#also I imagine these pokemon would all have some reason for not being able to rejoin the wild

[littlecrittereli]

Why does the concept of a wild kratts and pokemon crossover work so well

When I asked for suggestions the other day a lot of people asked for pokemon content but at the time I was just doing some sketches. However, I was inspired to take a crack at it a little later! And alas here is Chris' team. (He's a grass primary obviously) (... is it obvious what my favorite gen is.......?)

I feel like he wouldn't be a pokemon trainer though... more like a researcher.... so basically the same exact thing they do in Wild Kratts... except with pokemon in the place of real animals. And their pokemon are considered more of companions and teammates that can help on adventures. (Maybe occasionally helping with villain encounters?) Idk! It's not like a whole AU I wanna dive into but I thought it would be fun to draw as a one-off thing :] Not sure if I'll make it through the whole crew, but I'm definitely working on Martin next. Most of my fav pokemon are water types so I'm really excited!

[leafyisgreennotblue]

With Legends Z-A, I gave him the unavoidable design. I had written so much background and trying to get it on Insta was a hassle, but luckily I’ll be able to fully put it here with no issues,,:

It was hard to steer from the typical older Emmet look but I tried my hardest to make it seem like it would’ve been. I tried looking up France fashion from 1600-1900 but it was either some ridiculous outfits or suits, and since it mentioned the redevelopment of Lumiose City, it was either working up from something like Jubilife village or was upgrading from what it already is. I’ve heard a lot of theories that Legends Z-A will be taking place in the future or bounce back from future to past, but since it’s hard to incorporate futuristic outfits without knowing “how futuristic” it’ll be, I stuck to something from a layer time period in France. I drew him more of a square shape in his eyes instead of triangular, both to signify age and his lost connection with Ingo. Maybe not a permanent design but I think it adds a lot to his demeanor. He kept Basic stuff like he still has his coat, hat, etc. because Ingo got to keep all his old stuff too, but since the trailer looked more modern and Pokémon were with people, I don’t think it would be all destroyed like Ingos just cause it seems like a more civilized nation alongside pokemon and if it really did get destroyed in some way, I have a feeling he would be able to get it repaired without it getting ruined again. Also in terms of the suit I think the darker color is a good parallel to Ingos pearl clan outfits lighter colors. A lot of the design choices were meant to parallel him anyways. Since Ingo had lost his gloves in his Hisui design, giving Emmet new ones felt appropriate for some reason. In terms of the cane I gave him, not only is he an old man, I think it’s kinda needed. Ingo had that little wristband to signify he was a warden, while I think the cane could be useful for a mega stone wink wink nudge nudge. Cute little accessories for them I’m so nice 💀 he could definitely have a slower lifestyle in comparison to Ingo, and I definitely could see him working at Lumiose Station (if it exists in this game) and even though he would most likely have his memory wiped too, Ingo still said the same train themed quotes even with his memory gone, and even then he still had SOME memory, it was just very faint. Emmet definitely could feel some “connection” to the station and say stuff like “Some late nights I think I see a man who looks like me, but upon second glance it’s just my imagination. Even if I can’t seem to shake it from my mind, it seems I still wish to see him again…” anywho for the drawing, I made a few references. The main one just being a reference of design, but the one in the top right corner was a small reference to Alabaster Icelands. I’ve seen a lot of people use the snow to give Ingo flashbacks to Emmet, and while I think my station one is more closely related to Ingos darker color scheme, I think having him in the snow was a good nod to that. The bottom right corner was a reference to a drawing (that probably most people already know what I’m referencing) that had Pokémon that I thought resembled them, and one of the ones I had included for Ingo was Klefki. So just a little salt to the wound (it wasn’t even that bad.) Anywho, I know the design isn’t very refreshing, but I tried to keep it as canonical as possible.

[phlurrii]

Out of curiosity, what does the psychic cat fam exactly do out there? (This doesn’t have to be exclusive to just now, also could have been just Meau, Noe, and Mew) Aside from vibing. They live in a paradise where food isn’t a concern and nothing with a brain would try to hurt them. Do they play fight? Teach the youngin’s their future jobs? Have games? Maybe some swipped books to read? Explore the world outside of their tree for funsies? See who can steal as many goodies from human society without getting caught?

I know it’s silly but I like the “filler” of things. To think about what characters are doing when the “plot” isn’t being progressed. It’s part of why I like the slice-of-life genre from time to time. Life isn’t always an adventure or fight against some opposing force, but it can still be fun!

I agree, I’m honestly a bit upset with myself, given how long each update takes I never noticed I wasn’t adding in enough filler. Something I plan to fix once we’re in Noe’s arc, as we are sadly, or luckily? Way too close to beginning it to shove any sudden filler in. For now I’m blaming it on first time story telling and having to do art school on the side X3

As for the gang, Meau did fly a little bit off the handle due to not having a lot of stimulation when she was younger before Noe showed up. As for what they did/do, for reasons that’ll become clear later; they mostly talked in the early days!

She would show off her creations, abilities, transformations, and forming ecosystems to him. He would ask about as many questions as one would with a new world and she thrived off it. They would watch other Pokémon’s life in secret like it was a soap opera, sometimes intervening to make it more interesting or admittedly have it lean towards the ending they wanted. Usually betting and taking opposing sides as to what would happen.

Battling is a particular big one for Meau, she loves to get down and dirty with other legendaries and mythicals even if she has the power advantage. Most often fighting with her brothers, she wouldn’t be above transforming into the Pokémon she was fighting to even out the playing field, or even change her type so she was inherently weaker to it. It’s why she’s never been against human with their Pokémon battles, battling is an innate part of her creations and herself.

Missingno. on the other hand loves to explore, even with his age, he knows the world is in a constant state or change and ventures off on his own to explore it. He’s not nearly as against humans as Meau and has explored their cities and settlements. Most intrigue by their computers/technology nowadays and how he’s able to to interact with them. Meau has explored with him on occasion, but prefers to stay away.

I’d also imagine they like to race in very difficult conditions. High up in the atmosphere or just outside in the actual vacuum of space. Deep in the ocean, forcing them to make their own path through rock and stone. Which probably pisses off the weather trio invading all 3 of their areas, but that leads perfectly into the next one.

They love to piss off the other legendaries, because… well, what can they do?

There has been more then on tropical storm, tsunami, volcanic eruption, and general disaster caused by the Ancients pestering another powerful legend. Lastly, they sleep, if the current time is too boring, peaceful, or simply there is nothing to do that interests them… they’ll sleep for a couple thousand years.

As for more current day stuff, it’s much tamer since Bucket was taken, Meau woke up from a much needed thousands years nap to a very different world. Humans had well established themselves even further, technology exists, and they can clone/create pokemon. So she is staying in the tree with her suddenly growing family, just to watch. She wants to know what everything’s up too from a distance given they’ve somehow managed to trap and almost kill another mew, make a Mewtwo, and possibly a second one.

So she’s just always watching human society from the tree, whilst also teaching and nurturing Odysseus. He spends more of his time exploring the tree and occasional testing out powers. With Meau’s assistance. The trees massive and filled with Pokémon, so he’s got quite the endless bit of entertainment. Decamark is the newest edition and thus follows a lot of what Ody does! Though Noe has been poking them, figuratively, with a stick to figure out what he’s capable of.

[batsplat]

#this is all incredible cowardice btw obviously i've ranked all the aliens in my notes by basically every imaginable metric#from qualifying to starts to w2w to mixed conditions to wet weather prowess etc etc etc. like i do also do it i just don't stand by it

i would LOVE to hear your rankings if you are willing to share...

sign of faith I'm posting this. please feel free to send me counter-arguments and disagreements but keep it sensible. this is not supposed to be serious, I just enjoy treating athletes like pokemon and love doing a sports discourse, but I'm not making any judgement over how I'd rank these guys overall. also, I've already said how I think basically all of these things are impossible to judge given timeline + machinery differences. it's really not that serious, this is really just an excuse to make radar charts, aka the coolest things to exist

also, obviously these categories are extremely fake and made up. please make alternative suggestions!! the two ones that I would have liked to include but couldn't really figure out how to put numbers to are 'tyre management' and 'adaptability'. with tyre management... that's a broad category and the one where era differences + bike factors really punch you in the face. like, for instance if I were doing this for dovi (which I'm not), by any reasonable standard that's such a massive strength for him - but then how do you account for his 2020 decline being so much about a tyre switch? how about jorge, who was the tyre preservation bloke, mr metronome himself, and then went to ducati and spent like, 1.3 years just darting to the lead early and slowly dropping back? what about valentino, who was seen as the absolute master of riding well once the grip levels were fucked at the end of the race, but then he too eventually got caught out by successive michelin tyre changes when he was like 108 years old? if you look at a lot of these riders' competitive decline, you do end up tracing it back to like... michelin... *shakes fist* but no it literally is about them no longer being able to make the tyres work for them for xyz reason, like that's typically the nail in the coffin, if you will. but obviously it would also feel weird to penalise someone for successfully adapting to one generation of tyres after the next until eventually no longer managing to when they're about 249 years old, y'know? also, tyre management does feel like you need to differentiate more if you're tackling it - like for instance one of dani's big strengths is the lack of tyre wear, plus similarly you have jorge's super smooth riding. whereas with valentino, casey and marc, I'm not saying they're all murdering their tyres, but their real big strength where tyres are concerned is that once the tyres are shredded and the grip is completely fucked, they're still able to be silly good in that situation. like, check out valentino's catalunya record, tyre killer track extraordinaire - you really see how good he is with this stuff in 2004 when he's more on the limit and he looks less in control than he generally does (a bit more like those other two actually). with casey, literally nobody needs me to reiterate the bonkers levels of raw talent he has, it's also not a coincidence he's the only one who's actually managed to beat valentino in one of said 1 vs 1 catalunya battles, the dirt biking thing, the insane natural sensitivity he has to grip levels. ditto with marc (minus beating valentino at catalunya), there's a reason why he's the mixed conditions goat, check out what he's been able to do late in races this year. so, sure, I could try and put numbers on 'tyre management' but.... I'd really struggle to rank them, like this may shock you but managing tyres is kinda important and it does feel the equivalent to having a category asking how 'fast' they are. they're all very good at it!! if in different ways

adaptability... yeah, look, ideally I would like some metric that considers the manufacturer switches + ability to override a poor package. but first of all, there's an obvious sample size issue, and second of all it's just TOO context-dependent. like, yes, brownie points to valentino for the yamaha switch - but how do we compare his failure to adapt to the ducati vs casey? on the one hand, obviously completely different levels of success on that bike. on the other hand, valentino by time of this switch was over thirty and casey when he joined that team was like, a child, with not that much experience of motogp - more of a raw talent who could mould himself to the needs of the bike. also, if you use hayden's results as a rough baseline, you kinda have to say the ducati was worse in 2011, and then if you dig into the numbers you do probably go 'yeah casey would've done better but not THAT much better'? like, he would've won races, not titles. I don't have a number for that from 1-10 either. dani never switched manufacturer, the honda was eventually developed away from him but *squints at the other side of the garage* he was also the only alien who had to deal with a teammate actively attempting to make the bike less rideable for him. jorge's switch to ducati is a bit. well. obviously it's not actually great that his final standings in those years are broadly in line with valentino on,,,, a WAY worse ducati a few years earlier. he gets bailed out a little bit by the three race wins in 2018 lol, dovi does have a littleeeee bit of a point that this man was not signed to win three races. but! he did click with that bike! I'm not sure I entirely buy his line of 'oh I would have won the 2020 title on a ducati' because, with all love, it's a very jorge thing to say and I'm also a bit? well before 2020 if you'd told me that marc gets injured in the first race of the season and someone else is gonna win the title, and then held a gun to my head and told me to predict who was gonna win the title in his absence, I guess I would have gone 'dovi or MAYBE fabio'. ducati wasn't in a super happy place in 2020, the tyres were funky, that could have affected jorge too!! we don't know!! I think it's absolutely a plausible counterfactual but I also haven't seen a convincing case for why the things that caught out dovi wouldn't have caught out dovi too, like come on. anyway, marc gets brownie points for this ducati adaptation, casey gets brownie points for the honda adaptation. honestly, just vibes based I do kinda think of casey as like, the most adaptable rider ever. I maybe rate valentino a bit higher in terms of getting the bike to where he needs it, and also obviously being adaptable - he has the longevity and multiple major riding style changes going for him. also marc is insanely good, and he rode the unrideable honda to places where it should NOT be ridden. it's those three in a cluster, probablyyy casey first, followed by marc then valentino, and then the other two aliens

also quite frankly I'd like to have something to do with bike development, but that's so hard to judge from the outside? obviously, valentino does have a very clear claim to fame here, and the yamaha gig is still... well, that's got to be the biggest impact a rider has had on a manufacturer this century. the other contender is casey at ducati, but the thing is he did basically bag them a title by being the only bloke who could win there, then they got super complacent, bike got worse and he fucked off. now, I'm not saying casey hurt ducati's development because of course that would be silly and unfair, but there is obviously a good half decade between him leaving that project and anyone else being able to consistently do something useful with that piece of shit. (obviously valentino also did not manage to make much short-term change at ducati so maybe we should just be blaming ducati here, but equally obviously the rider who made the single biggest individual difference into making that thing rideable isn't any of these guys but is instead andrea dovizioso lol.) as outsiders, we really can't meaningfully know how much these guys are making a difference behind the scene, all we have are vibes and rumours and surface level results... like basically if I had to rank them I'd probably give valentino the nod just because the yamaha thing deserves a nod, then kinda? idk casey + dani clearly did make an insanely good bike at honda and they should get some of the credit for kinda rescuing honda from its post-2006 slump. I think maybe dani goes second, like I know some have said he's a less useful development rider because he's too short (part of why honda didn't use him as a test rider, as well as obviously *gestures* the puig thing) and thus harder to compare to other riders.... BUT there's pretty universal praise for his work at ktm, and casey's post-motogp stints I don't think you can really say the same. with jorge... idk it's tricky, I remember reading that the vibe from valentino's team in 2013 was kinda 'well this bike is still... the exact same as it was two years ago...?' but obviously those guys also aren't neutrals. and they weren't even saying that in a negative way, there's a bit of an element of if it ain't broke don't fix it given jorge had just won the 2012 title. plus, especially in their second stint as teammates, I get the sense they were always broadly on the same page in terms of feedback? and if anything, yamaha's current malaise can partly be traced back to them not listening to shit they were being told by JORGE (+ valentino at the same time) like this is years and years back... so yeah those three are all in a blob. then comes marc, which. okay sure, super talented so can ride around everything etc etc, he's not the main reason for why honda sucks now, etc etc. but I'm sorry, you do just get marked down on this category if you sabotage bike development to fuck with your teammate. like I respect it, love you for it, but you are getting marked down here. there is no way you can get around this

then there's even more nebulous categories like 'mentality' or 'mind games' or whatever, but how even are you gonna rate this. with perhaps the sole exception of dani, all these other guys have exhibited some spectacular instances of head loss over the courses of their career. but then again with dani, you're probably also not going to point to mentality make the difference as much in a positive sense - like it's good to be even-tempered, but the highs also aren't as high in that regard. you have stuff like mental resilience, ability to bounce back from tough results... and again. I don't know. I don't feel comfortable putting a number on some of these. like say we took casey, then surely I'd have to mark him down for what happened post laguna in 2008 (and yes, I know he wouldn't agree with me on this, yes, I know there are mitigating circumstances, but it is a bit glaring). but then you look at how he got through 2009 and actually eventually got himself to the place where he won another title. how marc bounced back after 2015. whatever tf valentino did after qatar 2004. the 2009 bounce back after le mans/mugello... the 2003 arc and all that. for all of them, various criticisms in the media, hate campaigns from fans etc etc. like idk I don't have a number from 1-10 here. plus, any metric kinda has to have a clear good pole and a clear bad pole if you're putting numbers on that, and with something like mind games you can go either way on whether you think they're good or not? basically, I think we should lock casey and valentino into a room and get them to discuss this. I will provide a piece of paper with talking points and only let them out when I feel like they've had it out to an adequate extent. they're all mentally strong, love them all, let's leave it at that

wow! yay! these are all metrics I didn't even include! aren't you glad you clicked on this read more! there's so much to come after this!

let's get to metrics I did actually include: qualifying, starts, reliability, flexibility, mixed, wet, overtaking ability, defensive ability, cunning, strategy/work process. again, there were a few where I was like.... should there be some kinda basic metric for 'underlying pace' or 'raw talent' (both of which you kinda gesture in the casey + marc direction) but I'm somebody who's very outcome-focused. when you're rating things, you should sometimes just focus on the shit you can actually see. 'talent' is fake, give me results. but this does mean that... obviously not all of these metrics are of equal importance. like, qualifying is more important than how you are in the wet!! and yes, again, there's a million caveats here in terms of era and different bike characteristics and all that shit. even 'effort levels' - valentino's starts generally got better when he moved to yamaha (they were truly abysmal before that), which you can maybe attribute to the yamaha bike being better off the line (not much evidence for this from other riders who made switches back-and-forth around the same time iirc), or you can also attribute it to valentino knowing he couldn't afford quite as much faffing about on a worse bike. again, there's so so many caveats here. also, I found marc and casey REALLY hard to judge because like? it's so much harder if you haven't been able to see them line up next to each other to figure out how they compare? sure, you can use general metrics, you can check how they compare against the same group of riders, but... yeah, idk, for a lot of these categories when I was figuring out who to give a 9 or 10 out of those two I did a sort of *shrug*. I think one of these two I probably did dirty but I'm not sure which one. maybe I did everyone dirty. or maybe they all suck

so. let's go through them

1. qualifying

stuff I considered: outright qualifying performance both in terms of number of poles and average grid position, strength of qualifying opposition, h2h comparisons, adaptability to changing conditions

okay, so, I started with the most basic measure possible and looked at the pole numbers in the premier class as a percentage of number of race starts (and I've even updated the numbers for marc, that's how thorough I am hehe) (I just realised there's a problem here actually for casey because he got pole in valencia 2009 but didn't start the race due to a crash in the warm-up lap, which... well I don't want to take his pole away from him but I'm assuming the race start wasn't included? look, who gives a shit, I've kept the pole)

I also ran these numbers again just by... trimming down the number of seasons and limiting it to the 'competitive' ones, aka one where the finished top five in the championship standings. I'm aware this is super arbitrary, but I'm also not sure if we're really gaining much from including jorge's 2019 or valentino's 2021 or marc's 2023, when for instance you don't have those kinds of dud seasons for casey (though his rookie season did get cut). like, this is just a rough way of not punishing longevity and injuries and bad vibes, who knows what casey's qualifying would have looked like at age 382

doesn't actually change the order, which is nice. still think it's a better reflection of their actual qualifying chops

let's get the obvious out of the way - if you are getting almost 50% pole positions in your competitive seasons, I don't care how good your bike is or the era or whatever else, you are obviously an obscenely good qualifier. like, marc's qualifying numbers make you want to bust out the 12/10's. those are silly numbers that honestly you don't really need to add much too - sure, we can also dive into his average grid positions etc but like. they're all super high. idk what to tell you. marc has the average highest grid position every single year 2013 to 2019, enough said. I think casey over the course of his career was on slightly worse bikes on average than prime!marc, and also he was facing aliens in their prime or late prime literally every year which... yeah, maybe you do want to make a bit of an adjustment for that. like, marc's closest competition on paper in 2017-19 was dovi, who is very much not a gifted qualifier. but marc also got THIRTEEN POLES in 2014!! I know the honda was the best bike on the grid, but not by that much, and dani's hardly a slouch! idk I feel pretty happy with just giving marc the top spot here and letting casey slot into second. like, at a certain point the numbers you're staring at just sort of bludgeon you in the face, and you also have visions of cota 2015 and brno 2019 playing around in your head in a loop

THAT BEING SAID. there is one major caveat we do have to address: in 2013, the entire qualifying system was changed to introduce these 15 minute time slots. this whole q1 and q2 business is a relatively recent invention. now, this is pure speculation, but I think this format would have suited casey 'mr friday' stoner very very well. one of his big strengths was always like, being fast immediately, getting used to what the track was like with zero adaptation process and just putting down a super fast lap at the first attempt. he would have done great here!! also, I think the numbers of some of his opponents might have taken a bit of a dip and... yeah, look, obviously I'm really just talking about valentino here, who hated the new format and never got on particularly well with it. (serious argument to be made that if they hadn't switched the system, he would've taken the 2015 title - like obviously you get into weird butterfly effect territory with that kind of thing but ceteris paribus that will have absolutely cost him more than five points over the course of a full season.) he got better for a while in 2016.... but anyway during the early bits of the alien era, valentino was often qualifying like, really well when you compare it to his mid reputation. and maybe casey would've been able to beat him more under that system. probably

still, overall. idk man. almost 50% pole positions in his prime. obscene. giving it to marc

jorge is a lonely third in this metric. I feel fine with that? like, he's clearly very good, he was very good in his prime, that's how he won the 2015 title (though he did actually have a slightly worse grid position than marc that season, but crucially a lot better than valentino), he's gotten a lot of poles... but also his relative lack of flexibility hurts him here too, like he's not doing a brno 2019 is he. jorge kinda needs everything to be just right to get out the metronome, and that's also reflected in qualifying - he's more likely to be caught out by something being a bit off than either marc or casey. super fast over one lap, clearly insane underlying pace, what can you say

it's on the other end of the spectrum that I ran into my biggest headache, because...? honestly, I was a little bit surprised at valentino having the slight edge in the percentages, either way you measure them. dani has a bit more of a qualifying-centred reputation, whereas with valentino it's a bit... well, people do think he's very good at everything, and if you're looking for flaws in his game then that's one of the big things that jumps out. also, I do reckon there's a fair bit of recency bias at play here - a lot of fans only remember post-prime valentino, where format change this format change that he had just lost his edge over a single lap. some of this is also natural age-based decline? it does seem to be a thing in motorsports that saturday performances can go off before sunday performances, so it is a bit of an issue if everyone's just going 'okay but he was seventh every single week' when he too has racked up some impressive numbers over the course of his career. which isn't just longevity! you don't just longevity your way into 55 pole positions. on the other hand, you look at his honda prime and given the bike he was on, you do kinda go 'okay but I feel like you could've done a bit better here'. like, what are you doing being tied with biaggi on the yamaha in terms of average grid position in 2002... come on. come on. again, there's a teensy bit of an effort question here - I'm not suggesting valentino fluffed his qualifying on purpose to make his sundays more interesting, but I do think he does... you know, just performs differently when he knows he needs to do so. he's getting five pole positions on that 2004 yamaha... like he's clearly not a slouch

I actually think the best way you can make the pro-valentino qualifying argument is probably just by looking at the years when pretty good versions of the aliens were competing against each other on pretty competitive bikes? which is 2007 to 2009 - of course, that's gonna look fairly kind to valentino because he won the titles for two out of three years, but it's a good way to check our priors here and see whether valentino could theoretically keep pace with his fellow aliens. here's the average grid positions:

valentino got seven poles in 2009. idk, best bike, casey missed a few races, but at least against jorge it's a direct h2h (giving jorge a pass for his rookie season, but jorge's not becoming a significantly better qualifier after his sophomore season). like clearly he's fast

and after saying all of that, I ranked him last after dani!! yeah, look. I think it's marginal to me, and maybe this is partly my own bias because I've always thought of dani as a very good qualifier and have ragged on valentino for being mid literal hundreds of times. maybe it's also being swayed by the young talent factor - did you know valentino is the only alien who did not get a pole in his rookie season? these are the youngest pole sitter rankings for the premier class:

yeah, idk. I don't love this argument for philosophical reasons... but also it's kinda fine, it was obviously more important in dani's game than it was in valentino's. the percentages are close enough you can make the argument either way, but what sways me more than anything else is the competitive spread argument. like, all of dani's poles came with one of casey or marc in the field. several of prime valentino's opponents were really good qualifiers, sete in particular did out-qualify valentino over the course of whole seasons, but I'm not gonna make the case they were casey/marc good qualifiers. that's the deciding factor, congrats dani

2. starts

stuff I considered: speed off the line, consistency in starting ability, likelihood of getting holeshot, ability to get to the front from second/third row, wow factor starts from lower down the field

I was debating whether to put dani or casey first here, and I think you can make the argument for either. like, it is very hard to match dani, but I do also remember those kinda... later years, where he was still pretty competitive and winning races and all that but wasn't a rocket off the line in the same way any more, and it was one of those 'is it him or the tyres or the honda' thing. the whole problem with casey is that he retired so early so it's kinda... I mean, he may have had any of these issues too, we just don't know! unfair comparison. but well, I can at least judge the two of them competing, including on equal machinery and... man, dani and the holeshot, name a better love story. silly good. what I think is also important is... sometimes dani gets judged a bit for lack of flexibility in terms of figuring out how to get overtakes done in particular, but I can sort of picture a highlight reel of dani shooting off the line and picking his way through the field to still get the holeshot? like when he was good at this, he was so good - this is a category where the peak sways me I reckon

casey and jorge I'm also fairly content ranking in that order. jorge had to become a better starter, and while he did get very good at it and had so so many races where he just led off the start and then disappeared... idk, in terms of blistering raw speed off the line I still think casey edges him out. jorge does get brownie points for some of his ducati starts, bit more muscling his way through the field before burning out his tyres and falling back. sorry jorge. but yeah nah I'm fine with this order, casey did have the occasional stinker but also I'm blaming that on the ducati.... also jorge automatically loses the tiebreaker just because I remember that COMICAL 2014 cota jump start. then we get to marc and valentino, in that order. starts were a real flaw in marc's game early in his time in the premier class, even in his super dominant 2014, and while it did get better... like, y'know, he was never awful at them, but it also generally speaking wasn't ever one of his big strengths. valentino was 'running gag level of bad' at starting, like basically in his prime wherever he qualified, he was reliably seventh after a few corners. again, this is probably also exaggerated a bit... but also, we're operating at a high level here, somebody has to be at the bottom of the pile, and you cannot make an argument for anyone other than valentino. nobody's saying he's maverick vinales-level bad, but he's clearly no dani pedrosa. as mentioned above, he did get better at his starts when he switched to yamaha, so some of that prime honda stuff was also just him faffing about, and post-prime he really did have some great starts to make up for his poor qualifying but. y'know. balance of the career

which brings us to.... okay, one thing we do obviously have to quickly mention is that both marc and valentino have made some of those 'wow what the fuck' starts from poor qualifying positions. like, I've been insulting valentino a lot in this bit of the post, but qatar 2004 remains some very cool shit. objectively. (I mean the start he made from the back of the grid, not him cursing to sete. obviously. I wouldn't do the other thing.) marc... yeah, look, we've all seen the starts he's been making from pee fifty million this year. the... le mans sprint start, I believe? is still comically cool. doesn't save their positions in this ranking because you don't get that many points for three good starts out of three thousand, but still. did slap. plus, it does showcase they're very good at the bits where you have to like, spot gaps and dart through them, and obviously neither of them have ever been opposed to bit of muscling their ways through the field. they are very good!! still more sluggish off the line than the other three

3. reliability

stuff I considered: conversion rate on executing achievable results, number of unforced errors (anything that isn't 'strategy' like tyre choice or flag to flag handling), crashes - in particular costly ones

gahhhhhh I HATE this metric. I kinda needed a 'how often are you gonna throw away races while leading them' thing, which, to be clear, none of these blokes have done an awful lot of. but it's kinda... look, are you actually converting your maximum achievable results? what's the crash rate looking like? how many unforced errors are you making? and then I started changing my mind several different times because unsurprisingly, I can think of a lot of plenty of errors for all of them that are kinda egregious. like, that's how racing works! also this is a way less 'clean' metric than the two before that, because inevitably you're kinda overlapping with a lot of different categories. like, take making errors in the wet - obviously, that's what you do when you're not a good wet weather racer, but you don't suddenly get a free pass on mistakes just because it's raining. is this a metric that you limit to 'competitive' seasons? inherently, I am biased towards thinking a mistake is 'worse' when there's a lot at stake, but arguably that's something that should be included in the more cerebral categories and all errors should be treated equally. which I don't!! I think it very much matters being reliable under pressure. my last issue was the overlap with the 'flexibility' category because it's kinda... there's one or two riders who have a bit of a tendency to have Perfect Weekends when everything's going well, and then have poorer rides when they're just not quite feeling it. which is mostly covered under flexibility, but surely some of this stuff does also make you unreliable!!

again, they do obviously all have their errors... I think I probably penalise riders a little more severely for crashing out of the lead, which yes, all of them have done. now, I might be missing something obvious, but I think valentino only ever did so twice? donington 2009, which was in the wet (not an excuse!! he did also finish fifth, which, fair play I suppose), and sepang 2018, where he was *gestures* very old. marc... my issue with marc is that obviously he's managed to match that this year but both of those did have mitigating circumstances? his 2019 cota crash I also think had... something else going on. of course you do also have his phillip island crashes, 2014 and 2016 (I've said it before and I've said it again, prime!marc's phillip island record is incredibly funny when you think about it). then 2014 he's also got aragon, which was more about a poor decision to not switch tyres but like, crash is a crash, and argentina 2017. which is like... you know, given how he rides and how many races he was leading, it's not terrible. also I think this is a bit more dubious with early season races because you don't know what might end up costing you, but none of these were particularly important in title fight terms (argentina 2017 could have been!) so. dani... well, he's got sachsenring 2008, which was kinda terrible because he was genuinely seven seconds in the lead, but also it's raining? idk crucially it did basically cost him any hope of fighting for the title, lost the championship lead and bagged himself a wrist injury (which, of course, is also just poor luck - we do not have a sturdiness category). laguna 2010 also isn't great, especially given it just helped jorge run away with the title even more. dani also crashed from the lead at indy 2009, plus brno 2011. jorge ALSO crashed out of the lead at donington 2009 (truly, one of those days), plus brno 2009 (not great at that point in the title fight!!), plus valencia 2012 (I mean, last race of the season, also kinda a weird one since he was lapping someone), plus qatar 2014, and misano 2017. casey crashes out of the lead at... well, back to back races post-laguna 2008, brno and misano, which admittedly apart from anything else isn't great optics. I think the only other time he does it is qatar 2010? which. yeah. not ideal

okay, look, this sample size is so small I don't think you gain much from doing percentages per competitive season or whatever. on the balance of the available evidence, you do have to say that valentino only binning it twice out of the lead is pretty impressive, given he raced for like. fifty million years. and won a lot of races, so by definition gave himself a lot of chances to crash. like, it'd be lovely to have a statistic for 'number of laps led', or even better a spreadsheet with all the numbers for when riders are in certain positions, and then also numbers for how many times they crash out of every position so we could do like. some proper maths on this shit. unfortunately we can't! and it'd still only give us an incomplete picture, because again you do have stuff like 'well marc has ridden some kinda evil bikes' and 'how do we assess wet races' and 'how much pressure were they under in each situation' to assess. I still like it as a rough indicator! I suppose I've been thinking about the concept of 'crashing out of the lead of motogp races' rather a lot these last few years... impossible to guess why that is

also, those aren't the only types of unforced errors to exist. like, marc's not crashing out of the lead in 2015, but *gestures* that season is unforced error central. I also put jorge's weird helmet visor shit in this category, because fundamentally part of reliability is about not putting yourself in a position where dumb shit happens to you. and that could have really cost him!! crash rates in general - again, I don't love just giving raw numbers here. there's some specific series of mistakes that really jump out at you... an obvious one is valencia 2006, and it's also in that weird cota 2019 category of 'right I think there may have been something funky going on with the equipment but also you are calling this an 'error' so I shall call it that'. fight me casey stoner, I guess. there's other late championship errors that are. not great. like jorge phillip island 2009 or dani phillip island 2012. with casey, it's a bit 'eh' because he never was still in a title fight particularly late in a season? like, again, the 'two out of the only three crashes out of the lead in your whole career happened at the height of the title fight in 2008' is one of those things that's always going to raise an eyebrow, and did essentially end the title fight before they even got to the late stage but... yeah, idk, we're lacking in casey's sample size here. you can also look at title decider performance for three of them, and while we can get into the ins and outs of what valentino/marc got up to - never mind all that, you have two absolutely flawless performances from jorge sitting right there

when it comes to crash rate in general, valentino's in quite a happy spot again? I mean, his record in his prime certainly is silly good: three crashes in his rookie season, two right at the start, which, vale gets a little bit of 'the 500cc's were evil' bonus.... after that! one crash in 2001, zero in 2002 (the dnf is mechanical), zero in 2003 (no race off the podium), two in 2004, one in 2005 (that one was a howler mind u), two in 2006 (one he got barrelled into at the first corner and remounted, the other was as best we know an unforced error - but the three dnf's are all mechanical), one in 2007 (two mechanical dnf's), one in 2008 (remounted and finished 11th), three in 2009 (I mean he crashed like fifty times in le mans, then in donington he crashed in the wet and finished fifth which... good salvage work, plus indy which was genuinely dumb as shit). like, again, if we're specifically considering each of the aliens' respective 'primes', that record's hard to argue with. but then again, am I going to penalise casey too much for all his race crashes in 2010, given that valentino can also attest to that bike being, well, shit? also, brownie points of some kind to marc specifically for 2019, given we know what a nightmare that honda was and he only dnf's the one time. also, his 2016!! it's less spectacular in a way but that's a season that's so much about reliability - like so many marc titles are won on the principle of 'show up, don't crash, don't slum it in p13 every other week, win some races'. jorge is mostly fine - I don't want to penalise him too much for his rookie season though I do a bit more 2009, and then post-yamaha it was all a bit. eh. dani's issue is that he didn't crash that much but I swear every time he did, it felt super costly for some reason or another? which is also just bad luck, but

again, there's some stretches you do kinda maybe give a little bit of added weight. for casey, you do kinda have to mention 2012: he was tied on points with jorge leading into sachsenring, was clearly way too much on the edge fighting with dani, really should have settled for second and… binned it. right before the end. I get he's a 'I look at wins and the championships will follow naturally' type guy, but that inherently means he's gonna get a knock in this category. and then he had a mess of a mugello race right after, just multiple unforced errors and almost barrelled over poor bautista and… idk, we don't really talk about it much any more because he injured himself at indy and was definitively taken out of the title fight - but I still reckon the honda was probably on balance the strongest bike that year, and it was kinda his own errors that cost him there. for marc, nobody on this planet needs me to relitigate 2015, but yeah, 2015

also, yes, you can sort of bring in the ugly years for all of them minus casey (who had a very ugly rookie season but we'll give it a pass, and apart from that his ugliest season was 2010 - he didn't stick around long enough for comparable experiences to the others)... jorge skittling the field at catalunya 2019, quite a few dani misadventures... we can talk about valentino's ducati stint and that wet weather collision with casey that prompted the 'ambition outweighed talent' thing, we can talk about marc's silverstone 2021 barrelling into jorge or that aragon 2022 first lap or... whatever the fuck he was doing at portimao last year. clearly, when those two specifically know they're not in the title hunt, when they've been frustrated and annoyed and are hungry for success, their decision-making skills can take a serious hit, but also... okay, look, I'm not saying that injuring other riders like marc in particular did suddenly becomes okay when you're not fighting for a title, but a) clearly they were both riding bikes that were very easy to crash (I mean, again, look at casey's early 2010 crash rate), and b) for better or for worse, they're not doing that shit if they know they're fighting for a title (isolated and glaring cases of head loss for the pair of them set aside). listen, I'm deciding the rules, set aside the whole morality thing - I just care more about mistakes when they have bigger competitive ramifications

so. I do think valentino has to go first in this category and yes, we can get into the whole 'well the yamaha is very rideable thing' but also he did help make it that way so. y'know. at a certain point you just have to look at the headline numbers. he didn't crash a lot, he showed up, he generally maximised the results he could get. there's like, two or three major stains in his record, but then you also think about how he was saving his title bids with sachsenring 2016 type deals where he was working his way to the win from tenth and holding off three ferocious hondas right at the end... like, given how risky a lot of his riding inherently was, you have to say the unforced error count is low. see also laguna 2008 or motegi 2010 type shit, like not making mistakes when deliberately roughing up opponents isn't, y'know, the most morally 'good' way to approach racing but. still. he was constantly putting himself in risky race positions by dint of being such an ass qualifier/starter and his numbers are still like that. I rest my case. and, okay, I'm gonna be a wee bit controversial here and put mr crasquez in second. I don't know, maybe I'm just rewarding 'flexibility' here too and just being swayed too much by how consistently there he was in his prime but, I don't care. part of it is also the valentino situation of 'wow it really feels like you should be crashing more' (in races, I don't feel in general marc should be crashing more funnily enough), and it's also just the 2016 thing. also the 2019 thing. I get the argument with 2015, and I don't think any version of noughties valentino would have a season like that, but *shrugs* he also didn't have a valencia 2006-equivalent so whatever (I mean. he flirted with it in 2017 and that was a pretty poor performance, but crucially I'm an outcome-oriented person and he didn't actually bin it so)

then comes jorge - given his profile as a rider I don't think it reflects great on him that he has crashed out of the lead, including in costly ways, quite a few times. also, unfortunately you don't get a sophomore season freebie when we're comparing aliens, and 2009 did have some real. issues. (so did valentino's to be clear, definitely his messiest title campaign.) also, look, I think calling his ducati seasons not competitive is arguable - because unlike the valentino and marc seasons where you can at least say 'well nobody else on that bike was outperforming them', this is not something you can point to with jorge. his strongest trait is dominating from the front! he's supposed to be mr hammer and butter, he's getting a knock for the unforced errors, yeah. he gets a valencia bonus though. then comes dani - this one also feels quite harsh, and again I think it's slightly punishing lack of flexibility, but it's the really costly errors that stick out and also just... relatively more races than some of his fellow aliens where he's not reliably bringing any result home because he's not in the position he should be running in. and then comes casey, which, small sample size counts against him here. if you have that few seasons to draw from, unfortunately the whole laguna 2008 situation and 2012 sachsenring/mugello stuff do stand out

wow. this got long. I really don't like this category

4. flexibility

stuff I considered: not literal flexibility, more in terms of 'can you be good everywhere'. like, we're looking at the broad profile of a season - I want you to be good both at qatar and at sachsenring, right? have they won/gotten decent results relative to how good the bike/opposition is basically everywhere, do they just feel a bit limited at times, what were they doing at new tracks, etc, can they figure shit out over the course of the weekend

again, there's some serious overlap here with both the reliability category and also the wet/mixed conditions categories, but idk. still treating it on its own. again, there's two fairly straightforward tiers here - you've got valentino, casey and marc, and then jorge and dani. I'm not like, super attached to any particular order here? casey has the distinction that he's won at every single race he's competed at, which none of the others do, but that's also what will happen if you retire at age 27. if vale and marc had retired at that age... okay, yeah, valentino would've been missing laguna, marc would be missing austria (which he still is, actually), but also idk. valentino's laguna record is like, one third place, two visits where his bike is just 'no thank you' and then one of the best races of all time. marc got as close as it is possible to win that bloody race in austria on three separate occasions. also, casey completed the set in 2012 with... well, first of all he needed jerez, which...? who the hell has jerez as their bogey track? he'd literally had one podium there in his entire career before that point, all classes, which is kinda funny. plus, he also needed estoril - and he was really proud to finish the set, helped make his decision to retire. real take, maybe his issue with jerez is that everyone else knew it too well, like ideally he needs everyone (including himself) to be blasted with a mind ray to give them amnesia before they go to each track so he can take full advantage

anyway, look, the point is that all three of them can show up anywhere and broadly expect to be competitive in their primes. they go about this in different ways... casey had this nasty habit of just rocking up on a friday morning and being fast the second he touched the bike, valentino made more of a leisurely crawl towards 'ah well we'll figure it out at 4 am on sunday morning' (marc did a bit of both) - but broadly speaking they did generally get there more often than not. this is reflected in the very strong records they all have when they show up at tracks for the first time, and it's something marc explicitly pointed to last year in india when explaining why him, fabio and joan as the three most recent former world champions were suddenly so competitive there (in contrast to the rest of the season, where they were *checks notes* not having a great time). I don't think it's really just a raw talent thing per se, and especially with valentino he clearly did also have a very good working process (more on that in a moment), but yeah! however they did it, they sure did do it! the gaps in marc's and valentino's resumes, I do also not feel too strongly about... valentino's missing aragon, introduced in 2010, but like. he was fine there, he just wasn't winning that many races anyway after that, and it inherently didn't suit him too well. cota... well, y'know, he had one shot of winning that, won't really hold any of his 2019 performances against him. that also wasn't a particularly strong yamaha track, and again it's not like he was uncompetitive there. he just wasn't like. marc marquez levels competitive. marc has a few like austria, but that was such ducati heartlands and he really did get very close a million times, and stuff like portimao, which, well, only showed up post arm injury, he's still got time

I don't know, with all three of them it's also just so easy to pinpoint special performances at their weakest tracks, it moves me. I actually need to check the order in which I put them, which tells you how close they are in my mind. uh... okay I gave casey full marks, then marc, then valentino. yeah, idk, I guess sometimes my casey problem is that my brain just automatically extrapolates from the bits we got to see and assume he would've adapted to everything to come forevermore. but look, he really was that good!! actually the tiebreaker to me is how in his second ever motogp race he'd been ill, his flight had been delayed, he shows up at the qatar circuit like fifteen minutes before practise starts, and he ends up popping his satellite honda on pole. not knocking marc's cota pole obviously, but he'd already tested there, and we did later find out he is like, a literal deity at that circuit (casey is good at qatar but not that good). idk. that's where I'm at. I'm not actually sure why I'm ranking valentino third, maybe it's just a sort of 'begrudgingly amused annoyance' at how he won his least favourite circuit on the calendar only twice, and both were these massive spite wins (valencia 2003, 2004). like, I get that sports psychology does matter, but I also don't want to have to make an 'effort and mean-spiritedness' adjustment to all your results? obviously it's also super telling his one laguna win came in 2008, like we get it you're a hater, let's move on

oh I was about to move on but I do have to cover the other two. hm. well, look, their 2012 was super impressive and shows they can clearly be fast pretty much everywhere, but... yeah, idk, I don't want to penalise them for what the alien era was like, but maybe a little bit? like yeah they did it at a time when the bike difference was at the most egregious, and I GET that it happens to coincide with their primes, but that is not going to be the only season I look at!! sorry!! the thing about those two was if they weren't clicking with a track, you kinda didn't really expect them to pull a rabbit out of the hat come race day (even casey had a nasty habit of doing that, and acknowledged in his autobiography how extremely helpful it was to psychologically sucker rivals into thinking he wasn't going to be a huge threat). I look at jorge's sepang record, his argentina record, his assen record (and yes, I'm aware of the massive trauma he was dealt by his 2013 crash, that's absolutely a factor in the years after that), even phillip island... I know he won the latter two once in the premier class, but yeah. don't love it!! stinker after stinker at argentina, and that one in particular does raise an eyebrow because, y'know, always a bit of a quirky track with all the various grip issue dramas over the years. 2014-16 when they're teammates again, valentino gets three podiums there (including a win) and jorge just the one, so it's also not just a bike issue. with dani it's quite easy... qatar was a crappy honda track yeah, still not ideal results there, phillip island just too many riders who were better than him there, poor at assen, quite poor at catalunya too? apart from 2008, which it has to be said was a proper class performance. (admittedly who knows what valentino could've done there if he'd considered maybe not fucking his qualifying.) idk, several of these classic high speed tracks... okay, look, I'm not going to spend too much time ragging on their circuit to circuit records here, you get the point,it should be fairly clear that they both struggled more than the other three to tackle adversity weekend by weekend. and a lot of the times when they started a weekend poorly that was basically that

5. mixed conditions

stuff I considered: ... how good they are in mixed conditions. did they crash a lot in them, were they extra super special fast, did they get better when things were sketch, did they adjust quickly to these conditions, how did they manage race situations impacted by changing conditions

okay, look, again the lack of direct comparison does hurt me here, but yeah I was never going to put anyone other than marc first here. I was also never going to put anyone other than casey second, and anyone other than valentino third. all three of them are excellent here, even if it's a different vibe for each. liked, not quite the same thing, but obviously they're all great in low grip anyway, very nice with all the sliding the bike around (especially the first two). marc's got the whole insane saves things going for him even when he does make a misjudgement. there's that ability to just instantly know how to judge and adapt to whatever condition the track is in... well, it's neat! we'll get to this again in a second with wet weather racing, but I still think valentino's a bit more in the... hm. idk. he's obviously GOT a lot of natural feel, he couldn't do what he does otherwise, but he's clearly also big on kinda following other riders around and figuring it out as he goes? like it feels a teensy bit more conscious, like a deliberate thinking process rather than primarily using instinct. but yeah, I mean, you really don't have to get super complicated about that, it's literally been years and years of watching marc gain literal seconds on the field whenever the conditions are a bit sketchy. brno 2019 qualifying. no need to say more. (but if you did want to say more, I do have a misano 2015 to offer u. also like sachsenring 2016?? assen 2014! genuinely so many you could point to with him.) (actually.... I mean, I suppose we do also have to mention argentina 2018, where he was about a minute a lap faster than the rest of the field.) with casey, again, super easy, you've got a phillip island and valencia 2011 there - his last lap of valencia!! one of the best last laps of his career!! that shit was crazy!! mugello 2009!! I get that there's Reasons why valentino played that one cautiously *coughs* le mans fiasco *coughs* but still, casey was the guy who broke the valentino supremacy!! speaking. of. mugello. you want to know another mixed conditions race that happened there... that's right, last few laps of mugello 2004, like they're so fucking good. valentino's last ever race win comes in increasingly kinda sketch conditions in assen 2017, where he is also fighting marc. like, look, I'm not gonna list every single race performance in sketch conditions, and of course they did also have some stinkers... this is a vibes category, sometimes it's truly just about looking at some lap times and going 'oof you guys really are something special here'. but also clear order here, marc is just *gestures* something else yeah

anyway. okay listen at this point I don't REALLY want to rag on the other two, especially since I'll get to it more with wet races. they're just not quite at the same level! I'm not saying they're terrible, but y'know, you can just check their track records and draw your own conclusions. if jorge had lost that 2015 title, misano absolutely would have been top of everyone's list as a big, big factor in that. I've already mentioned argentina, and again it kinda is telling what their records there look like. phillip island. it's just... y'know. it's whatever. with dani, similar story, but shout out to motegi 2015. banger performance, super impressive. jorge also has a few good f2f's. but yeah, we can list every single performance where they were massively outperformed by those other three or we could. not

6. wet

stuff I considered: well. their records when races were wet. did they bin it, how did they perform against their teammates, what can we say about performance variation over time, how understandable were their errors, what was their approach like to them

similar tiers, slightly different order - casey, then vale, then marc. but again, it's super close, and I don't feel as happy with the order here as above. I just have this highlight reel in my head of casey's wet weather performances, donington 2007 and silverstone 2011 are both crazy good in different ways. yes, he didn't win every single race in the wet he competed in, but who does? and yes, his sample size is a teensy bit limited, and yes, he did lose that one le mans 2012 battle against ducati!valentino, which, who does that, but like... listen. when he was on it, he was so on it. on the flip side, and I realise this is again unfair given the sample size issues, I just don't have all these memories of watching casey crash in the wet as I do for each of the other aliens. even his poorer performances like donington 2009... y'know, there was a good explanation there. (indy 2008 is one that I'm quite meh about admittedly.) but like!! overall it just is NOT a lot of races in the wet - I feel the sample size issues with other things more strongly, but here he also just compares positively to other aliens in their primes and it's not as much a w2w thing. just something about him in the wet that I trust..? I feel like sachsenring 2008 is another one that also kinda shows he had a good feel for how much he could push. like, dani disappeared off into the distance, and casey did kinda go. huh. well idk about that but good luck. and then won the race by a mile when dani crashed out. I don't know! given that's not always a trait I massively associate with casey, I do think he was generally pretty sensible in the wet. also... yeah, given it's inherently not that many races you're judging, I do think inevitably this is something where my brain really is pulling together two or three signature performances and judging those. and with casey, I just think those performances slap

that being said. ranking him above valentino here could(?) be controversial, and I did struggle a teensy bit with this one. like, mixed conditions can be a bit dodgy and also, we'll get to this in a moment but valentino's flag to flag record *stares into the middle distance* BUT when it's full wet!! oh yeah. right. let's fucking go. the tiny caveats I have here in my mind are a) he did make some memorable mistakes in those conditions (as casey can attest to), but again, so has pretty much everyone, and b) the wet weather performances after 2015 were kinda dodgy. but that's like.... that is just fundamentally a yamaha problem once the series switched to the michelins, like I don't really see the argument for saying that was a valentino decline? it's become a pretty persistent issue, and even then valentino was generally putting his bike in a hell of a lot more impressive places than his respective teammates (hey, you still have pretty nifty performances even in that era - look at brno 2016). let's set all that aside, and focus on all the other bits: the banger performances. the donington 2005's and silverstone 2015's of this world. let's talk donington, actually, because... idk, I think there's something very valentino in the wet about that race specifically, because for a lot of the race it really doesn't look that great? he wobbles a lot, some very cool marc-y saves but preferably you don't want to HAVE to marc-y save stuff, gets to the lead and loses it and gets back again. like, okay, obviously the conditions are genuinely just atrocious, but crucially he's not just FAST!! it's not just dominant! it's him watching and learning and feeling his way into the race, until eventually he's learned enough and can pull away. obviously, it's always worth remembering there's a shit ton of natural talent here too, cf colin edwards talking about seeing his data and just going 'what tf do you mean he's locking up in every single corner' (I paraphrase), but it's... yeah, he's doing a lot of this with his brain. which I do think is a big part of wet weather racing!! like a lot of it is figuring out how much risk you should be taking at any given moment, what's possible in the moment, how much you can trust what you're feeling etc etc

but yeah, shanghai that year is a dominant one... silverstone 2015 is like, so impressive you have to say, crazy pressure from marc behind him until marc eventually crashed and then late pressure from petrucci. like that race saved his title bid and it could've easily gone wrong. also, one of my favourite things about valentino as a wet weather racer is not just that he used to be bad of it, but he used to be scared of riding in the rain. he didn't want to go out there!! teen!vale told his team boss he didn't want to race in that shit!! it's about the journey... first premier class win in... is that a wet or mixed conditions race? never mind, crucially donington 2000 he is working his way through the field on a track that is very much not try. and somewhere along the line, he did just become a proper excellent wet weather racer, even if he never was a massive fan. indy 2008 is another banger, like basically I reckon he's at his very best in conditions nobody should ever even contemplate racing in? see also what he did in his ducati years. I'm also inherently biased towards people getting better at stuff, so maybe that's part of the picture for me. anyway, with marc I don't massively have much to add to what I already said in the mixed conditions bit? I basically think he's excellent but he doesn't have the same margin over the field when it's full wet rather than 'kinda sketch'. he does also have the misfortune of running into some of the best wet weather races out there during his prime, first valentino and then dovi - who, if I were including him in this exercise, would absolutely be in the conversation for top spot alongside vale/casey. but like, just because he doesn't win them doesn't mean motegi and sepang 2017 aren't very strong, in terms of maximising what was possible on that day. speaking of 2017, misano!!!! he's good at the decision making stuff too, good at maximising his performance when he's not winning races. 2016 is a title bid that is built on a lot of kinda sketch races, most of which marc doesn't win - but he won the championship and that's the bit that matters. and in ducati!valentino style, of course those have also been the situations in which marc's had the chance to be more competitive in the horror honda years.... motegi last year is the obvious example. he's very very good, does chuck it down the road a few times too but that's life

so the thing about jorge and wet weather is that he's like, pretty poor in the lower categories, and the general 2006-07 pattern was that dovi was keeping himself competitive in those title fights in large part through starring performances in wet races while jorge flops. then there's a period in the premier class where he's actually kinda fine? does chuck it a few times, but also really some strong performances in there. jerez 2011, le mans 2012... anyway, if we're talking about assen becoming a real bogey track in jorge's later years, it's probably also worth mentioning that the assen 2013 highside came in the wet and is around the time there was a real downturn in his wet weather performances. he was still competitive in a few wet weather races! but he also... really wasn't in many. at times he was just slow - if he'd lost the 2015 title, people would still be talking about silverstone more, which you have to say he was very lucky to limit the points damage in (and he did come within a whisker of being crashed out on like, three separate instances, which can happen if you're running in a pack in the wet). then, of course, you have 2016 where his title charge completely fell apart in the wet.... as already said with valentino, the yamaha in those years clearly wasn't quite right in the wet, but valentino was still putting together stronger performances. then in 2017 jorge still has that decent sepang race where he challenges dovi for the win, but yeah... that's basically it. it's unfair when people portray him as a poor wet weather racer his whole career, but obviously. y'know. not on the level of the three above. dani...... look, I'm gonna keep this short: I get that his literal size and weight are a massive disadvantage here, but of course there's no way you can't rank him last in this category. he won one wet premier class race in his whole career, there's a lot of big crashes to point to (sachsenring 2008 again is particularly memorable) and also just him being very slow. sepang 2012 was cool though

7. overtaking ability

stuff I considered: race craft, efficiency in overtaking, direct duels, dogfights, comeback rides, creativity, .... being cool

right. look. I'm willing to hear the arguments for the others, but to me it's just got to be valentino here. like, yes, I get it - if you're constantly putting yourself in seventh at the end of every single first lap, you will just be doing a lot of overtakes. if your entire approach to winning races is built around sitting behind other riders for half the race and just vibing, then yes, of course you'll be doing a lot of memorable overtakes for the win. maybe you shouldn't have been in that position in the first place. I hear the case! I acknowledge it! but he was just so damn good at those overtakes! he knew where to place his bike, he knew where to attack, he was so good at making that shit stick, he's usually not being massively aggressive to the point of recklessness when he doesn't need to be... what's the drawback. again, maybe this is being swayed by the highlight reel rather than measuring 'pure' skill, but my god is it a highlight reel. remember how in assen 2018 he just. overtakes other riders ten times at the gt chicane? rinse and repeat, he just knew how to get past people. that's a bit of dominance in a certain track just in terms of sheer race craft that's like, a bit obscene really. there's a reason he's got three overtakes that are still iconic and infamous alike, mix of brutality of jerez 2005 and ruthlessness of laguna 2008 and determination of catalunya 2009. he knew how to judge risks, usually he walked that line very very finely - which is how he was seen as an aggressive rider but also didn't crash a lot - but boy did he know how to send it like the best of him. so you've got the range, right, something as practised as assen 2018 gt chicane, but also the creativity of something like catalunya 2009, of trying a move where others just wouldn't. also, like, FORgET the corkscrew move at laguna 2008, let's talk about that move around the outside of turn 3 ffs. and he was so good at working his way through the field!! I mean, he had to be given what an abysmal qualifier he was at times in the latter half of his career, but like his 2015 title campaign would've been impossible without that kinda qatar and argentina vibe. the man was always tussling, but he sure did do it well. idk, what's the counter argument here.... he's crashed like. at most half a dozen times. while attempting overtakes. idk I'm unmoved, sachsenring 2007 isn't enough to ruin everything else here. 'valentino rossi is good at overtakes', more as we get it

marc. marc. the thing about marc, right, is that sometimes he does stray to the wrong line of the 'aggression or just stupid' divide, but... given his baseline level of aggression, you have to say he mostly did a good job of not pushing it too far. he's extremely adept at working his way through fields... and it really is important he's willing to go for it. like there are riders who just won't! he's very see gap go for gap, as he's happy to remind everyone, and that makes him a very fearsome proposition. I'm not like... I love it for narrative reasons, but to me personally jerez 2013 does push it a teensy bit, and there's been a few too many race craft howlers for my tastes in the last few years. he's just too good to be doing shit like portimao last year. that being said, when he's keeping things sensible, the race craft is obviously elite. incredible bike placement, also just such an innate ability to thrive in those kinda chaotic situations at starts of races, in the middle of dogfights he navigates that stuff so so good..... I don't LOVE rating marc/valentino over the other three aliens on grounds of like 'hard racing' because you then get to tricky philosophical waters, but actually I'm perfectly happy to rate them above the other three for just being very good at this shit. for my money, my favourite overtake of his is still last lap on petrucci in misano 2017, like idk the sheer nerve and daring and skill in the wet!! I moved!! I also had a heart attack but never mind that!! misano 2019 ughhh my beloveddddd... okay admittedly he has a few too many of these epic duels tm he loses which we'll get back to in a moment, but that doesn't erase all the cool moves he makes on the way to moving. also obviously got to mention these comeback rides he's been having - and this kind of thing is also super important in starts!! just very very adept at all this race craft stuff, though a few too many of his overtakes don't stick for my tastes

now. the thing is. casey did most of his racing in an era that, as we have repeatedly established, was kinda ass. also, it's obviously worth pointing out that casey really wasn't trying to win his races in a way that involved a lot of overtaking. and his attitude towards racing did have the potential to hinder him in fights, because he was perhaps maybe possibly at times a teensy bit too concerned with keeping things respectful when certain other riders were willing to push him off a cliff if it could secure them pee four. that being said. limited sample size aside. when I close my eyes, I can see casey overtaking jorge around the outside of turn one at laguna 2011, and it is still the most bonkers downright terrifying thing I've seen in my life, but it is also very very very cool. that's right, he's ranked third because that move is so cool. it's just... he's always going on about risk and danger and all that and racing valentino at laguna was scary etc etc, which, yes, I do have a lot of empathy there, but my brother you are overtaking him around a blind crest. like you literally can't see where you're going. everybody finds turn one at laguna terrifying, it's seen as scarier as the corkscrew. and that's where you overtake him. and it's not an isolated occurrence - some of the laguna 2008 moves on valentino?? dude. it very much takes two to tango, we're talking some scary turn one moves and sketch turn three and turn five encounters like.... like!! phew. plus, valencia 2011 last lap

also, listen, at the end of the day, the reason why I'm putting casey over jorge here is very simple - direct record against valentino. one of them actually won extended battles against him, the other didn't. yes, jorge ran valentino close, but y'know. you don't get extra points for 'close', do you. catalunya 2009, sachsenring 2009, motegi 2010... casey actually beat valentino, he did it at catalunya 2007 and sachsenring 2010, qatar 2007... that sachsenring 2010 last lap move truly slaps!! idc if valentino had just come back from the broken leg, still slaps! now, yes, we do need to point out that jorge has done some great overtaking in his time, and he's also won quite a few close duels against marc specifically - but, well, marc didn't race casey, can't compare it. still, jorge is good wheel-to-wheel generally speaking, the risk assessment is mostly pretty good though sometimes he can be a bit... idk, clumsier on average than the three above him? anyway, still better than dani, who unfortunately did sometimes fall into the category of me going 'PLEASE overtake the guy come on move.... MOVE'. generally a lot of overtakes only happening when there's a massive tyre advantage which is like. it's fine. but it's not quite the same thing. but jerez 2010 brno 2012 for them respectively overall were obviously cool. basically my main thing for this one is that, we're not rating duels here, we're rating overtaking ability. and on the one hand I have the highlight reel in my head and the craft and skill of it all, and on the other hand I have like. if you get stuck in the pack. do I expect you to stay there or do something. and generally it's really marc and valentino where I'm expecting some moving

8. defensive ability

stuff I considered: also race craft, just general quality of defensive rides idk, how much I trust you to keep guys with better pace behind you

yeah valentino again here I fear. this is another factor where I'm really just seeing the highlight reel in my head, just so many class defensive rides (even though usually he'd PREFER to be coming from behind than holding others off). last few laps of sachsenring 2006 are like, gorgeous, what a crazy girl. laguna 2008. assen 2015. some of the late braking in catalunya 2009, like I already have talked about it elsewhere and jorge has spoken about how vale sets up his bike to brake 10m later than everyone else, but. has to be said. he really did gag me with that catalunya 2009 turn one behaviour. phewwwww some of his mugello main straight antics..... he TESTED those brakes. his last podium ride in andalusia 2020... still had it what can you say. also, thing is, there's not really many failures you can point to? his two biggest last lap defeats, he was behind going into them - like yeah still sucked he lost (especially sachsenring 2003 where you CAN kinda argue it was a fuck up in his defence) (jerez 2005 SHOULD have been a major fuck up but he won it so) but overall... oh also sepang 2006 last lap. I mean, I could go on - he's good at picking his lines and being a dickhead and just placing his bike right and also muscling his way around the track... some of his dubious motegi 2010 antics even though he's flirting with the line. also excellent at re-overtaking after being overtaken. straightforward case

so I've switched this twice and then realised I was overthinking this and next it's obviously marc. idk I think you can overthink this and marc does have a few Actual Sketch defensive rides (argentina 2015, silverstone 2019) but also his wheel to wheel record is so strong you've got to let him slot in here. like, again, the decision making isn't always ideal, he sometimes pushes it a bit too far, but the fundamental race craft can be faulted and he does do a lot of really excellent defensive riding, brutal on the brakes and all that. again, this really does jump out during the dogfights, plus also stuff like thailand 2019. he's very good at it!! a nightmare to get past, because he is also NOT just gonna give up the position! then we get into classic casey 'god this sample size is ass' stuff where I think I give him a lot of benefit of the doubt given just the lack of races where he was like... running similar paces to other guys... awful era. but clearly did have some excellent rides where defence played a huge role, catalunya 2007 was really good... assen 2007 he kept valentino behind quite a long time, few races like that where casey really does keep him behind for quite long. phillip island 2009 is a bit tricky because it felt valentino never had the ultimate pace to overtake but, well, casey started ahead, had valentino sitting on his rear tyre for a decent chunk of the race, finished ahead, so points for that. again, just a real sample size issue here but, y'know

jorge.... listen, he definitely can defend. he has done some very, very strong defensive rides. one of the strongest and most important ones of his career was at a little known race called valencia 2015 even if marc maybe wasn't as motivated to overtake jorge as he would have been some other days I'M KIDDING. it's good. lot of good stuff going on. that being said.... man, it's such low hanging fruit, but you have to talk about how jorge was robbed at the final corner first in catalunya 2009 and jerez 2013. now, look, of course people can lose races in final corners, but in both those cases you do have to say... dude. you could have defended that line. in both cases everyone does kinda go... mate. mate. you have to assume those two bastards will go for it. idk obviously this is selection bias because both instances were just so memorable, but inevitably this is the stuff you are judged on. don't do it!! omg! also, with all love to valentino's slightly deranged levels of aggression while both attacking and defending against jorge in motegi 2010, this is another one where you do kinda feel.... yeah, it's not easy when you know the other guy is kinda willing to crash you both out rather than let you win (valentino!! your shoulder!! valentino!!!!) and yeah you kinda still have a championship to think about... still. (that being said, I'm not giving valentino TOO many motegi 2010 points in either category - yes, it worked, yes, it was funny, but was it 'good riding'? eh.) do we give him points off for the sepang 2017 error that let dovi ahead... I suppose he defended very well against dovi at valencia that year lol. but actually, same thing with 2015, I'm not sure you really get many points for defending at valencia? anyway, I feel like the way this is ordered, I'm unfortunately constantly justifying ranking the same blokes last, so again, let's keep this quick. dani: fantastic work at aragon 2015. truly elite performance. wish you had done a little more of that. way too many estoril's and shanghai's and motegi's 2008. but aragon 2015 was lovely

9. cunning

stuff I considered: 'race management', how you navigate different race situations, battle smarts

hm, yeah, another bit of a catch all category like reliability was - just that general sense of... y'know, how good are you at figuring out races. working them out in your head, being smart about when to push and when not to push. decision making skills, how you are at analysing your opponents, at studying their strengths and weaknesses. at the mental side of the on-track game, at intimidation and stealth. cunning. anyway absolutely zero prizes for guessing who slots into number one and two here. all of the things I just described are very closely associated with valentino, and this is basically his category. I'm thinking what he did to sete specifically. I'm thinking how he completely switched it up against casey at laguna 2008. I'm thinking how he did that last corner overtake on casey catalunya 2007, saved it away, then did it for the win against jorge at catalunya 2009 after visualising it the week before that. it's that bloody assen 2015 chicane trick on marc - idc if that was planned or not (all right, I deeply deeply care), but either way what a clever way of stealing a win. it's the success rate in last lap duels... and then, of course, there's all the more general stuff - we've already discussed tyre preservation above, generally speaking prime valentino was excellent at controlling races across very different eras

marc clocks in second - prime marc was again just. ridiculously good at controlling races, especially in the tyre preservation era post 2015. knows when to push, knows when to not... I will yap on forever about how neat I find his 2016 campaign, by far the most cruelly overlooked of his titles just because he didn't 'win' a lot of 'races'. who cares about that, check out the consistency!! elite at race management!! marc does have a brain and he can choose to engage it, and he does prove as much on the track - he's good at a lot of risk/reward judgements, and he'd better be because otherwise with his riding style it'd be far more of a trail of carnage than it already is at times. the head loss to riding style trade off actually isn't too bad with him, relatively speaking. he's been doing some very strong race management this year, if at times from un-ideal starting positions - again, le mans main race says hi. plus, the dogfights man... not the actual fighting bit, the tyre preservation bit. unless you want to get into conspiracy theory territory, which surely nobody would want to, let's just assume that in phillip island 2015 he hadn't actually been planning to just find a bunch of extra tyre on the last lap - but phillip island 2017 and assen 2018 he times it perfectly. that being said. okay. it just has to be acknowledged. marc. we need to work on making more of these overtakes stick. yes, I've made the arguments myself, he tends to be in duels he has no right to be engaged in in the first place, he's on the limit at some of his poorer tracks, it's impressive and intimidating he's there in the first place... and I do believe all of those things! but the thing is when you tell everyone you go for every gap, and then riders are deliberately leaving you a gap knowing you will go for it, and then they get back at you, and then they do it literally seven times in one race... marc, come on. I'm on my knees. I was literally on my knees during aragon 2021. he does this against valentino, against dovi, against pecco, man even against jorge once or twice, and it does drive you a little insane sometimes. too much red mist!! too much red mist. stop being suckered into making the move marc I am so very much on my knees

with the other three, I've already kinda discussed what I'd mention here elsewhere. like, casey... idk it's a tough one because I don't think it's harsh to judge him on a tiny sample size, but if you've engaged in like. ten extended duels in the premier class and you've crashed in two of them, then unfortunately it does make me raise an eyebrow more than if you've crashed out of two from fifty, right? he does get a bit red mist-y, not just when he's punching people in practise sessions, but also like. occasionally in races. he's red mist-y in laguna '08, sachsenring '12, mugello '12... I don't think he's even mad necessarily (well, obviously he is in laguna), just kinda very dog with a bone. (biggest valentino in-race anger-affected errors of judgement are ofc qatar 2004 + sepang 2015, btw. marc I'm not gonna give the obvious and instead throw in a cute jerez 2024 sprint, like dude please stop attempting to murder joan enough.) he's decent at race management in general, though idk my issue with some of these alien wins is that, I get it's unfair, but I'm just not really that impressed with 'managing' a gap of six seconds? like congrats on being fast and not chucking it I guess. jerez 2012 + estoril 2012 are really neat in that regard though, he's proud of them for good reason. also, again, could've easily lost a few valentino fights that he didn't. with jorge... yeah, he's excellent at race management!! also a smart tussler, got those silverstone 2013 and mugello 2016 and austria 2018 wins to go too. think I do slightly hold some of the dovi losses over the course of his career against him lol. I mean, losing to dovi in direct fights does very much happen to the best of them, and this is another category in which dovi would obviously be in contention for top spot. both jorge and dani are very very strong at race managing, in particular when they're at the front, and they're capable of outsmarting opponents... again for dani, aragon + motegi 2015 do stick in the mind. valencia 2017 was suchhhh a good win too, so much going on in that race and he was smart enough to emerge on top. look, the tyre preservation thing was very good for all three of them, they could all manage races, they all had a few rough ones w2w, also you can make casey mad and spook dani. you can make jorge mad too actually

10. strategy + work process

stuff I considered: tendency to get it 'right' with team, from set up to tyre choice to improvement over the course of the weekend. also flag to flag races

easy marc win, and a big part of it really is just how that bloke fucking nailed flag to flag races. like, jesus christ, he had the cheat code to those things. how do you just make right call after right call, truly obscene. if I'm some random midfield rider, I'm telling my team to make me copy whatever he's doing like idc. also, okay, a lot of weekends he started strong, but the ones where he didn't? he ended the weekend fast. like, he's good on fridays, he's excellent on saturdays, but there really were plenty of weekends where his sundays were the strongest of them all. found a bunch of extra pace down the back of the couch overnight. 2016-19 was obviously super big on the tyre preservation and yup, got truly elite at that too - sure, some of that is just raw skill, but some of that is also prep work and knowing what you need to be doing at what stage of the race. valentino clocks in second here, and a lot of these things are broadly true of him too, especially the finding pace overnight thing. most infamous example is of course laguna 2008 - yeah, sure, tactics are great and all, but he needed to make a step to even stick close enough to casey to fuck with him. a lot of his race weekends went like that! the blot in his copybook is... dude. what the fuck is wrong with your flag to flag strategies. like it genuinely is not your inability to ride in those situations because you're clearly fine at THAT bit, but what's going on with the communication and decision-making thing here. it's also sometimes THE most obvious shit??? not to be all armchair expert here but scotty beam me in, send me back to 2006 EYE will fix valentino's f2f. it's so bad!! I don't get how bad it is!! with marc, the biggest blot is phillip island 2013 - which, I don't care he was 20 years old, I get it was his rookie season, but it could have easily cost him the title and it's such a truly abysmal fuck up that it still makes me shake my head to think about. genuinely inexcusable lol, the backstory of the whole thing is also so incredibly stupid. marc's not the main issue here, but this entire component is kinda rated by your entire team so. I mean, look, he's still on top

after that, I'm not massively fussed about the order - though again with casey I do think it's notable he was also pretty strong at the 'finding pace overnight' trick. he was kinda.... you know, he was already so strong on friday, which WAS an advantage but he discusses in his autobiography that it almost made it tricky to know where to go from there lol. but they still figured it out!! just good at figuring out ways to win. jorge did play some proper blinders f2f which I'm giving him brownie points for, some... less ideal decisions. I'm sorry, I'm also gonna dock him a few points for some of the ducati races where he was leading early on burning through his tyres and then dropping back. I think that can happen once, or maybe even twice, but like. too often, eventually u need to maybe change up the strategy and figure out what can work now. dani generally speaking was not doing that, and yeah, a few very strong 'yup you got the approach to tyre preservation exactly right' contenders, but also really did not do well in flag to flag races... tricky one because yeah with him and jorge, they were a bit less likely to find the pace overnight (casey did kinda allude to this in his autobiography lol)

graphs :)

okay. lemme show my video game-y radar charts <3

valentino:

dani:

casey:

jorge:

marc:

and combined, because well if you've read this far I might as well not play coy here:

anyway. look

I don't. love. what I've done to jorge specifically. and there's one massive jorge strong point that I could not figure out how to rank for everyone else, but feel very very strongly he is very very good at: some kind of clutch factor. this is KINDA captured by the reliability metric, but I don't quite think that one's enough... I don't think this specifically shines when he's on the heat of battle, but it does shine when he's late in a season when he needs to maximise those results to keep his title bid in good health. the glaring exception is phillip island 2009, but, well, valentino has a valencia 2006, marc has a... I know it didn't cost him but valencia 2017 was not a good performance. but! apart from that, if you look at jorge's track record from then on late in seasons when it's his own title bid (also excluding 2017 here) on the line... proper good shit. that late 2012 stretch where dani was on a different planet and jorge kept showing up to bag second place. I know I was ragging on 2015 earlier on and I'm not like, massively moved by most of that jorge season, and I still fundamentally think that if you're leading the last lap of phillip island by as much as he was, I don't care if it's literally jesus of nazareth on that motorcycle chasing after you - you should be making it a little bit harder for the guy behind. that being said, sepang was a+ given he really didn't have that much pace (lil bit of luck at the start and then those two bozos behind him did kinda help his cause, but still he did his job), and valencia was straight up excellent. I know he didn't win the title, but late 2013 was probably like. his career best stretch. the valencia 2013 performance is genuinely one of his best races. that's clutch!! that's what he's all about!! he can bring home a title!!

that being said. I had no clue how to compare that to the other four riders, not least because casey literally has not been in a close title fight with a few races to go. just wanted to say it! I also don't think all these categories are equal - like I think I said at the top, being a wet weather rider is nice but it is fundamentally not as important as being a strong qualifier. I just don't love these categories in general? I was trying to think of a way of splitting up qualifying into two different categories, couldn't think of one, tried to think of something for tyre preservation beyond inelegantly including it in strategy, didn't think of anything. easier to come up with this stuff with tennis, and obviously also easier to just like. judge pure performance because you don't have all these extraneous categories. also I kinda think these riders are basically equal on some of these categories, but also if you're doing a ranking then ranking something as equal best is chicken shit

I think generally it's good to have your radar chart arranged in an order where it's not too spiky (listen if you're still reading this post, that's really on you), so that there's a kinda correlation between the bits that are next to each other. broadly most of them do do this in a sort of 'huh dani pedrosa would have benefited from the sprint race format over the course of a full season' way. they're all not too spiky... I kept running into the sample size issue with casey, where it's just like... look, he had a fantastic career, but also in the premier class a lot of the 2007 to 2012 races were very same-y and you kinda need that variety to judge. so a lot of the times with him I'm kinda going off vibes? like I think he's good at certain things, I reckon he'd probably struggle with xyz if he'd had more of a chance to do it, and extrapolate from that. which obviously isn't a great way of doing these things. basically, I massively rate him, I think valentino had the slight edge against him in wheel to wheel but the fact that it was 'slight' given that's valentino's number one selling point tells you enough, and I wish we could have put him into more varied race and championship standings situations to see what he does. like, the overtaking ability ranking clearly is in large part that laguna 2011 overtake just sort of killing my brain

anyway from this it feels like I think marc is the most well-rounded rider, which I probably stand by? the more I dig into valentino's actual qualifying numbers, the more I do feel like I'm maybe being a bit harsh, like yeah age-based decline we get it but during his prime... also, maybe I'm a bit too mean about the starts... but yeah, idk, they're definitely bigger flaws you can point to with valentino's game than any equivalent for marc. also genuinely do think the flag to flag thing was abysmal, I refuse to believe that's not something that wasn't fixable. I still think marc's wheel to wheel is the bit where around silverstone 2019 I was kinda going 'okay love this for you but do you maybe want to WIN one of these' (and then he immediately made baby!fabio miserable). like, again, super cool he's dragging that honda into places it doesn't belong, still need to work on that conversion rate. also, there was a bit of a 'how to fight marc' playbook by then and it's the equivalent of tying a red flag to the side of the motorbike and practically inviting him to have a go. worked a bit too often! that's like, gonna be one of the most interesting aspects of the pecco/marc rivalry because if I did this for PECCO then he would genuinely be in contender for top spot for the defensive riding category (best three defensive riders this century are him, dovi and valentino in no particular order, I really do believe this). that being said, obviously the qualifying thing is bonkers, yeah, as is anything with sketch grip. my laguna 2011 equivalent for marc is that brno 2019 quali lap. mostly I think of a hypothetical casey/marc rivalry more as like. how it would psychologically torture casey. but obviously in terms of the sport itself it would've been very cool to see them face off with that kind of thing

with jorge, again, I don't feel like these specific metrics really capture what made him so good. there's no way to phrase 'unbeatable on his day' as both like, a workable metric and also something that doesn't sound kinda patronising. 'situational dominance', idk. I also wouldn't know how you'd rank the aliens for that, except valentino would be last. my main thing with jorge is always kinda getting annoyed whenever he goes missing, something I suspect would be punished more in today's motogp - but also in 2010 and 2012 specifically, that did happen very rarely. with dani, it was always the wheel to wheel stuff that was just kinda. meh. he's another one who isn't super well served by these categories, like if there's a 'technically very clean' or 'picks very nice lines' category, he'd be on top? idk man. send in alternative suggestions or shout abuse at me for not being kind enough to your favourite alien. in conclusion, I think they're cool. I'm sorry for insulting all of them a lot

[solei-eclipse]

wait . would solauri have a better chance as working out more romantically in the modern au . ?

( i would say maybe since the age gap isn’t so big and auri isn’t a total sociopathic freak . . if you think so too, id love to hear any silly little headcanons lol . )

( no im not doing this because im stressed about round 1 and really don’t want cirrus or azure to die what are you talking about haha ahaha . . ( sobs quietly in nonexistent corner with face in hands ) )

SOCIOPATHIC FREAK 😭 go easy on her now

I think it would definitely work out better than in the ALNSTverse for the reasons you mentioned but also because solei wouldn't be as stressed and people don't have to fight for their goddamn lives anymore!!!

Some thoughts!!!

Solei's first ever interaction with Auri in the park would be about pokemon. I'm so sorry. They're a loser who loves animals and biology and life so naturally. Pokemon nerd. When little Auri was in the park little Solei came up to them and showed her their pokemon cards. When they walked her home they gave Auri one of their cards: a Seel! (Also I take back what I said about them being 2 or 3 during their first meeting. I realize I was barely able to form any cohesive thought at that age so. I imagine they'd be 4 or 5 instead like what you originally suggested!)

Solei would knock on Auri's door everyday and ask Cas or Nyx if she could come out and play. Since Solei knows where she lives from when they walked together that day.

I'd imagine there weren't many people in the neighbourhood yet by the time Solei moved in (since you suggested the idea that Solei was one of the first). Since there weren't any other kids their age to play with, they stuck to each other pretty fast.

From the point on it was like glue!! Once Solei was old enough to ride a bike they'd visit Auri's every morning to head to school together (sorry I keep mixing the ALNST highschool AU together with the modern au but like. They would go to school right? Correct me if I'm wrong)

I hc they have a lot of matching clothes (matching sweaters, socks, shirts, etc)

Auri was a good star student but Solei was just around average, maybe even dropping below that at certain points. Maybe Auri would tutor them sometimes? (Ivan moment lol)

Auri likes to mess with Solei's hair and put it in ties and clips and stuff (based on one of your very first solauri doodles)! She's pretty good at it, but sometimes she'll do Lei's hair up really weird and stupid if she's feeling cheeky. Solei always keeps that hairstyle for the rest of the day no matter how stupid it looks.

Solei likes to woodcarve things for Auri all the time. It's kind of shitty and blocky and unrecognizable at first though so I don't know if Auri would keep it lol

Physical touch!! Auri likes physical touch, Lei is warm and loves warmth so they're happy with it! If they lie on the floor and Auri drapes herself on them horizontally (they'd be making a plus sign shape basically) then Solei would use their hands to play drums on her back. You know like. patpatpatpatpatpatpat. complete with cymbal sound effect. Because they're a loser.

Auri dresses in nice clothes most of the time (I think, usually in rock's sketches she's wearing pretty dresses) and in contrast to that Solei's fashion sense is just. Pajamas. Not joking they'd literally show up to places in their pajamas. Easygoing but at what cost.

When they do decide to change into something more appropriate, it still carries the vibe of pajamas. They like loose and comfortable clothing, stuff like big sweaters with wide open collars and soft baggy pants. Even their school uniform carries this carefree vibe since they forego the blazer and just wear the white button-up (that isn't even completely buttoned. Imagine till's school uniform with the orange undershirt, that's basically Solei). I'd imagine Aurien would be more clean and put together? Though maybe Solei would encourage her to loosen up and do whatever makes her comfortable.

Solei is (suprisingly) popular? They have a lot of friends at school. Definitely the type to say "okay I'm going now bye guys!" and then spend another 10 minutes yapping with others. Very "mom can we go home now" vibes from Aurien during this time.

If Aurien was feeling upset about something, Solei would take her someplace quiet and encourage her to tell them about it. They'd always make sure to carry something nice in their pocket to suprise her afterward, like candy or another wood carving or a flower they found.

Auri does her homework on her room desk and when she turns around to look at her bed solei has materialized out of nowhere to sleep on it. you know. instead of doing homework

When they're older, Solei would work at a zoo/animal shelter and would text Auri pictures of animals that reminded them of her

They would probably also have each other as profile pictures

I do apologize for this fact, I know it's an excruciating and annoying character trope, but solei is in fact a dense bastard. I'm so sorry. they'd have no idea. stay strong auri

[jaydenix]

Why Mirta is my favourite Winx Club character

I mean, the aesthetic helps. I like redheads and goths, which she is both of, also she has that black sleeveless top which seems to keep popping in my "literally me" characters (Susie from Deltarune, Dipper from Gravity Falls, and Hilda from Pokemon B&W)

So what do I see in Mirta?... Idk I like her ig, what? I don't have to have super well-thought opinions every time, she's just cool! And you know it!

But I guess a little extra analysis wouldn't hurt would it:

So as we all know, Winx Club's witches aren't the best. The show takes a very simplistic view that fairies are innately good, and witches are innately evil. This essentialist view has been critiqued extensively overtime and for good reason: it's a major missed opportunity to have such a narrow idea of what fairies and witches are, and also is just not very original. Witches and witchcraft in media have been portrayed extensively as just simply evil with no real explanation. Winx Club could have chosen to have taken a more interesting and original interpretation, but true to the shows mission statement of being brutally average, it doesn't. I've got some of my own ideas of how they could've handled this and I'll probably share those in a future post. But sufficed to say: Winx Club's witches are definitely a disappointment (for a more comprehensive look at witches, see Unicorn of War's video on YouTube about the subject).

But then we have Mirta, the one good witch supposedly. Bar the Trix, the ancestral witches, and maybe Griffin she's probably the most important witch in the show at least earlier on. The fact that she's actually different by being good invites intrigue to her character, she actually believes in something which is really quite cool and a nice standout amongst the rest. The Trix clearly are the mean girls in Cloud Tower with other witches wanting to be like them or to be friends with them. Lucy, Mirta's best friend, is in this camp and is disillusioned with her looks and supposed status and seeks to remedy this by trying to be more like the Trix. Mirta on the other hand doesn't follow this dogma and tries to convince Lucy to stay clear of them. This is great, though as I've said it would've been nice if the show portrayed witches more broadly as being a bit less black and white. Her assistance to the Winxes was cool too informing them of the Trix' plans and actions. Wow! Isn't that so awesome! She was shaping up to be an interesting and well-developed and fleshed out side character and then they remembered it was season 1 and that's illegal so they turn her into a pumpkin so they can forget about her. Why? Because fuck you! That's why! Though seriously, I don't mind in theory she was turned into a pumpkin but like really? She could've been a really fun part of the equation throughout the latter parts of season 1 as like the Winxes' witch counterpart. ALSO, when they bring her back to Alfea in pumpkin form, did they not think to like, ask Faragonda to turn her back? The Trix did the spell pre-dragonflame I highly doubt it's anything Faragonda or at the very least Griffin couldn't handle which I'd imagine they'd probably want to inform her of what'd happen considering she's one of her students?! Man if I was Mirta I'd be PISSED off. #JusticeForMirta. Eventually she's freed from her pumpkinhood and once season 1 concludes she decides to become a fairy and transfers to Alfea. Like with becoming a pumpkin: I don't hate that she does this on principle, but I do think it says a lot about how the show writes its witches that the one they make out to be good-natured ends up choosing to become a fairy. Like the view of fairies and witches is THAT rigid.

Though I also do think it's a fun transgender analogy, the idea of being able to transition from witch to fairy and vice versa. The 4Kids dub takes this idea much more seriously with Mirta being described as "transmagic" and Darcy also states "she claims to be fairy who just so be happened to be born in the wrong body", this appears to be a very intentional parallel to the "born in the wrong body" idea that is often used to explain what being trans feels like*, and this was back in 2007 for crying out loud. Additionally Mirta and Lucy are probably the closest thing the main show has to a queer couple, obviously not canon by any means, but they have a very strong bond and are shown to dance together at the end of season 2 (or was it 3 I forgot). Mirta therefore arguably has the most going for her out of any character when it comes to Queer representation.

*Just to be clear, I know plenty of trans people dislike and discredit the "born in the wrong body" narrative, I'm just pointing it out because it does seem this is what the scriptwriters were aiming for.

I like Mirta a lot because of what she could have been. I really think she's an awesome character who had a lot of potential to be fleshed out way more and serve a more involved role in her allyship with the Winxes in season 1 and beyond. It would've been so cool and she deserved way better. I imagine many would be wondering if I think she should've been part of the Winx as she's probably the second most commonly proposed member besides Roxy to be one, and the answer to that is fairly definitive no. Six to me has always felt like a natural limit for these kinds of groups, any more and it starts to be a bit much, which is why I'm glad Roxy didn't become a proper part of the group when season 5 came around (though she still deserved more than what she got). Simply adding Mirta the Winx would ignore the problem that she doesn't get fleshed out enough as a character. Maybe it could've worked in some alternate timeline but she could've been a useful asset to the Winx and the show as a whole whilst not necessarily being a member.

So that's why I like Mirta, she's a fun character who I will defend that she should've gotten more until the day I die. This gay little goth redhead has been my favourite for a long time and I don't see that changing any time soon. Keep stanning Mirta people.

P.S: I really didn't expect this post to get this long LOL I genuinely was gonna post just the "idk I like her" bit and then move on but I was like "ehh, I'll write a little bit" and then I spent 2 hours writing way this whole thing it's 3am I need spiritual assistance okay BYE.

[theguardianace]

you should make pokémon teams for prsk characters if you haven’t already! like, what would you imagine for rui’s team?

i think about this every day of my life.

LEO/NEED-

Most of Leo/need's partners are simply companions- Ichika and Shiho know a bit of battling, and Honami has been gettng better at it, but they're really just in it for the friends! Saki does love watching Pokemon Contests though (especially her brother's :)) Also lore wise I think they have encountered Jirachi before. (It fits so well... starry wishes...)

Ichika- she inhereted the family Maractus after taking such good care of it as a kid. Maractus loves to dance along while Ichi is practicing rhythm guitar! Almost like a spiky metronome haha. I can also see her with a Furrett, but I don't have a reasoning other than vibes.

Saki- her partner all through childhood is a yellow Minior! A fragile yet beautiful star glowing through the night :) Minior doesn't battle but it is a good friend!!!! I also think Saki would really like Pancham for some reason. All of her pokemon have nicknames, and now all of Leo/need's do to.

Honami- I don't know what to tell you Appletun was literally made for this girl. It follows her around to her housekeeping jobs and helps make really sweet apple dishes! There was also a Grookey she encountered often in elementary school but never had the courage to catch. The pair reunited a bit after the formation of Leo/need, and officially became part of the team! Grookey quickly evolved into Rillaboom (she really likes playing drums with Hona). Honami's mother has a Blissey, who sometimes goes with Honami to housekeeping jobs as well! (Blissey really likes Kanade)

Shiho- her first Pokemon was a Toxel that she absolutely adores. Toxel evolved into a Low-Key Toxtricity around middle school! People are a bit intimidated by him, but it's mostly just a front. Toxicity is a very protective Pokemon and the strongest battler in Leo/need. She also has a Bunneary that is very near and dear to her. Pampered little princess. Nobody at school knows Bunneary exists. She also takes care of the family Kantonian Vulpix, the little sister of Shizuku's Alolan one!

MORE MORE JUMP

Pokemon Performers! Probably more of the Kalosian variety than Hoenn/Sinnoh, focused on the true performance of it over any sort of battling. Similar to the main story, in which Haruka, Airi, and Shizuku are all popular but disillusioned celebrities who meet Minori, a hopeful fan who dreams of being an idol, too. They reignite their dreams through the Power of Friendship.

Minori- her first partner was an Eevee! The two of them would watch Haruka's performances and try and replicate them constantly. Eevee doesn't ever want to evolve and Minori completely supports that. Just because Eevee is a normal type first evolution doesn't mean it can't pack a punch! She also has a very very energetic Yamper. It's more of a family pet than a true partner pokemon, but she loves it just the same! I also think Minori would have a Tatsugiri but I cannot figure out lore reasoning why. I think she just would.

Haruka- Haruka is SOOOO Prinplup coded like I do not know what else to say. Piplup was her starter that she absolutely ADORED. Thinks it's the cutest thing ever. Prinplup was there for her during her lowest moments and has always been a responsible, guiding light. Haruka has since also caught an Eiscue.

Airi- Personally, I choose to believe allergies do not exist in the Pokemon world because it would be heartbreaking to not be able to pet all of them (all of them). Also so Airi can have a Skitty!!! Skitty is a spunky thing that has great performance chemistry with Airi! They were popular on variety shows since Skitty is so dang cute. Ever since joining MMJ, Airi has been working with Skitty on learning to battle (for real, not scripted like the past).

Shizuku- Her family had an Alolan Vulpix that became her partner at a young age. The agency made her evolve it into a Ninetales "to better fit her image", even though Ninetales wasn't quite ready to do so. Still, Ninetales is really happy to be around Shizuku and often helps make sure she doesn't get lost. Shizuku loves pokemon a whole ton, but was only allowed to have one partner with her old group. After becoming part of MMJ, she catches a Slowpoke because she thinks its really cute. (Airi finds this fitting.) She's also caught a Feebas that evolved into Milotic!

VIVID BAD SQUAD

VBS are all battle trainers! Singing is still all their main passion, but hey! Why not have some pokemon battles there too? Vivid Street has a huge music and battle culture because of it. Since a lot of VBS's story centers on partnership, they each only have one main partner pokemon, but still work best within a team setting. They often do double battles!

Kohane- MORPEKO. SHE IS MORPEKO. innocent yet menacing hampster creatures.... there is nothing else more to say here. It is correct. (Count Pearl is her dad's Ekans who Kohane loves very much and everyone else is terrified by, btw)

An- she would do well with a Luxio! An would absolutely be an electric type trainer, and Luxio just seems like a good fit :) She grew up with Shinx, a gift from her father, and he evolved into a Luxio sometime around middle school? Luxio's the type to get An out of her own head when she starts feeling insecure about her own abilities. Also An puts little star clips on him during performances.

Akito- he chose Scorbunny as his starter, and the two loved playing soccer together! Scorbunny really loves being on the stage, even if it wasn't the best performer at first. Scorbunny has always stuck by Akito's side, no matter what. Scorbunny evolved into Raboot a bit before VBS formed, but after meeting Toya. It then evolved into Cinderace during the (equivalent) events of Burn my Soul!

Toya- he was raised alongside a supportive yet quiet Riolu. Since the Riolu line is able to read emotion, Riolu was often the one to realize Toya's own feelings before he could. Riolu, with Tsukasa's help, was the one to push Toya to leave classical music behind. Since meeting Akito, Riolu has evolved into a formidable Lucario. (It's a secret, but Souma has been trying to track down a Lucarionite for him...)

WONDERLANDS X SHOWTIME

Wondershow are all Pokemon Performers! Tsukasa started because he saw how much they made Saki smile (even though he could never get past the appeals round, he kept trying). Emu loves the energy, and since her family sponsored most competitions, she could compete often! Her style is very. wonderhoy. Nene wanted to be a performer, but after an embarrassing mistake in her childhood, gave up on that dream. Rui was banned from most competitions for "too dangerous of combinations" so often performed on streets (this doesn't go well). The four end up banding together to perform as a unit!

Tsukasa- It's a bit of an unconventional take, but- Ampharos! Tsukasa has always been a guiding light to those around him, so why not the Light Pokemon herself? Ampharos is equally confident and dramatic as her partner. They make a good team. Despite all his pegasus-ness, he does not actually have a Ponyta or Rapidash. He does like them a lot, though.

Emu- she sooooo has a Tinkaton. Small pink thing massive hammer complete life satisfaction. I'm also giving her a Stufful because I love Bewear and I love Emu, and because pink thing that is a menace.

Nene- her starter pokemon was a Popplio! Popplio is a lot more outgoing than Nene and tries his best to get Nene more comfortable in social situations. Popplio evolved into Brionne a bit before the fated show, but after her and Rui drifted apart. Brionne then evolved into Primarina after the Little Mermaid show. Instead of Robonene, Rui had created Magearna for Nene. Magearna acts as Nene's own personal protector, which she finds very sweet. She tries not to think about the implications of Rui creating an actual living pokemon in his garage for her.

Rui- his partner has always been a Rotom- a mischievous little thing! Rotom helps out with Rui's inventions, and is a great help for shows. It was really just them two for a very long time- though Rui absolutely adores everything there is about Pokemon, he doesn't really think any wild pokemon would really want to be his partner (other than Rotom). Rui does end up befreinding and eventually catching the lonely Gengar haunting the Wonder Stage. (Emu adores Gengar btw). He's also taken a liking to the back alley Sprigatito...

NIGHTCORD AT 25:00

Nightcord is still just Nightcord here! Mafuyu is still expected by her mother to be a human doctor, but deep down she really wants to be a Pokemon nurse, even if she doesn't quite realize it herself. K is still a musician with pokemon to support her, Ena is still a struggling artist who now has a partner by her side, and Mizuki is still Mizuki! They don't perform or battle.

Kanade- She has an Audino that helps take care of her! Audino is incredibly patient and makes sure Kanade is eating and resting (decently) enough, and sometimes helps compose or inspire melodies. I also think her mother had a Shaymin, who she inherited upon her passing.

Mafuyu- Mafuyu didn't have a pokemon partner growing up ("too much of a distraction from your studies!", "pokemon battling isn't a real profession, it's much better for you to be a doctor", the likes). However, since meeting n25, she's secretly gained a Galarian Cursola, a Froslass, a Trevenant, and a Hisuian Zoroark. She is an absolutely terrifying battle opponent. (Later on, Kanade gives her a Happiny egg from Honami's Blissey, totally not sparking some sort of nurse-aspiring reaciton...)

Ena- SMEARGLE. NORMAL TYPE ARTIST POKEMON. Smeargle definitely paints right alongside Ena! Smeargle is super sassy and an absolute pain to deal with. They get along quite well. Having each other inspires the other to keep painting, keep going, keep getting better. They respect each other a great deal.

Mizuki- their first Pokemon was an Eevee, a gift from Yuuki! They loved brushing it's fur and making it all soft and fluffy. Eevee chose to evolve into a Sylveon during Mizuki's second year of middle school. Around their first year of middle school, Mizuki encountered a male Raltz, who later evolved into a Kirlia. Everyone expects Kirlia to evolve into a Gallade one day, but he secretly dreams of becoming a Gardevoir. One day....

VIRTUAL SINGERS

because why not. this is already insanely long i can make it longer. (project voltage my love....)

Miku- Pikachu on account of the mascot, Arceus on account of the versatility and legendary status, and Porygon on account of the computer!

Len and Rin- Plusle Minun! I've drawn this.

Luka- Honestly, I can so see her with a Togekiss. She has such fairy type trainer vibes.

MEIKO- Houndoom! Specifically one that mega evolves.

KAITO- Vanilluxe. easy choice.

[cheapsweets]

The Mellivorous Olkorwae

My response to this week’s BestiaryPosting challenge, from @maniculum

Pencil sketch, then lines in Pentel brush pen. It has been a very busy week, and I am very tired, but happy I'm still able to get something out before the deadline.

Thought process under the cut…

"It is said that they produce a shapeless fetus and that a piece of flesh is born. The mother forms the parts of the body by licking it. The shapelessness of the child is the result of its premature birth. It is born only thirty days after conception, and as a result of this rapid fertility it is born unformed. The Olkorwae’s head is not strong; its greatest strength lies in its arms and loins; for this reason Olkorwaes sometimes stand upright."

Okay, I'm 90% sure I know what this creature is meant to be, but we'll. We know that this beast has powerful forelimbs, good core strength, is able to stand upright but seems like this is not its default position, and nothing massively special/strong with its head/jaws. With that in mind, I'm imagining a greature with longer forelimbs than hindlimbs; more powerful forelimbs this way, plus a lower center of gravity making rearing up and walking bipedally more viable.

We also have some interesting info about baby Olkorwaes, which is repeated further on, so that's where I'll deal with those thoughts...

"Olkorwaes do not neglect the business of healing themselves. If they are afflicted by a mortal blow and injured by wounds, they know how to heal themselves. They expose their sores to the herb called mullein — flomus, the Greeks call it — and are healed by its touch alone. When sick, the Olkorwae eats ants. The Olkorwaes of Numidia stand out from other Olkorwaes by virtue of the shagginess of their hair."

No time for going down weird rabbit holes researching random herbs this week unfortunately. However, assume that these Olkorwaes are from Numidia (Algeria, Tunisia and Libya) from the shagginess of their coats. Also, hairy = beaʃt.

"Olkorwaes are bred in the same way, wherever they come from. They do not mate like other quadrupeds but embrace each other when they copulate, just like the couplings of humans. Winter arouses their desire. The males respect the pregnant females, and honour them by leaving them alone; although they may share the same lair at the time of birth, they lie separated by a trench."

Figured I'd represent a scene of a pair of Olkorwaes in their den, complete with trench being dug! We have some wide, powerful paws on its forelimbs, along with some impressive claws, all the better for digging with!

"Among Olkorwaes the time of gestation is accelerated. Indeed, the thirtieth day sees the womb free of the child. As a result of this rapid fertility, the babies are created without form. The females produce tiny lumps of flesh, white in colour, with no eyes. These they shape gradually, holding them meanwhile to their breasts so that the babies are warmed by the constant embrace and draw out the spirit of life. During this time Olkorwaes eat no food at all in the first fortnight; the males fall so deeply asleep that they cannot be aroused even if they are wounded, and the females, after they have given birth, hide for three months. Soon after, when they emerge into the open, they are so unused to the light that you would think they had been blinded."

So, the babies are born small and almost shapeless. I think it's obvious to all what this creatue is; a marsupial!

Imagine that the mother Olkorwae has a pouch - it's just not visible due to how she is curled up around her babies!

I did a little looking into extinct australian megafauna, and came across the Thylacoleo, or marsupial lion, which was a pretty good match for what I was going for, so I ended up taking a lot of inspiration from this, as well as a little from other extinct beasties such as Procoptodon.

I was a little tempted to draw the babies as Dittos (the pokemon) but no eyes when they are born!

"They attack beehives and try hard to get honeycombs. There is nothing they seize more eagerly than honey. If they eat the fruit of the mandrake they die. But they prevent the misfortune from turning into disaster and eat ants to regain their health. If they attack bulls, they know the parts to threaten the most, and will not go for any part except the horns or nose: the nose, because the the pain is sharper in the more tender place."

There would have been some cool stuff to represent here, but alas, neither the time or energy for anything too fancy this week - I look forward to seeing what others do with this description!

[snarkylinda]

Sad bitch though of the day: whenever he graduated, was Spencer always alone?

We know he graduated HS at 12 years old, in Las Vegas, so Diana might had been able to go. And that is a huge might, because by this point her state was bad enough to not notice her son wasn't in the house all day in a bad day (Elephant's Memory backstory)

Now his first PDh was on California, when he was around 14- no mention of any College friend, and hell there is the little "she lived there for size months and didn't made any friends? Though that only happened to me." Joke that yeah- anyways I doubt his mom got to be there since it was in fucking California, so it's not a stretch to say he was on his own here.

We don't know when he got his other titles- but it's safe to say that at least one happened after he institutelate her, yikes, and I like to think that Gideon was in one of them at least.

Point is- imagine this: you are collecting titles like they are pokemon, sure being a Genious™ gives you a heads up that literally nobody else around has on the academic side but as it has been shown over, and over, and over again Spencer's intellect is strictly linked to his mental state; if he feels pressured enough he might see something that nobody else sees- or be completely unable to focus (*points to Zugwang, the most in your face example since he actually states it to the camera*) high school must had been a breeze at the academic department, but it was also when he was the most targeted (again he studied with fucking sociopaths), so....yeah, being a Genious is the only reason why this kid managed to do that with that environment.

Then college- Spencer is a little vindictive bitch so if he was ever mistreated in college we would had known about it almost instantly so it's safe to assume it was chill, if a bit lonely. And I mean in college most people don't care enough to fuck you up on the same way high schoolers do so it's fitting- but he was still a 14 years old, in another state. Mature enough to care for himself? Sure -it's not like he had any other option tbh- but he was still a fucking 14yo in an adult space, no wonder he knows how to keep a fucking anxiety attack at check. So obviously, going through all of this, Genious or not, must had been hard af.

College is hell. I dropped out of my first career and cried all night, we as humans tend to have this need of validation over our accomplishments hence why graduation is so idolized, we want to feel good about the years of our lives we lost to get there, with our closer family members cheering at us...

Now I want you to picture someone that is not even an adult, not friends in the class, no one at the crown cheering for them- maybe a teacher could cheer them up? But that is as far as it comes, as they just...look at the title they earned while dealing with some shit™, maybe a reporter or something want to interview them because what they did was awesome and their teachers puff their chest with pride over having taught such a prodege... and then they look in the way the other students are taking photos with their loved ones and talking about going to dinner to celebrate....

That, but 6 times.

[manchasama]

Okay so this is completely raw train of thought that I refuse to be embarrassed over.  It also may jump around because it was written on two different days, since I had more Ideas(tm) about it.

Also, Emmet in the distortion world is absolutely influenced by @that1nkyone‘s Distortion Guide AU, tho not lifting anything from where they are taking that story.  Just that their idea of Emmet being in the distortion world definitely inspired my brain to go this way.

This is in my (god damnit I need a title) anti-mob AU

--

How Ingo Disappears

Ingo and Emmet get overwhelmed by some group.  Possibly make it Team Plasma, set during B&W 2 or something.  Or just some splinter group trying to rekindle things.  (Actually maybe when I think this AU out I could figure out how to make team Plasma the mob group.  Hmmmm....)  Either way, and for whatever reason, Ingo and Emmet are tied up while the group tries to do their thing. 

(I imagine it's a desperate fight, so the grunts don't have a lot of time to restrain the bros once they got the upper hand.  Just tied their arms behind them (tight, so tight, but not stripping the coats bc again no time).  Normally this would be to their detriment because the twins would get free and wreck shit again.  This time, there wasn't enough time to get free.  Also possibly they were overwhelmed bc they let their guard down/were out of practice, having lived relatively peaceful lives since they became subway masters.  I'll have to see where the story is at the time.)

Whatever the group is doing, Ingo gets his feet under him to try and stop them, and is walloped upside the head in retaliation, concussing and stunning him.  (Emmet is Furious.  Retribution will be had, once he can find out if Ingo is okay.)  So Ingo isn't able to respond to things around them.  And it's tragic that, because all the group wanted was to keep the subway masters out of the way.  They weren't the goal or target of this, just collateral damage.  No, they were summoning (Giratina probably) and just needed enough time to finish that.

And they do.  But Giratina is not subservient to them.  It does not care or agree with their goals.  (What happens with Giratina will be for Emmet to witness.  Whether Giratina harms or kills, or does something else.)  Still, even that isn't the focus.

No, the focus is that as the hole in reality widens, as Giratina forces its way through, Ingo is lying too close to the center.  The hole widens, and Ingo tips, and falls.  (The last thing he sees with his blurry vision is Emmet and Chandelure (figure out a way).  That is why later, all he remembers is the figure in white and the purple flames.)

-

I think in addition to that, Emmet goes after Ingo.  Rather than be left behind, I mean.  He's tied up a ways away, hands bound behind his back, pokemon trapped in their balls in the hands of their captors.  Help won't make it in time ofc.  Emmet sees Ingo fall, helpless to save him, but he can in his anger free himself from whoever is pinning him, and throw himself into the void after Ingo.  

(As Ingo vanishes, disappears from this world, as Emmet's soul follows suit, one of the trapped pokeballs /explodes/, destroyed as the pokemon inside frees itself the only way it can.  Chandelure follows Emmet, catching and guiding him in the buffeting void.  Neither see where Ingo went.)

So, I'm thinking the twins were cuffed, just for the idea that Chandelure can help Emmet break the chain between them, but they can't get the metal cuffs off his wrists without hurting him (would hurt his skin trying to melt it off, not strong or precise enough to smash them off, etc).  So Emmet is in the distortion world, searching desperately for Ingo.  Chandelure can barely sense Emmet in the twisting world who is right next to her, let alone find Ingo.

Since there is no day, no night, Emmet searches until he passes out, wakes up and repeats it.  Time is basically meaningless and blends together.  Chandelure guides him to food and makes him eat, but is also searching for Ingo with that desperation of shared souls.  

Eventually, Emmet's strength is giving out, despite chandelure trying her best, and his despair is too great.  He lies there, unwilling to move, and begs her to eat his soul, replenish herself and escape.  He's done.  (As when they were kids, pushed so far that death was welcome).

Chandelure not only refuses, but instead tries to feed emmet's soul instead (as when they were kids and they'd rescued her, so did she want them to live).  Emmet knows that if she continues in her weakened state she will die keeping him alive, and he knows if he stays here she will keep trying.  So he does the hardest thing; he gets back up and continues on (without Ingo at his side).

Later when he recounting some of this to Ingo, he does admit that it was the hardest thing in his life.  To get up and move on without Ingo.  (Not giving up on him, just having to go through that without Ingo.  They've been through the toughest times together, and that time they were not).

Not sure on the timing of this, might redo some of arceus so that red sky and volo happen at the same time.  Because like, imagining ingo's troubles…  So the idea is that he's realized Volo is dangerous and going to attack akari, and he's desperate to get to her.  Perhaps he knows they will not be match for him with a god pokemon on his side, perhaps he just can't see victory in a head on confrontation, perhaps he is torn between his duties to his wardenship and his love of akari.  For whatever reason, he's heading to a battle he doesn't know how to win.  If akari will even believe him.  If volo hasn't already attacked her.  Etc etc.

The reason I want the red sky, is it makes a good time for emmet to escape the distortion world.  The veil is weakest, can come through a rift, chandelure senses his soul or emmet catches a glimpse and just throws himself at it, whatever.  But also the red sky would make it so he hasn't even realized he's left the distortion world, at least not entirely.  Because there is still no day, no night, and everything is odd.  (Just has more gravity lol).  

Maybe Volo attacked Ingo, leaving him trapped where a distortion was to appear, expecting him to perish there.  Might work.

Regardless, when Emmet and chandelure find Ingo, it's not the tearful reunion either were hoping for.  However Emmet was filled with so much relief, so much joy at finding his brother, that he can put some of his wants on hold because he can tell that Ingo Needs To Do Something.  It's the look they have when they are focused on saving or improving people's lives, as their shadow selves.  They've always put the world in front of their own needs, and this is no exception.

Additionally, emmet is temp mute at this point.  No point in talking, plus going mute due to high emotions.  It take a while for him to start talking again.  (After everything settles, when it's just the two of them, Ingo's memories still muddled but he /knows/ that emmet isn't fine.  Emmet doesn't have to hide from ingo.  They talk through a lot of things, etc.)

Ingo doesn't know what to say either, how to articulate what he's feeling, what he needs.  This was obviously the man in white, and he wanted nothing more than to cling to him, to cry and laugh until all his emotions are drained and peace is left behind.  But…akari.  He /needs/ to help her, to save her from volo's plans.  All he can do is ask for help.

Emmet can sign even if he can't speak, and despite the lack of memories between them, their instincts guide them true.  Thus, Ingo goes to confront Volo head on, and Emmet hides in the shadows ready to take advantage.

-

(Oh man did I never write this down?  Okay, let's see what I remember.)

So I've had the idea that Emmet makes it to Hisui for a while, even if I didn't know how why or when.  I thought I wrote more about it so if this IS duplicate, suffer lol.  Because I wanted to lean into their past of being the "ghost" or whatever I end up calling it, that haunted the mob into destruction.  I don't know for sure if they ever found out there were two people behind the persona.  Either way, Ingo and Emmet have always been able to play that part.

So the confrontation with Volo (Yes he is a true villain this fic), the idea is that Ingo is keeping Volo's attention, while Emmet hides waiting for a chance to strike.  Because that was the mistake so many had made, that Volo made; thinking Ingo was alone.  Sort of line. 

...Nope, I don’t remember specifics right now.  Dang.  If I do, I’ll write them down this time.

-

(Ingo has some scars from hisui.  Emmet has scars on his wrists from where the manacles rubbed endlessly.  Chandelure I think has crackled glass now, after pushing so hard trying to save emmet and find ingo.  It's not always obvious, but sometimes.)

(Part of why Ingo is so messed up in hisui is the lack of memory and running on instincts means he keeps crossing his subway master persona with his ghost persona, but he doesn't realize they are two different sides he usually didn't let cross over.  So when his reactions mix, he instinctually know something is very wrong with it.  Sometimes it distracts him, sometimes he disassociates trying to remember, sometimes it frustrates him trying to remember.)

-

Oh idea.  Ingo gets stabbed.  :p  No but seriously, let's say the collection of the plates happens at the same time.  Ingo plays a more active role in assisting akari, always there (frustrating volo who wanted to be the support model, but ingo is there /more/).  Volo needs to get his hands on the plates.  Perhaps Ingo is keeping them safe, but that doesn't jive with Volo getting the drop on him.  Because lets say Volo manages to convince akari he will keep the plates safe.  Maybe she leaves Ingo to "guard" volo or something, or maybe volo goes after ingo to make sure he is out of the way when volo goes to confront akari (weakened after she subdues the second god pokemon).

Either way, volo has command of all the plates, which gives him influence over all pokemon.  He can force wild pokemon to fight for him, can prevent ingo's pokemon from fighting properly (they can only resist so much), and basically volo takes down ingo via cheating.  Ingo is a good enough trainer, and friends with enough wild pokemon that it is close tho.  So close that volo gets close enough to ingo to stab him and take him out that way (somehow just go with it.  Maybe uses a pokemon to do it).

Volo goes off to get akari, who is trying to clear the red sky.  He thinks if he takes her out, arceus will have to listen to his call.  Because he'd have all the plates, have taken out arceus' chosen, would be able to have command over the other two god pokemon to have all three, etc.

Then Emmet and Chandelure come to ingo's rescue.  Chandelure pulling what she can from emmet to give to ingo to heal him, etc.  

By giving Volo command over other pokemon via the plates as well as influence over partner pokemon, that makes his threat and the fight way more difficult, rather than a wash it would normally be.  Gives a reason why emmet has to get to volo, to separate him from the plates, in secret.

(A thought, have to see if it fits.  Chandelure and emmet have to get close enough that she can drain volo, while remaining unnoticed.  Emmet strikes when volo goes down on a knee, wondering why his energy is so low.  Slow process, and Ingo (and akari) need to keep volo distracted to not notice.  Volo's partner pokemon still have free will, so they need to keep those engaged to not let him know either.)

[fishsticksloser]

Hello! May I plz request where the ROTTMNT brothers (separately) react to their s/o being a Pokemon shapeshifter? Like they can shift into any Pokemon in the Pokemon universe and has all the Pokemons abilities.

Shapeshifter!Reader

RotTMNT x gn!reader

Warnings: mutant!reader (not made by Draxum), violence mentioned, AFTER the movie (the Kraang are mentioned), aged up characters

A/N: I read this and thought Ben10 or Beast Boy... Obviously Beast Boy is superior. Some background/explaination before separate hc

How could you turn into Pokemon...?

They aren't real...

You could turn into anything as long as you had seen it and it was some sort of living being (animals, plants, ect)

As for the powers? You were a Pokemon fan so you were able to use the powers you knew

Donnie

He had met many mutants and Yōkai, but none like you

You were an enigma

After you explained your powers, Donnie was so excited

He asked you to demonstrate and of course you did, he was cute when he was excited

You were incredibly useful in fights, being able to adapt to your environment

Donnie was incredibly intrigued by you, not just because of your powers, but you in general

You were always willing to show him you're abilities, he wanted to learn more, come up with ways to help you and the others

You also helped him in his lab: wielding, making poison, ect

Leo

Awesome!

You're so cool to him

You're awesome at skateboarding due to your powers

He believes its a huge advantage to them.

You could be the difference between winning and losing against some of their biggest foes

Imagine if you had been around during the Kraang invasion...

Having that much riding on you would be astonishingly stressful

So he kept it to himself.

Though he did let you know how amazing he thought you were every chance he got

Mikey

☆_☆

Immediate reaction

So enthralled by your awesome power

Loves painting and everything with your powers

You guys decorate the lair like crazy

As Grafaiai, you are able to paint and reach high places so you use it to your advantage

The others loved it too

Your and Mikey's art livened up the lair, made it feel more like home

Raph

He used to be the leader so he thinks a lot about how things could've gone different if you'd been there during the Kraang invasion.

But slowly... he starts to have stronger feelings towards you.

Loves sparring with you, you change Pokemon every time

It gives him a challenge

He also loves just hanging out with you

You're able to turn into anything you want (within reason of course)

So you tend to shift into something that's small enough to cuddle into Raph's huge frame comfortably

[mentalbreakdowngobrrrrr]

Reckless

Jaqc x reader

(Y/n) is a champion ranked trainer who bites of a little more than they can chew when challenging a 6 star Tera raid

(Y/n) is a young adult, close to Jacq’s age

You had just finished a 4 star Tera raid and were looking at the exp candy you received from beating the pokemon. Being a champion ranked trainer, the raid was no problem to you and you wiped the floor with the unsuspecting Bronzong. 

Just as you were preparing to head off to another raid you were stopped by your rotom phone.

Ro-to-to-to

“This is (y/n), what’s up?” 

“Glad I reached you. Thank you for all your work within the Tera dens. We have seen unusual black crystals popping up around the map. We have reason to beleive these are incredibly strong Tera pokemon. Do not under any circumstances engage with these dens.” The charming voice of Jacq rang through your phone. 

You rolled your eyes 

“But imagine all the rewards I could get! Plus don’t you want the data?” 

“Not at the risk of your health. I’m serious (y/n). Do. Not. Engage.” The man’s voice dropped and you could imagine his face.

“I make absolutely no promises.” 

“(y/n). I swear to Arceus if you challenge those raids-”

“Don’t worry about me Jaqc. I defeated AI Sada, a pokemon den won’t take me down.”

“Do. Not. Engage.”

“Yeah, yeah whatever. I get it.”

“Promise me you will not challenge the dens. I can’t risk you getting hurt.”

“It was nice talking to you Jacq. Bye!”

“Wait no-” You hung up the phone with a sigh. You understand his worry but you have been training for such a long time. You wiped the floor with Geeta and Nemona. What could a den do to you.

Pulling up your map you located one of the black crystals. It showed itself as a water type, meaning you would have the type advantage with your Meowscarada.

“Alright lil dude. You ready to challenge this den?” You looked down at your partner pokemon. The green cat let out an enthusiastic cry. “Me too buddy. Let’s go.”

You summoned Koraidon and hopped on the pokemon’s back as you made your way to the location of the Tera raid.

Upon arriving you saw that the pokemon was a Talonflame. Which you coincidentally didn’t have in your dex yet. “This is perfect! Not only can we get some great rewards, I can fill my dex!”

Approaching the den you took a deep breath and stepped in.

The Talonflame cried out as you stepped in and you engaged in a battle.

Despite having the type advantage, you were barely making a dent against the pokemon’s  health. It also didn’t help that you couldn’t find anyone to help you with said raid.

Even after Terastallizing your pokemon, you were barely able to get the Talonflame down to half health. 

“Ahaha, I’m in danger.” You mumbled as your partner pokemon was knocked out for the 3rd time. The enraged bird turned it’s attention onto you. All you could see was a blast of fire coming straight towards your face before you blacked out.

Jacq’s Pov

I was approaching the black crystal with the intent to hopefully get more information on it without having to fight it. 

However I stopped in my tracks when I saw a familiar looking green cat. There was only one trainer I knew with a Meowscarada. “(Y/n)’s Meowscarada?” I approached the cat pokemon and watched as it turned towards me.

The pokemon let out a cry before rushing forward and grabbing the sleeve of my jacket, pulling me into the den. “Wait! I don’t have any of my strong pokemon on me! I can’t fight this!” However the weed cat’s grip was strong and I was unable to break free. 

The cat continued to drag me into the depth of the den where I froze upon seeing a familiar figure strewn across the ground, their clothing burned and torn.

“(Y/N)!” Sprinting towards the fallen trainer, I looked over their body.

They were littered with intense burns, almost looking like 3rd degree burns. “Hold on, I’m going to get you out of here.” However, Jacq did not have the most muscle and he struggled to lift up the fallen trainer. “Jeez, hang in there.” 

I used my rotom phone to dial up Nurse Miriam.  

“Hello?”

“Miriam! I found (y/n) in a tera den passed out. they have burns all over their body and are barely breathing.”

“Oh no, I’ll send a flying taxi your way and alert Clavell of what happened. I will be ready for them as soon as you arrive.” The nurse was clearly panicked.

“Hurry!” I hung up the phone and set the trainer down gently. “(y/n), love you’ve got to hang in there. I can’t loose you, I care about you too much.” I held the trainers limp hand, bringing it to my lips and placing a brief kiss on it.

A flying taxi arrived and I picked up the trainer, hopping into the cart.

Arriving to the academy I was immediately greeted with Miriam rushing out and taking the trainer from me “This is worse than I thought.” She mumbled before rushing off to the nurses office.

I looked over to the green pokemon who was pacing back and forth in a daze. “They’ll be okay buddy. They have to be. They’re too stubborn to go down without a fight.” The pokemon looked up to me with teary eyes. “I’m worried too bud. But they’re in good hands now.”

The director stormed out of the academy doors. “Jacq! What happened?” I explained the situation to Clavell, Meowscarada nodding along. 

A few weeks later and (y/n) was still in a coma. Plenty on people were stressing, after all, how strong could a pokemon be if it was able to take down one of the regions strongest trainers?

Jaqc sat next to the bed with the green cat curled up at his side. “(y/n), please wake up soon. It’s been weeks. Everyone is worried and Meowscarada is lonely. I miss you so much. I miss your teasing, your laughs, your 2 am phone calls. I guess I never knew how much I needed you until I went without you. I love you more than you could ever know.”

As if the man’s words were magic, the trainer began to stir. 

(y/n)’s pov

You slowly opened your eyes to come face to face with the white ceiling of the nurse’s office. 

“Ugh, what happened?” You rubbed your head which felt like it was being split in half.

“(Y/N)!” You turned to the voice beside you only to see the biology teacher throw himself at you. He wrapped his arms around you in a bone crushing hug. “I thought I lost you. Do you know how scared we all were? Do you know how stupid that was? I told you to not engage in the den but you’re too stubborn to listen to me. We almost lost you. I almost lost you. I don’t think I could live without you (y/n). I love you too much to live without you. You’re so stupid. I was so worried. Clavell flipped his shit. Rika almost killed me. Don’t you ever do that again, you hear? I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“Damn Jaqc, you’re kinda crushing me. I guess you’re right, that was pretty stupid of me. I promise I won’t do it again. Hold up did you say you loved me?” 

“I suppose I did.” You watched as a pink hue crossed the man’s cheeks. “It just sort of slipped out, you probably don’t like me back. feel free to ignore it.”

“You idiot. Of course I like you back.”

“Huh?”

“Dude I’ve been down bad for you since I first met you. The only reason I want to complete the pokedex is to impress you.”

“Sappy stuff aside, never do that again.” Jacq scolded you.

“Yeah yeah, whatever, just come kiss me better you goof.”

[corruptimles]

What pokemon would your favorites of the mob psycho cast have, in your opinion?

anon I hope you're alright with how long this answers going to get because I sat down and went:

because I LOVE assigning pokemon to characters

We all know Mob and Espurr are pretty much made for each other but I'm putting a read-more because this answer is embarassingly long

I deleted it earlier because I wasn’t sure if it was the correct idiom, but my friend warns that you've "opened a can of worms" here

A little context/worldbuilding before I get into the lists:

These answers are in the context of a Pokemon/MP100 crossover in which Seasoning City is an existing city in new region, or is expanded into its own region entirely. Other countries are not brought up that often in MP100 so those could be replaced with existing Pokemon regions instead. (I think only America is mentioned, which could be replaced with Unova)

(this is as opposed to, an isekai AU, or if you decided the characters are from Kanto or something)

I won't be creating Seasoning's pokedex by any means, but this means I won't be limiting Pokemon geographically (like I assigned TSV characters with mostly Unovan Pokemon because they're from New York)

There's still the exception of the type of environment/region being very significant to that Pokemon (aka some regionals, legends/mythicals, endangered, etc))

Regarding Psychics/Espers

Psychics or Espers already exist in the Pokemon world, but the actual differences between them and Psychic-type pokemon is not widely explored, nor the fact there are non-psychic types that can technically use psychic-type moves, or abilities associated with psychics (telekinesis, telepathy, whatever it is empaths got going on, clairvoyance, etc)

There's also an unexplored difference between ghost-types and ghosts

but the point I want to make here is that I don't think psychic pokemon are absolutely necessary for an exorcism business like Spirits & Such, especially when psychic-types are weak to ghost-types in the Pokemon world, and MP100 espers usually have a natural shield against, like, possessions specifically

So we're going with Psychics/Espers being able to be exorcists, mediums, etc, with their wide variety of psychic abilities at their disposal compared to specific Pokemon with specific skillsets.

There's also more apparent leniency with the fact that Psychics post-gen III use both psychic-type and ghost-type pokemon on their teams, and you can debatably include hex maniacs and channelers as psychics or espers to a degree

A human Esper could possibly perform exorcisms themself or with the aid of a psychic, ghost, maybe even fairy pokemon, or pokemon with those moves

This means that I'm wont be assigning MP100 espers with psychic pokemon just because they're both psychic, but I acknowledge they'd likely be drawn to each other eventually, and it's up to the character if they'd interact with ghost types

There's also if the city/regions's general consensus on ghosts is similar enough to MP100 originally, which mean they're not as normal to see around as other regions for one reason or another

Personal Preferences / Headcanons

It's Very fun to match Pokemon to a character in how similar they are but other times I also like to try avoiding literal matches like that, or ones that are too on the nose

(what pokemon a character would be could be very different to what they would have!)

Often times I don't use the more popular pokemon either (like eeveelutions, sorry) unless it feels like that pokemon really works out for the character

It gives Pokemon ppl might not have thought of nor remembered a chance to shine

I also imagine if a character doesn't seem the type for competitive battling, they wouldn't have a 6-pokemon team, unless maybe they're the type for appearing strong, or under specific circumstances. Like petsitting or gifting. NPCs often have 1-3 pokemon if they're not strong league trainers. People with more would probably have lower maintenance pokemon

What pokemon could they have in their daily lives? What are they willing to take care of? If they do stumble upon a very specific Pokemon, how do I imagine they meet and how this influences their character? (for situations like this MP100 scenario, I like to impact the main storyline or characterization as little as possible if I'm not doing some in-depth canon-divergence or post-canon stories)

anyway

"What pokemon would your favorites of the mob psycho cast have, in your opinion?"

These answers may be tossed around or changed in the future but

Reigen

Lurantis I deleted the post saying why, but trust me on this Helps with the everyday life. Got terrified when it was a Fomantis thinking it was a bug-type but turns out they're both scared of bugs

Nacli whether he found it by accident or actively sought it, he kept it thinking it'd help w the business (it... kinda does? but not really)

Greavard (temporarily) (a la Uu-chan)

Nickit, maybe I prefer this as a pokemon he could be instead of have; it's very on-the-nose so I'm fine either or

I specifically imagine that in this world, like in canon, Reigen didn't know that espers were real, or didn't take them too seriously, especially when Pokemon could be doing all the stuff on TV

Serizawa

Hatterene (temporarily) "gifted" by Toichiro, but returns to Toichiro after Serizawa's fight with Mob (you know why)

Wimpod been with him since his years in isolation, evolves during World Domination Arc (you know why)

After Hatterene is gone, he probably only has Golisopod with him during the adjustment period with S&S but I do think he might take in another Pokemon by the time of the spin-off

(Swadloon -> Leavanny evolution via friendship is very reminiscent to Seri's character development and fight with Mob but idk if it's too much for two Pokemon to evolve back-to-back for him. It could also be what he takes in later on instead. )

Tome

Hoothoot I have my reasons

Elgyem her first encounter with the extraterrestrial, sparking her drive to know more about aliens and alien pokemon

looks up stuff like Deoxys and Ultra Beasts stuffs

Mob

Espurr evolves after confession arc?

Poliwag, maybe someone helps him evolve to Politoed over the course of the series?

okay I referenced Espurr multiple times so this might be redundant at this point, but I don't actually imagine him with more than maybe two pokemon? He's a middle schooler who might not be up for the responsibility of multiple pokemon, especially with the stress of his own and Espurr's explosions. Maybe he tries training more later in the same way he tried the marathon?

I just looked up the Poliwag line and I love that the lines' shinies do not look that different to the original but shiny Politoed has Mob's aura colours lol

He's not part of the cast but

Yoshioka

Herdier, or Watchog

yeah that's it

and they're not my favourites but some others I thought about:

Teru would have a full team, probably half left by his parents, which match his initial personality. He wouldn't be that close to them, but they're strong or rare and that's what's important until he's humbled later and actually learns to talk to them as companions He might not keep all the Pokemon by the end because he doesn't need to keep a reputation like that anymore, but has a select few strong ones that are strong because he actually trained together with them ^ the pokemon he'd have would still be very extravagent/gaudy in appearance though, like a Bruxish

Shou, and maybe Toichirou, may have Pokemon specifically from Unova or other farther regions because of Toichiro's travelling ^ Toichiro returning to Seasoning City is very Giovanni revealing to be the absent gym leader to me ^^Shou and Toichirou's teams could be styled in opposition to each other like Ghetsis and N. Shou spent so long preparing to be the protagonist against his father's plans, so

I firmly believe that Mob and Ritsu's parents would still be blasé about Pokemon like everything else that if either brother did come home with a legendary, they'd still be like "just make sure to clean after it. no battling in the kitchen"

it's not Reigen's, but there's a Fidough in the cafe above the office that he adores

Organizations like Claw, or the Rising Sun Spiritual Union would definitely employ a lot of psychic- and ghost-types for their needs

Dimple is either exactly the same, or the ugliest Gastly you've ever seen. I'd love to make a reference to the LOL cult and Yamask, but a fart cloud is a fart cloud

.

I have more but this list is too long so ppl can send another ask if they're curious about anything

final words: typing this was a nightmare because of how often I mistyped 'region' and 'reigen'

[plasmaapologist]

...just realized i left my introduction in the drafts. oops. at least i have a better photo now.

my names tula, and i'm a registered pokémon nurse with a horrible tendency to ramble. i live in unova and do some work here, but i mainly travel to other regions for this.

i am a former member of team plasma. former. my username is ironic because i cope with humor.

i ran away from home at age 14- it's a long story - and ended up being indoctrinated in. i, like many others, were lucky to have a sort of "snap to reality" moment after ghetsis' first arrest, before the formation of neo plasma, but not before i spent 10 years of my life working for him. many people are shocked by how open i am about my experience, but i think its extremely important to talk about these things: if i could help just one person leave this cycle, or keep someone from entering it, then it would make the shame worth it.

i have dedicated my life to helping pokémon, as a way to attone, i suppose. my darling solosis, mini, travels with me, though i must admit she's quite the spoiled brat. to have such an innocent creature love and trust you is the most healing experience someone can ask for, and i acknowledge that i was so very lucky. i had a home to return to, i was able to find work despite my history, and physically, i bear only a scar on my back and a missing finger... also just so we all know i am a natural ginger and i am not going to dye my hair please stop asking thanks

feel free to ask me any questions you may have: about pokemon, about myself, or my experience with team plasma, any of the sort. and if you need help leaving neo plasma or a group like it, please shoot me a message, i'll give you all the advice i can.

- tula ☆

ooc and admin info:

hi! im cassini, im 21, and i have not rpd since middle school. please be nice

im okay with joining events and plotlines! but i do not know how to join in naturally and get too embarrassed to ask. please shoot me a message/invite! muse list bellloowwwww tulas info

im not lore compliant at times and am even willing to bend (most) of my own headcanons bc multiverse and the likes! very flexible in general

okay more important tula things:

- sapient pokemon interaction is okay! tula will generally believe them. shes seen weirder. legendaries will be met with much more scrutiny, but kindness.

- i keep her age purposefully vauge for "pokemon timeline makes no sense" reasons, but you can generally imagine her somewhere between 26-30, probably.

- shes been through a lot and often copes with humor, which means she tends to come off the wrong way a lot of the time

- though open about her time in plasma, she doesnt like talking about how it affected her

- she speaks before thinking and often posts in bursts do to this

- she has a pretty shitty memory

MUSE LIST:

Timeline 1:

Tula Gagnon - @plasmaapologist (OC. 📍Unova. Birthday: January 1st)

Callisto Aoki - @cherishcherubi (OC. 📍 Kalos. Birthday: October 25th)

Iolana Kealoha - @teamskullkalos (OC. 📍Kalos. Birthday: April 12th)

Timeline 2:

Mari Pijotto - @marifromkoto (OC. 📍Paldea. Birthday: December 18th)

Katy - @patisserie-soapberry (Canon. 📍Paldea.)

Atticus - @navisquadatticus (Canon. 📍Paldea.)

Larry - @medali-gym (Canon. 📍Paldea. Half joke blog.)

Robin Lusk - @absolsrenegade (OC/Self Insert. 📍Unova. Birthday: July 5th)

Timeline 3:

Timeline Unknown:

Grise (Hilda Lewis) - @driftingtrainer (Canon. 📍 Vagabond. Birthday: October 5th)

Rochelle Ichihara - @basaltpowder (OC. 📍Hoenn. Birthday ??? )

Barbie & Ken: @championbarbie-swimmerken - (It's fucking Barbie. Yeah, the pink one. 📍 Everywhere. She's Barbie. Birthdays: March 9th, March 11th)

Ice - @rottenice OC. 📍Primarily Sinnoh, but travels a lot. Birthday: December 21st. Please read content warnings in the pinned post.

Miki Nakajima - @nakajima-lgm OC.📍 Johto. Birthday unknown. Please read content warnings in the pinned post.

@galacticfoundation - Team Galactic AU blog.

@twotoypokemon Pokémon Rumble based blog. Sapient Pokémon OC. 📍Axel Town

[buttersoftheshea]

Feral Frills (Dark/Poison) This Pokemon bears some resemblance to both Weavile and its ancient ancestor- Sneasler. Perhaps it’s an ancient common ancestor? It uses its sharp claws to overwhelm prey, and its vibrant-colored neck frills to intimidate enemies.

Iron Shears (Steel/Flying) This Pokemon bears some resemblance to both Scizor and its ancient ancestor- Kleavor. It’s possible that it was made with the purpose of trimming and maintaining care over hedges. Its wings are actually rockets that allows it to boost up into the air.

I’ve been in a sort of creative and artistic slump for a while, but just a few days ago I got the brilliant idea of ‘what if Weavile had a paradox form?’ And initially I was thinking of a giant prehistoric weasel but then realized ‘no- Paradox Pokemon aren’t natural and only exist thanks to the eldritch mind turtle. There’s no way a paradox Weavile would even remotely be based on a weasel, they made Suicune into a RAPTOR.’

And since I’m convinced Paradox Pokemon aren’t real, I thought of another thing that’s not real- that one acid-spitting dinosaur from Jurassic Park. And how Weavile has frills.

SO, Feral Frills was born in a sketch that I was so proud of I decided to color. And then re-color for the shiny. I know people have played around with the idea of past Paradox Weavile/Scizor and future Paradox Sneasler/Kleavor and I absolutely love all of those ideas. But I thought about how Iron Valiant is kind of a hybrid of mega Gardevoir and mega Gallade, and reasoned that if any of these lines had a paradox form, they’d probably be mishmashes of the modern Pokemon with their respective ancestors. But I still wanted them to primarily obviously more resemble the modern-day equivalent in terms of coloration and whatnot, because I was imagining ‘well what would happen if the crew (the player, Penny, Arven, and Nemona) came across this? How would they react?’

... Probably with a mental breakdown because I’m convinced Penny, Arven, and Nemona have never heard of or paid enough attention in history class to know what Sneasler and Kleavor even are. The only one who MIGHT have a chance of knowing what they are is Nemona, only because “oh damn I wanna fight them” until she’s informed they’re extinct. Then their entire existance just flies out the window to her.

And I think part of the ‘WTF-ery’ behind Paradox Pokemon is that they LOOK like familiar Pokemon, they just... are SOMETHING ELSE. So, Feral Frills and Iron Shears have the main colorations of Weavile and Scizor with some loose elements from Sneasler and Kleavor, like Frills’ gems or furry feet or feathery tufts at the elbows, or Shears’ eyebrows and segmented abdomen and saw shoulder-blades.

Speaking of Iron Shears, I wanted it to be able to form something like scissors to reference Scizor, but with one blade on each hand like Kleavor. Scissors cut paper, axes cut trees, leaves... are somewhere in-between that. So, I made it a futuristic gardening shear robot.

For the shinies, for Feral Frills, I wanted to highlight it being a hybrid of Weavile and Sneasler so I made its shiny just a mishmash of Hisuian Sneasel’s (I’m sorry but I hate shiny Sneasler) and Weavile’s shiny. Hence the yellow and pink feathers. Kinda reminds me of a fancy drink with grenadine in it.

And for Iron Shears, well, officially it would be just like all the other future Paradox shinies. But. I made a different version that would be more like how I would like it- and it was easier to make since, well, both shiny Kleavor and shiny Scizor are green. Even shiny mega Scizor is green, which, yes I did loosely incorporate elements of mega Scizor into the design as well.

As for the typing, for Feral Frills it was obvious- I wanted to make it a Dark and Poison type to pull from Weavile and Sneasler, and also still be an acid-spitting menace. For Iron Shears, it was a bit more difficult since Steel/Rock, drawing from Scizor and Kleavor, wouldn’t really work with my robotic hedge-trimmer idea, but... I remembered that Scyther is a Flying type. So I decided to go with Steel/Flying since it’s metallic and can fly all over- and I didn’t want it to be Bug type either since it’s more of a robot and less of an organic creature. So, Steel/Flying, it can hang out with Skarmory, Corviknight, and Celesteela. Feral Frills can chill with Skuntank, Drapion, Alolan Muk, and Overqwil as everyone questions this eldritch mind turtle-made unnatural abomination.

Anyways, again, sketches that I was so proud of I slightly cleaned up and ended up coloring. I’m proud of these. I love Feral Frills so much I wish it was in the game, and then I think about how it’s not and I weep. I hope y’all like it!

[savebatsfromscratch]

Hockey Watching - Palletshipping Week 1 (Roommates)

Summary:

Gary and Ash watch a hockey game together. (Au notes in final note in ao3 version, I put them at the top in this one.)

Notes:

Prompt: Roommates Note: The first thing I went to was watching a Hockey game together. …for some reason. I kinda made up my own Pokemon world teams, but feel free to imagine your favorite team I guess. (Though if it’s not the Sabers I don’t want you here. /light hearted) Also, for the record, they’re kind of American coded in this one. Whoops. I apologize for this look into my mind. Cws: Surprise kiss, sort of nonsensical writing Words: 1,791

End Notes:

…dude this is such a mess. (<- did not even try to edit it.)   Here’s a fun secret, I headcannon Blake (from Pokemon Adventures) as a Hockey player, and I made his number his dexholder number! :D I also headcannon Jun (from Pokemon Diamond and Pearl Adventure) as a Hockey player, and I made his number “3” because he has three total pokemon lol. I also put Hareta (from the same series) on his team and made him number “1” because that’s the number of my favorite Sabers goalie. :3 I also Headcannon Barry and Jun as triplets (the third being Pearl from Pokemon Adventures.) I also had to make up a last name for both Jun and Blake. For Jun I gave him “Aemilius,” because I went the roman route and it “was originally derived from the Latin word aemulus, which referred to equal or rival.” (iGENEA) And I gave Blake Rasmussen because it starts with an “r” sound and so does his Japanese name AND Rasmussen would look SICK on a Hockey jersey.

Ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54803911

Prompts from here: @/shigerussato

Fic under the cut!

Gary plopped down on the couch in front of the already flickering TV, one hand clutched around a large can of some gross thing that Delia had bought them, and the other clinging desperately to an overfilled bowl of chicken wings. Already on the couch, Ash laughed and turned up the volume on the TV with the remote that he had apparently located. (Last time Gary had checked in, the two of them had been pretty sure that that thing was gone for good.)

“Is the game on yet?” He asked, setting the huge cup down on the coffee table (and releasing a short prayer that it wouldn’t spill) as he looked up at the current rush of ads across the television screen, “Who’s winning?”

Ash giggled and got halfway through a, “Not yet Oak,” before stopping and realizing that something was still missing from their Hockey watching spree. “Um, you did get us napkins, right?”

Gary looked around himself, and though he saw Ash’s fingerless glove clad hand already covered in Buffalo sauce, hovering unsurely about the rest of the chicken wings, he saw no napkins. “Oh dang it,” He let out an exasperated cry and smacked a hand to his forehead, “I forgot them in the other room, here, I’ll get them-,”

He went to stand, but all of a sudden the announcer sprang to life before them.

“Welcome to today’s game of Hockey,” he was saying, voice strong and accented like an old radio star, and speaking just as fast, “We’ve got a very interesting match up today,”

The second announcer interrupted, sounding just as excited as the first, “Thankfully for the Snowpoint Legends, it seems that number 3, Jun Aemilius, is back on the ice, after his injury on Wednesday we were getting worried that he might not be able to make it to the next game, but it seems the medics came through!”

“And based on today’s lineup for the Icirrus Truths, the Legends may have really needed the return. I mean, ever since number 16, Blake Rasmussen, was traded into the team from the Castelia Ideals, the Truths have been rising in power across the league,”

“However, the new goalie for the Legends, number 1, Hareta Rowan, might be able to match Rasmussen’s intensity,”

“Do you know who they’re talking about?” Gary whispered to Ash, who seemed to have given up on napkins and was instead licking his fingers clean. (Seeing this, he quickly flushed red and looked back to the screen, pretending to be looking for clues there, though he hoped Ash would not guess the true reason for his newfound focus. …though it wouldn’t have been a problem if he had known.)

“Number three for the Legends is triplets with one of my rivals from when I was in Sinnoh,” Ash commented, watching as the camera tracked after a very attractive blond offensive player as if it was a totally normal comment to make to his current rival.

Gary suddenly reached for a can on the table, suddenly realizing that his throat felt dry. 

“None of that,” Ash waved his hands back and forth, flinging a speck or two of leftover sauce into Gary’s face, “I still love you the most,” he looked down at the cans, “Plus, those are non-alcoholic,”

Gary put his head in his hands, laughing. Had Ash assumed he had been trying to get drunk? “I’m just thirsty Ash,” he said, “and you reminded me of what your mom bought us,”

Ash made a face, studying the cans critically, “I wouldn’t suggest trying those, they’re probably flavored, like, pumpkin pie or crayons or something,”

Gary studied the can in the brightness of the ice from the screen. “The first one,” he told Ash, making a face, “Pumpkin pie seltzer, are you kidding me? Where does she even get them?”

“The Viridian Pokemart I think,” Ash said, snuggling a bit closer to Gary under the guise of checking out the ingredients of the strange drink.

“Why would she go all the way to Viridian to get-,” Gary cut himself off as the game suddenly kicked into action on the screen in front of them. Ash too sat up, suddenly on the edge of his seat as the puck rushed from player to player, currently held by the Truths. Gary glanced over at Ash’s face, noticing that he didn’t look super happy about that fact. 

“Soo…” Gary tried, now his turn to scoot closer, “Are we rooting for the Legends?”

“Would you want to root for a team from Unova?”

“Fair point,”

The two sat together, watching as the action moved from player to player, occasional crashes and shrieks coming up from the players as they crashed together and into various metal walls. Gary found himself leaning forward and hissing in anticipation as the puck shot towards the goal on their side, but joined Ash in whooping when the (apparently not-so-rookie) goalie expertly blocked the shot, catching it under his glove and sending up cheers among the crowd on his side of the stadium.

Ash grabbed Gary’s arm and shook him, as if Gary had watched more than a couple of games before to understand quite what that meant for his team. “Did you see that?!” He asked, sounding almost as excited as he always had before their battles, “That was so cool!”

The fact that Gary didn’t quite understand the game did not stop him from sharing Ash’s excitement. (Though he suspected that was more due to the fact that his rival was all but climbing into his lap in nervous joy about the game.)

“Yeah,” Gary said, watching somewhat in awe as the players sped from side to side in the advertisement lined rink.

They continued to watch like that, whooping as number three on their team managed a goal and hissing as 16, Blake, on the other side finally managed one of his own. At one point, their hands met in the chicken wing bowl, and of course Ash couldn’t help but joke that it was the most affectionate they’d been since getting back to Pallet together. (Gary shoved him off his shoulder and laughed it off, but the entire next period passed before he was done blushing about it.)

Advertisements passed as Gary left to refill the snacks, and he found himself grinning with the draw to watch the game as he saw it starting up again.

“You have to admit that this is just as interesting as watching a Pokemon battle,” Ash said, between bites of chicken wing, looking expectantly up at Gary.

“And nowhere near as irritating,” Gary added, breaking off in the middle of his sentence to take a large sip of pumpkin pie seltzer. (Which was honestly even more interesting than Delia had advertised it as being.) “I’m not there picking through every mistake they make,”

They both cringed as, number three, the forward on the team they had decided to root for just barely missed an easy shot.

“For the most part anyway,” Gary corrected

“For the most part anyway,” Ash laughed, agreeing with him.

They looked forward, and the game went back into that comfortable blur as the announcers led the cheers (or boos) as players entered and left the ice. (Though Gary found himself realizing that the two rivals were getting oddly close again as the final period began to wrap up. Even if the “close together” in question was more like, “just about falling off the couch with how focused they were on the flashing screen,”)

They cheered as their goalie blocked yet another would-have-been goal, and then cheered even louder as their team managed to actually complete a goal of their own. They were back in the lead by one, and with only a couple of seconds remaining on the clock, and a major player of the Truths out for misconduct earlier in the match, it was looking good.

“Comeon comeon,” Ash muttered, his fingers digging into Gary’s shoulders as he leaned even further forward, “Just hold the goal for one more-,”

“No!” They both shrieked, watching as their goalie, the one named like his region’s professor, was knocked to the ground by an opposing player, allowing the puck to sail cleanly into the net behind him.

Making the game tied, and sending it into overtime as Ash jolted to his feet, taking two large steps forward and echoing the announcer as he yelped. “How was that not an illegal move!”

Gary stood and walked to meet him, but found his eyes similarly glued to the screen as the teams reset for the tie breaking move. In his still lacking understanding of the game, he couldn’t quite tell what was happening, but the energy in the crowd (and in Ash), was enough to tell him that, whatever it was, it was seriously interesting.

He squinted at the glowing ice, and then found himself jumping up and down as he spotted number three dragging the puck forward and towards the opposing goal. He was moving like lightning, skirting around nearly every other player as he raced for the win.

Ash and Gary watched in slow motion as 16, Blake, from the other team fought to catch up with Jun, and cheered as he crashed into a defenseman from his own team, clearly still at least a little shaken up from his apparent injury on Wednesday as the two skidded across the ice together, their balance lost.

It happened so fast that Gary almost missed it, but the puck banged against the net and the stadium exploded. Even with the TV on low volume, Gary truly felt like he was among the screaming fans as Ash jumped up and down beside him. Clapping his hands together and shivering in excitement. To Gary, the sight was almost funny, but as he opened his mouth to say something about it, he found himself the one taken aback as Ash jumped up and kissed him.

They hung that way for a moment, Gary feeling like he was floating in sudden joy as Ash’s arms wrapped briefly around his shoulders, only to be dragged back away again as his friend suddenly pulled back, face bright red.

“Oh I-,” he tried to explain himself, “I didn’t mean to-,”

Gary’s face was definitely bright red, but he didn’t care. “Well,” he said, grabbing Ash’s hands and leaning forward, “Do it again and I might think about coming back for the next game,” 

He smirked as Ash stuttered out a sudden, “I love you,” right before Gary pulled them back into a kiss as the cheers of the crowd echoed through the dark room. 

(Even if their mouths tasted like buffalo chicken wings and pumpkin pie seltzer.)