#i hope you have a FANTASTIC DAY

[princecroutons]

hello

thank you for choosing to create a blog for your cat. you add joy to the world in a way that may be small but is none the less mighty. in my view, this blog is an inherant good in the world. and i wish for you that all the joy this blog gives others, you recieve inturn. thankyou

Thank you, genuinely, from the bottom of my heart. I almost didn't want to post this so I could come back and read it again but I just wanted to put it out there that im glad this blog i created so a mutual of mine could get some daily Crouton's pictures in one place to bring her joy has brought that same joy to so many people? He is a very silly boy who brings both his people joy (and many other emotions) everyday and Im glad we live in a time and place where we can share that with so many others :'3

[sillygoofyqueer]

I came across your MDZS fic and it’s amazing and I just wanted to say I appreciate the extreme angst because it’s so well written! (I love angst and your fic is the best I’ve seen in awhile) tho ngl at one point I was wondering if MXY would be brought back as a fierce corpse like WN. Kinda glad you didn’t go that route but also I’m crying over WWX taking care of MXY’s ribbon. Thank you for writing this!

Am I crying??? Maybe I am, but you'll never know. In all honesty, this is so so sweet, I'm so glad that you're enjoying reading it! It actually never crossed my mind to bring Mo Xuanyu as a fierce corpse, and thinking about it now I'm also glad I didn't go down that route. I think it'd kind of take away from the whole thing of another stranger dying just so he could survive - if Mo Xuanyu came back, it'd minimise the sacrifice, I think. It's like Mo Xuanyu would still get a shot at life like Wen Ning did, which means that his death was able to be rectified. It shows the cruelty of Jin Guangyao as well, because it shows that he doesn't care about anyone that doesn't help his goal? Conversely, there would be a good touch of angst if every time Wei Wuxian saw Mo Xuanyu, he was reminded that this teenager is undead because of him (bonus points if he was the one to raise Mo Xuanyu, because then there would be the internal argument of selfishness vs selflessness for bringing the boy back). However, that could definitely still be shown through the ribbon as a constant reminder? If that makes sense. Once again, thank you so so so much for sending this, I'm passing out with such joy, sobbing my eyes out fr!!! Don't mind my rambling, but I love that you cared enough to actually mention the alternative in the ask, it really got me thinking because it's such an interesting change that I can't believe I didn't think of. I love you so soso soooo much, and I'm going feral at the insinuation that you like my fanfic this much! I LOVE YOU!!!!

[ask-mr-dark]

(please don't feel the need to apologize for taking a little while! you're doing this ask blog at your own pace, you're not on a time limit. if they can't wait that's their problem, not yours)

(That's very, very sweet of you, anon. I understand that I do need to put time into things but I also want to keep up with my lovely askers. I like to think of everyone in my inbox as a friend, and I always put friends first before myself.)

(That's something for another time though, but I very much appreciate the message, anon. I don't really get messages like this a lot, at all lol.)

[lasagoofs]

hard to open a door with no hands

[butchcarmy]

Honestly I think if Carmy does dirty talk (once he gets some experience) he’s really going to love being condescending, and it’s so hot…

I AGREE. So much in fact that this was born. Wow. Heed the tags and proceed!!

Tags: explicit, dom carmy, cumplay, dirty talk, creampie, carmy being mean, but also sweet

“You’re so easy,” Carmy says with a smug look. He’s pushing his cock steadily and and out, repeatedly stretching you out further when he bottoms out again and again. “All you need is a cock in you and you’re almost fuckin’ coming already.

“You just feel so good,” you whine in defense, but with the way you’re clenching down around him, pussy so wet it’s dribbling, it’s not very successful.

“You just like being stretched out,” Carmy retorts. He pulls back and lets the round head pop out before bullying his cock back into you. You writhe below him. “It doesn’t have to be my cock. Could be my fingers. Almost got all 5 fingers in there last time, didn’t we?”

“Carmy,” you moan, your pussy wrecked by his relentless pace and his dirty, dirty words. “B-But I—I like your cock…”

“I think you just like it when I come in you,” he says, voice low in your ears. “You like the feeling of my cum inside you. Whether it’s in your pussy or down your throat…” His fingers tweak at your clit, flicking it up, and you flinch with a surprised moan. “I should get a plug to keep it all inside you.”

“Oh my god,” you gasp, scandalized, but the telltale sign of dense heat weighing in your gut says otherwise.

“You like the sound of that, don’t you? Going through your day with my cum in your pussy?” Carmy’s grinding his thick cock inside you, getting sweet friction on your walls. “Fuckin’ slut.”

His fingers pinch your clit, and you let out something akin to a sob.

“I’m gonna come,” you gasp. The pressure’s so fucking tight. “Carm—“

“You’re so easy,” Carmy laughs lowly, breathlessly. “Go on, take it. Come like the easy slut you are.”

His fingers glide from side to side on your slippery clit in a blur as he thrusts in an even, firm rhythm that has you choking on your own gasps. You come with overwhelmed tears in your eyes, moaning Carmy’s name so loud it’s almost a scream. You’re throbbing so tightly on his dick like it’s a lifeline.

“Th-that’s fucking right—fffuck—“ His moans are deep, resonating from his core. He staggers inside you from the sharp pleasure of your tightening walls. He fucks you through your orgasm, stretching it out like a thin piece of gum until it snaps, and in turn, your hole sucks his cock so much he comes.

When he pulls out, his soft cock is smeared in a shiny mixture of your combined cum. Your cream lays thick on his shaft, and somehow, there’s still beads of his cum in his slit. Your mouth waters looking at it. So does your pussy. Carmy’s cum, pale and abundant, pools rapidly at your abused entrance and spills over.

“Look at you,” Carmy murmurs in awe. His thumb drags up from where you’re leaking and sinks inside, pushing his cum back in. “Took me so well, baby…”

He praises you with little kisses and affection, kissing gently at your legs, stomach, collarbone. Brings you close to him, brushes sweaty strands of hair out of your face.

“Sorry if I went too far,” Carmy mumbles after you’ve both come down. Your head rests on his chest, and you’re playing with the curls of his hair. “With anything.”

“You were wonderful,” you assure him. “Could’ve even been a little meaner and I would’ve liked it.” That gets an abrupt laugh out of him, equal parts embarassment and delight.

“Oh yeah?” You can tell by the way he’s saying it that he’s choosing to take that as a challenge. You can see the gears turning, and it’s making you a good kind of nervous. “I think I got a couple ideas.”

“Looking forward to it,” you say, like it doesn’t make you wanna squirm, and he smiles knowingly, bringing you in for another kiss.

[sun-e-chips]

Friendly reminder that your art makes someone happy, even if it’s just for yourself.

It is ok to make “messy” art, what matters is you got to have fun creating something and that in itself is wonderful!

[dreamsb0u]

Doodle of this by @xpau-official (absolutely baller art btw)

Also I am absolutely balling rn ignore anything that looks funky my style is doing something

[rillils]

how do explain stucky from the moment they met to where they are now (together in each others arms) to my friend who knows nothing about marvel

ohh this is a tough one, honey! i think i've got two options for you:

the short answer:

stucky is a compendium of all the best tropes out there, and i'm sure i'm gonna miss a few:

soulmates? check! star-crossed lovers? check! battle husbands? super check! mutual pining? check! 'and they were roommates'? check! best friends to lovers? check check check! long-lost lover comes back from the dead? fuck yeah, check! temporary amnesia? check! dude in distress trope? check! 'they will always find each other and choose each other in every lifetime'? also check! identity porn? extra check! saved by the power of love? you guessed it: check! slow burn or childhood sweethearts? you decide!!! did they share their first kiss when steve was 16, as per a popular fanon theory? did they only confess their feelings during the war? did they only get together much later, when bucky was healing in wakanda? you can pick literally ANY point in their timeline, and it will still make sense! they're all equally valid! you can even have multiple different headcanons at once, i mean who's gonna stop you??? all you have to do is join in the fun! 💕

the long AF answer, aka:

STEVE & BUCKY'S LOVE STORY, UNABRIDGED SOMEWHAT ABRIDGED, part 1/3

all right, let's set the scene:

imagine two young kids, let's call them steve and bucky. they meet, they immediately take to each other, they become instant besties! and as they grow up together, facing many hardships, their bond deepens. not only are they best friends; they are also each other's family. they take care of each other, and they both know they can always rely on one another in times of need.

when steve's mom (and only remaining relative) passes away, bucky reminds him that he's not as alone in this world as he thinks he is: bucky will always be by his side. bucky will always love him unconditionally, will always be there for him, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer, and he wants steve to know that.

in fact, he asks steve to move in with him, thus offering steve both a literal and a metaphorical home.

and steve says yes!

SO. they are each other's home, they're living together, they're getting by all right. but then war breaks out, and eventually it reaches their little home as well: bucky is drafted, and steve, due to his many health issues, and despite his best intentions, can't follow the boy he loves onto the battlefield.

it's a very difficult time for them both - so much so that they can't even bring themselves to talk about it.

they have no choice but to say goodbye for now, knowing that they might never see each other again. but here's something you might not know yet about steve: he's the most reckless, most stubborn fucker america's ever seen. he's not gonna let this stop him!!! instead, he goes and gets a very sweet, kindly scientist to fucking experiment on him, because screw it, he's going to fight in this war if it's the last thing he does. and that's how he goes from Smol Steeb to Lorge Premium Steeb.

of course, things don't go exactly as he predicted, and steve is made to be the star of a war propaganda-fuelled musical kinda thingie, which he resents (but he looks fucking precious in his costume)

BUT! he does get closer to the actual battlefield. which is where he discovers that bucky has been captured by the enemy (!!!!!!!) and is most likely dead by now. but steve isn't willing to give up so easily! he'll believe bucky's dead when he sees it with his own eyes. so, he embarks on this suicide solo mission in the attempt to get bucky back, even if it means wandering on his own. into enemy territory. where he would be shot. on. sight. with no protection for his dumb ass except for a bunch of theater props!!! but such is the power of love, y'all.

against all odds, steve finds bucky very much still alive! and as soon as bucky recognizes him, even as confused as he is, he pulls out this beautiful, ecstatic, angelic-ass smile, like he's just seen god or he got high on some real good edibles or maybe both idk, like my man here was having a serious Religious Experience™ you guys

and i just wanna say, they could have totally kissed here and it would have made plenty of sense. but that's true of like 90% of their scenes in this franchise, so *shrugs*

ANYWAY steve takes bucky in his arms (well technically yes he does) and brings him to safety, and on their way there, bucky proves once more just how hard he meant that "with you til the end of the line" from before

afterwards, steve is finally given the chance to fight, just like he wanted.

bucky, on the other hand, could very well leave the war behind and go home; but when he learns that steve is staying, he chooses to stay too, and fight by his side. and he tells steve so in this very intimate, softspoken, delightfully suggestive conversation, which can be summed up like this:

and so they walk right back into the heart of the fight, only this time together, as they were always meant to be!

but. during an especially tricky mission, they're surprised by the enemy, and as a result, bucky falls to his death into a deep ravine.

steve is devastated. overwhelmed with guilt, grief and rage, he vows to bring down the people responsible for his loss, even if it costs him his own life.

and um, it kind of does? cost him his own life?

victorious after his last vis-a-vis with The Antagonist™, steve still chooses to sacrifice himself to prevent the catastrophe set into motion by the aforementioned Antagonist™. he's flying a jet over the frosty expanse of the atlantic, and you know, from the outside, you could easily argue that he could try to save himself. if he really wanted to. but with bucky dead, and the people responsible for all this pain, either dead or captured, it seems like all the will to fight is gone from steve; and so he plunges the jet straight into the ocean, and himself with it.

is this the end of their story?, you might ask.

the answer is: of course not!!!! the best is yet to come, babes!!!

EDIT: here is part 2

[bethanyactually]

Nancy Drew + text posts (20/?)

Nancy x Ace + text posts (6/♡)

Happy Birthday, @wereadtoliveathousandlives! ♥︎

[oonessawness]

slams open the door

I heard that you are drawing my boy Illinois 👀

I absolutely loved your doodles of him <3 they’re so lovely and sweet and gggggaaaaaahhhhhhhh biting him raaaaaah, cuteness aggression activated (could I get a doodle of that?) anyways you’re great and have a good rest of the day/night!

Thank you so much i appreciate it ^0^ !! Heres a silly cuteness aggression doodle based off that one meme for ya! Havent drawn him in forever so i hope he looks alright

[vividlyaro]

on sunflowers; a platonic love letter

i knew you then. i know you now. but how i wish i could have known you in that space between the two. how i wish we could have grown together.

we were sunflower seeds in the dirt, and even then i knew you were something special. you were good, so good. (for a week, i was convinced you were otherworldly, more than human. because i had no other concepts to explain how seen, how understood i felt when i was with you.) i was a child longing for connection, and when you entered my life, i almost didn't know what to do with all of the joy that followed.

we knew little of the world. we had so much growing to do. and in another lifetime, maybe we could have remained side by side throughout.

but the wind scattered us just out of reach. and i had a tendency to release my grasp on every good thing. it was chance that led to distance, but it was my own fear that led to silence. and i am sorry for the time we have lost.

and yet. we grew, reaching for the same sun. we grew in parallel arcs, turning to face the light, unfurling our leaves to touch the world with gentleness and courage.

and now i see you, here in the sunlight. we ended up here. we ended up okay. we cannot look into the past to see what made us who we are. but we can see who we were. and we can see who we are.

and i can say to you:

i knew you then. i know you now. i am sorry for the time between. thank you for not giving up on me. i love the person you are. i am proud of us both. you are someone i always want in my life.

i hope the future is kind to you. i hope your best days are ahead of you. i hope you know how loved you are. and i hope we see each other soon.

with this letter, i am sending you hugs and smiles and candy and music and legos and cool rocks and funny videos of baby animals and all of the happiness in the world.

your friend,

vivid.

[pushing500]

What's it like being a mechanitor?

Being a mechanitor is awesome!! It takes a bit of getting used to at first, having all those ultrafine wires settling into their places around your skull, but after that, you have so much power!! You can get mechanoids to do everything you want with little more than a thought! It's perfect for anybody who wishes to transcend their weak, useless bodies! The first step toward a perfected humanity!

... Of course, there are drawbacks. If you happen to be suddenly spawned into existence with every memory of being a mechanitor but none of the actual abilities, it will leave you feeling hollow and more useless than you ever felt before. Now you know what you could be, you feel the loss that much more sharply.

That would never happen, though, so we probably don't need to consider such a ridiculous, outlandish scenario.

[nuclearanomaly]

.·:*¨ 💗 ¨*:·.

Happy Birthday @starswornoaths & Belated Birthday @holyja

[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

[yuriyuruandyuraart]

YOU'RE GREAT

what about Error but with vitiligo?

-anon

right away boss >;Dc <333

[that-foul-legacy-lover]

Wifi did you see?! Foul Legacy is getting his own figure!!

https://twitter.com/GenshinUpdate/status/1738381153445511445?t=5dAeU1K6iJpQI9CP-f_McA&s=19

I saw the news on Twitter and knew I had to send 'em to you

EXTREMELY LOUD INHUMAN SCREECHING