#none of this was very surprising

[vyoleya]

"i've come here to kill my maker, cause i'd feel much safer alone"

(my ramble about it here)

[normalbrothershow]

sam winchester + jenny holzer

[buggachat]

seeing a lot of talk of the season 5 finale, which is fun, i get that it was controversial (honestly the fact it was really risky is kind of one of the things i like about it lol) and wanting to add my two cents but can't think of much i haven't already said before

but something i do want to emphasize is that season 5 ending on Marinette telling the biggest, boldest faced lie she's ever told (that goes far beyond "protecting her identity") to kick off the Lila arc is by far the coolest thing they could've done imo, because I was not at all excited for the Lila arc before but now I'm totally invested. Now Lila isn't the Evil Liar to be taken down by Good Marinette. Marinette is the liar to be taken down by the very liar that she took down. It's not a story of "defeat that freakishly evil girl" anymore, but instead a story of "Marinette's own actions and decisions coming back to bite her". And the lie itself (WHICH LILA KNOWS IS A LIE!!) only exists because, and is most impactful towards, her relationship with Adrien, which is the core of the series!! I CARE about their relationship, and that's the stakes!!!

I just cannot get over how cool that is, and how much I didn't expect it. I know we all were expecting a big fight with Ladybug and Chat Noir just defeating Gabriel and then watching Chat Noir cry or whatever in the few remaining minutes of screen-time and then it's all over and done with, but that's a series finale. This was a season finale. And they did something really unique and unexpected with it, while making sure it's a juicy season-finale conflict that leaves me actually excited about season 6

also, a side note— I think the framing of the finale made this confusing so I totally get why discussions about it are kind of all over the place, but... 90% of the post-wish stuff we saw had nothing to do with Gabriel at all. It was all Mayor Bustier, who was already running for mayor and wanted to enact green laws and projected to win (she was up against D'Argencourt, the character whose schtick is that nobody ever votes for him in elections). I don't think Gabriel's wish included "Please, Gimmi, I want my son's school teacher to win the mayoral election this year" lol. So a lot of talk of "why is Gabriel's World presented in such a positive light?" is kind of weird to me. That's not Gabriel's World. That's Caline Bustier's. All we know so far about Gabriel's World is that Nathalie is in it and he is not. And frankly, the fact everyone is so happy and cheerful and living it up after his death is more a roast than anything

( also, just a reminder that the presentation of Gabriel's statue— the only scene discussing Gabriel in a positive light by someone In The Know— was done by Tomoe Tsurugi, a series antagonist, vowing to continue his work, with a song in minor key playing in the background. i feel like the question of "was this meant to be unsettling or triumphant?" is pretty obvious. just wanted to remind everyone. also by definition characters cannot celebrate gabriel as a "hero" without in the same breath celebrating monarch's, aka gabriel's, death. yknow? )

[toneth-toneth-toneth]

huh wym paul isn't trans?? what's this then???

[flapperwitch]

For those saying that Nick's actions came out of nowhere, allow me to be a giant nerd for a bit and breakdown why his story always had to end this way. Nick has always had two major roles in the narrative:

The Fantasy. From the beginning of his and June's romance, they always fantasize about escaping and running away together. Paris, Hawaii, even hiding at the abandoned offices of the Boston Globe in season 2. They dream about their little world and are a light for each other in an oppressive regime. This is why Nick's stories are always stronger when they're connected to June. But a fantasy can't last forever. It's also why she clashes with Luke sometimes. How can a regular man live up to the fantasy? And his other role

The Boyfriend Whose Actions You Excuse. How many women have dated men who don't agree with them politically? Who have beliefs they disagree with but say "oh it's just how he was raised"? Who aren't pro-choice? So many women fall into this situation of just ignoring what their partners disagree on, because to them, the individual, the boyfriend is kind, loving, supportive. So he has a few flaws, who doesn't? But then he does something that crosses the line. Maybe he voted for Trump. Maybe he started trying to push those beliefs onto his partner. Whatever it is, the women have to decide whether or not to stay. June was willing to forgive that Nick helped form Gilead because he's that fantasy. With them, there was no past and only an imaginary future. But his decision to tell his father-in-law of Mayday's plans was June's line.

As @theparadigmshifts said, the show is not about ships. Nick is a great character, but him ending up with June or June ending up with Luke is not the focus. It's about fascism, women's rights, motherhood. With Nick's character and his subsequent fall from grace, the show is asking it's female audience, "what will you put up with for fantasy? What is your line?" Because unfortunately, we are living in some dark fucking times.

[lunar-years]

Getting mad at ~Haymitch’s best friend was Katniss’ Dad~ for being an “unrealistic” plot point has got to be one of the stupidest widespread complaints I’ve seen about sotr, like what 😭. It’s stated in the books that District 12 has a population of about 10,000 TOTAL people. It is not a big place. Everyone knows everyone. add to that the knowledge we already had going into the book that 1) most people who live there are too afraid to venture into the woods 2) the kids who do go into the woods have a much higher likelihood of possessing some of the survival skills that would allow them to get further in the games 3) Katniss’ dad was very much a kid who went into the woods and Haymitch is the only living district 12 Victory…. THEREFORE it in fact makes *so* much sense that the two of them would have been kids who went into the woods together, and thus been friends? Why is this any sort of sticking point I don’t understand 😭

[iztarshi]

I think Phantom Tales of the Night has the most varied monsters I've seen in a manga. Not physically, but in the way they think, so that even the monsters themselves can struggle to understand one another.

Spoilers ahead, because figuring out how these monsters think and what they're doing and even which people are monsters is a lot of the manga's mystery.

You've got Butterfly, very young by monster standards and with his youth extended by his recurrent amnesia, who is born from a collection of lost human souls although he's not human himself. Even the older monsters trying to parent him don't really know what he is or what he should be so their attempts to guide him into "growing up" can hinder him as much as help.

Bone Monk is blunt and practical. He only wants to gather the bones of the dead and make them into pottery, which might seem morbid but seems genuinely to be born of compassion. As Owner puts it he gathers up the broken and discarded.

Spider used to be human and although he thinks differently after hundreds of years he's still human at base.

The Foxes are malicious and careless, gambling for humans in order to steal their skins and lives only to discard them when they get bored. But we also meet a Tanuki who takes the skin of a dead human out of compassion in order to raise her daughter instead of leaving the child an orphan, so Beasts are not always like that.

Sasaki, as a being who can regenerate from a single bone again and again into a half-skeletal man, is probably a true-born monster and was never human at all. But he thinks exactly like a human, and a compassionate and level-headed human at that, which leads to him trying to spend lifetimes among humans. He understands humans the way they'd understand each other, but always feels he's hiding a terrible secret.

Owner, as a formless creature of darkness, is revealed to have probably had good intentions in the end but his approach to problem solving is so alien that that "probably" remains. He only gave himself a face and identity so Sasaki (after one offer to be friends with him made as a tiny bone) would be able to find him again and it remains his nature to be ambiguous. The blurred line between monstrous curiosity, wanting to learn how humans act in circumstances he sets up including cruel ones, and strange ways of helping, which often include letting humans blame him if it would be easier than blaming other humans or themselves, always lingers.

[kodasea]

Introducing Scott

[pergaminaa]

Modern au

Yes I did write earlier that baby manorian name + middle name translate to ‘beautiful queen’

Manon picked her first name

Dorian picked her middle name with this in mind because that combo will give the exact same meaning as Manon’s name.

Manon —> beautiful queen

Rhiannon Belle —> beautiful queen

It was Dorian’s not so subtle attempt at naming his daughter after her mother without doing it so directly (seeing Asterin years ago he learned that the Blackbeak women have a strong aversion to their daughters having their exact same name) and Dorian is a smart man.

[catsafari25]

Another question for the Skulduggery Pleasant fandom, because I've just finished reading the Haunted House on Hollow Hill, and I feel like I'm missing something.

Below the cut 'cause this is, y'know, a murder mystery

Do we get two explanations for how the police officer (Dudley) dies? First is that Grody killed him (and is used as an alibi for Grody & how there is more than one killer abroad) and the other is that Terry did it (and he openly admits it) - the second option is clearly the correct one, given the confession, but it just felt odd that there's not even a nod back to the first red herring.

[zjofierose]

finally did the intake call for an adhd diagnosis and i really hadn’t realized that we’d be talking about all of my mental health for all of my 41 years on this planet. had to keep answering things with, “well… yes, but not in the last 15-20 years?”

could hear the intake person getting more and more alarmed 🤣 like i am mostly fine now!! and have been for a while!! i just want to know if i have adhd i am not in crisis i pinky swear 😂

[spotaus]

Late Night quick thing (New Age Sillies)

Bad news: That joke post about including Reset + Orchid is definitely not canon. (I legit got sad thinking about Reset being in a universe where Orchid isn't- because their stories are so so intertwined- but Nightmare 100% would NOT risk the whole twins exploding Error's soul thing.)

Good news: This means I COULD include Kane (Reset's older brother who usually dies in timelines where Reset is born) and use it to develope his character a bit more! Also! Perhaps a Blue × Dream kiddo is finally in the stars for me to design?

[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

[wonder-worker]

"[Elizabeth Woodville's] piety as queen seems to have been broadly conventional for a fifteenth-century royal, encompassing pilgrimages, membership of various fraternities, a particular devotion to her name saint, notable generosity to the Carthusians, and the foundation of a chantry at Westminster after her son was born there. ['On other occasions she supported planned religious foundations in London, […] made generous gifts to Eton College, and petitioned the pope to extend the circumstances in which indulgences could be acquired by observing the feast of the Visitation']. One possible indicator of a more personal, and more sophisticated, thread in her piety is a book of Hours of the Guardian Angel which Sutton and Visser-Fuchs have argued was commissioned for her, very possibly at her request."

— J.L. Laynesmith, "Elizabeth Woodville: The Knight's Widow", Later Plantagenet and Wars of the Roses Consorts: Power, Influence, Dynasty

[lifemod17]

Need some sunset/sunrise pics I haven't seen the sun where I live in a whole week cause of the cold wave and fog and I'm feeling so down 🤧😭

Woe sunset be upon ye

Sunset Hoe™

[raayllum]

don't get me wrong callum is undeniably a prince and it plays into his family dynamics and his initial sense of unworthiness when the story starts a lot, but i'll never fully understand the hang up that it's a Big part of his ongoing story when his own brother, the king, says "remember who you are" and just refers and reiterates his mage identity (4x06), and that's the only one that callum seems to significantly care about either (5x07)