#they're doing numbers in my brain

[tiredassmage]

the way i keep slowly bg-ifying more swtor ocs and becoming more and more madly in love with them about it

[shoechoe]

Since I still get (well-intentioned) people telling me "Hey, did you know that you can teach apes to use sign language?", if you don't know already, Koko the gorilla almost certainly couldn't really talk with signing, the videos of her doing so have high evidence of doctoring and behind-the-scenes coaching, the majority of animals in the whole ape language project were abused (including Koko herself), and the studies were butchered and manipulated for media attention. As for now, there is no real evidence that apes can understand and use language much more than a dog can learn to connect symbols and noises with meanings, for example.

[keeps-ache]

HEY

[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

[jackredfieldwasmyjacob]

my number one weirdest talent has to be knowing by heart all abbreviations of spanish public universities

[jittyjames]

why do i, an english/theatre major have to take calculus??? I WILL GENUINELY NEVER USE THAT. THIS IS SO HOMOPHOBIC. THIS IS GOING TO MAKE ME LOSE MY 4.0 I CAN FEEL IT.

[sysig]

Laptop is finally home, diary is gone for good

[httpiastri]

[thorne1435]

Remember kids: propaganda isn't inherently bad, nor is it always misinformation! It actually depends on the agenda itself and what the effects of the campaign are.

You aren't immune to insidious advertisements, but you also aren't immune to body-positivity posts, for example.

[venacoeurva]

Financial anxiety is understandable, considering things, but it’s so irrational with me, it would be funny if it wasn’t like. sad and annoying

Me: is relatively low income but in a stable situation

My brain: WE HAVE BILLS, CLEARLY WE MUST PAY FOR THEM ALL IN FULL NOW!!! (we do not) WE ARE GOING TO DIE ON THE STREETS RIGHT NEOOOOW!!!

[sophieswundergarten]

Society Middle Name/Nickname Concepts!! Just because I can :)

Reynie "Fredrick" Muldoon

Sticky "Theodore" Washington

Kate "Ivy" Wetherall

Constance "Abigail" Contraire

Nicholas "Herbert" Benedict

Milligan "Dave" Wetherall

Rhonda "Sky" Kazembe

Pencilla "Ann" Two

[sherlock-is-ace]

.

[izzy-b-hands]

To Do for tomorrow (in theory at least, if the spoons are there to let me manage all of it)

-One last load of laundry (that idk where im gonna put bc im outta room but. I'll figure it out)

-clean bathroom sink

-swiffer all the floors (that are safely swifferable)

-double check my room and hide any sex toys still sitting out (in my defence, my toys my room my choice where they go, but also, i think a dildo can be a nice centerpiece on a desk or shelving unit top. Ties my whole room together!)

-pause the Oh God Mum's Visiting cleaning/prepping to try and gif Tyler's part in last night's concert (I fucking*screamed* when i heard the intro to his first song and saw him run out, poor Housemate was v chill abt me losing my shit in excitement lol)

-dishes, bc that's just a thing i like doing daily now. put on music, zone out for an hour and half, come back to conscious thought to a bunch of clean dishes. what more could a man ask for (I have ideas but I'll take dishes for now)

I'm writing this out, here, so when my forgetful ass is scrolling thru things tomorrow, I'll see this and won't forget to do anything

hopefully (Tomorrow Me pls don't fuck this up)

[aropride]

to be quite honest i think everyone who runs a public ed blog is a bad person 👍 regardless of if they tag their posts "only pro for myself" or if they have "dont interact if this is triggering!!!" in their bio because if they didn't want to encourage eating disorders they wouldn't run a blog other people could stumble across with content that they KNOW is triggering and making their ed worse.

[darsynia]

My brain will not quiet itself: multiple times in the past two weeks (like, more than three times), I've held a conversation with someone that ended up with me speaking about fanfic I've written.

Key thing to know about me: I often feel like the best way I can thank people for being nice or commenting on my stories is to offer them things to read, like it's my version of flowers or chocolates I guess? But I suspect that comes across as pushy or like I'm desperate for reads and I PROMISE that's not what I'm trying to do!

Please forgive me if it comes across like I'm trying to strong-arm people into reading stuff. I realized recently this might be the case and I'm well-nigh mortified so there's that.

I buried this in tags but: if you think I'm speaking about you please know I am not basing any of this reaction of mine on anything anyone's said or done (or not said, or not done, just to cover bases)! I am just experiencing a surfeit of 'worrying I've done something wrong'-itis and am working through it, heh.

[keeps-ache]

mm i Neeed to go the beach