#it wasn't easy lol
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a dumb chart i made ft. my oc kennedy (note he goes by both mandy and ken, and uses any pronouns :3)
Some silly stuff i wrote underneath the cut ^^
i think mandy would try to figure out how to deal with an extra finger. And realize that their eyesight is terrible cause things are waaay clearer when he's in ford's body while looking through his glasses. When he's back in his own body, she schedules an appointment with an optometrist.
ford would learn that fiddleford is way stronger than he looks (cause of farm stuff lol), and realize that bein tall is cool or somethin lol. he also struggles to adjust to walking with long lanky limbs. he trips over his feet multiple times. Also he dislikes fiddleford's tiny fuckin glasses, and wishes that he had bigger frames.
fidds ends constantly bumping into things, since mandy has a much wider build. lots of jabbing his hip into the edge of stuff lol. Also gets to experience period cramps :3 he does not like it. And he has to deal with mandy's not-so-great eyesight, which is another factor in him bumping into things.
As for how they all got switched around, ford and fidds were planning to do it, and mandy happened to get swapped with them on accident (idk maybe she tripped and fell on the carpet somehow. i didn't think too far ahead lol). After bitching about it, he agrees to stay like this and take notes on what it's like to be in someone else's body.
some silly stuff i think they'd say:
Amanda: can read something without squinting "wait a minute. is this how you're supposed to see?? Oh boy, it looks like i did need glasses after all."
Stanford: "How peculiar, despite your physical appearance, you seem to be quite strong, Fiddleford! How fascinating! I must test--" trips "ah, it seems i must adjust to your height, as well."
Fiddleford: "Oh good lord, kenny, how do ya see?? And why does my abdomen hurt- OH GREAT HEAVENS! How on earth do you function like this????"
also mandy has the gene that makes cilantro taste like soap, so she gets to taste it while in ford's body, and fiddleford tastes it and realizes that Mandy wasn't lying when he said that cilantro tasted disgusting lol
#gravity falls#ford pines#stanford pines#fiddleford mcgucket#oc#mandy simmons#kennedy simmons#they're the same person lol#i drew this with a mouse btw#it wasn't easy lol
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the eras tour + new 1989 sets (x)
#taylor swift#taylorswift#tswift#tswiftedit#my edits#palette#the eras tour#eras tour#1989#new 1989 outfits#I have a feeling there will be a lot of variants of this cause it's so easy to mix and match lol#I wasn't totally sure if I should make a whole new post for these#but since it was separated from the surprise song dresses I thought why not!#q#1k
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Diversity win! All the male mannequins in the nursing class I was in had vaginas (literally all)!
Diversity loss! Everyone was Weird about it
#trans#transgender#lgbt#lgbtq#ftm#nonbinary#how are you wanting to be an LPN or EMT but can't stand the sight of a vagina. genuinely.#the only person who wasn't weird was the instructor (an older nurse who took No shit)#i would entrust her in an emergency situation because she gives No fucks about bodies#also i was normal about it. for obvious reasons. honestly i really loved that about the class. they just laid there in their gowns.#it felt like... oh this is a normal thing. it would have been easy to just not make them the male models but they did#because otherwise those medical models are very binary and conforming and whatnot#this was a while ago but i think about it still sometimes#i had to take that class but i don't want to be in nursing. however that class really was useful and this is only a part of why lol
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this has almost certainly been done before, but i think it's funny so i did it anyway
original:
#dirkjake#dirk strider#jake english#homestuck#my art#i drew this right on top of the meme in an effort to make this quick and easy. which was a complete failure#i spent way too long on this and still failed at anatomy lmao#oh well#anyway. dirkjake#thought about making it jake's ass in the last panel but i decided i didnt wanna try to draw ass lol#also it would've been much harder to convey the inherent dumbass boyfriend energy that was the whole point of this#if jake's smug little face wasn't visible#he is expertly restraining giggles#I also had to rotate dirk in the last panel bc the original angle was just not working no matter how many times I tried to fix it#unfortunately anatomy hates me#bg image is from hs p4221
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Been thinking about this video so long I learned how to gif it...
#the band ghost#cardinal copia#go easy on me it's my first time 😭#i was originally just gonna make the first one#because hands#but the ratio wasn't right on here#so the hip thrusting was necessary lol
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Kingdom Hearts 3 - Kingdom of Corona
#kingdom hearts 3#kh3#kingdom of corona#scenery#my gif#this world has so many nice locations it was actually kinda hard to narrow it down to just eight gifs#i was surprised by how much detail they add within out of bounds areas like that waterfall in the 3rd gif#they did so good with this world every bit of it is gorgeous and fun to explore#sliding down that meadow of purple wildflowers for the first time was such a memorable experience#i love that we get to view the kingdom from afar and even explore the festival streets#it's very lively and beautifully decorated#i made sure to get a shot of the lanterns too. it's really cool that we get to have a battle at night like that#though i do wish there was an option to peacefully view them while being able to wander the town#it wasn't easy to get a clear shot of it without any party members getting in the way or enemies attacking me lol
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#this one is very easy to get strange angles with. because it's just got so many weird shapes on it#porygon#bald#even the original front-facing angle was strange and you could barely tell it's front-facing#hell‚ this angle you can at least tell what it's supposed to be#if you remember the realpokemon post. you remember#this thing also got like banned from the anime or some shit because of an episode that featured it giving kids seizures#fucking did i almost just type “seasures”?? hello?? where am i#even though it was pikachu who initiated the explosion that caused the seizures. and iirc it wasn't even that many seizures#it was like the galaxy note7. where only like 20 or so phones actually exploded but it still got banned from planes#or maybe i'm remembering Every tidbit of information here incorrectly!#y'see folks. this is why i am not a reliable source of information#because i will not be fact checking any of this and instead i'll end off the post with “but idk lol”#edit: it was a lot of seizures. and yes this justifies taking the episode off the air but i don’t feel like the pokémon itself#deserves to be banned from the anime is my point. plenty of folks still like this pokémon#hmm. i wonder if i maybe shouldn’t be spreading middle school rumors on the middle school rumors website
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some more hobie1610! :)
i luv this little bug just bc i love mj and i LOVE LOVE LOVE hobie! i simply couldn't resist 🩷
in the story, i tried mashing together a bunch of different references for his character, while still trying to stay true to the character of mary jane watson but also not sacrificing too much of hobie brown. i hope i… did a good enough job?
more under the cut :)
☆ hobie1610 is a supermodel-in-training inspired by mj watson's dreams of being a model and an actress. except in 1610, mj has these dreams forced onto him rather than aspiring to be them. he's living mj watson's dreams and hates it lol
☆ hobie1610 has a strained relationship with his family, true to mj watson's awful family dynamics in canon. it just... runs in every mj's blood i guess lmao
☆ hobie1610 wants so badly to be an investigative journalist! his plan after graduating from visions is to land an internship at the daily bugle :)
☆ he also gets up to mechanical shenanigans in his free time, fixing and building whatever he can get his hands on. he's very handy with machines and tech, true to the original characterization of hobie brown on earth-616, except on earth-1610 he usually has to hide his tools and gadgets
☆ his favorite subjects in school are english lit and physics!
☆ i gave hobie1610 uniform locs to look like mj's signature long hair but also to directly contrast hobie138's freeform locs
☆ if hobie1610 were to ever meet hobie138, he'd seethe and mald with jealousy. just like miles, mj's biggest wish is for his family to stop stacking so much pressure on his shoulders all the time. seeing another version of him living the free anarchist life would def have him feeling a type of way
hobie meeting mj: oh wow... nearly forgot what my face looks like without m' piercings lol :p
mj meeting hobie: I'M BRITISH IN THIS DIMENSION?!
☆ but he's a hobie alright! he rebels as often as he can in the typical ways teens with strict parents do. no one is putting this guy's flame out 🔥
☆ most of that rebellion consists of sneaking out when he knows he shouldn't. his mother is strict, but she's often very busy and that gives hobie1610 many chances to slip away unnoticed. his bravery is inspired by mj's character in the spiderman ps4 game, where she gets involved in dangerous missions with peter. those gameplay scenes with her in the museum inspired the 3rd chapter of my hobie1610 story
☆ hobie1610's sense of humor is more like zendaya's mj than anyone else
☆ the concept of hobie being miles' mj didn't entirely come out of nowhere! it wasn't just abt punkflower-- the possibility came up when i remembered that andrew garfield claimed he wanted his spiderman's mj to be a man. specifically played by michael b jordan ;)
☆ hobie1610's casual wardrobe outside of visions and his photoshoots consists of mostly greens and earth tones. most mj's across various diff portrayals have green or earth tones in their casual fits
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#clown paint#punkflower#← tagging bc of implications i guess? we all know who mj is to spiderman LOL#yyyeah :)#i'm so glad i was able to receive a spark of motivation this winter#so i could use it on finishing this lil story! and getting to draw my beloved <3#it wasn't easy bc oof art is hard but yea i tried! i did!#was weird getting back on the saddle. that's why i needed more references this time i think#hope you guys enjoy my vision nonetheless#i've seen hobie as black cat and even read a fic where hobie was the one who met miles 1st instead of gwen#so i was like 'why not hobie as mj?' and set about to do All Of This lol#yeah! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Broke (2016): BBC Sherlock is a phenomenal piece of media and anything that seems like a flaw just hasn't been fully explored yet
Woke (2020): BBC Sherlock is an incredibly flawed series run by an egotistical writer, it never deserved the hype and is actively bad on so many fronts (especially representation)
Bespoke (2024): BBC Sherlock is flawed and bogged down by increasingly poor writing, which many fans refused to see while it was airing, leading to hugely misplaced expectations (particularly for the final series), AND it has the seeds of some compelling characterizations and portrayals, some genuinely solid performances, and touches--albeit imperfectly--on complexities that are still being discussed today (particularly as it relates to the relationship between Sherlock and John). The huge cultural impact of the show has created a massive pendulum effect in its public perception, leading to most people today remembering a caricature of the show (whether positive or negative) rather than appreciating its nuanced merits and failings...that being said Season 4 sucked
#these just sum up my personal takes at the years in question and also what i'm seeing on tumblr/other social media#bbc sherlock#sherlock holmes#and i actually have a lot more thoughts to share on this series#specifically relating to the cultural impact#there is SO much about the show that goes unappreciated in hindsight because of how public perception of it has soured#and i totally fell into this as well--i still regularly rewatch hbomberguy's video absolutely dismantling the series and he isn't wrong!!#but what i'm saying is that i think it's easy for us to look at a piece of media (especially one so massively popular) like sherlock...#with very black-and-white lenses. it wouldn't have become so popular if there wasn't something inherent in it that resonated with people#and that's being buried (and i totally forgot it) because 'sherlock is cringe and problematic. can't believe i liked that'#which again it IS full of issues and those are well-documented as they should be. future portrayals should not repeat those mistakes#BUT being able to impact so many people is a merit in itself. and that's only possible because of other genuinely good things about the show#yes the way they handled the relationship between john and sherlock was riddled with problems YES it was often queerbaiting#AND the way they portrayed that relationship had a deep effect on me. i saw a lot of myself in sherlock and the complex way he loved john#the nuanced feelings he had about john's marriage to mary. the part (in s4!) where john calls him inhuman for not feeling romantic love#there was genuine intention and care put into some parts of this show and it comes through in scenes like those. they impact people.#and because of this realization i'm going to (eventually) do a rewatch of the show. i'm much older and i want to see how i'll view it now#but i want to go into it--and i want everyone who engages with it still--to have an open mind and evaluate it for what it is#not what we expected it to be (secret episode anyone?) or what the cultural drift has turned it into (the tiktok of sherlock's mind palace)#but the messy problematic somewhat-heartfelt massively significant and ultimately meaningful piece of media it actually was#anyway that's my thoughts would love to hear y'all's perspectives#funny how after all this time making a sherlock post still feels like i'm poking a bees' nest lol please be kind!#kay can i just catch my breath for a second#kay has a party in the tags
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Love learning new things just like the other day someone said that, apparently, in order to lean on Miles' shoulder Gwen had to use extra strength and concentration cuz it's already hard to sit upside down and she made it even more difficult by balancing her weight enough to lean her upper body towards another person and it made me think of how she didn't hold hands with him which was way easier to do in that position but she felt so bad that she rejected him that she said "fuck gravity he needs to know that I care. I already fell for him I might as well fall down too"
#love gwen's policy being like i can't be with you but i just want you to know that you mean the world to me#even if i never say that and if you don't think so you do#honestly this world is so messed up that it's hard to open up even when you want to even when she could in itsv unlike here#she didn't because it wasn't so easy#but i love that she didn't cuz her entire character was making friends again not making boyfriends#and i was happy to see that despite the chemistry and being so adorable they remained friends#and they knew each other for few days it was too quick#and his uncle just died#and peter was right there lol they couldn't kiss in front of him not the first time at least#so they should get married in the end of btsv it's only fair#gwen stacy#miles morales#gwiles#ghostflower#spider man across the spider verse#across the spiderverse#spiderverse
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doing a new line-up for my voices with all their updated designs, and gosh, seeing my progress this clearly with how I drew these guys before and how I'm doing it now is so kamskdmdmdmd
have some of the process so far. also already got some colors in and hoping I can finish this tomorrow
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#as an artist. I got past a lot of my insecurities and imposter syndrome a while ago#(last year even. maybe? idk. time isn't real)#and it feels so fuckin' good to look at my stuff and go#that shit's GOOD!! I like that!!#that's what I always wanted. just. make art I'm proud of#it wasn't easy getting here. I was in a very bad place just a few years ago. but that's in the past now#rn I'm just happy with myself and where I am#sorry. got a little emotional here lol#anyway. look at my funky birds–#stp-posting#Artist's Log#< making a proper tag for sharing WIPs lol
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Off to make mischief and terrible decisions for everyone (Patreon)
#Doodles#UT#Handplates#Gaster#Papyrus#Sans#Help they keep appearing#Where have I heard that one before lol#Genuinely! I wasn't expecting to keep drawing them but my pencil kept moving and they kept showing up on my paper!#Especially Gaster but the other two plenty as well#Got to employ a bit of my favourite coloured pencil ♪ I Will find a way to use my blue on nearly anything#Luckily for me they come prepackaged with blue magic so that was easy enough#Wiggly baby Papyrus does Not want to go >:( At least he's not being hurt :(#Some smoking Gaster ♪ I still quite enjoy drawing smoke honestly - fun to get to do so with a character who actually smokes haha#You can see I also added swoopy-swoops to his Lost Soul head - I like it much better for being such a small detail#I think it looks weird in black rather than white but against a white background-#Without them he feels....hmm something. Something old that I don't want#Not like the Classic Lost Soul head tho haha - similar but not quite the same!#I love his design ahh ♪ He's really so pretty but so much of that is in his details! Like the way he wears his clothes or holds his body#I'm always a sucker for that style of turtleneck as well haha ♫#Perhaps his turtleneck keeps the smoke in chest from escaping longer :0 Yet another reason to wear them!#Shot of the little family before things went Completely terrible - before the plates and all that#I'm rather pleased with his hand pose there actually :) Keep an eye on your kids Gaster you've only got the one eye to do so!#And then some silly ones lol - I am desperately curious if animated skeletons would have a hyoid bone#It's not as though hyoid bones are specific to humans! They're just A Type Of Bone! Surely skeletons would have All their bones right?#But in the human skeleton it's not resting against another bone it's just floating there tethered by muscle and sinew#Would it float? Would it rest inside the lower jaw? Would it attach to the neck vertebrae??#It'd probably get caught on his turtleneck a lot easier than like - getting it caught on his neck bones for example#They have a kind of fused canine-teeth-like structure as well they're like a weird set of tongue-teeth lol#It's just fun to imagine ♪ Similar to how the rest of the skeletal body like - magnetizes? to itself :)
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Thinking about how between the first time we see Lister handle Rimmer's light bee (where he just immediately decides to put it in his mouth and later eat it. Average behavior.) and the part in Psirens when he catches it and treats it more gently, he was forced to crush the one belonging to High Rimmer with his bare hand, learning just how delicate it is
#Okay to be fair the first incident could've been enough of an indication#But still destroying High Rimmer had to be on his mind as much as stabbing a version of himself to death#Afterwards would he look at Rimmer and see not only the sadistic torturer with his whip but the fragile thing at the heart of him?#All he had to do was reach in and squeeze. Did it get to him how easy it was?#I do love sexy D&A fics but man I'd love to see more addressing Lister's trauma and guilt in its aftermath#Red Dwarf#Dave Lister#Original Post#Reupload because the first version kf this post wasn't showing up in my blog's Red Dwarf tag and it was bugging me lol#Sorry to the people who interacted with the other one 😅
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thinking about floyd and riddle spending their first halloween as a couple together... i think floyd absolutely loves how varied and lively all of the different halloween traditions he's learned about since coming to live on land are, and he wants to try out as many of them as he can each year. so when riddle tells him that his mother always made him stay in his room studying on halloween, and that the only halloween activities he's ever done were those that NRC students were required to participate in, floyd decides that the two of them are just going to have to spend the day doing everything they possibly can. riddle tries to say he's far too busy for such things, but floyd will not let it go and honestly riddle is only half-heartedly protesting anyway because he secretly did always dream of doing the things that other kids got to do on halloween, and maybe it wouldn't be such a big deal to take one day off and spend time with his boyfriend.
so, riddle never got to make jack-o-lanterns? floyd decides to "borrow" about half a dozen of the pumpkins jade and azul had bought for mostro lounge and takes them to riddle's dorm room. riddle is terrible at trying to carve them at first and floyd can't help but laugh at him a little, but since he knows it's not riddle's fault he's never gotten to do this before, he says he'll show him how to do it. unfortunately floyd isn't nearly as good as he thinks he is on account of having lived in the ocean for almost his whole life and now riddle gets to laugh right back at him. they probably both get the hang of it right as they're down to their last two pumpkins.
riddle never got to go trick-or-treating with his childhood friends? floyd texts trey and convinces him to get in touch with chenya as well so that they can all go together. when they approach the first house, in the costumes they had prepared for each of their school's halloween events, riddle starts to get nervous and asks if they aren't all a little too old to be doing this. floyd shoves several huge handfuls of candy from that person's bowl into his and riddle's pumpkin-shaped buckets and tells him it's not like there's any rule that says they can't, and besides, riddle is such a cute little goldfish that he practically looks like a kid in his costume anyway! chenya stifles a laugh while trey has to stop riddle from committing murder that night.
riddle's never gone to a haunted house before? floyd and chenya both think it would be hilarious to make him go to one, so they do. riddle absolutely hates it, but it honestly does make him happy to see everyone else enjoying it--even if floyd and chenya both keep trying to egg him and trey on and get them to go down creepy corridors and check around corners by themselves, and even if floyd keeps running off to different parts of the haunted house and then coming back and hugging or even lifting riddle from behind knowing full well that he'll get freaked out by it.
riddle never got to play the apple bobbing game that's traditional in the queendom of roses? turns out there's a place right by the haunted house where they can go to do it! predictably, floyd is great at it while riddle ends up drenched without getting any apples, but just giving it a try is more fun than riddle expected.
riddle's never gotten to make candy apples before? luckily, trey knows an amazing recipe as well as what combinations of toppings work the best, and he's willing to teach them both! riddle gets very confused at imprecise directions such as being told to use "a few" drops of food coloring on the syrup or to drizzle "a little" white chocolate over it, and keeps asking trey exactly how much he should use. floyd thinks this is adorable. he also thinks it's adorable when riddle tries to scold him for ignoring half of trey's directions and just doing whatever he thinks sounds good.
riddle's never done a horror movie marathon before, or even seen any halloween movies in general? floyd insists that they marathon at least 3 movies together. after the experiences he had at the haunted house, riddle doesn't think he'll enjoy horror movies, but he tries to keep his cool throughout the first one anyway... which does not work out, because he really can't handle jumpscares or excessive gore. during the first movie they watch, floyd (who loves slasher films so much that he laughs and cheers every time the monster gets a kill) is happy to let his goldfishie cuddle up to him and grip onto his arm to keep himself from knocking the popcorn bowl onto the floor, but you know that once it's over riddle is getting teased relentlessly about how scared he was. floyd decides to be nice and put on something tamer for their next two movies, and riddle actually ends up really enjoying coraline and especially beetlejuice.
by the end of the night riddle realizes that they've stayed up way too late at night and a small part of him wants to scold floyd for keeping him up so late, insisting on having him do all of these silly activities and eat all of these terribly unhealthy snacks. another part of him wishes he could scold his mother for keeping him from doing any of these things as a kid, with his friends and the other kids in his hometown, the way you're supposed to do it... and another part of him still is just incredibly happy and grateful to floyd for finally giving him the chance.
#twisted wonderland#twst#riddle rosehearts#floyd leech#floyrid#floydriddle#floyd x riddle#riddle x floyd#man i wish the twst fandom agreed on ship names and tags lol. i think that's all the ones i've seen.#also YES i AM still posting halloween headcanon posts after halloween#sorry if this post is dumb and ooc. i may have a canon url but i do not claim to be a riddle expert much less a floyd expert#BUT i really do think riddle would enjoy animated halloween movies and more lighthearted horror comedies like beetlejuice#especially since beetlejuice has Rules. the ghosts have rules for the afterlife and even beetlejuice himself Has to follow rules.#so it's comforting and easy for riddle to understand#and i think floyd enjoys slashers and thrillers and such MORE than those types of movies but he will make compromises for his bf#because as much as he loves teasing him he doesn't want riddle to be like Actually Upset or to have a bad time#plus maybe i'm just a baby but i think coraline is genuinely pretty creepy even as an adult lmao#okay anyway. if it wasn't already obvious i love them <3#floyddle#florid
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ah I forgor that the interaction level on oc posts is um.. bad rip
#its easy to forget not everyone stops to read every oc post like me#unless its got pretty pictures or ur particularly good with words most people ain't readin that shit lol#which i get#but i just wish it wasn't so
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Hi! I saw you mention how Honda tried to kill Marc and Joan in your latest Marc post and I was wondering if you could elaborate on that? I am fairly new to MotoGP and I keep seeing and hearing fans and experts speak of Marc’s last years at Honda in this way, implying the bike was absolutely terrible, but I cannot seem to find any explanation as to how bad exactly and why everyone keeps using the specific “It tried to kill them!” expression… 😭 If you have the time and/or interest to only, of course! It does interest me considering Marc had been riding his Hondas for so long at that point and also with how well he is adapting to the Ducati now, it just seems incredible to me that he would have any such problems with a bike!
(x) haha yeah of course. I feel like this is one of those motogp stories that I know so well by now I could recite it in my sleep, so it's no real bother to quickly type it out
honda has traditionally been one of the Big Names in the sport, and got a... decent-ish haul of titles this century even before marc joined the premier class (2001-3; 2006; 2011) (could've been better hehe). the pedrosa/stoner partnership helped develop a very good bike in the form of the RC213V, introduced at the start of the 2012 season for the new regulations (aka the 1000cc era, which we're still in). when marc joined honda, this was on balance (if by a fairly slim margin) the best bike on the grid. over the next couple of years, honda would go from initially establishing a more sizeable bike advantage over yamaha to running into trouble in the 2015 season - and for a while it looked like those troubles would continue into 2016. that year brought on a massive change to the championship in the switch back to michelin tyres and how all bikes would be forced to run on 'spec electronics'... basically it represented a big shake-up in the competitive order, and it took a while to see how well each manufacturer had managed to respond. but 2016 turned out better than expected for honda while its long-time rival yamaha increasingly struggled - and was soon replaced by ducati as honda's primary challenger. the ducati project generally seemed more on the cutting edge of the bike development than honda was, especially given how much attention they seemed to be paying to improving the aerodynamics of the bike... but, well, marc won a bunch of titles during that time, so whatever. 2013-14 and 2016-19 champ, honda was on paper the dominant force in the sport, all was well
except... except there was already trouble looming on the horizon. 2019 was the first year in which marc was the only honda rider to win a race. it might have been a close to flawless season from him, but this was clearly a bike that was increasingly suited to one rider and one alone - a bloke who happened to have the kind of freakish natural abilities to ride around the glaring issues of an increasingly temperamental bike. (it should be noted that marc too was crashing far more than was advisable in order to find the bike's limits, as he does have a tendency of doing - he just managed to not do it in the races. see here on the question of marc and 'lucky' crashers.) though it wasn't just a question of marc being able to harness a naturally tricky package... the bike was specifically developed around him and his unique riding style, which meant that honda was inevitably increasingly reliant solely on marc marquez. honda didn't sign up dani in a test rider role upon his retirement at the end of 2018, letting ktm snatch him up instead... and they missed out on what could have been valuable feedback from jorge, who never adapted properly to the bike and was struggling with injury throughout that 2019 season. now, okay, this isn't ideal for a manufacturer, but also you can't complain too much when your number one rider is so good he's singlehandedly winning the team's and constructor's championships for you. honda and marc reaffirmed their mutual devotion with a staggering four year deal at the very start of 2020 for 2021-24, so it was essentially a half decade long commitment to each other... felt pretty insane, even at the time. both sides decided their fates were to be inextricably tied, and put pen on paper to confirm as much
and then marc got injured. within the span of a week in 2020, honda was essentially banished to competitive wilderness, perhaps not helped by their controversial decision to replace the outgoing three time premier class champion with marc's younger brother to complete their factory line-up. 2020 was basically a write-off as soon as it started - and not only did that mean honda wasn't winning in the short-term, but they were bereft of their lead rider who had been responsible for determining the development direction. the crisis was compounded by the impact of the pandemic, which hit all of the japanese manufacturers particularly hard - as well as exacerbating existing issues within the honda project, which at times approached development too conservatively and were not proactive enough in poaching rival engineers to provide new insight as needed. as a result, when marc returned in 2021, he was provided with a bike that was already in a pretty sorry state... but also one which, given how his arm was still causing him considerable problems, he could not ride to its fullest potential. marc still comfortably outperformed the other honda riders and was able to bag a pair of heroic wins at his specialist circuits of sachsenring and cota (tracks that honda was still well-suited to and also mitigated marc's right shoulder struggles as a result of the anti-clockwise layout), as well as an extra win at his strongest clockwise circuit of the calendar, misano (though he was helped by the two factory ducatis ahead of him binning it lol). right after that, he suffered a recurrence of his past problems with diplopia as a result of a training crash and was ruled out of the rest of the season... but you could still say there was a little bit of hope for better things to come
but things just kept going from bad to worse, to the point where you eventually lost track of the number of times you heard the descriptor 'worst weekend in honda's history'. initially, it looked like 2022 pre-season testing might be quite promising, and the honda did have a grand total of one decent-ish race (where marc wasn't actually the highest honda finisher, very very rare in the post-dani days). so there was initially some optimism around the radically redesigned bike, with a completely reworked chassis and new aero and new swingarms and so on. the bike was supposed to be more powerful as well as more rideable, but this ended up being far from the reality. at the very next race in indonesia, marc suffered a vicious highside that brought with it a worrying return of the diplopia, so soon after the last occurrence, and meant he was again sidelined. the other honda riders weren't doing much better, either scrapping for lower points positions or crashing themselves. after struggling on for a while, marc made the decision to get another surgery for his arm, postponing his season indefinitely. once again, honda was directionless, and it was hard to see any clear improvements or even where any improvements were supposed to come from
the situation was so obviously catastrophic that marc actually returned to the paddock before being fit to ride again to essentially inspect honda's progress and to have meetings with key honda personnel. in austria, he held a special press conference to discuss his visit - and then said press conference had to be cut short by a storm threatening to rip honda hospitality apart. which feels a little on the nose, but anyways. marc made his return after his successful surgery, and even he could only work so much magic with that bike... his strongest race was at phillip island, where he bagged his one podium of the year and was still in victory contention on the last lap. honda had also managed to secure two high profile rider signings for the following year - the two suzuki lads who had been left in the lurch by the manufacturer deciding very suddenly to leave the sport. 2020 world champ joan mir went to the repsol honda team, and alex rins, who was really too good and too highly rated for this gig under normal circumstances, ended up with the satellite lcr squad. the hope was that at least now they might have a better chance at having more than one competitive rider, who should also be able to provide development feedback and serve as a benchmark for marc post-arm injury
and then came 2023. honda's 2020 was horrible. its 2021 was embarrassing. its 2022 was disastrous. its 2023... well, that was just apocalyptic. this time there were no pre-season false dawns. honda's most dramatic problem wasn't that they had built a bike that was too slow (although it was also that), or that they were so obviously behind the development curve in several different areas (which they very much were) - it's that they'd built a bike that was so unreliable and prone to errors that by this point it was horrendously easy to crash. a lot of this is about grip and the way the tyres interact with the surface: if you're not getting enough feedback from this interaction, then you will not be able to get enough feeling to know when you have to make a correction to prevent the bike from throwing you off... even if you are marc marquez. the rear wheel issues and the lack of edge grip are particularly nasty, because they make highsides a lot more likely - you know, the crashes that throw you in the air and are particularly likely to seriously injure riders. so you have a bike that is not only extremely likely to throw off its riders, but is also likely to do so in a particularly painful, dangerous way. plus it was exhausting to ride, and, it has to be stressed, really really was not fast enough
the season does actually start with a slight glimmer of hope, with marc's pole at portimao (courtesy of a bastianini-provided tow) and a sprint podium... and then he crashed out in portimao, taking the home hero with him and fracturing his hand. as a result, marc was again out with injury for a few races - including at his beloved cota, where rinsy ended up securing honda's first and only win since end of 2021 (admittedly pecco did help the cause by crashing out of the lead). this did lead to some debate about how maybe the bike wasn't all that bad after all... but, well. obviously it was
from then on, it's all just misery. after the first race, joan doesn't manage to finish a sunday race in the next nine grand prix weekends - but he also only makes the start in five of those, partly courtesy of a finger fracture he picks up at mugello. alex rins breaks his leg at mugello, an injury he is still limping as a result of, and only managed to start two more races that season. marc shows up to his best track on the whole calendar, sachsenring, the one it should be impossible to beat him at... and he crashes five times that weekend before eventually withdrawing from the race. he's out for two races with rib and finger fractures
this is the breaking point. if marc can't win at the sachsenring and is hurting himself this badly while even bothering to try, the situation just feels increasingly untenable. this wasn't good for either marc or honda - what they needed by this point wasn't a star rider impatiently and miserably watching his remaining competitive years tick by, they needed to rethink everything they were doing and essentially start from scratch. for a long time, an idea of a split between honda and marc felt unthinkable, partly because of marc's deep loyalty towards that team, and also partly due to the more practical matter of his contract running until the end of 2024. but, well, the unthinkable became ever more thinkable as the season progressed. by necessity, marc had to change his approach after the sachsenring debacle, dialling back his competitive instincts and riding the bike at a slower pace in the ignominy of the lower points positions in order to not continuously injure himself. at times, it felt like he was riding slow out of protest - a very pointed 'well either I crash or I'm uncompetitive' - as honda continued to falter. a post-race test in misano prompted a further moment of crisis... marc was so deeply unimpressed by the 2024 prototype he had tested that this inevitably will have helped push him out the door and to gresini ducati. it's hard to exaggerate how bonkers this was... one of the greatest riders in history breaking their contract with their factory - and not just any factory, with honda - to instead go ride year-old satellite machinery. the move was obviously a good idea and the right thing to do, but that didn't make it feel any less crazy that it had actually come so far. how the mighty had fallen etc etc
y'know, joan has a good line about honda this year that he's trotted out quite a few times, where he says nobody leaves honda in a better state than they join it. the bike this season is somehow even slower, though *taps on wood* at least its homicidal tendencies haven't caused any serious injuries thus far. it's been a pretty miserable decline... it's not just the bodies that are getting hurt - it's also demoralising for the riders, and it becomes very easy to lose confidence in your own ability, to be unable to trust your feel for the bike, to become scared of when it will next throw you off. it becomes increasingly hard to motivate yourself, to keep coming back for more... great riders can get a lot out of poor bikes... but there is a limit. even for marc, that honda was a bridge too far
and of course marc's adaptation to the ducati is impressive... but it is a very very good bike! not just in the sense that it's fast - it's also good in that riders with very different riding styles are able to get a lot from that package. what marc is attempting to do right now is to extract performance from a package that is fundamentally there to be extracted: in spite of the increasingly obvious disparity with the gp24's, he is still riding a bike that won the championship last year and as a result doesn't have to ride wildly beyond its limit to make it go fast. he's done an excellent job of adapting his riding style to the demands of the ducati after such a long time on the honda, but fundamentally what he's trying to do here is study all the other ducati riders, see how they go fast, and put his own spin on it. once he's completely finished with the adaptation process (and yes, I'm aware he says he already has), he'll continue doing stuff with that bike that nobody else could... but from a better baseline of performance. I mean, look at where the other gp23's are this year - it's not great, but it's not honda levels bad. both in terms of their pace and in terms of whether you feel like the bike has been infested by a malicious spirit
a useful way of framing it is that you can measure how good a bike is by several different metrics. let's keep it simple and say two of those metrics are whether the bike is fast and whether it is rideable... whether it is user-friendly, if you will. the honda bike of the late 2010's was both fast and not particularly rideable - and you can say something similar of the ducati in times past. so for instance in 2007, at the start of the 800cc era, ducati does a great job in building a very quick bike... but they still had to have the stroke of good fortune to sign the perfect guy to take advantage of that speed, casey stoner. again, undoubtedly that was a very fast bike, but it's also extremely capricious - and even pretty highly rated riders couldn't get anywhere close to pulling off the kinds of performances casey did. but then, over the next few years, ducati fucked it and the bike gradually became worse pace-wise compared to its competitors while still being a nightmare to ride. which is why you have even casey in 2010 struggling to get much out of the bike, cf how he ended up finishing fourth in the championship standings behind a guy who had broken his leg during the season. and then ducati spends several years completely out at sea until 2015-ish. even the most adaptable rider who is able to push bikes beyond the limits of what should be possible cannot completely overcome a dramatic pace deficit. at some point, it just becomes too big an ask - and the honda's decline has been even more dramatic than what post-casey ducati suffered. there's a limit, even for marc... who could be fast last year, who did still manage to do exciting things with that bike. but more often than not, when he pushed, he crashed. now at last, marc can go back to simply attempting the improbable, not the impossible
#i was gonna say it's always exciting to see how long it'll take for my hand to slip and type out the words 'casey stoner'#but i suppose he does get mentioned in the first paragraph so. well#motogp#//#brr brr#batsplat responds#there we go. like a press release of sorts#also feel free to ask a follow up if any of that wasn't clear!#stuff like this is very fast and easy to write up lol no research just discourse#//currt
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