#generational talent for a very specific generation

[genderqueerdykes]

Why are people so hostile about transmasc musicians? Like who gives a fuck if that 16 year old who just came out has a ukulele. You want edgy transmasc music, make it yourself instead of defaulting to like. Default level transandrophobia

(not about you obviously, I just saw some posts that made me rather angry. Trans men and boys are judged to fucking hell and back if they ever attempt music)

no it pisses me the hell off too. it's partially that, but mostly the reason people are so shitty to transmasc musicians is because of very specific transfems who are passionate about music, who are musicians themselves, and have very, very low self esteem about what they create, so they default to saying "transfems are inherently better at music and transmascs suck at it they can never be good at it"

i lived w/ a bunch of trans punks for a while and most of them were transfem & musicians and they felt like that as well. it made me angry because. some of the transfem musicians who showed up were awesome, had so much creativity and cool concepts for unique music. some of the transfem musicians who showed up just flat out fucking sucked, too. it's not like transfems are all gifted musicians.

one of the transfems would show up with a bass and incorrectly play the lines for top 40s rock songs. she wouldn't practice or learn from other musicians. and she was trying to force a local gay bar to let her perform alongside the DJ, which they were not comfortable with because she didn't have a specific kind of permit or license, and she just kept showing up with her bass anyway. it was really upsetting to watch because there was no respect for the bar owners, she was very hostile towards them despite the fact that 1 person plucking away at a bass guitar who isn't hosting a concert is usually not the kind of music a gay bar generally plays

i also met some transfems who made absolutely awful electronic music. i met tons who were awesome with electronic music. a lot of songs i genuinely enjoyed because when i do listen to music, i like progressive, creative music. and there were tons of transfems there who were amazingly talented, and gifted. but that doesn't mean all transfems are better at making music and all transmascs suck at making music. it's really rude to keep doing this "girls rule, boys drool" stuff because it affects those musicians. it's not okay to be rude just because the music isn't to your taste.

[valar-did-me-wrong]

I just burned my hand while thinking of this Adar headcanon.. (RIP my chai) So now I'm gonna bore you all with it to distribute the suffering :3

So there are 2 major Adar origin headcanons in the fandom rn in my knowledge..

The one most people (including me a few months ago) follow in one version or another is: Adar was among the first elves who woke up in Cuvienen & got captured by Morgoth. Cuvienen Adar

Then there's a minority opinion I've heard come up sometimes (and has me in its grasp since I heard it) that Adar is a nobody Fëanorian who got taken in one of the early wars between Noldor & Morgoth. Noldo Adar

Now I love the angst of Cuvienen Adar, Eldest elf on Middle Earth not quite an elf anymore... It hurts so good 🤌🏽 but there's just something so Noldo about him too! Like his innovativeness in finding unique solutions, his fury, his burning love that keeps him going & his sheer willpower to survive so much torture.. it's VERY Fëanorian coded in my eyes!! ❤️‍🔥

So in an attempt to make both of them work, I created this headcanon which is kinda the best of both worlds for me personally!

I'd love lore experts to correct me if I'm wrong anywhere & for my fellow Adarlings to just take this as a not too serious exploration of yet another version of Adar :))

So my personal headcanon now goes that:

Yes Adar was among the first elves that woke up in Cuvienen, but specifically he was a Tatyar (2nd of the 3 groups of elves in Cuvienen with the leader Tata who was the 2nd ever elf to wake up)

A Tatyar who actually stayed behind instead of following Finwe to Valinor after Oromë had come to take the elves. So in my headcanon he is specifically a Tatyar Avari.

Which makes him kin to Noldor.

As when Oromë came to take the elves with him, half the Tatyar that went with him became Noldor in Valinor (also some parts of the 3rd group also went and became Teleri in Valinor) while those who stayed behind (from both the 2nd and 3rd groups) became Avari. So the Tatyar Avari were related to Noldor.

Now Avari in general are mentioned in some versions to be the elves who got captured by Morgoth to create orcs.. 👀

So it kinda fits the lore too, which is a bonus!

To me this headcanon adds so much more angst to Adar. Specially to his & Galadriel's interactions.

Like not only is Galadriel an elf but she is also a Noldo, from Finwë's line, who lead half the Tatyar to Valinor.. it's everything Adar gave up or lost.

He must look at Galadriel and feel like almost everything he could have been in another life is standing infront of him personified!

I wonder if he ever regretted remaining back in Middle Earth & being an Avari. If he ever regret not following Finwe to Valinor.

Maybe he did not go because he didn't want to follow but rather lead and couldn't.

Maybe thats why he was so unhappy in his existence (along with ofcourse the whole inability to have children thing which implies queerness) and could get corrupted successfully, survive so long & become Sauron's lieutenant; he was an innate leader (but the elves chose the direct descendant of Tata, Finwë instead)

There are so many stories & what ifs to be explored here tbh.

If anyone knows fics that have used this premises please do share with me!!

And if there aren't fics yet, I hope this little attempt of mine at headcanoning reaches and touches someone talented to become a fic now!

Thoughts, discussions and tears most welcome 🫶🏽

[explorastro]

RANDOM ASTRO TAKES #4

Where is Capricorn in your chart can show where you are the GOAT, that��s an area of your life where with discipline and hard work you can overcome anything, all the doors are open and sky is the limit.

Uranus in Pisces in mutual reception with Neptune in Aquarius can embodies an ideal of creativity, spirituality, or physically. They’re divine muse if artists, skillful players, talented photographers, top models. But also intuitive fast thinkers, innovative healing maker, a good content creator, an influencer with eccentric community, an actor that you trust like no one… Neptune is in fall in Aquarius but it’s one of the less difficult fall, if we retire New Age bullshit and delusion about community in our modern society, that placement is in derivative 12H of its domicile, Pisces is in analogy with 12H, it’s symbolic of all the mysticism of the sky.

Generally, if the planets aren’t in exile/fall, harshly aspected or in difficult houses, mutual reception strengthened the planets implicated, their qualities blend each others to creates something very unique and special, Uranus can rules that type of placement.

Some of the best mutual reception :

Mercury in Cancer and Moon in Gemini (fast mind)

Mars in Capricorn and Saturn in Scorpio (THE achiever)

Venus in Cancer and Moon in Taurus (best sensual partner)

Jupiter in Libra and Venus in Sagittarius (abondance of pleasures)

A news from CIA says that Covid 19 had been leaked from a laboratory, when France, in collaboration with China, inaugurated a p4 laboratory BEFORE COVID in Wuhan specifically for this type of virus, it was very strange, given all this, that the new Moon is in Aquarius conjoined with Mercury and Pluto ruled by Saturn in Pisces, the sign of viruses and bacteria. With the new Moon in the same sign as the U.S. Moon, it really is a potential conspiracy in the making that people are now informed.

Mercury in Aquarius ingresses conjunct Pluto at 1 degrees, new ideas emerges from a hidden place of the mind, transformative conversations can disrupting your daily routine, technology boosted, AI more and more used, dystopian Black mirror shit happens in the real world..It’s a previous of the ingress of Uranus in Gemini trine Pluto.

Crown atmospheric of Sun is 1 million of degrees when the Sun is 5000 degrees Celsius, that’s why entourage of Sun dominant are very hot.

The start of a plutocracy/technocracy happens during a Sun/Pluto conjunction in Aquarius, that falls in the 3H of USA, Canada is menaced, Mexicans and South Americans refugees also.

what sign’s rising hide based on their derivative 8H :

Aries (Scorpio 8H) : the secrets of death

Taurus (Sag 8H) : secrets journeys places

Gemini (Cap 8H) : hidden inner knowledge

Cancer (Aqua 8H) : secrets of human birth

Leo (Pisces 8H) : hidden creativity skills

Virgo (Aries 8H) : secrets of motivation

Libra (Taurus 8H) : secrets of arcane le bateleur

Scorpio (Gemini 8H) : secrets books/secrets jokes

Sagittarius (Cancer 8H) : secrets of abundance

Capricorn (Leo 8H) : secrets of glowing up

Aquarius (Virgo 8H) : secrets of epistemology

Pisces (Libra 8H) : secrets of love

Where earth signs fall in your chart is how you are connected to nature,

1/5/9H : you might construct your identity, pleasures, philosophy of life based on grounded thoughts, your daily routine can be to enjoy the instant present, the little things that the life have to offer

2/6/10H : your relationships to material possessions can be so important, but wait for overconsumption, you’re maybe ethical in your career, values.

3/7/11H : you should connecting with others when you commit to your natural skills, that can be crafts or art, but you’re can really enjoy travel with your entourage in green places.

4/8/12H : survival mode might be in your subconscious patterns, you can knowing what is animal spirit, everything can be a natural law in this world for you.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 26, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Jan 26, 2025

On January 27, 1838, Abraham Lincoln rose before the Young Men’s Lyceum in Springfield, Illinois, to make a speech. Just 28 years old, Lincoln had begun to practice law and had political ambitions. But he was worried that his generation might not preserve the republic that the founders had handed to it for transmission to yet another generation. He took as his topic for that January evening, “The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions.”

Lincoln saw trouble coming, but not from a foreign power, as other countries feared. The destruction of the United States, he warned, could come only from within. “If destruction be our lot,” he said, “we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

The trouble Lincoln perceived stemmed from the growing lawlessness in the country as men ignored the rule of law and acted on their passions, imposing their will on their neighbors through violence. He pointed specifically to two recent events: the 1836 lynching of free Black man Francis McIntosh in St. Louis, Missouri, and the 1837 murder of white abolitionist editor Elijah P. Lovejoy by a proslavery mob in Alton, Illinois.

But the problem of lawlessness was not limited to individual instances, he said. A public practice of ignoring the law eventually broke down all the guardrails designed to protect individuals, while lawbreakers, going unpunished, became convinced they were entitled to act without restraint. “Having ever regarded Government as their deadliest bane,” Lincoln said, “they make a jubilee of the suspension of its operations; and pray for nothing so much as its total annihilation.”

The only way to guard against such destruction, Lincoln said, was to protect the rule of law on which the country was founded. “As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and Laws, let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor…. Let reverence for the laws…become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars.”

Lincoln was quick to clarify that he was not saying all laws were good. Indeed, he said, bad laws should be challenged and repealed. But the underlying structure of the rule of law, based in the Constitution, could not be abandoned without losing democracy.

Lincoln didn’t stop there. He warned that the very success of the American republic threatened its continuation. “[M]en of ambition and talents” could no longer make their name by building the nation—that glory had already been won. Their ambition could not be served simply by preserving what those before them had created, so they would achieve distinction through destruction.

For such a man, Lincoln said, “Distinction will be his paramount object, and although he would as willingly, perhaps more so, acquire it by doing good as harm; yet, that opportunity being past, and nothing left to be done in the way of building up, he would set boldly to the task of pulling down.” With no dangerous foreign power to turn people’s passions against, people would turn from the project of “establishing and maintaining civil and religious liberty” and would instead turn against each other.

Lincoln reminded his audience that the torch of American democracy had been passed to them. The Founders had used their passions to create a system of laws, but the time for passion had passed, lest it tear the nation apart. The next generation must support democracy through “sober reason,” he said. He called for Americans to exercise “general intelligence, sound morality, and in particular, a reverence for the constitution and laws.”

���Upon these let the proud fabric of freedom rest, as the rock of its basis; and as truly as has been said of the only greater institution, ‘the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’”

What became known as the Lyceum Address is one of the earliest speeches of Lincoln’s to have been preserved, and at the time it established him as a rising politician and political thinker. But his recognition, in a time of religious fervor and moral crusades, that the law must prevail over individual passions reverberates far beyond the specific crises of the 1830s.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[somekindofsentience]

ALRIGHT

if no-one is going to GIVE ME specific info on Hajime Hinata's parents then i will MAKE MY OWN specific info on Hajime Hinata's parents.

(or rather i'll present several possible scenarios and you can choose your favourite.)

Let's recap what we know about them first: they are very normal, they are rich (enough to send their son to Hope's Peak), they have a tendency to slap money over Hajime's problems (which is evident in their choice to send him there and also sign to the Kamukura project), and Hajime's insecurities were either unknown to his parents or never addressed by them. For the purposes of this, I'm assuming he's an only child, as there isn't evidence to suggest otherwise.

I'm going to hesitantly rule out the idea that Hajime's parents were two very talented people who put a lot of pressure on their son to also be talented - it just doesn't strike me as a very "normal" family. I think it's possible, though. Hajime's admiration of talent could come solely from seeing talented peers or walking by Hope's Peak every day; it doesn't have to be family-centric.

I have a few possible scenarios. The first is the classic "business dad", a rich father with no time for his son. I feel like that makes logical sense, and you could make an argument that it's "normal". It's clear emotional neglect has played a role in Hajime's deep insecurities. If Hajime's mother had a mindset of "Boys shouldn't cry", that emotional neglect would lead him to brush aside his problems.

I was also thinking about what is considered "normal" by standards of abuse. Verbal abuse and emotional neglect, for example, are often normalised (let's be fucking clear- they should not be.) in households as a result of cycles of abuse. Those two in particular are often harder to notice. Thinking stereotypically, if his father was verbally abusive (perhaps about academics or something similar?) and both his parents were emotionally negligent, that would mean his insecurity goes unresolved and possibly worsens when he makes mistakes (although that might not make sense, since Hajime is quite confident in his general abilities, just insecure about lack of talent).

Alternatively, we could consider how perceptive Hajime is as a result of his upbringing. He's very emotionally aware of others, and seeks to understand them more than anything else. If his parents had relationship issues his entire life, and it fell to him to comfort them or resolve the problem, it might explain his behaviour with regards to that. It'd also lead him to prioritise his own issues less.

Another option is just distrust. Parents can mess up handling their child emotionally and completely ruin a connection with them- it does happen. It's very possible that Hajime's parents have been trying to get him to open up for years, but he can't trust them because of problems in the past. As such, they'd know something was wrong, but not what it is or how to deal with it.

One thing that continues to stump me - I have no fucking idea how Hope's Peak got them to sign the Kamukura project. What would be reasonable enough initially for results to come back that your son fucking died and for you to not sue?

I will say, considering how confused Kyoko is about her own life in her FTEs, I wouldn't be surprised if much of Hajime's life has been erased to hide his lack of talent. What is odd is how much he doesn't notice this- other characters mention their families, worry about friends, desire to leave (let's be clear, nowhere near as much as in THH); if Hajime's memory of these things was hazy, wouldn't that strike him as strange? Obviously it could go into a whole "well he forgot that he forgot!" situation, but that feels like an excuse.

Is it possible that his family doesn't matter much to Hajime himself? If so, why? There's a number of reasons why a person might not value their family- possibly because it isn't a safe space for them. That's also something to consider.

I dunno. These are mostly rambles. Some of this is taken from my own life experiences. I'm being very generalised about this, since I don't know much about cultural specifics, which I think might play a role.

[prettygirlgerard]

gerard spending the last 20 years racking up emo street cred so she can finally put on the greatest german expressionist brutalist stage play this town has ever seen… genius

[hylialeia]

"i can't come up with a fantasy name for my world so i HAVE to use chatgpt to get the gears flowing" have you all forgotten what fantasynamegenerators.com has done for you

[batsplat]

hi batsplat! i would like to say that you are an absolute pillar of the motogp community on here, like you are truly so so appreciated. both for your knowledge and also for the way you write about things (i think you could write 3000 words on a grocery store trip valentino took in 2003 and still make it super interesting reading)

i was reading your post about your favourite rivalries that didnt include one of the aliens, who would you personally include as part of that list? (versus who is really good but not quite alien status) id also really like to know if (and who) youd count as aliens from the pre-motogp era, and if theres been a difference over time about how often we are seeing aliens or if theyre easier/harder to spot as technical developments have sped up

hope you have a great day!

that's so sweet... thank you that's such an incredible compliment dsdkhfkhfd

about the aliens, the way I use the term is entirely as a historical descriptor, not as a qualitative assessment of any riders. it's a useful shorthand for a specific riders in a specific era, but to me it has limited relevance outside of that era. so to be clear we're talking valentino, casey, dani, jorge and marc - and according to common wisdom this usage originated from colin edwards' 2009 comment:

“But as I’ve said before, I’ve got to be pleased to be finishing next best behind those four guys, or should I say aliens. “They are riding out of this world and to be right behind them means I’m doing the best job I can and that’s about as good as I can hope for at the moment.”

(jorge discusses valentino as an alien in 2007, see here. which might be complete coincidence, but has always made me kind of curious whether the word was floating around in the paddock in some capacity before edwards 'coined' the term)

the thing is, right, it made sense to treat those four (and later -casey +marc) as distinct from the field, because they were winning almost everything. one reason for this was that they were very good, very skilled riders. another was that from 2007-15, only four to six bikes were capable of regularly challenging for wins at any one time. it was a massive field disparity that quite frankly was partly enforced through machinery. that's why it makes sense to include marc in that term: it's not just the fact that he was very good, it's the fact that he was riding a repsol honda that was the best or second best bike by a long way for his first three years in the premier class. in 2016, motogp returned to michelins and introduced new technical regulations - and for all intents and purposes, the alien era ended. it ended when eight different riders won in eight races that season. yes, marc, valentino and jorge were still the top three in the championship... but it's the difference of whether you go into a weekend convinced you know the winner will come from a list of four riders, or if you very much do not know that. between 2008 to 2015, apart from the aliens, a grand total of two riders claimed wins - dovi on a repsol honda in 2009 and ben spies on a factory yamaha in 2011. both of those were wet races (which of course are generally more open than dry ones). so just to reiterate: a greater number of riders won in 2016 alone (9) than in 2008-15 combined (7). (in 2007, a further two different riders won races - capirossi on the championship-winning factory ducati and vermeulen on the suzuki.) yes, obviously the aliens were very good riders, nobody is going to argue with you over that... but those numbers? they're only possible in a specific version of motogp - one that only existed for a few years

honestly, I don't even really use the term 'alien' to describe valentino pre-2006 or marc post-2016. it's just not that useful to me... aliens to me is a 'pack hunter' thing, where even if some of them are injured or are having a bad day or whatever, at least one of them will basically always be there to pick up the pieces. marc and valentino might have dominated the sport as a whole - but not all of their championship seasons were completely dominant, and there's only so much any one athlete can dominate in the sport... you're not going into every single weekend thinking 'oh yeah they're definitely going to win' (yes, yes, there were two times per year where you did very much do that with marc). which is different when you compare it to the aliens as a pack, where you could be confident that ONE of them would end the weekend on the top step of the podium

which is why I just don't apply the alien term to anyone pre-valentino - it's not because I think they were less good or less talented or less anything, it's because for me it's a term that's more about an era than it is about individual riders. you have to treat each era on its own, and I'm not really a big fan of inter-era comparisons. it's just kind of impossible to say whether a rider in the 1970s is more talented than one in the 2020s, whether ago's numbers are more or less impressive than marc's and so on... the sport has just changed in so many ways over the years. of course, in sports you do generally have this upward momentum where each generation is 'better' than the last. sports has gotten more professionalised, there's been massive advances in terms of pedagogy and sports medicine and exercise science and all of those things - all of which already affects how athletes train from childhood onwards. the young aren't more 'talented' in the sense that they were born with an innate superior ability to compete at the sport, but they are more 'talented' in that their ultimate ceiling will be higher as a result of all these gradual changes over time. these things can change quite quickly even (and if other sports is anything to go by, I wouldn't be surprised if the nineties/early noughties brought some big changes in that regard) - so already between, for instance, valentino and marc there'd probably been a real shift in how young talent is being nurtured

(the most blunt illustration of this is that young valentino's lifestyle was completely different from that of young riders today, in terms of how much time he spent training in the gym, sleeping habits, nutrition etc etc. athletes now can't get away with that much deviation any more, and indeed valentino had to massively change his approach in the 2010s to remain competitive - but of course it's different if you haven't been doing this stuff since you were a kid. I think we can safely assume valentino's 2003 supermarket trips looked rather different from marc's 2017 ones)

being good in pro sports may in some ways be harder now than it was in, say, the eighties, and the level of competition you're facing might be higher now - but of course, it would also by extension be unfair to judge those athletes by the standards of today. also, different eras are going to lend themselves to different profiles of rider depending on competitive trends, type of machinery and so on - even very basic stuff like how tall you are might have helped you in a certain era and hindered you in another... so what does that mean for talent? if we're discussing 'talent' at all, how can we possibly treat it as anything other than relative to the era we're discussing? to me, it just makes these comparisons between different generations pretty pointless... or well, I like talking about some of this stuff in a more holistic 'isn't this interesting' kind of way, not a 'this is why xyz is better than xyz' approach... this kind of thing is also why I finds goat debate such a uniquely boring way to spend your time, incidentally

this is a very long way of saying, I don't have a metric by which I judge athletes pre-2000 as 'alien' or 'not alien'! I think you have similarly dominant athletes, though again it is so tough to decide how much of that is down to talent and how much of it is down to bike advantage. if you take doohan's title winning seasons for instance:

yeah, look, sure, you can call him an alien as far as I'm concerned - if I'm watching these races live I will be expecting doohan to win in any given weekend. I'm still kind of missing the pack hunter feel in some of these seasons, so I won't know for certain the winner is going to come from a very short list. like take 1998:

not really one group vs the field, is it? and yeah, even if I consider doohan an 'alien' in some of those seasons, I'm still not going to call him that - because the term was essentially coined in 2009 for a specific group of guys that one other guy was later added onto. the competitive landscape and demands of doohan's era were so different that it feels off to try and go back and label him or any other past riders aliens... they were phenomenally talented, yes, they were great champions, yes, they can be called as good as the aliens, sure - but why wrench the term out of its historical context? is it still an analytically useful concept if you do so, except as a way to generically refer to a rider as 'very talented'?

which is also why I personally don't describe anyone since then as an alien. this doesn't mean I don't think fabio or now pedro aren't as good as those guys were, I just don't think they've been given the opportunity to have that kind of hold over the sport. fabio won five out of eighteen races in 2021 - and he did so on a yamaha that basically only he was able to consistently get a high level of performance out of. which is deeply impressive - but unlike say casey in 2007, he didn't have those other riders to dominate all the other races. eight riders won a race that season! it's just a fundamentally different competitive landscape. personally, I'd be perfectly content if we don't get another alien era. of course 2007-15 isn't all bad, but for good reason most fans' most fondly remembered eras are either 2001-06 or 2017-19... yes, at times one rider was too dominant, but it still felt like more riders had a shot at victory - and most importantly the quality of the racing was generally very high. this kind of domination by a few mega talents on the best machinery can get drab pretty quickly (though of course a lot of the blame for decreased race quality needs to be assigned to the 800cc era 2007-11, not to any of the aliens themselves)

I'd be quite happy to retire the term alien going forwards... except as a useful shorthand for a specific group of guys who have mostly retired. it shouldn't be used as a way to bash the young stars, as if they just can't measure up to the legends of the past. which would be dumb! again, plenty of ways in which motogp is harder now than it ever has been, though the most important thing is that it's just... different. not better, not worse, just different. sure, maybe we'll get another equivalent to the alien era, even though I personally think it's quite unlikely. if it happens, yeah, let's discuss cranking the term out again (and, yes, if you look at the current season and ignore sprints... if this current trend continues then we can have the debate at the end of the season. pecco and jorge despite all their apparent inconsistencies are currently building a pretty solid case for themselves) (now I've said that they're both gonna crash out of assen huh)

that being said! I don't exactly neatly follow this principle myself, because sometimes I do use something like the term 'alien-like talent' to refer to fabio or pedro... obviously, you can argue this is basically the same as calling them aliens in everything but semantics. so what's the criteria there? when do I use this term? I think to me it's just... instant, 'in your face' talent. they arrive to the premier class and they shine basically immediately. valentino got a relatively sedate start to the premier class by alien standards - which is fitting, because he's not really about that blistering raw pace. still, he wasn't far from being a rookie champion, got ten podiums, two wins... not too bad. casey was on a satellite team, but he got pole in his second ever race and came painfully close to winning his third. dani got a podium on debut and fought for the championship for almost the entire season. jorge got pole in his first three races and won his third. marc won the second time out and of course secured the title in his rookie season. compare that to fabio - pole in his fourth ever race on satellite machinery, fighting for wins in his first season. pedro got a podium in his second ever race and is handily outperforming everyone else on that bike

so it's about how quickly these guys pick this stuff up, how quickly they make that step from one level to another - though again, it's important to stress you can't just neatly compare these achievements! valentino's first two seasons were on 500cc bikes, which were notorious for being kind of evil. some of these riders started on satellite bikes (we're not counting valentino here), and there's also plenty of talk about how the bikes have become more complicated to ride now, making pedro's rapid adjustment even more impressive. but in every case, there is just this ability to 'be fast immediately', whatever the circumstances... and it's worth pointing out that even though pecco had a mediocre rookie season, he was incredibly quick in 2019 pre-season testing. jorge martin secured his first pole position and podium at his second race in motogp

speaking of, those two were already a touch older when they joined the premier class. there does generally seem to be something to the idea that in motorcycle racing, if you are not already very fast at a certain age, you will have a quite definitive ceiling... and from valentino onwards, the age by which you need to already have reached that standard of 'very good' seems to have gone down. when we're talking about talent and throwing around the term alien, this feels like another important change to mention - doohan was not winning his titles as a 22 year old! neither was rainey! or schwantz! or lawson! or... actually spencer was very young, yeah. but I think you get the point. I cannot tell you definitively why this changed, but it clearly has changed. in the 21st century, only two riders have won titles when they were older than 26: valentino (29-30) and jorge (28). valentino and marc were both 27 when their dominance over the sport ended (even if valentino secured titles after that point and marc will very probably do so as well). casey was 27 when he retired. (fun fact: pecco bagnaia is currently 27 years old.) so overall it's pretty rare in grand prix motorcycle racing to operate at the top of the premier class for more than a certain number of years - but the precise age window in which you are likely to be at your best does seem to have shifted pretty radically this century. which should demonstrate how hard these things are to compare... like I said, talent is often assessed by how quickly you are good at something - but if we called mick doohan a late bloomer, it would be wildly ahistorical

and yeah, look, this idea of 'you have to be good young or you will have a certain ceiling' is hardly unique to motogp, lots of sports are like that... another measure of this precocity that's perhaps more useful than just 'age' is looking how long it took them to win a title from when they joined the premier class (if they did so at all, of course). it's generally very fast! marc year one, valentino, casey and joan year two, jorge and fabio year three... and, well, pecco and hayden year four. of course, there's exceptions to this 'be fast immediately' rule - athletes who ended up being very good and title contenders who had slightly different paths getting there. the sete's and dovi's of this world - and to a lesser extent hayden too, who unlike those two was only even really a title contender in a single season... but generally speaking, those riders seem more heavily reliant on circumstances playing out just right to have a shot at a title

or perhaps! perhaps it's going to change! especially if you look at repeat champions, pecco does become a bit of an outlier in how he got there this century, doesn't he? compare the numbers he was posting in his rookie season vs valentino, casey, jorge and marc. and in some ways, you can extend this even further and say he's a massive historical outlier in terms of any premier class champions. there was an article about this in late 2022:

and some more about how historically unusual he is:

isn't that great? you don't become premier class champion with that kind of a rookie season, but pecco did! hey, aleix was a serious title threat in that season, which is a far more remarkable story still! and the thing is, right, if you're studying the current era and are labelling some riders aliens but leaving out pecco... then no offence but what's the point? look, who knows, maybe marc and pedro and david alonso are going to dominate the next twenty titles and pecco will have been a weird blip. but isn't there something fun about believing that a bunch of different riders could eventually develop into title threats? wouldn't it be kind of cool if you don't have to just write someone off age 22 any more? I don't know, I think it's a neat development! I hope it sticks around! there'll be plenty of alien-level talents in the future, but personally I wouldn't mind at all if there were no more aliens

[lesbiansplaining]

not to bring tiktok drama on tumblr but like every time a ‘scandal’ comes out with one of these ‘production companies’ that make fan films i always hope we’re finally gonna discuss how they professionalize something that should be an hobbyist endeavor… and yet every single time i’m disappointed.

[emile-hides]

For the ask game! Ramattra?

The man who got me my first 1,000 note post. Yeah I got the think thonks on him for sure.

One aspect about them I love

He's not as inherently cruel as you'd expect him to be. In fact, he's hardly cruel at all. He takes time before a mission to get to know his human teammates and is even willing to socialize with them, despite his apparent hatred for the species. Given how we know people who hate Omnics treat their Omnic teammates before a fight... It's rather surprising I think.

One aspect I wish more people understood about them

This is one I see in a lot of X Readers that make me regret making that gif but look. Guys look.

Just because a man is big with a deep voice does not mean he's going to walk you on a leash and call you his mutt.

Ramattra is not a dominator of any kind, sexually or otherwise. He's the only Overwatch character who actively kinkshames that very specific thing. He hates that Genji follows Zenyatta around like a little lost puppy, actively calls him disgusting over it.

He is not a violent person either. He didn't want any of this. He doesn't want to lead armies and have other tremble under his thumb and do every little thing he commands.

I'm just personally very tired of the Violent Dominate Ramattra X Readers... he's a softie actually... I would like more overrun with anxiety because he has no clue how humans work and actively fears hurting them on accident Ramattra X Reader...

Headcanons I have about this character

I've said this one to a handful of friends but one of my instant Ramattra takes is that he is constantly, beyond his control, scanning for threats around him, and all Humans as perceived as threats to his internal scanners. He's always hyper aware of the humans around him, how they're moving, breathing, speaking, their critical weakpoints, any potential weapons they may have, etc etc. To the point that he struggles to distinguish an ally from an enemy human while in the midst of battle.

Everything he does that might seem odd was in effort to appear more... Friendly to humans during his time in the Shambali. He's a very big Omnic, not the biggest, but bigger than average, and his model type being Generals in the Human Killing Army is enough to put everyone around him on edge, which he of course picks up, and it puts him on edge. So he does weird human things like Breath, Stutter, Hum, Cough. Anything to make himself a little more human.

He hates a lot about himself. He hates how big he is, he hates his original purpose, he hates the human traits he picked up and can't let go, he hates that his default is violence, he hates the sound of his voice when he yells, he hates the constant threat display in his head, he hates his creation and his creator and the brother who made him feel welcomed like he could be accepted despite all these things he hates about living as himself.

I don't think he wanted to lead an army or extinguish the human race. But it's what he was built for, and if no matter what he does people will only ever see him as what he was at the start, then why try changing that? He's on a self destructive mission, yes to save his kind, his dying race, his family, but also just to get away from the fantasy he'd built up of being someone different than who he is. Someone smaller and gentler and more... human. That clearly can't happen. It's not an option for him.

I think Ramattra's a Trans Woman.

One character I love seeing them interact with

I really love his interactions with Bastion!! And Zenyatta as well!!! I know it says one character but they way he speaks to them both is so!!!!!! Cute!!!

The little twigs comment in his canon interaction with Bastion!! The lore and bond he had with Zenyatta in the past!!! God it's my everything!!!

One character I wish they would interact with/interact with more

My friend @ow-old-men got me really really into the idea of him interacting with Orisa (curse you OW2) and just. Experiencing the world along side her. Two Omnics made for violence redefining themselves in familial rolls

Does Orisa know what a woman is? No. But she's still the first one to use She/Her Pronouns for Ramattra because she knows.

Headcanons I have that involve them with other characters

Orisa is Ramattra's egg cracker this is why Blizzard won't let them interact

I think he's the reason Mondatta was assassinated. It was part of the deal with joining Talon, he agreed to assist them if they could take Mondatta out. It was a deal he regretted making almost immediately

Because of his hostility to humans, Maximilien is required to be in every meeting Ramattra is in, for his personal comfort.

Do they actually talk? God I hope so. I hope they kiss on the mouth while they're at it. But also I think Ram would hate Max, because he's just too human. Ramattra has no room to talk though, what with his bad habit of breathing and all that.

Akande really likes Ramattra, likes his manner of holding himself and his conviction. Ramattra hates Akande and really really really wants him to leave him alone.

I think the idea of Ramattra figuring out Reaper's identity and constantly threatening his life is incredibly good fanon content that should continue

Zenyatta, for a very long time, hated and was more hostile to humans than Ramattra. This is why Ramattra brought him to the Shambali, to get away from humans.

[deliciousdietdrpepper]

The people who stalk chappell roan could never be me because I understand what she says when she says “I’m your drive through girl.” Like any soldier who’s worked in customer service she’s earned the right to be left the fuck alone. To me she’s a comrade in arms and we are fighting the customers together. I see u babe I hope they choke on their metaphorical lattes. I hope you have time for a nap or something between shows. idk rip

[sing-me-under]

I don’t understand why people think historical drama needs to be historically accurate??? Like??????? You know this is fiction, right? This is literally a fictional drama loosely based on real people??? You don’t see people complaining about historical accuracy for Anastasia (1997) or Hamilton the musical, but they’re complaining about a TV drama??? What is wrong with these people?

[littleeyesofpallas]

There is a beautiful lly weird little unique space for gender expression built into the weird statistical anaomly of Japanese tokusatsu monster suit actors being a male dominated industry resulting necessarily in a role for men who have careers built on performing femininity, but only behind the guise of literal monsters. It's vaguely kabuki onnagata adjacent. Its strongly otaku culture adjacent. It's transhumanist adjacent. ...monsterfucker adjacent. It's a unique space that is at once super super niche, yet extremely publically visible and culturally prevelent. I dunno where I'm going with this but its a fact that rattles around in my brain...

[watchyourdigits]

I don't want a "modern" actor/actress as a faceclaim or reference for my 1950s-based OC. I want people from that time period, goddammit!

fr I'm about to make my own "faceclaim" directory with exclusively actors/actresses who were in films before the year 1965. I'll need to do some research, of course. And this will certainly take quite some time, but I think it'll be well worth it.

Like, I'm just absolutely sick and goddamn tired of trying to search "1950s actress with DARK HAIR AND DARK EYES FOR CHRIST'S SAKE" into Google and getting the same three (3) people!!

DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD THIS IS!!!

[physalian]

How to make your writing sound less stiff

Just a few suggestions. You shouldn’t have to compromise your writing style and voice with any of these, and some situations and scenes might demand some stiff or jerky writing to better convey emotion and immersion. I am not the first to come up with these, just circulating them again.

1. Vary sentence structure.

This is an example paragraph. You might see this generated from AI. I can’t help but read this in a robotic voice. It’s very flat and undynamic. No matter what the words are, it will be boring. It’s boring because you don’t think in stiff sentences. Comedians don’t tell jokes in stiff sentences. We don’t tell campfire stories in stiff sentences. These often lack flow between points, too.

So funnily enough, I had to sit through 87k words of a “romance” written just like this. It was stiff, janky, and very unpoetic. Which is fine, the author didn’t tell me it was erotica. It just felt like an old lady narrator, like Old Rose from Titanic telling the audience decades after the fact instead of living it right in the moment. It was in first person pov, too, which just made it worse. To be able to write something so explicit and yet so un-titillating was a talent. Like, beginner fanfic smut writers at least do it with enthusiasm.

2. Vary dialogue tag placement

You got three options, pre-, mid-, and post-tags.

Leader said, “this is a pre-dialogue tag.”

“This,” Lancer said, “is a mid-dialogue tag.”

“This is a post-dialogue tag,” Heart said.

Pre and Post have about the same effect but mid-tags do a lot of heavy lifting.

They help break up long paragraphs of dialogue that are jank to look at

They give you pauses for ~dramatic effect~

They prompt you to provide some other action, introspection, or scene descriptor with the tag. *don't forget that if you're continuing the sentence as if the tag wasn't there, not to capitalize the first word after the tag. Capitalize if the tag breaks up two complete sentences, not if it interrupts a single sentence.

It also looks better along the lefthand margin when you don’t start every paragraph with either the same character name, the same pronouns, or the same “ as it reads more natural and organic.

3. When the scene demands, get dynamic

General rule of thumb is that action scenes demand quick exchanges, short paragraphs, and very lean descriptors. Action scenes are where you put your juicy verbs to use and cut as many adverbs as you can. But regardless of if you’re in first person, second person, or third person limited, you can let the mood of the narrator bleed out into their narration.

Like, in horror, you can use a lot of onomatopoeia.

Drip Drip Drip

Or let the narration become jerky and unfocused and less strict in punctuation and maybe even a couple run-on sentences as your character struggles to think or catch their breath and is getting very overwhelmed.

You can toss out some grammar rules, too and get more poetic.

Warm breath tickles the back of her neck. It rattles, a quiet, soggy, rasp. She shivers. If she doesn’t look, it’s not there. If she doesn’t look, it’s not there. Sweat beads at her temple. Her heart thunders in her chest. Ba-bump-ba-bump-ba-bump-ba- It moves on, leaving a void of cold behind. She uncurls her fists, fingers achy and palms stinging from her nails. It’s gone.

4. Remember to balance dialogue, monologue, introspection, action, and descriptors.

The amount of times I have been faced with giant blocks of dialogue with zero tags, zero emotions, just speech on a page like they’re notecards to be read on a stage is higher than I expected. Don’t forget that though you may know exactly how your dialogue sounds in your head, your readers don’t. They need dialogue tags to pick up on things like tone, specifically for sarcasm and sincerity, whether a character is joking or hurt or happy.

If you’ve written a block of text (usually exposition or backstory stuff) that’s longer than 50 words, figure out a way to trim it. No matter what, break it up into multiple sections and fill in those breaks with important narrative that reflects the narrator’s feelings on what they’re saying and whoever they’re speaking to’s reaction to the words being said. Otherwise it’s meaningless.

—

Hope this helps anyone struggling! Now get writing.

[lilysundragon]

the thing that upsets me the most about twitter's nonsense is definitely being unable to see art from people outside of english-speaking countries. i've been using tumblr for a long time but if twitter really does go under, i'm going to miss keeping up with japanese and korean artists who post on twitter