#oh man the number of times

[abeautifulblog]

I really enjoy how Edwin subverts the expectations for his character archetype. Usually, if you had a character that was a mousey unpopular teenager who'd gotten bullied to death, they'd be shy and laden with insecurities, easily steamrolled by characters with more force of personality -- but instead, by the time you meet him in the show, Edwin's ego is basically bulletproof.

He is entirely confident in himself, and comfortable being himself, free to be as fussy, effeminate, and old-fashioned as he likes, because the only person whose opinion of him he gives a fuck about is Charles, and Charles thinks everything about Edwin is brilliant and he can do no wrong. Thirty years of Charles's radical acceptance has allowed him not only to be himself, but to be himself fearlessly.

And I think that's beautiful. :)

[frunbuns]

There's something so bittersweet about the childhood flashbacks in tua. They were all children together. Reginald was horrible, but they had each other. And then everything went to shit. Five's 13 year old body a bitter reminder of what once was. His siblings in their adult bodies a reminder of how things should've been. God,,,,

[torchickentacos]

i will always shout praises of bi4bi but given recent discourse I feel the need to say that I love bi4het too! I just love bisexuality in general in its many forms, and anyone who only likes it when it's 'queer enough' for them is biphobic. Bisexuals should be able to bring their LaMe CiShEt BoYfRiEnD to pride without being made to feel like spectators and outsiders to their own event.

[bibxrbie]

"Between Anakin and Luke who is the better Jedi?"

"Who's the strongest?"

Blah blah blah.

Every single person who thinks it is Anakin is wrong because Anakin "coolest thing about me is my kids" Skywalker would beat you up for thinking that his son isn't the greatest thing of all time.

[kazoosandfannypacks]

Fendra wedding, anyone?

[mawguai]

here are some tinkaton doodles I made

[hephaestuscrew]

I'm still thinking about that scene in Victoriocity S3E7 where Fleet runs back towards the Beast so as to lure it into the path of the train...

Clara's exclamation of 'Teamwork, Fleet!' after Fleet says he's got a plan reflects her conviction that any plan that Fleet has will be a shared plan, something they do together.

This conviction is a kind of trust, and that trust is part of the reason Clara takes a moment to realise Fleet has headed back towards the Beast. She trusts that he's following behind her. She keeps talking to him, her words full of optimism.

When she realises Fleet isn't there, she immediately realises what that must mean he's done, and her voice sounds more small and scared than I think we've ever heard it before.

Fleet's attempt at self-sacrifice is a kind of betrayal of Clara's trust, but when he echoes her celebration of their teamwork in a more somber tone, I think it suggests that he understands the weight of that betrayal.

If Fleet's plan is that Clara won't realise he's gone until it's already too late, then he thinks "Teamwork, Clara" will be the last words he'll ever speak to her. In what he imagines will be their final conversation, Fleet affirms Clara's understanding of them as a team who work well together, even as he is making a choice that rejects the possibility of their teamwork in this scenario. It's a recognition of what their dynamic has meant. It's a goodbye and an apology, even if Clara doesn't understand it as such at first.

I don't think Fleet sounds scared as he initially faces down the train. When he shouts "Yeah, this way, you stupid machine! Come on then!", he sounds defiant and grimly determined.

In fact, I don't think he sounds afraid until Clara appears, until she might be at risk of being in the path of the Beast or the train as well. It's when he shouts "Clara, stay back for God's sake!" and "Please, get back!" that there's real fear and desperation in his voice. He can confront the idea of giving his own life, but not the idea that doing so might put Clara in danger.

Another thing about these lines is that the move from 'stay back' to 'get back' suggests that Clara didn't obey his first instruction but got closer to him (and therefore to the path of the Beast and the train) between those two lines.

Then Fleet gives what might be another attempt at his last words: "I'm sorry! I'm sorry."  A repeated apology before an attempted self-sacrifice is an implicit acknowledgement of how much losing him would hurt Clara. He regrets causing her pain.

Even so, he's accepted that he is about to die and that it'd be worth it to destroy the Beast. But Clara very much hasn't accepted either those things. She's still trying to yell over the noise of the train; she's pulling off her ring to throw at him.

I think it's a good illustration of how Clara's optimism is a kind of strength. She always believes that they can "make a new plan" and that it'll be one in which no one has to die. I think Archibald Fleet needs someone like that, someone who'll tell him to drop to the ground when his death advances from both sides, someone who - even in a dark tunnel with an murderous metal monster and a speeding train - won't stop shouting that there's hope.

[slyandthefamilybook]

every car should come with 3 horns

Wtf are you doing

Sorry I honked by accident

Omg are you gay? You look gay! I'm gay!

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

please please please please give me cauldron doing unethical human experimentation that would be everything for me

[ectonurites]

ZACH TAYLOR x MODERN BASEBALL on JOSH TEMPLETON and ALLISON BANNISTER

[ BROKEN CASH MACHINE | ROCK BOTTOM | THE OLD GOSPEL CHOIR | THE WEEKEND | ALPHA KAPPA FALL OF TROY THE MOVIE PART DEUX (2 DISC DIRECTOR'S CUT) | EVERYDAY | HOURS OUTSIDE IN THE SNOW | NOTES | I THINK YOU WERE IN MY PROFILE PICTURE ONCE | HOME | REVENGE OF THE NAMELESS RANGER | INTERSECTION ]

[batsplat]

Pecco and Pedro are probably the people who more than anyone else want to beat Marc. Pecco because he is forced to do it for a matter of survival, his bet next year is to be able to win against Marc with the same bike. Pedro wants to win the first world championship with Marc in MotoGP, even better if he wins it against him, because of course that’s what he wants. I MotoGP your teammate is your first enemy, as surreal as it is, it would be more likely to see Pecco and Pedro helping each other (which would be unlikely anyway because they aren’t the type of people who do that) than one of them helping their teammate , especially if it's Marc. If anything Marc and Pecco have to be intelligent enough to at least not take each other out Portimao style, because in that case there will be someone behind them ready to bite

so I'm going to jump in right away by saying, I know this ask acknowledges it's unlikely but, yeah, pedro and pecco will not be helping each other in any meaningful sense - because they are both serious challengers to each other and they know it. sometimes, riders can be known to help non-team members in fairly small low-key ways (see in this post valentino accusing marc of deliberately towing ducati riders to get them ahead of his actual rivals in brno 2014). for both pecco and pedro, marc is definitely the bigger focus, but they are both perfectly aware of the danger the other poses, and will not be inclined to treat each other as anything other than an active threat

that being said! of course pecco has already nicely demonstrated this season that he does approach his marc fights differently than he does those with other riders (which is broadly the correct and smart thing to do, even if the specifics can be critiqued). portimao even gave us the direct comparison between pecco/pedro and pecco/marc! part of it, yes, will just be an element of self-preservation - marc is now back to being a major roadblock for winning any future championships, and he'll be in pecco's house so will of course require... extra attention. apart from that, it absolutely would be the most meaningful way pecco could win a championship, by beating the famous marc marquez on equal machinery... nobody has done that before, and it would instantly dispel any remaining doubts about pecco's ability and cement his legacy as one of the greats of the sport. he wants to beat marc so badly because marc is one of the two riders he's always been chasing... and marc's absence has left all the young pretenders in this odd place where they've taken the crown but don't quite believe it's theirs yet. (just to say this again, I personally don't share the view that marc's absence diminishes those titles in any way, but it is of course interesting when the riders themselves have these insecurities.) there was that interview from early-ish last year where pecco talked about some of his personal limitations and how he views his own status in the sport:

fascinating, isn't it? of course, I'm sure a second title will have helped to some extent in making him feel a little more entitled to that status in the sport - but this is not the kind of thing valentino or casey or jorge or marc ever would have said. there's a self-consciousness to pecco, an awareness of his uncertain, shaky journey to the top of the sport, how he's fully cognisant of how different he is to those names... which can be a problem at times - delusion is an athlete's life blood, and while the level headed insight pecco expresses here is arguably admirable, it is not necessarily helpful for him as a champion. on the other hand, sometimes lacking a little in the delusion department can be a good thing if it allows you to deliberately improve yourself, pushed on by the knowledge that you still have a long way to go... pecco's biggest self-inflicted wounds have tended to come when he's at his most comfortable - you can theorise about why this happens, but maybe that striver mindset is exactly what he needs to keep him going. it's still quite the admission to describe his 2022 season as more incomplete than either valentino or marc's title runs. (mind you, it's arguably even less complete a season than some of their misses - of course with valentino you have the obvious ones, but did you know that marc scored an average of 13.44 points in 2015 vs pecco's average of 13.25 in 2022? obvious caveat that in 2015 there were considerably fewer competitive bikes and barely any capable of regularly challenging for race wins.) the need to prove himself is always there with pecco... it keeps peaking through with him, and it absolutely peaks through in his approach to marc. yes, yes, acosta is the future, jorge martin has been his title rival more recently... but of course, beating marc would be special. do you think pecco ever dreamed that of it? do you think he really believed that he could before he was already premier class champion? with most champions, you would say it's likely. with pecco, I'm not quite so sure

as for pedro, yeah, obviously, that's just the cycle continuing lol. deeply curious what those two regularly competing at the sharp end of races looks like. pedro has kinda kept his distance, isn't that much of a marc fan himself... when he talks inspirations he tends to bring up schwantz, stoner, pedrosa, and of course rossi

schwantz is far from an unusual pick amongst riders, though as the years pass perhaps gradually more so - it certainly reveals an appreciation for the history of the sport. as do the other choices, in a way... let's not forget that acosta was eight years old when casey retired. of course back in the day casey and dani themselves got plenty of criticism for how 'boring' they were - that's just how these things go! nobody's ever nostalgic for the present etc etc

pedro did also talk last year about how the public wants celebrations and rivalries, critiquing how friendly riders are nowadays and saying people want battles like jorge/dani, valentino/marc, and so on (full clip here)

heartwarming: global number of people who still care about the valentino/sete rivalry is now confirmed at 2 (two)

obviously, you can't just go out and manufacture feuds because you're feeling like it, and pedro's had a pretty quiet rookie season in that sense. but once he feels like he's settled in and can challenge the infamous marc marquez in an actual title fight? on the basis of this rhetoric, you'd at least hope he's not going to be too shy in taking on the challenge. of course he too wants to beat marc more than anyone else... again, it's a question of legacy, how pedro clearly situates himself within the same lineage as both valentino and marc - even if personally he aspires to be more of a successor to the former than the latter. always better to take the crown for yourself, right? this is a kid who's clearly into the history of the sport and is already determined to make himself a big part of that story... weaving himself into that narrative by taking on a legend of the past, taking on the task of disposing with that legend himself. plus, given pedro is so aware of that history - he knows that what people remember are the rivalries. he wants some of that for himself! it'll be interesting to see how proactive he'll be in making that happen, certainly seems like an enterprising young lad

anyhow, yes, plenty of potential for both of those dynamics. and yes, they do very much want to beat marc - but if we're talking about who wants to beat him the most, jorge martin probably deserves a mention right around now. does have to be said that something dumb like the portimao thing is costing pecco and marc this year. it's kind of gone under given the sheer bucketloads of points all the title contenders are throwing away, but pecco would be eight not eighteen points behind in the standings if he had settled for sixth in portimao, and for marc it would be twenty four rather than thirty five points if he'd backed out of the move and had another go on the next lap. relatively unlikely to make a difference at the end of the season... though for mr title decider pecco bagnaia, it sure might be! I did joke about making the pecco/marc portimao thing tradition, but generally speaking two top riders crashing each other out isn't that common a thing, and it's pretty..? rare? that it's the same two riders on multiple occasions? I'm drawing a bit of a blank here, to be honest... then again, title contenders do seem to crash rather more than they used to (admittedly they also have a lot of opportunities now) - so maybe this is going to become a more regular occurrence. but what is more likely to happen is that when you have two competitive riders on the same bike, they do run the risk of taking turns stealing points from each other at the circuits where their bike is at its best. I think pecco and marc can probably minimise this given what a good all-round bike the ducati is across a range of different circuits, and also given that as individual riders they do at least seem to be reasonably distinct in what their strongest and weakest tracks are. all in all, I kind of doubt they'll cost each other like that next year... though admittedly if portimao is anything to go by I may be tempting fate

[booksandothersecrets]

One time I was talking to someone who told me they had listened to preacher’s daughter but only as background music. Personally I throw up and eat fistfuls of glass every time it plays but you know, its like, totally chill, whatever.

[franeridan]

i KNOW that oda is aware he's drawn some extremely gorgeous ladies since he obviously does that on purpose (though i believe he's unaware of just how beautiful some ladies he's drawn that stray too far from his usual model are), but I'm, like, pretty much convinced he has absolutely no clue he's also drawn some of the most good looking manga dudes out there. I'm sure he has no idea. He puts down lines and then he's like "???? why are people so obsessed with this guy he has barely shown up ever????" while we're all sitting here going heart eyes or whatever. It's been twenty-six years maybe it's time for him to get on with the program. It's like his experience with benn and ace in the very beginning taught him absolutely nothing

[karinyosa]

As a model for Brinker Hadley I used Gore Vidal.

jay parini and gore vidal respectively, the united states of amnesia / john knowles, a separate peace

id in alt.

[blackmosscupcakes]

Oh man that was a DENSE info drop--thought they put everything in the trailer but as a parent I certainly took note of "all-ages actual play" with Re-Slayers Take--i have a 9 year old who's desperate to know more about CR, and i loved Jasper William Cartwright on Burrows End. And then (at this point my husband was getting annoyed with me making him pause Fantasy High to tell him stuff 🤣) a Bells Hells live show with Brennan hosting! I wonder if he may do a little guest bit like the London host did!

[cozybi]

ocd is so stupid like ur brain will be convinced that u’ve fucked something up & jinxed urself by like. wanting it. n u just have to be like hey buddy that’s not how life works