so far off the track he's halfway to austria. watch to find out how he somehow scams another win at the ring. damn him please do it again this year

^come on this is bullshit. if I'm the other guys I'm calling for a ban of the sachsenring until we figure out what the hell is going on. no wonder he was hopeful of winning on the murder honda

**assen 2017: brilliant race. initial four-way tussle between marquez, rossi, zarco and petrucci that includes some early aggression between the usual suspects and then some light rain to further spice things up. right on the very last lap, there are two great scraps going on - one for the win (with a controversial involvement of a backmarker), and the other for the last podium spot against cal crutchlow

**misano 2017: this is a race that very much had the shadow of valentino rossi looming over it, even though he was not in attendance. valentino had gotten himself involved in his second serious motocross crash of the season, both right before italian races, and had this time decided to take himself out of the title hunt rather definitively by breaking his leg. some time after this, marc posts a photo of himself doing motocross - which he has done a lot of over the years, but was interpreted as taunting valentino and got plenty of backlash online. whether this was a contributing factor or not, he received a frosty reception in misano. he crashed during the wet warm up session and was booed by fans as he rode past them on the scooter, prompting him to blow kisses at them. the race occurred at a tense moment during that title fight: marc had suffered a mechanical dnf in the previous race and in doing so had surrendered the championship lead to dovi. he could not afford another dnf at this late stage of the season. which perhaps made it a little surprising just how hard he fought for that win against petrucci in the treacherous wet conditions, the risk he took with his overtake on the very last lap. was it just to get an extra five points and the win, or was it (as the speculation went at the time) about getting revenge on the italian fans? who's to say - but in any case it was one of the defining performances of that year's championship and another example of marc's skill and confidence in the wet

***phillip island 2017: you know the drill - this circuit produces bangers, and this is another all-time great race. marc by this point had a weird and somewhat cursed record at phillip island in the premier class, where he'd a) been disqualified in 2013, b) crashed out of a comfortable lead in 2014, c) won in a dramatic last lap in 2015, and d) crashed out of a comfortable lead in 2016. so in his first four years, the only year he'd even finished the race, it set off a deeply unfortunate series of events involving marc and allegations of sabotage made by his childhood hero - which maybe goes to show the universe just wanted that particular relationship to be doomed. anyway, 2017!! apparently marc decided he could only finish at that circuit when it involved a dramatic battle between multiple riders. good on him! the racing is brutal, with plenty of contact between the riders, as perhaps you might expect looking at the list of protagonists: marquez, rossi, zarco, vinales, iannone, crutchlow. high stakes too - a decisive points swing in that year's title fight that could have easily gone disastrously wrong for marc. in 2018, marc once again did not finish the race

^a hard-fought race where all participants are more than happy to get physical. one of several races that season that prompts questions about aggressive riding, though this time all the riders are in agreement. after the handshake, marc gestures to the rubber that now stains valentino's leathers. in a year where team orders were a big topic of debate, valentino finished right in front of his teammate - who had still been in mathematical contention for the championship

**argentina 2018: for lovers of hubris and head loss. the full marc marquez experience. off his rocker the entire weekend. got whacked with a massive penalty at the end of the race that made the whole thing quite literally pointless and deserved every second of said penalty. jorge's long-standing mantra of 'just give him a race ban' became part of the discourse again. ended up p18 to valentino's p19, hand in unlovable hand. but apart from that, it was a really great performance!

^complaints at the time obviously centred around how marc was a repeat offender in the recklessness of his riding, and lacking in respect (see too the ever-lurking parallels drawn with the jerez 2011 apology - which was, it has to be said, issued for a considerably less egregious offence). publicly marc was mostly remorseless, accepting more blame in the aleix incident than the valentino one, and saying in an interview a few days later that he wasn't going to change his approach. it's the worst and the best of him - he had no need to barge aside other riders with the sheer raw pace he was able to access. on the phillip island 2003 comparison, see valentino's words about riding angry here. in 2012, marc was asked about whether there were races where he was determined to win at all cost, and he mentioned some examples from that year before adding, "there have been many times when I had to channel my inner rage to win a race"

***assen 2018: excellent race, as memorable as phillip island 2015 or 2017 if your favourite type of race is multi-rider dogfights. involves seven or eight riders in the lead group for large chunks of the race, with the order of those riders chopping and changing with incredible regularity. some pretty ridiculous saves (at least three riders right at the sharp end of the action where you feel that they really should have hit the deck) and a lot of contact, putting on full display just how aggressive riding had gotten during that time. most riders enjoyed the contest, though this time it was dovi's turn to be a dissenting voice. in any case, there were reportedly 99 passes within the lead group and it is rightly remembered as one of that era's finest gems

*austria 2018: marc vs the ducatis, as was tradition at the red bull ring. marc wanted to get payback for the last time they had been in austria, and determinedly got a good start to try and avoid history repeating itself - but he never quite managed to escape his pursuers. this is one of those races where there's a long stretch of it just... building, where it feels like either marc will make the break for it or there'll be a dramatic finale. which can make it ever so slightly annoying when there isn't a dramatic finale, but I am happy to assure you that this race delivers on that count. gets very good with ten laps to go

^plenty of close battles, but in those years nobody could match marc for week-to-week consistency. the closest by that metric in 2018 was valentino - but typically a few positions further down the order, hindered both by competitive decline and an increasingly horrendous yamaha. as for jorge, he found his form on the desmodici just as the ducati higher-ups lost their patience and kicked him out. he reached some impressive peaks and at last adapted well to the demands of the bike, but his season was eventually marred by injury

***silverstone 2019: quick warning - quite a scary crash on the first lap even by motogp standards. anyway, dramatic last lap battle with alex rins, who I think it's fair to say marc hasn't always had the best of relationships with. while things haven't exactly gone to plan for either rider since then, excluding fabio that was probably the rivalry that I was most excited to see develop post-2019. ah well. the race itself is fantastic though, one of those that just gradually ramps up the tension before the finale. the last two laps are crazyyyyy. top five closest finish in premier class history

^marc and rinsy (not at silverstone but earlier in the season at jerez). some long-standing bad blood here and I'm sure rinsy really would have liked to strangle marc from time to time

**misano 2019: another visit to valentino's home turf in the year time finally caught up with vale. before this race, marc and valentino tussled in qualifying. an odd and deeply unserious incident that had zero actual impact on their already doomed laps, it's notable in part due to how much marc visibly lost his cool over the whole thing. from p5 on the grid he ended up in an enjoyable duel with fabio quartararo for the victory that went down to the very last lap. as the commentators noted, he celebrated more than he has after sealing some of his championships. coming out best in a last lap battle, making sure to keep the edge over fabio, as well as 'winning in enemy territory'? the perfect weekend. as he says in the immediate post-race interview, "honestly speaking, yesterday was the extra motivation, the extra push for the race" and "really nice to win here in italy". you could tell

**thailand 2019: marc attempting to burnish his last lap battle record by breaking children's hearts? sad stuff. cruel and unusual. a lot of fun to watch. it's an understatement to say that fabio's rookie campaign exceeded expectations, and marc quickly identified him as his biggest threat going forwards. this was a match point race for marc and he needed to outscore dovi by two points to seal the title, but he had such an overwhelming lead that he could afford to take more risks than he might have other years - even if the race did follow a massive crash in friday practise that required a hospital check-up. another race that involves a lot of stalking and shadowing and plotting before the action really kicks off (with four laps to go). this race was part of marc's considerable efforts that year to put fabio in his place while he still could. poor fabio

jerez 2020: hurts to include but this list wouldn't really be complete without it. another race that very much encapsulates the full marc marquez experience. truly bonkers pace until it all went horribly wrong

^funniest moment of the race is when valentino does what is surely the closest you can get to a double take on a motorcycle when he sees marc go past. like he sees marc, then clocks who he's seeing and then visibly looks again in a sort of 'HOW is he here'

*sachsenring 2021: thing about marc at the sachsenring is that it undoubtedly got boring in terms of the victory fight for a few years there, but it's also just a fun, tricky track and he's a joy to watch on it. obviously this win is anything but boring, and the margin he pulls on the field never feels as comfortable as it should be. I don't really think I have much to say about this race that hasn't already been said. I cried

^make that eleven in a row at the ring. honorary mentions go to cota and emilia romagna '21, at time of writing his most recent wins. neither are classic races exactly - and indeed, if you're looking for races relevant to the current climate then aragon '21 is a good shout. at emilia romagna (the second race held at the misano circuit that year), pecco crashes out while being pursued by marc, which clinches the title for fabio. it is also the last race on home soil for valentino

**phillip island 2022: one more for good measure. somehow this is his first premier class ride at the circuit where he finished the race but did not win. late on in that year's tense title battle and gives you exactly what you want from a race at phillip island. it's not even a multi-rider dogfight as it is an every-rider dogfight that eventually becomes a multi-rider dogfight at the front of the pack... but if you looked at the run order after about three laps you would NOT be able to guess who the riders involved are, never mind who wins it. absolute chaos. one hell of a contest right until the very end involving one of that year's two primary title contenders - and some other foes old and new. marc's sole podium that year, and his 100th in motogp. second closest top ten in premier class history, not too bad

#race rec tag #batsplat responds #brr brr #andrea dovizioso #motogp #//#ad4 #morale tag #this was very sweet thank u anon #but also took me longer to answer lol and it's an era people here are more familiar with... so lads feel free to add/dissent #this is a complete escalation in length + detail but well. hope this isn't overwhelming #also anon you asked about marc/dovi so that's what i provided but if you are getting into the sport and are looking to watch old races #then i cannot recommend highly enough to also dip your toes in the pre 2007 years. 2004 is where it's all at i'm telling you #you've got banger after banger race you've got momentum shifts you've got narrative tension you've got interpersonal intrigue...#anyways

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when42-0fallasleep · 14 days ago

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Five random headcanons each

Self-proclaimed leader

An ass

Clever. Clever af.

Smt level-headed (at the wrong place), mostly seems like someone lit him on fire actl (*insert that elmo on fire meme)

Can cook, but his eating habit is straight up from hell (his food combination is weird af)

"Listen bitch, i have millions ways to sunday to gut you, and i will let you have three seconds to have the delusion that you can escape this."

An ass, but she holds herself back most time (read: w Blossom on the scene)

The powerpuff that has swearing in every breath

Smart (mostly battle smart, but she is actl good at math)

Best cook in the gang but too lazy to actl do it

Has a lingerie collection

The blonde bitch w an onlyfan acc that might have dated (and fucked) every man available (?) in town (she def did, w no regret)

She is the living combination of Panty Anarchy, Regina George and Gretchen Wieners of the place

"Honey i born bad, and i love it"

Do not, let her touch even the fucking kettle.

Appointed leader (the other two lowkey let her do so)

Book smart

Old lady's mind in a little girl's form

She can bake but cant cook (by some miracle, and no cook book she read could help her)

Extreme OCD

Punch first, think later

Dirty, in many ways

Foulest mouth of them all

Eat like he has a black hole in his stormach

Manwhore

Good and kind (but not naive)

Can speak like 10 languages (and some tiny bits of more)

Its not easy to get her mad, but dont

Biggest sweet tooth, can eat spicy stuff tho but didnt rlly like it

Likes handmade stuff

Leader in the sense of winning the first group brawl

Walking chimney

Surprisingly very classy

Refined (read: extremely picky) eater

A literal party animal

It seems like hes always high (no he has never touch weed in his life)

Can be trained to be a good one actl

Self-proclaimed world best indie guitarist (he is good)

Would eat everything that can be put inside his mouth

Dumb prank is a daily need

Doesnt give one shit abt everything

Either emo, goth or punk, depending on her mood

Has a huge body count (in both meanings)

Has a knife collection

If your name is on her list, she would kill you, then your parents, then your child.

#ppg #blossom utonium #bubbles utonium #buttercup utonium #brick jojo #boomer jojo #butch jojo #berserk plutonium #brat plutonium #brute plutonium #rrb #ppnkg

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purble-turble · 11 days ago

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Imagine Jin and Yin take up the opportunity to make a special battle code.

"Méiyǒu fàngqì dòuzhēng."

A fight that is unforefeitable. You MUST do it, no matter what.

This does escalate, especially later on, before getting scrapped, but the MK's all get the idea to beat down DKR by calling upon that fight.

And DRK can't refuse :]

He's gotta fight all of those MK's. All of his "lovers" who all probably wanna kill him. Badly.

Demon King Red definitely wouldn’t want to actually fight any MKs, but if he was pressured into it by some vague rules, then I could see him getting into the arena with one. Or two. Or several~

Honestly, he’s gotten pretty good at evading and avoiding as a method of fighting to avoid ever hurting his darling MK. Of course, that doesn’t mean he’ll just do nothing until he gets beaten into the dust. It’s more likely that he’d try to subdue his opponent, smothering him in a hug or pinning him down and nuzzling his face or hair. It’s extremely uncomfortable to watch, and even more so to experience for that MK.

What probably ends up happening is, after that first fight where DKR uses it as an excuse to snuggle with a trapped MK in front of the whole arena, everybody else gets so infuriated by the display, that they all leap out of the stands and join the fray trying to beat him up 😂 It works pretty well.. until he uses his fire to teleport away.

Jin and Yin (in their makeshift security outfits) eventually restore order and stop the brawl happening, but they also decide that maybe not being able to refuse a match is more trouble than its worth

#ask #battle nexus #demon king red #spicynoodleshipping #dark spicynoodles #estellardreams

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thistledropkick · 1 year ago

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Last year, Kasai Jun was interviewed as part of the interview project DEATH, which interviews various people about death in order to find a better understanding of how to live and appreciate life.

I thought it was a fascinating interview, so I decided to translate it.

Please go visit the original interview - the photography accompanying it is absolutely gorgeous.

Also, please don't repost this whole translation elsewhere. If you want to quote an excerpt of my translation for something, please make sure to also credit the original team behind this interview and link back to the original interview.

Deathmatch Fighter Kasai Jun - 4/27/2022

“It’s not a deathmatch until you return home alive” The reason this 47 year old Charisma Wrestler continues to shed blood in the ring

Within pro wrestling, there is a genre called “deathmatch.”

An extreme set of rules that allows deadly weapons and has no disqualifications. Brawls with fluorescent light tubes, and dives onto barbed wire boards. Without hesitation, wrestlers stab their opponents in the head with fistfuls of bamboo skewers. When wound-covered bodies violently collide, shards of glass and sprays of blood shower the ringside seats.

Upon first seeing it, surely everyone thinks “Why are these people hurting each other like this?” “What the hell am I looking at?”

This is the world of the man known as “Charisma,” professional Wrestler Kasai Jun of the independent promotion Pro Wrestling Freedoms.

In November of 2009, he had a “razorblade board plus alpha deathmatch” against Ito Ryuji in Tokyo’s Korakuen Hall. Kasai, 35 years old at the time, dove from the second floor balcony, a fall of 6 meters, onto a table, aiming for his opponent Ito.

Afterwards they continued to fight with various weapons, in a match that concluded 15 seconds before the 30 minute time limit. That year, this match was awarded the Best Bout award. And Kasai, the winner of that match, became a living legend overnight.

12 years have passed since then. Kasai is now 47 years old, and he continues to rule over the world of deathmatch wrestling. Under the weight of many literal life-or-death battles, Kasai’s body no longer moves the way it did when he was young. Even so, why does he continue to set foot in such a dangerous place?

We asked “Charisma of Deathmatch” - a man who makes the crowd go mad in the space between life and death - about his views on death and on life.

Desiring to truly feel alive

- Normally, people try to avoid pain and suffering. Kasai, why do you continue to shed blood in the ring?

Hahaha. From an outside perspective, you must really wonder “Why do you keep doing something so painful” huh? That’s a normal way to feel. But from the wrestler’s perspective, it’s completely different.

In your normal daily life, do you ever feel like “Ahh, it’s so glorious to be alive”? You’d almost never unconsciously blurt out something like that.

But in a life or death battle in a deathmatch ring, after you step down from that ring, that’s exactly what you feel. “Ahh, I’m alive. I’m so grateful to be alive.” Because of that, I can’t quit.

Mountain climbers and stuntmen probably feel like this too, don’t they. Stepping into a situation where their life could end, and returning home safely. I wonder if they’re searching for that feeling of being “truly alive.”

This feeling is passed on to the audience too. Fans often tell me “Watching Kasai Jun’s deathmatch gives me the strength to continue forward.”

They say things like, “I’m being bullied at school so I wasn’t going to go any more, but now I feel like I can keep going.” Or, “It’s exhausting to keep going to work, but after seeing Kasai persevere while shedding blood in the ring, I can persevere and keep going to work.”

Recently I can’t do this much because of covid, but in the past when I’d sell merch, fans would often say things like this to me.

Because of this, it seems to me that deathmatch wrestling is simultaneously a way for wrestlers to feel truly alive, and a way for those who watch it to feel more positively about living.

- Because of the sensational way “death” is shown in the ring?

Probably, yeah. Because it looks like we’re doing something really painful.

But don’t get me wrong. We aren’t in a particular hurry to die. And we aren’t wasting our lives either. What I always say is, “It’s not a deathmatch until you return alive.”

[Note from me - this phrase (生きて帰るまでがデスマッチ) is a play on a well-known Japanese phrase 家に帰るまでが遠足 “The field trip isn’t over until we return home.” This started as something a teacher would say to students in their care, and Kasai has altered it into his motto towards both himself and other deathmatch wrestlers.]

- It’s not a deathmatch until you return alive.

If you get in a ring where you might die or get seriously injured, and you do die, or you do get seriously injured, you’re no different than a rank amateur, right? But a guy who dives into a deadly dangerous situation and returns from that ring unharmed, he’s the absolute greatest and the absolute coolest.

Like a stuntman, right? If he returns home alive, people say “amazing,” but if he dies, he’s no longer a pro.

At 35 years old, his view on life did a complete 180 during a match

But, when I was young, I thought about it completely differently. I never thought “I’m grateful to be alive.” In the ring, I did dangerous stuff and defeated my opponents. I just thought of it as my job.

The more dangerous stuff I did, the more people said “Kasai is amazing!” That felt really great. Every time I stepped into the right I thought, if something goes wrong and I die I guess that’s how it goes. I thought “Deathmatches should be a memento mori.”

- What caused such a big change in your values?

That match against Ito Ryuji in Korakuen, in 2009. It changed my mental state by 180 degrees.

The truth is, I went into that match thinking “This is my last match before I retire.” Because it was my last match, I would do everything I wanted to do. Win or lose, I went into the ring thinking “I’ll retire.”

But during the match, my feelings completely changed. I thought “If I quit like this, I’ll be half-dead.” There’s nothing else I want to do, and I’ve never felt joy like this anywhere else. It was just too much fun.

So, after the match ended with 15 seconds remaining, I announced my decision to continue wrestling. “I was thinking of retiring but, I’m gonna keep going.” That’s what changed.

- Since your values have changed so significantly from when you thought it’d be good to die in the ring, what’s your “ideal death” now?

Spending the day with my family as I always do, watching tv with an after-dinner drink as I always do, getting comfy in my futon as I always do, and passing away. That’s the best death, isn’t it.

I’ve said it before but, people who say “It’s my ambition to die in the ring” are just trying to look cool. For a pro, it all comes down to returning home alive. And so, I believe that when the life of Kasai Jun the human being comes to an end, Kasai Jun the wrestler will die as well. I want to be a pro wrestler until I die. That’s how I feel now.

When I was young, I thought the best time for a wrestler to retire was when he could still move, when people would say “It’s a shame, because there’s still more he can do.” But if that’s true, I’ve already missed my best time to retire.

Since I’ve come this far, maybe it’s better to keep doing this until my death. Since around the time I turned 40, I started thinking this way.

Gaining years = leveling up. I’ll reach my peak just before death.

- Since you’ve been doing this for so long, it’s inevitable that your body has become weaker. Kasai, how have you dealt with aging?

The word “elderly” is a concept created by human beings, isn’t it? Since that’s the case, I believe it’s something we can absolutely overcome. I don’t think increasing in age is the same as becoming elderly.

Look, it’s true that my physical stamina has decreased and my muscles have gotten weaker than they were when I was younger. But my will and my spirit have continued to grow. Instead of just breaking even, I think I’ve leveled up. 47 years old is level 47. I now see growing older as a positive, like leveling up every year.

Because of that, my peak has yet to come. I’ll reach my peak just before I die. I’ll be at my strongest just before my death. That’s the ideal I envision for myself.

There was a time when I felt insecure about my age. When I hit my mid 30s, I hated that my body was becoming weaker.

But then, while drinking at home and watching a documentary on TV about (rock musician) Yazawa Eikichi, I realized something. “If you think about it, uncool young people are uncool, and cool guys are cool even if they’re old.” Since then, my way of thinking changed. I started calling getting older “leveling up” at around that time.

[Note from me: Suzuki Minoru also refers to getting one year older as “leveling up” in the exact same way. They are friends, so I assume Suzuki got it from Kasai.]

- I'm surprised that a pro athlete who uses his body as a weapon would think of aging in that way.

Pro wrestling and deathmatch are unique among sports. Unlike say, track and field, or swimming, it isn’t a competition where every second counts. I can’t move the way I could when I was young any more, but through my facial expressions, pauses during matches, and so on, I have many ways to express myself.

A guy can be handsome, macho, with great muscles, and completely suck as a wrestler. In contrast, a guy like me who’s ugly, short, and middle-aged, can get support from the fans. It’s a completely different genre, and that’s what makes pro wrestling so interesting.

- What about your emotional struggles? In your documentary film you said you were having some difficulty maintaining your motivation, which you described as “Deathmatch Erectile Dysfunction”

Yeah, well, that can definitely be a problem. When you’re young, you’ve just got piles of hopes and dreams and things you want to do. But as the years go on, and as you accomplish those things, you can kind of get lost.

What’s helped me increase my motivation has been the existence of people who make me think “I absolutely don’t wanna lose to this guy” or “I don’t want this guy to take all the best stuff for himself” In my case, for example, that’s been (fellow PW Freedoms deathmatch wrestler) Takeda Masashi. Or, although he’s from another organization, New Japan Pro Wrestling’s El Desperado.

That’s why for the past 3 or 4 years, I’ve been asking people to “stimulate me.” I want intimidating people to keep approaching me. Well, on the other hand, if they take the most delicious part for themselves, that’s a problem.

A fear of death led to a “selfish life”

- Incidentally, perhaps it’s too late at this point, but do you worry about being injured or dying?

I said it already but, “It’s not a deathmatch until you return alive.” Since I’m a pro, I have the skills required to do this without death or injury.

But, it’d be a lie to say “I’m not afraid.” Even now, for several days before a match I get so stressed that I can’t sleep. Despite how I look, I get plenty scared. Much of my life has been driven by a strong fear of death.

- How do you mean?

It sounds silly, but when I was in grade school I believed in “The Prophecies of Nostradamus.” Have you ever heard of it? “In the year 1999, all of humanity will be destroyed.” Every night I shook with fear in my futon, thinking that my life would end at the age of 24.

Propelled by that fear, I concluded, “If the earth is gonna get destroyed anyway, I should quit studying. Instead I should use the rest of my remaining lifetime to do stuff that I like.” I completely quit studying, and instead spent all my time watching pro wrestling, which I loved.

Conversely, my fear of death also led me to become a pro wrestler. After graduating high school, I got a job in Tokyo as a security guard, but I gave into temptation and visited brothels daily. One day I happened to be reading a magazine with an HIV checklist inside, and almost every item applied to me.

At that time, I still thought “AIDS = death” so I thought “Oh, this is AIDS.” “Oh, this is how I’ll die.”

Luckily, when I got tested the result was negative, but after preparing myself for death, I thought “I really should do what I want” and knocked on the door of Big Japan Pro Wrestling. My life has always been influenced in this way.

- I get the impression that many wrestlers die at an early age. Since then, your fear must have increased.

Nah, that’s not really true. I’m surprisingly practical about the deaths of others. I just accept it, like “That’s the kind of life you lived.” I suspect my fear of death isn’t a fear of death itself, but a fear of becoming nothing.

- A fear of becoming nothing.

I’m no (actor and spiritualist) Tanba Tetsuro, but if after you die, you go to the spirit world, and cross the Sanzu river, that’s not all that scary is it? I wouldn’t go so far as to say “it’s fine if I die” but there’s some kind of hope or meaning. But if “After death, you become complete nothingness” “After death you feel no joy or sadness” I think that’s really scary.

But these days, I don’t experience that fear of death as much as I used to. If after this interview a dump truck hits me and I die, I wouldn’t have any regrets. I could say I did what I wanted to do.

Pro wrestling is a business where you depend on your popularity with an audience, but I’ve never tried to flatter the audience to get sales or support, or thought about how to increase my popularity. Ultimately, Kasai Jun puts himself first. I’m my own number one.

To die without regrets is to win at life

- But, if someone wanted to imitate your way of life, I think most people would be profoundly afraid of not getting by financially, or of being rejected by society. Why do you think you remain stoic in the face of such fears?

What’s there worth imitating about me? If you’re selfish like me and you can change it, you should want to!

But, this is probably related to that “fear of becoming nothing” I mentioned earlier. Ever since I was little, I’ve thought stuff like “This whole world isn’t real” and “Maybe all of this is just a dream.”

Nothing in this world is certain. Since that’s the case, all you have are your own body and your own feelings. In short, I don’t believe in anything but myself, so I put myself first.

- So in order to “feel truly alive” you throw yourself into the painful world of deathmatch wrestling, which leads us back to where we started.

That’s right. I guess you could say that pain is the only thing I believe.

But when I was young, I did understand the fear of not making enough money to survive. When I was around 30 and my son had just been born, I was seized by that fear.

Really, I was broke, and I couldn’t even pay into the National Pension Fund like I was supposed to, so I went to the ward office and said “I do intend to pay, so please wait a little.” I thought to myself, “Living is so expensive and so difficult.”

- A deathmatch fighter scary enough to quiet a crying child, with such an everyday problem.

Three years after my debut, when I was around 27, I was badly injured. I quit Big Japan, and after a year’s absence, I transferred to a different group called Zero-One.

Zero-One was founded by ex-New Japan Pro Wrestler Hashimoto Shinya, and the pay was good compared to Big Japan, and they held a lot of shows, so I could wrestle frequently. The environment there was very pleasant.

But, due to the policy of the organization, I couldn’t do the deathmatches that I love. During that time as a “salaryman wrestler,” I survived, but I think deathmatch fighter Kasai Jun, pro wrestler Kasai Jun, was completely dead.

“I really should do the pro wrestling I want to do,” I thought, and I quit Zero-One, and persisted with the pro wrestling that I love. Maybe that’s why I feel like I can now “die without regrets.”

Ultimately, if you live your own life as you wish, and think “I have no regrets” when you die, you win. Maybe people today have lost sight of the essence of what it means to live. It’s fine to work hard at your job, but if you’re spending every day miserably, is that kind of life really okay with you?

I’d rather live for 20 years and laugh every day than live for 100 years and never smile. If you’ve lived for 100 years and never laughed, that’s the same as being dead, isn’t it?

写真：本永創�� ~ Photographer: Motonaga Souta

執筆：鈴木陸夫 ~ Author: Suzuki Atsuo

編集：日向コイケ（Huuuu）~ Editor: Hinata Koike (Huuuu)

#kasai jun #jun kasai #pw freedoms #pro wrestling #deathmatch #my translation #This is definitely the longest thing I have ever attempted to translate!#I've got nobody checking over my work or anything like that so as always apologies for any typos or errors that I didn't catch

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shrimp-buffet · 11 months ago

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LARRY & LAWRIE HEADCANNONS

Because they took over my brain after Kit betrayed me- (headcannons after the cut)

I’ve never really made one of these types of post before and don’t know if I’ll ever make more, but I just suddenly got struck with the need to share my ideas with these two and I don’t personally know people as into Brawl Stars as I am so making this post is the best way I could think of! Maybe if this gets received well I’m make more but no guarantees.

Anyway sorry for this pre-ramble, onto the actual headcannons:

Larry focused, Lawrie focused, Both

•Larry uses He/They pronouns, while Lawrie uses just They/Them

• Larry & Lawrie have a sort of Bluetooth-like connection between them. If one gets too far out of range, they both lose some or all of their functionality, which is why they’re never seen too far from each other.

•Their connection range is actually pretty generous, so they could go off and do their own things around the park. But they would still need to work around each other’s schedules to stay in range which can be a hassle, so it’s usually only on special occasions. (Much to Larry’s dismay)

•Larry is the much more social one, and while he does genuinely love spending time with his sibling, they desperately want to be able to spend more time hanging out with others on his own.

•Despite Larry’s extroverted nature he doesn’t actually have a lot of friends because they’re a bit of a buzzkil

•Lawrie tries (and usually fails) to hide it, but they’re extremely overprotective of Larry. Rushing into battles to protect him and following them around the park even if Larry asks them not to.

•for example of the previous: One time Larry was walking through the garden, thinking they were finally alone when Lawrie jumps in out of nowhere and just obliterates a bush having completed missed a little bunny. When Larry gets mad Lawrie explains that they thought there was a dangerous animal following him.

•Larry doesn’t get why Lawrie is so protective of him, but he is similar protective of R-T (albeit to a much smaller extent)

•Lawrie held a grudge on that bunny for embarrassing them. That specific bunny seems to intentionally menace them constantly and they consider it their enemy.

•While Lawrie is a bit of a tsundere about their brotherly love, they’re not one in general. They just genuinely dislike most people.

•The two of them fight, argue and insult each other a lot, but if anyone else saying anything rude to the other they both go sicko mode. Lawrie especially has no mercy.

•Lawrie punches people in the arm a lot. Totally unrelated, (/s) Larry’s arm is always sore

•Larry LOVES the Princess Diaries series! When they found out Fang also likes it (R-T told him) he spent a whole day binging the series with Fang in an empty theater

•As implied in the pervious, Larry occasionally gossips with R-T. He knows it’s wrong and feels guilty about it, but it’s too interesting for them to resist it.

•Lawrie has to keep tell R-T to stop gossiping, and Larry to stop enabling it. It doesn’t work but they try.

This is getting long so I’ll end it here. If you got this far thank you for reading!! Let me know if you’d be interested in other characters or even more of these two!

#brawl stars #larry and lawrie #brawl stars larry #brawl stars lawrie #brawl stars headcanons #headcannons

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morgansman · 4 months ago

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Part 1 : HAIR DEBATE.

I noticed a debate about Arthur being dark blonde or light brown. I would say both.

As seen in this photo, Arthur has some darkish brown and light brown to burnt blonde looking color to it.

Same with his hair. And before you argue that I'm using mods in these that change his hair I'm not, I only have an online content unlocker and I do not have a rampage trainer so mods that mess with his hair are very unlikely.

Also, the darkest color Arthur's hair can be ingame is dark brown, which is due to darker lighting. But my proof is inaccurate at best as photobleaching is a thing. And if you don't know what it is the photochemical alteration of a dye or a fluorophore molecule such that it is permanently unable to fluoresce. Or fading for short.

PART 2: EYES

I saw a debate on Reddit. Yes, Reddit. But it was about Arthur's eye color, I always thought it was blue until I checked this, now the thing about blue-eyed people is that their eye color can appear different per se. I can prove this I am blue-eyed. For example, my eye color looks purple sometimes, some dude said it was rainbow once kinda weird. But it can also look green at times just like Arthur's in this photo.

But this is caused by the light brown pigment of whatever the fuck interacting with the blue light in your eyes or whatever. Which causes it to look green or speckled. Also, I have proven before that Arthur has blueish-greenish eyes. Yes, that's real.

PART 3 : ARTHUR MORGAN vs. ELLIE.

no debate about Arthur solos. has around 6'0, 180lbs but if you want me to go deep into this. According to a video I have found and some other evidence Arthur's quickdraw is around .23-.27 seconds and the blink of an eye is .25 seconds, so before Ellie could get close she'd already be shot. Anyone who says otherwise might just be a dumbass.

PART 4 : Ending some bickering between John and Arthur fans.

It is persistently debated about who is the better gunslinger between Arthur and John, or fighter in general. It's not a fair comparison, it's like comparing apples to oranges, both have their specialties, and both have their advantages over the other. In terms of gameplay, they are indistinguishable. But in terms of lore, most will say that Arthur would win in a brawl and John would win in a regular duel. There isn't much debate about whether or not Arthur would win in a brawl, most would agree on this, though the second one is a bit more controversial. But it is reasonable to suggest that in John's prime and after all of his experience and training with Landon, that he would be a quicker draw. But the comparison still isn't fair nonetheless. Arthur isn't a gunslinger, though he may be extremely quick, he prioritizes accuracy over speed, and that is his specialty. Arthur is a sniper, he is a rifleman, he would pick off enemies from an extreme distance and John would clear them out with extreme speed. Arthur is better in terms of accuracy, but yes, John would likely win in a duel. But so what? Duels aren't all that common and it likely wouldn't be the circumstance in which they would fight. However, if it came down to it and they were both in a battle close to mid-range with guns, John would still likely win because even if Arthur can hit a vital headshot with great accuracy, John can still hit his shots almost as well, and do so quicker. This is assuming that they are both in their prime, of course, because if we are referencing Arthur while he has TB or while John is still an oaf and doesn't have the same versatility with guns then it wouldn't really be fair. Additionally, most John fans will mention that John had a better arsenal, but what relevance does that have? Did he find a time portal in 1911 and teleport back in time to 1899 just to shoot Arthur or something? If they were to fight, it would be in the same period, so arsenal doesn't matter.

PART 5 : Naming my son. ( made my Vern's brother Mike. )

Hey, I'm Michael, and I also manage the RDR2 FANCLUB Blog. I had a debate with my wife the other day about whether we should name our child Arthur ( comical I know. ) or Iroy both are good but I need your opinions. also, @arthursdoll you're a pretty good friend of my brother so I'll let you decide :)

PART 6 : John Marston who?

rip van winkle.

PART 7 : Ending another stupid Reddit thing.

" When do you think Dutch went sour. "

Dutch wasn't necessarily always a good figure in the game, he didn't really start out as one and this is speaking from someone who's played it 16+ times. Oh and by the way if you couldn't tell Vernidia isn't explaining this one. But you have to take something into account so let us start with the.

Death of Davey Callander. The death of Davey surely played an impact on the choices that Dutch throughout the story. So did the death of Jenny I suppose, both weren't really introduced.

Chapter 2. Chapter 2 played a big part in the game, it was one of the LARGEST chapters. And if you watch the hidden dialogues in chapters 2 and 3 between Dutch and Lenny and Hosea and Lenny, it looks to me like they were grooming him to become Dutch’s next “consigliere”.

Trolley incident, and ETC. The trolley incident happens during the trolley mission where Dutch hits his head, an injury possibly played a part during this, I don't quite know. But there is an obvious change in Dutch after he hits his head during that mission.

FORGOT SOMETHING. Arthur mentions in Chapter 1 Colter that he never saw a side of Dutch that he's seen before, this is when he killed that girl on the ferry job in Blackwater.

The Bank heist went wrong. The bank heist surely played a huge part in the game it contained the death of Hosea and Lenny. And after these deaths you can see a sure change in Chapter 5.

My conclusion is he went “Sour” during the ferry heist but didn't quite reveal his true colors until Chapter 4-5.

PART 8: When Dutch shot at John in rdr1 did he mean to kill him?

Yeah probably.

Made by Vernidia, Mike, and Scooter

#rdr2 #Rdr2 debate #dutch van der linde #arthur morgan #john marston #debate

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allwormdiet · 2 months ago

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Interlude 8x

Hey! Lisa! Finally some Lisa

You know, it's funny, for a second there I forgot that the Boardwalk involved treating poor people like trash and having hired muscle around to beat and murder people for daring to be impoverished. Maybe it's not such a huge loss after all.

Lisa, you are so fucking funny, keep up the good work

If you'll allow me to take a brief tangent: there's a tabletop RPG series called Chronicles of Darkness, it's a supernatural noir kind of thing where you can play as mortals stumbling across horrific traces of the unknown, or vampires, werewolves, the victims of the fey, etcetera, broadly pretty fun, if you want you can check it out.

Some time around the time they were putting out the second edition of Chronicles, they put out this book called Hurt Locker, which isn't actually a reference to the movie? It's a slang thing, but I'm trying to stay focused. Hurt Locker had a few chapters about combat, how to make things more cinematic or more gritty, quicker means of resolving less significant conflicts, narrating damage and negative conditions in a way that increases the tension, but there were other parts of the book that were about understanding different kinds of harm and violence. While skills such as Brawl, Firearms, Weaponry, and even Drive and Intimidate have obvious ties to what can be involved in their application to violence, it talked about every other skill as well, and what those kinds of violence and harm could look like. Academics, for example, a skill that's mostly used to abstract things like humanities, law, accounting, and so on, can be tapped as a means of inflicting financial woes onto a target, laying the groundwork to set them up for a mistake that, combined with all the previously "misfiled" reports and so on, gets them fired from their office job. Medicine can be used to make poison and Science can be used to cook homemade plastic explosive. But besides the Physical skill category and the Mental skill category, there's also a Social skill category; skills like Empathy, Persuasion, Socialize, Subterfuge, and these are the skills that are involved in what gets dubbed "emotional violence." Spreading rumors, deliberately pressing on someone's triggers, excluding them from their peers, things like that.

Emotional violence is the purview of the bullies, obviously, literally all three of those things are shit that we see Taylor be subjected to because of their lunatic campaign, but the thing is that it's Lisa's weapon too, and I've seen two kind of extreme reactions to that. The first reaction is to think that it's not nearly as dangerous as laser blasts or bug control, and that's not exactly wrong? The problem is more that even in this arc we see the flaw in that line of thinking; Tattletale basically guarantees that Armsmaster's career takes a massive blow as a result of his little maneuver during the battle. The second reaction is to think that it makes Lisa a monster to even use it, and I disagree pretty strongly with that.

We have seen how parahumans interact with their powers, how they respond to having the capability to do the impossible at a moment's notice, and it's pretty blatant that their powers are second nature to them. Skitter is constantly adapting to her swarm, Miss Militia is literally never without a weapon, and to some extent even Canary lapsed into influencing her ex's mind without fully realizing what had happened. But I think, because Tattletale's superpower is not obviously what it is, that theoretically having a PI on hire to constantly study everyone around you could produce the same results, subsequently when she uses it against other people she manipulates them, stokes their insecurities, and makes them feel awful, and those could theoretically be done without her power. This strikes closer to home for people than bug control; I suspect that very few people think that Skitter is uniquely evil for having her insects sting the shit out of the people in the gallery, but I've seen at least some sentiment that Tattletale is no better than Emma, and while I understand the take I don't find any real footing on it. Emma is under no compunction to wield her social abilities like a weapon; Tattletale can't drop her power from her hand any more than Miss Militia can. She uses her words like Taylor uses her bugs; one of them just hits closer to home than the other, because nobody in real life can command bugs to sting people in the eyeball.

Digression over. I will say it's interesting that insulting Lisa's intelligence is the thing that gets her fired up, and it's also worth noting, in my opinion, that she responded to a very thinly veiled threat of physical violence (which we know can involve sexual assault and even death) with explicit emotional violence.

Hey Tattletale, thank you for giving an ironclad statement that you grin as a fear response, I will be noting further instances

Very Grue to be like "yeah, one in four capes are dying today, but there's not four of us here so it's fine"

Also a little telling that Tattletale's immediate response when Skitter comes up is to look for her, and that she has a whole line of thought about Skitter's simultaneous high level of self-consciousness, high level of observational capacity with her power, and also rock-bottom awareness of certain things. Which. Those are true. Girl literally offered Sundancer a hand up while they were still soaked in blood and maybe eyeball juices.

So, here's the first real thing we get in this arc of Lisa admitting to any degree of manipulating Taylor. She believes that she could've gotten her to go along with Dinah's situation if there'd been enough preparation to make sure Taylor didn't get rattled, and I don't know if that's true.

And then... sighs. Taylor is so goddamn lonely, all the time, and she knows that and she tries to fix it, but she keeps ending up unable to trust people because of rifts between them, real or imagined. I wonder how much of that comes down to her trigger event? Emma, obviously, but there's the other girl who had pretended to be Taylor's friend right up until the locker, and then Armsmaster, her dad, and now the Undersiders. Her response to betrayal is to remove herself, whether it's out of discomfort or distrust or fear, because even if she hates being alone, it's easier than leaving her back exposed to someone she can't trust.

And that's so fucking sad.

The first part is sweet in its own sad way, and then the second part is just sad again. If Taylor died here, what would be known of her?

...I'm gonna get to the "what if" where Taylor died btw. That's for the end of the arc and I have a whole plethora of Thoughts and Feelings about that

And here's the first time Tattletale describes her powers at all. It's an interesting perspective.

Rip in pieces Tasha

And then the first display of Lisa's power from her own perspective, which is cool. Not to mention the detail about how she's been improving with it over time, going off of the estimate from present day she's almost doubled the uptime

And the devious mastermind and social engineer Tattletale is using her incredible deductive powers tooooo steal debit cards

Rip. Better luck next time.

Or not.

Doesn't take three guesses who these guys work for.

...The fuck is up with Coil collecting teenage girls with Thinker powers? I know once is happenstance and twice is coincidence but I think I'm good without seeing a third instance.

Well fuck, this is pretty goddamn sinister huh

Also yeah no kidding a poor kid is gonna be distrusted compared to law enforcement or equivalent in the "nice" part of town.

Assault! Rape! Murder! But it's okay because it's the less dead, and because it's all to make sure that pretty Boardwalk doesn't get made uglier by the unfortunates crawling around the edges.

This city is a fucking pit, and that's before the city gets an actual literal pit in it.

Fuck you Coil.

I wonder if Leviathan just bleeds for show, honestly. Like to make people get cocky and think that it's starting to take damage, but surprise! It's fine and now you're being crushed to death under a small lake's worth of water

Also, secret weapon sounds fucking ominous with Regent's powerset. Fuck does he do?

I'm kind of imagining Alexandria hitting Leviathan with wrestling moves in this moment. Fucking RKO out of nowhere.

Fucking rad, no notes

Very stylish of Dragon, also very complicated to have a drone piloting your mech, but I guess needs must and Tinkers can get away with a lot

Okay so first off what the fuck kind of structure do you have to have going on where Leviathan's body has constantly increasing levels of hardness and density, how the fuck

Second off, "never was human" is fucking alarming. That means the Endbringers were made or just fucking popped out from the ether. Possibly both. Neither of those thoughts are comforting.

Jesus Leviathan is so fucking strong, he just demolished their entire position with a jump.

Also lmao at "what would Taylor do"

Nine people dead or incapacitated in like thirty seconds. What a monster.

Hang in there Lisa, we'll see you in a few

Wow, she has Grue pegged immediately, huh, or at least what he projects as Grue and not Brian

And she automatically understands the assignment on Rachel, too, even if she's never much good at it. Then again I think that's also because she's not getting to what's underneath the relevant stuff.

Okay so here's Tattletale's read on Regent, and I suspect that while she's largely correct she's missing key details, like she is with Grue and Bitch. It's entirely possible he's a sociopath, but I suspect that he's more than just whatever superhero comics think sociopathy is. Hope that ends up handled well.

Oh Lisa, you rascal. This will have consequences.

Current Thoughts

Literally two chapters before the Lisa interlude I was complaining about how I wanted more insight into her brain, and now here we are

She alarms me still to an extent, but at least now she's something more of a devil I know, especially with what comes up later in Extermination. Plus it means I have more reasons to despise Coil and that's good enough for me

I still adore you Lisa please stay safe and hang in there

#parahumans #worm liveblogging #worm #liveblog #worm extermination

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starstruckmoony · 2 years ago

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lover.

masterlist

pairing - james potter x muggleborn!reader

summary - james gets into a fight and you take care of him (you also scold him).

trope/tags - fluff, established relationship

word count - 1.3k

warnings - mentions of blood/violence but nothing explicit or graphic, mention of bullying but again nothing extreme

hogwarts was considered a calm place for a school, more often than not. and calm in a sense where students weren't taking their shots at trying to bite each other's heads off every other day. it got boring sometimes, without all of the age-typical drama and big fights, or brawls, or whatever one may call them (the ones where at least one person would land themselves a place in the hospital wing).

which is why you found it rather weird when a fifth year hufflepuff told you that a fight had broken out in the corridor outside of the potions classroom. apparently, almost all participants left bleeding, and one's nose wasn’t in a particularly divine condition. that wasn't very likely for wizards your age, their usual forms of battle would be hexing each other till one cried.

you brushed it off, it wasn't significant enough for you to dwell on it, and it didn't seem like it involved any of your friends. that was what you had suspected, at least. the sight of your boyfriend standing in the common room with a bleeding lip and brow was the last thing you wanted see when you stepped through the portrait hole.

"what did you do?!" you were in front him in a matter of seconds, looking at the other three boys in search of an explanation behind this.

"nothing happened." sirius was quick to defend whatever james did this time, and you shot him with a deadly glare. he chuckled awkwardly, ducking behind remus who appeared to be only moments away from shoving him to the floor.

"what do you mean 'nothing happened', look at him!" you snapped, pointing at james and the terrible condition he was in. he kept his eyes on the floor, not daring to spare you a glance.

"i mean, not much happened." peter lied, but it didn't do much to help. you ignored him, your focus still on your disheveled boyfriend in the middle of the room.

"i think we should let james do the explaining." remus suggested, and the irritated tone of his voice indicated that he wasn't exactly proud of his friend either. that, or something else happened.

"well?" you crossed your arms, your expression slowly softening.

"can we talk in private, please?" james finally looked up from the floor, meeting your worried face.

"fine." you sighed, letting him take your hand and lead you up the stairs to the boys dormitories. you made him take a seat on his bed not even a second after you walked through the door, and busied yourself by searching for bandages and other supplies through his trunk and drawer. luckily, he had told you remus had some, which the boys occasionally needed to use after their strange little forest explorations and full moon nights.

you made a swift trip to the bathroom and grabbed a towel which you had previously run under some water, and took a seat on the bed across from james.

"alright, speak." you gave him a nod of encouragement, and reached to clean up the blood around his lip with the cloth in your hand.

"promise you won't be mad at me?" james said with pleading eyes. you furrowed your eyebrows.

"what?" you accidentally pressed on the wound on his lip a bit too hard, causing him to hiss, "ouch." he muttered, his face scrunching up.

"sorry," you sighed, "i won't be mad, i promise." you muttered, your gaze stopping at a bruise that was beginning to form on his cheek.

"so, you know how i messed with snivellus the other day? made his potion explode in front of everybody?" you nodded. it was rather hilarious, especially since it happened not even five minutes after severus had bragged about his outstanding skills and knowledge about potions, and tried to get into slughorn's good graces (as if he already wasn't his favourite).

"well, i think he wanted to get back at me because he started following me in the hallway, chatting shit as usual," you stopped what you were doing for a moment, afraid that the story was about to go in a direction you had predicted it will, "i wasn't paying attention to him at first, i was trying to catch up with pete cause i stayed behind to talk to minnie, but then he..." james trailed off, much more nervous than before. he pressed a hand to the back of his neck, sighing uncomfortably, his expression sour.

"...started talking about you. rubbish, just pure rubbish, and he called you...you know, that word. the one for muggle borns, said you had dirty blood." you squirmed in your spot, feeling a bit uneasy. it was sad to say you'd gotten used to hearing such words thrown your way, they almost stopped bothering you, but it was different now, since it was affecting james, too.

"and then i punched him. square in jaw, also broke his nose. then mulciber came at me, then avery, snivellus was too busy whinging on the floor," james scoffed, and you didn't miss the way he rolled his eyes at the recalling of the scene, "a bunch of students showed up to watch, it was such a mess. and then moony and padfoot came and managed to fight them off somehow."

you sighed, putting your face into your hands and shaking your head. you stayed like that for a while, and when you looked up, you found that james had been staring at you the entire time. and without a drop of guilt in his eyes.

"did you really have to break his bloody nose for that?" you chastised, ripping the bandages open frustratedly and making the tiny papers they were wrapped in fly everywhere.

"what was i supposed to do?" he pouted. his ultimate weapon in fights, one that he was certain would always make you go easy on him. truth be told, you were beginning to feel a little less annoyed. if anything, you were more scared that something like that would happen again. and what if he's not lucky enough to have remus and sirius come by? what if someone uses a curse on him? slytherins like mulciber were brutal.

"not that! three against one, james. have you completely lost your mind?" you placed one of the smaller bandages onto his eyebrow, and dabbed the towel against the scratch on his lips a few more times. it was a bit ridiculous how you were scolding him and taking care of him all at once, but james was secretly (not very secretly) enjoying it.

"i'm not gonna have anyone talking about you like that." heat rushed to your cheeks. james bit back a grin. trying to come to a peaceful agreement about this was impossible, you both knew that.

"you didn't have to do it, you idiot." you smacked him across the head with the wet cloth, which only made him snicker. as disappointed as you were, you couldn't ignore the giddy feeling that was overtaking you. you tossed the towel staight to the floor and pulled him into a clumsy hug.

"thank you." you buried your face into his neck, your words were a bit muffled.

"you don't have to thank me," he kissed the top of your head, "next time he does that, he's dead."

"dramatic arse." you pulled away, fixing his chair and glasses as you did. good thing those idiots didn't break them.

"you love it." james winked, smiling cheekily.

"true, i do." you grinned back, and he quickly pecked your lips.

"you sure it's smart to do that?" you raised a teasing eyebrow. his lip was split open, so snogging really didn't seem like the most intelligent thing he should be getting up to right now.

"if you think this," he pointed to the small wound,"is stopping me, you are very wrong."

"james–" you gave up on even attempting to shove him away about two seconds into the kiss. it was james bloody potter, your stupid boyfriend who does stupid things because he loves you more than anyone could ever show, and who were you to resist him?

#james potter #james potter x reader #james potter x y/n #james potter x you #james potter drabble #james potter headcanon #james potter imagine #james potter one shot #james potter fluff #james potter smut #james potter fanfiction #sirius black #remus lupin #peter pettigrew #harry potter #harry potter fanfiction #marauders era #the marauders

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myriadium · 5 months ago

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5h4D0w (meaning light), 7'3'', [they]/he, chimera build (sleeper base),

notoriously unpredictable and chaotic, shadow was ranked third out of the vestals and first in darkus brawlers. he's very much a loose cannon and some wonder if he's all that useful to the vexos.

despite the uncontrollable spontaneity he exhibits, others are surprised to know that he consistently likes to pester mylene, who refused to be seen with him when he's in that "hideously inaccurate human illusion". Would you believe that his current human form is his fourteenth version? He keeps changing it around, and not a single time did it look accurate.

i realize that i've never showed how vestal's mouths work. their faces move up to reveal it. their "teeth" don't do the chewing, they're just there to prevent escape because vestals are primarily photosynthesizers but secondarily carnivores. They prefer to keep their mouths hidden because exposing it is a sign of extreme vulnerability, but shadow does not give a fuck lmao.

brawlers' comments:

Umm...I don't know what he's playing at. I can tell he's good but uh...his playstyle is very unorthodox. I'm actually surprised that they're ranked as high as they are, but watching replays of his previous battles show that his opponents are usually the ones making bad plays. I think somehow he's able to throw them off and get them to mess up, which is a valid strat, I suppose.

Hm? Oh, I mean he doesn't usually play the explosive high risk/high reward moves that darkus is known for (those moves are the strongest, since the vestal battle format doesn't let you sacrifice other Bakugan). he plays like a DoT oriented Aquos player.

- Alice

I didn't even know Vestals had mouths. Usually the holes in their faces let them make whistling sounds to communicate but Shadow just sounds like he's screaming. it's very haunting, and I think even other vestals are thrown off by them. baron seems scared of him, so that should say something.

I definitely agree with Alice; he's a strange player. I usually don't go for psychological warfare in Bakugan battles but to each their own, I guess.

- Shun

I enjoy psychological warfare in Bakugan brawls. It lends an extra dimension to battles that allows even a novice player to beat a more experienced player if the latter has little experience with targeted harrassment. [5h4D0w] is a mediocre player, but [they]'re very good at throwing off [their] opponents with taunts and...acting like a fool, admittedly. However, his win rate is quite good for his skill level, so [they]'re definitely someone to look out for.

I'm not sure how [M_y|_E|\|e] can stand him. I suppose [they] are usually paired up with [5h4D0w] on missions so [they] just learned how to tune out his [absurdity]. I can't help but respect that.

- M/RA

#bakugan #bakugan new vestroia #shadow prove

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kell-eramis · 6 months ago

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post onslaught/ajax analysis please

SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG I wanted to do it justice so I reread the tragedy, but basically Ajax is a figure in Greek Mythology who is present in the Trojan War and Iliad, and his titular tragedy, Ajax, originally written by Sophocles. (He’s also in Odysseus’ katabasis in the Odyssey) He’s considered the second strongest (next to Achilles), and is an extremely competent soldier.

Ajax’s tragedy takes place after a contest of who should take Achilles’ armor after his death—Menelaus and Agamemnon give it to Odysseus, the only other candidate. Ajax is incredibly angry about this, and wishes to slaughter Menelaus, Agamemnon, and Odysseus in particular. Athena clouds his vision, and he instead kills animals taken from Troy to be divided up amongst the men. Upon finding out what he has done, the other Greeks see it as a transgressive crime, and upon returning to lucidity Ajax becomes despondent, not seeing a way to live in a peaceful world after this, and kills himself.

Ultimately, Ajax’s story, and other ancient works like The Iliad, The Odyssey, and the Oresteia, represent a shift in the Athenian conscious of constant war and battle, where a person’s strength is based on their glory, to one of sophistry and wisdom, of a democracy. Figures like Ajax and Achilles die because their characters are prominent heroes, claiming great glory for themselves and their men, but that is no longer what Athens is. They cannot survive in a “peaceful” world. Odysseus, on the other hand, who represents a more “rational” and moderate perspective, makes a journey to go from the Odysseus that fights in Troy, to the Odysseus that fights for his family upon his return to Ithaca.

Now, moving on to Onslaught: Onslaught in Phase 2 (especially Till All Are One), is someone who can’t move on from the war. Whose purpose for millions of years was to fight, and he did this well! What then, is there, as she transitions from someone incredibly respected in wartime, to someone who he and his comrades are barely scraping by? Megatron has left her and her cause, Galvatron was… Galvatron, and Starscream both betrayed them and killed Swindle! Unable to cope in a peaceful world, he strives for purpose—for another war, and sets her eyes on Starscream. Where he was an excellent fighter, she is now cast to the side by the old faction leaders and the new Cybertronian leaders.

In the beginning of Till All Are One, we see Onslaught decide to refuse to ingratiate himself into the new peaceful society, choosing instead to hunt down Swindle, not for justice, but to use her to get at Starscream. To bring her Cybertron crumbling down, and find purpose in a new fight. Those who Starscream refers to as "monsters"--those who find purpose in conflict and feel lost without it, Brawl and Vortex, go along with this, and Blast Off, whose purpose isn't to fight, who has been trying to help the others persist in this society without Swindle, is the only one reluctant to do so. He knows Onslaught 1. needs a purpose 2. gets fixated on a conflict/an enemy and 3. is lost during peace time.

This focus, exacerbated by anti Starscream protests and Rattrap's leaks, culminates in Onslaught and the other Combaticons combining into Bruticus, with one goal: to burn everything. This is seen as a transgressive act of violence, to figures such as Blast Off's peers from Ironhide's new security program, and to colonists, who've for the most part only known peace. This is a similar act to Ajax's slaughter of the animal trophies from Troy. Both Iacon and the animals are the results of the fighting both Ajax and Onslaught did, and excelled in, but as a transition to peace occurs in both settings, Ajax and Onslaught, unable to cope with being left behind by it, destroy those results, or try to. Everyone is horrified by it, further pushing these characters away, so they can't adjust to peacetime.

Afterwards, Starscream, who also can't adjust to peace time and is looking for any form of power to hold onto in case war happens once again (whether it be with one of the colonies, or Optimus, or Decepticons, or Sentinel Prime, or Unicron), (remind me to talk about this also at some point) convinces Blast Off to help deceive the other Combaticons to be loyal to her. Blast Off does this to help Onslaught not destroy himself in pursuit of conflict and vengeance, but Starscream is once more using Onslaught as a soldier. And ultimately, at the end of Till All Are One, once Starscream confesses to his crimes, Onslaught and the other Combaticons are also sent to jail, and aren't mentioned again, left behind because they no longer served as soldiers.

I personally like to think that 1. they survive through Unicron 2. they are able to live better lives post Unicron, and 3. Blast Off and the other Combaticons (including Onslaught) do make up (I still need to read Escape Velocity...). I don't think any of this is easy, but to me phase 2 is about hope, about being able to embrace the peace they were all fighting for, and find their place in and with each other, especially as Onslaught and the others have their gestalt bond. This doesn't take away from the fact that Onslaught, to me, is very Ajax-coded, but rather that he, through people like Blast Off and the other Combaticons, are able to be given the chances and the love that someone like Ajax didn't have, having dishonored himself in a world that he saw as still prioritizing honor and glory above everything.

#i love onslaught a lot #combaticon #onslaught #onslaught transformers #transformers onslaught #till all are one #taao #transformers idw #tf idw #combaticons #blast off #blast off transformers #transformers blast off #ajax the greater #transformers meta #my writing #my meta

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teddyduchampsglasses · 2 years ago

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Poly w/ Bender and Andy??

What It Would Be Like In A Poly Relationship With John Bender And Andrew Clark

Paring: John Bender x gender neutral reader x Andrew Clark

Movie: The Breakfast Club

Summary: As the title says, this is what it would be like in a poly relationship with John Bender and Andrew Clark

Warnings: Swearing and mentions of violence

Word count: 2,602

(Sorry if this is really bad, I’m not too proud of this and this is my first time writing in a long time so if its bad, thats why.)

It was extremely obvious and a very well known fact that you had a slight thing for both of the boys; you were very outward about your attraction towards them, not in any way shape or form trying to hide your affection. You flirted with the two of them almost all the time: you winked, smiled, and you would often place your hands upon them while having a conversation, wether that be on their arms, chest, or fingers, your palms always seemed to be placed on them. Your confidence and straight forward attitude is what caused them to fall head over heels for you. Andy often day dreamed about bringing you along with him to his tournament’s, accompanying you to the mall, and inviting you to hang out with his friends, while John imagined you as his plus one to house parties, brining you to tons of metal concerts, and getting high with you in the school parking lot. You were on their minds almost 24/7, the blond often thought of you during his wrestling practices, causing him to space out and get yelled at by his coach as a result, and John was finding it hard to keep up with his whole bad boy facade when even the thought of you slightly lingered through his brain, a small smile slipping across his lips before his face turned a light shade of pink.

If you thought they argued a lot before, well boy were you wrong. Constantly observing as the person they were both deeply infatuated with flirting with another guy always made them furious. It caused many fights, be it physical, verbal, or both, they were always extremely heated and violent. Fist fights often erupted between the two of them, maybe John looked at Andy the wrong way in the hall or Andrew flipped off John during lunch, whatever it may have been, they quickly came to the realization that the whole situation had transformed into a complete competition for your love, a battle that sparked an even deeper hatred between the two. Their shared loathing for one another and their constant fights and brawls made the thought of each other start to appear into their brains much more often. Andy was always thinking about Bender on his way to school, gripping his backpack with extreme force as he stared out the window, glaring at almost everything in sight as he thought about the brown haired male and how much he despised him, and John wasn't much better: he started to explode at teachers more often due to his pent up anger, yelling at adults while he kicked over furniture as he exited the classroom. They had begun to think about one another almost constantly, their lives practically revolving around each other, always thinking about which hall to take or where to sit at during lunch so they would just happen to cross paths.

So, with you as their final goal, but each other almost always on their minds, they started to fight more and more. Why, you may ask, well there is two possibilities, one: They were trying to cover up the fact that they were both a bit into each other by over exaggerating their feelings of hatred, or two: They secretly just wanted a reason to spend more time and to be closer to one another. But what ever it was, these two started to fight over the smallest and things. For example, Andrew had accidentally bumped into Benders locker in the hall one morning, his shoulder slightly nudging it as he walked passed, and John, who witnessed this, from down the hall, practically jumped on top of the athlete. Or, another time, John was actually nice to the blonde, Andrew had dropped his pencil in class and Bender leaned over, retrieving it for him before handing it to the other boy, attempting to be nice and actually form some kind of impartial bond. But John jumped about fifty feet when Andrew just lost it, yelling and screaming at John in the middle of class. In that moment, John vowed, on his own life, that that would be the last time he would ever spare the blonde from his anger. It ended up being a lie, but what ever.

You started to suspect that they not only reciprocated your feelings but also felt something for one another as well when caught one of them staring and admiring the other in the middle of class, multiple times. The look in their eyes definitely was not that of someone who truly disliked someone, their faces were actually the same exact ones you often caught them starring at you with; a smitten and total love struck look written across their features. Johns eyes were soft as he gazed upon Andrew, a small smile creeping upon his face as he observed the way the light casted down upon the boy, while Andrew often zoned out with his eyes glued to Bender, fiddling with the string of his sweatshirt as his vision practically magnetized in John’s direction. This fact didn't cause you to be overwhelmed with a feeling of jealousy or annoyance, you were actually quite thrilled about the occurrence as it worked out amazingly in your favor.

This went on for a while, you flirting with the boys as they fought one another and bickered over you, you would observe them as they glanced at you before glancing at one another, but the day eventually arrived when you finally snapped. The moment you decided to situate the entire messy and confusing affair came when they fought over you in the lunch room, as they always did. John waltzed over to Andrew before preceding to kick a leg out from underneath his chair, the blond toppling over as a result before jumping up from his position on the ground and grabbing Bender by his hair. You were quick to rise from your seat, calmly walking over towards them before separating the intense fight. Once they had finally conciliated they ordered you to pick between them, to decide right then and there who you wanted to be with and demanding you to stop teasing them. But, instead, you simply suggested that you all date. They were apprehensive at first, awkwardly looking up at one another, then back at you before John finally agreed. Andy let out a soothing exhale as relief washed over him, hiding his joy at the thought that both of his love interests had feelings for him. He soon accorded as well.

It took a bit of time for the two of them to become comfortable, slowly relaxing around each other as their hatred for one another slowly diminished over time. At first, they were both extremely awkward whilst together, too nervous to even look at each other and often still fighting and bickering, as they had never dealt with each other in a civil manner. But soon enough, they quickly became pleasant with one another.

The three of you love wearing one anothers clothing items; Andy often wore Johns jacket, walking around town or making his way through the halls while supporting John’s jean jacket isn't an uncommon sight. And some how, he makes it look amazing as well. You often wear Andy’s letterman, as he has practically no use for it anymore. Not only is it extremely comfortable and smells amazing, but it also looks super cute with all of your outfits. His over sized jacket is like the cherry on top of all of your clothes, matching perfectly with a cute pair of shorts or finalizing your white t-shirt. And, although Bender is a bit too large to fit into either of your clothes, he loves wearing your jewelry, often stylizing his outfits with your small, diamond earrings or a metal necklace wrapped around his neck and hanging upon his collar.

These two love sneaking in through your window during the night. Wether it be for some long over due make out sessions or just the deep desire to hang out and cuddle, one of them always appears outside your room in the evenings, desperately knocking at your window to let them in. And they always seem to run into each other unannounced as well. Andrew may accidentally bump into John on the street or they may cross paths whilst noisily scaling the side of your house, either way, they never seem to plan it when they show up at your home around the same time, it’s just a really odd coincidence.

The three of you often have study dates. All of you get together while dressed in comfortable pajamas, John often wearing a pair of Andrew’s pajama pants while you are practically swimming in one of John’s t-shirts, before you sit down upon the floor, spreading all of your textbooks and homework out on the ground as you work with one another. But, with in ten minutes, you're always the one who ends up tutoring the two of them, teaching them basic math skills or simple grammar as Andrew often doesn't have time for school work, due to both his busy and stressful sports schedule, and Bender just simple doesn't do any of his work on his own time.

Both John and yourself show up to Andy’s wrestling meets, taking a seat somewhere in the crowded bleachers before cheering him on during his matches. He loves waving or winking at the two of you before going out onto the mat, loving the idea that you guys will be observing him as you happily support him. John always seems shows up a bit late with food though, rushing into the gymnasium with snacks and meals for the three of you before frantically searching for you among the audience. He always brings himself a coke and some cold popcorn, he supplies you with your favorite candy and some sort of chips, and, all though Andrew hates it, he always brings him some sort of really sugary junk food, just to piss him off.

The three of you absolutely adore going swimming in the summer; you have so much fun dressing in your favorite swim wear and quickly packing a day bag before dashing off to the beach, practically on a whim. The boys love swimming and splashing around in the water, sharing sunglasses as they swim as far off into the lake as they possibly can, all while you observe them from shore. Most of the time, you're sitting upon the beach, usually reading or sunbathing, but every so often, you join them in their water sports, and when ever you do so, finally giving into their begs and pleads, they conspire against you before dunking you underwater. Either one of them will scoop you up into their arms before basically slamming you down into the water. They think it is the funniest thing on the planet.

The group of you don’t often cook together, but when ever you do, it always ends in some sort of food fight. You could be baking cookies, bam, theres dough smeared all over your faces. Cooking noodles, suddenly pasta sauce some how ends up smooshed all over the walls. It’s like full of violent warfare; Andrew will be hiding behind the kitchen counter as John throughs flour across the room, giving you the perfect opportunity to crack an egg upon Andy’s head before Bender catches you and wipes chocolate all over you and your clothes.

Those boys love having their hair played with. They don’t care if you braid it, comb it, or simply run your fingers through it, it’s like their in complete heaven when ever your hands are on their heads. You often find yourself with your palm buried in Johns hair as he listens to music, or your fingers laced in Andrew’s locks while he’s on the phone with one of his buddies. They practically beg you to massage their heads when ever the three of you are watching television or simply laying with one another.

Ice skating. In the colder seasons, the three of you get together, at least once a month, and go ice skating. John absolutely sucks at it. You and your blond boyfriend watch as your big and tough boyfriend falls on his ass or face plants into the ice about a dozen times. He usually has to desperately hang onto one of you for the entirety of the night, usually grasping Andy’s hand as he’s surprisingly talented at the sport. He rarely slips, usually keeping amazing balance as John and you struggle to glide successfully for two whole seconds. The athlete can even do a few tricks. “Fuck you, you show off.” John will jokingly snap at Andrew when ever he lands some random trick.

You all often go to fairs together; John and you love going on all the rides, your favorite being the zipper, putting all of your effort in attempting to make it spin all the way around, swinging you and John around in your seats causing your hair to fly around the cage. Andrew isn't a huge fan of rides, he’ll accompany the two of you on the ferris wheel or maybe the tilt-a-whirl, but thats about it. He hates feeling his stomach drop or when his anxiety gets so bad he’s shaking, but worst of all, he hates getting sick, despising all rides that may include spinning him in circles too fast or hang him upside down for a long period of time. And because of this fact, he often stands around, chatting with a few of his acquaintances while he waits, even offering to win prizes for you and John. He always secures a large stuffed animal for you and gains some sort of band poster for Bender.

One time, the three of you got together at Andrew’s house and had a movie night, arguing over what movie you should view while you cooked popcorn, gathered some candies, and poured three cups of soda. You finally accepted the fact that you’d be watching Die Hard against your will. But, within twenty minutes of the movie that they had so desperately wanted to view, the two had absolutely passed out; Andy, exhausted from wrestling practice, had his head placed upon your lap, quietly snoring to himself as his hand grasped at your knee. Bender had his cheek squished against your shoulder, causing his mouth to fall open as his hair hung in his face. You had to pee extremely bad, but you excepted the fact that you weren't rising anytime soon as you didn't want to wake the boys, so you allowed your fate to slowly creep up on you as your hands found their way to their hair, twirling their locks between the pads of your fingers as you watched the action film.

Finally, these two would definitely fight someone due to you, in fact, they already have. The two of them had walked into gym class one day, their eyes quickly scanning the room for your figure before their vision landed upon some kid shamelessly flirting with you. They could read the look of absolute helplessness drawn all over your face, your eyes frantic as a small frown grew across your lips. This random dude obviously was unaware of the fact that you were dating two of the toughest guys in school, because if he had known, he wouldn't have made such an obvious mistake. Anyway, the look on the boys face was priceless when your boyfriends practically spawn out of nowhere before beating his disturbing ass.

#Andrew Clark simps unite #John Bender simps unite #Andrew Clark #andrew clark x reader #john bender x reader #the breakfast club #1980s #80s #John Bender

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