So this video is my beznaia thesis! You can really see their dynamic and how they work with each other. This is just after India last year, Bezz won the race (his third of the year) and Pecco crashed out of the race. You have Bezz "trashtalking" Pecco a little bit to cheer him up, but it's not mean, Pecco is clearly in on the joke. And then the interviewer is trying to get Pecco to talk about his fall and pecco is kinda uncomfortable/pissed off and Bezz tries to direct the attention of the interviewer back at him, letting Pecco go. And then we have Bezz talking about his friendship with Pecco and how much Pecco is a real friend to him.
They treat each other as equals, they love trash-talking and fighting a bit but it's clear how Pecco is much more comfortable in front of cameras whenever Bezz is also there. You can feel how they truly value each other presence and the comfort they find in each other, it's just super cute to witness lol. It's obvious how much Bezz cares and respects Pecco, Pecco is just "much more mature!" a true adult in a way, and it's true in all aspects of their life, but Bezz is also the only one able to bring Pecco down to earth in a way, he sees right through him. All the academy guys are very much a little pack, always protecting each other in interviews and stuff but these two are each other comfort zone in that insane sport. This is getting a bit RPF but idc, it's just such a cute friendship :)
Translation lol
*Pecco is doing a gesture, "ti faccio un culo così" meaning something like "next time when I get u! I'm gonna beat u!" OBV HES JOKING*
Bez: “Come here! ... Do I have to come to you?...He wants to let me have my moment! … Can I say something tho? Whenever I’m in front of him during the race he crashes out”
Pecco arrives there
Pecco: “I don't want to be like parsley (lol meaning someone who’s everywhere, all the time, intruding in Bezz’ moment)”
I: “What did u say Bezz?”
B: “Whenever I’m in front he crashes out!”
P: “I feel the mental pressure”
B: “He’s not used to it, usually he’s always the one in front of me, the few times I’m first he can't deal with that!”
… the interviewer starts talking with Pecco saying that sometimes it's more difficult to lead a race and not make any mistakes than being second and trying to catch up, asking Pecco if that's maybe why he crashed out.
Pecco a bit annoyed :“I crashed out of the race coz I crashed out of the race …
Bez to the interviewer: “Stop asking him stuff, he’s angry after the race, it’s normal!”
Pecco: “Let's talk about Bez, he was the best today!”
Pecco runs away lol
I: “Anyway, the relationship you two have is beautiful.”
Bezz: “Pecco and I are close friends, I’ve found a fantastic friend in Pecco. It’s difficult sometimes being rivals and friends, but we’re both adults and mature, Pecco a little bit more!”
Pecco is looking and touching the bike, “fake-checking” the brakes
Bez: “This time I was there! I was braking better eh” Back to some trash-talking
Something I find fascinating about Wandee Goodday is that no one has kissed yet (I know Ye and Cher have kissed but...) Like not a full on make out session despite having an established couple in the show that they could be using to show us kisses. But we get no kiss sex scenes from Yak and Dee and soft, somewhat chaste scenes from Ye and Cher. We all know both couples are fucking. But the lack of kisses where normally the show would have one couple more active in that department tells me how important kissing is to this story.
Dee has stated that it's silly but he doesn't want to kiss unless he loves that person and is serious with them. But the entire show is respecting the no kiss rule which tells me that it's not silly. The entire show is respecting Dee's boundary here. And yes, Yak and Dee have come so close to kissing so many times, but they haven't. Dee has always pushed him away and Yak has always respected it when he does.
It makes me wonder what's going to happen once the main couple does eventually lock lips. Will that open the floodgates? Will the audience get to see both couples kissing then? Or will it continue to withhold that specific moment of intimacy. There's something the show is saying about the expected parts of intimacy being taken for granted and also deserving of privacy and that's up to the people in the relationship.
Kissing can be an act of love and desire, but what the show is saying is that it is not a requirement for those things. I can be completely talking out of my ass here, but something about this is really sitting with me. Not only do we get Plakao as ace representation, someone who wants a partner to cherish and be cherished without sexual expectations, but we also get the show reinforcing the ideas that love comes in all forms with so many different acts and different people are comfortable with different things. And all of that is okay. And all of those boundaries are worthy of being respected. Regardless of societies expectations for what it means to be in a relationship and be physical, whatever is right for you is right and isn't that just beautiful?
What do we think Jon would think of How The fandom sees him? And I don't mean this in a pedantic "oh fandom bad because dumbed down and Insert Petty Headcanon Disagreement"
I mean this entirely in a "How would Jon, The man who believes himself to be an Irredeemable monster who is to blame for everything that ever went wrong, react to Just so so many people listening to his shortcommings and ultimately seeing his side"
Like yeah everyone agrees he's kind of an asshole sometimes but he is so beloved by The fans?
I'm sure some people did but I've never seen anyone doubting his humanity or blaming him for the horrors™ he Just clearly understood as his fault? Like yeah Martin tried telling him it wasn't but what I'm getting at is
I love to think about what Jon would do If he saw just the ocean of people who listened to (what he considers to be)
the most unsympathetic person in the world becoming a monster and making choices that brought the literal apocalypse upon humanity
and pretty much everyone saying "he did the best anyone could reasonably expect and he is not a bad person for being caught in the crossfire of an impossible situation with no good solutions"
remember that time in mag 187 a lady grabbed jon in fear and he shouted and presumably pushed her away? and everyone and their mother defended jon's humanity because that was a textbook trauma response
i think he would break down crying if he saw that
very compelled by elsters gender both in a transmasc and transfem way bc well elster transmasc lesbian? beautiful wonderful 10/10. she is a robot whose body was made to fit the standards of what people consider a woman to look like, as is the case with most other replikas, so once she starts being treated more like a person of her own instead of just a worker robot, its fun to think of her chafing against it. on the other hand theres elster who was made to look like a woman/her neural pattern is copied from a woman, but is still treated like an object thats only there to do the job. shes referred to by others as 'it' in a dehumanizing way altho not purposely degrading bc they dont consider her a person enough to see this as cruel to her in any way. and slowly she ends up regaining her personhood and a concept of gender that feels right, as much as it can, considering the circumstances
lol remember when eivor was like "i will not be captive to another man's gaudy design. my destiny is mine to weave." and then she. proceeded to be captive to a man's idea of what she should be and did not, in fact, weave her own destiny because she was too busy following the old god in her head despite having previously expressed blatant disinterest (and that's putting it mildly) in doing so. and then after finally finding safety and comfort among her people after a lifetime of scrounging and clawing for every ounce of happiness she ever got she then proceeded to die alone on the opposite side of an ocean from everyone who ever loved her and who she loved in return.
lying face flat on the floor passed out, vatican trio and their "if i get news of you dying another time i'll fucking get you" and "please take care of my friend this time as well".
the way that their designs are both archetypes that suggest they're not super in touch with their emotions (aloof black-haired guy and airheaded jock) but they're in fact both so casual and vocal about how much tesilid means to them
imagine my face last night when i (extensive history of suicidal ideation) (has chronically felt lonely and unloved for my whole life) (daughter of an alcoholic) (biggest fear for most of my life was ending up an alcoholic) (has actually witnessed someone drink themselves to death) (also actively drunk at the time) sat down to watch episode four of only friends only for the episode to open with ray trying to kill himself because he felt so unloved and lonely and was petrified of ending up like his mum, who later in the episode was revealed to have drunk herself to death. just imagine my face.
I can't stop thinking about the news out of Palestine. Israel is sieging al Shifa hospital. Videos of people's limbs being severed off are haunting (graphic video tw). The hospital has ran out of fuel and 39 babies in incubators are fending for their lives by themselves, because Israel has stationed snipers around the hospital and is shooting all medical crew that walks into their sight.
First, the narrative was Israel would never bomb hospitals. Now, the hospitals are Hamas bases. Then, we respect journalists. Now, we have a fucking kill list of journalists because they are Hamas collaborators. First, we are not letting fuel in until the hostages are released. Now, we are not accepting the hostages back because that would stop our ground invasion and let Hamas win. And I could go on about every single lie they're making up. If you look up "Hamas rape" on google, the first link leads to Times of Israel saying Israel has found no forensic evidence of sexual violence, and only one eyewitness testimony out of 3.5k people attending the rave. If you Google "Hamas beheaded babies" the top links say they have no evidence for the claim besides word of mouth from extremist soldiers. Israeli extremists think about the ugliest goriest scene they can make out in their sick heads, tell that to a international journalist and they run away with it like it's gospel.
And children are being killed in the name of these lies. Thousands are being displaced in images that remind me of the pictures of Tantura 75 years ago, with their hands up so the tanks don't shoot them. Amputees are leaving the hospitals in wheelchairs hours after their surgeries because they are being shot at. Elders who survived the Nakba on 48 are having to walk towards Southern Gaza on foot (imagine walking from one end of your city to the other on foot), displaced again. People are cheering for the haunting images of white phosphorus bombs being dropped over Gaza. Gazan workers who were arrested in the West Bank are being thrust back into the bombings wearing numbered labels.
This is not normal. We are seeing the early stages of the settler colonial genocide of an indigenous population. Native leaders who have visited Gaza say its refugee camps look eerily like reservations. We can stop this. For the first time we are able to see wide scale accounts from the hands of the people suffering the genocide, and Israel is so scared of it they have cut all communications in Gaza.
This is our litmus test. I think we have never seen more clearly, with Palestine, Armenia, Congo and Sudan how colonialism has made our world a rotten place to live in.
The South African apartheid collapsed due to boycotts. We have to do everything in our power to stop Israel's hegemony. Even talking to a group of friends about Palestine changes the status quo. There's no world where we can live peacefully if Israel accomplishes their goals.
Keep yourself updated and share Palestinian voices. Muna El-Kurd said every tweet is like a treasure to them, because their voices are repressed on social media and even on this very app. Make it your action item to share something about the Palestinian plight everyday. Here are some resources:
Al Jazeera, Anadolu Agency, Mondoweiss
Boycott Divest Sanction Movement
Palestinian Youth Movement is organizing protests and direct action against weapons factories across the US
Mohammed El-Kurd (twitter / instagram)
Muhammad Shehada (twitter)
Motaz Azaiza (instagram) - reporting directly from Gaza.
Hind Khudary - reporting directly from Gaza. Her husband and daughter moved South to run from the tanks but she stayed behind to record the genocide. The least we can do is not let her calls fall on deaf ears.
You can participate in boycotts wherever you are in the world, through BDS guidelines. Don't be overwhelmed by gigantic boycott lists. BDS explicitly targets only a few brands which have bigger impact. You can stop consuming from as many brands as you want, though, and by all means feel free to give a 1 star review to McDonalds, Papa John, Pizza Hut, Burger King and Starbucks. Right now, they are focusing on boycotting the following:
Push for a cultural boycott - pressure your favorite artist to speak out on Palestine and cancel any upcoming performances on occupied territory (Lorde cancelled her gig in Israel because of this. It works.)
If you can, participate in direct action or donate.
Palestine Action works to shut down Israeli weapons factories in the UK and USA, and have successfully shut down one of their firms in London.Some of the activists are going on trial and are calling for mobilizing on court.
Palestinian Youth Movement is organizing direct actions to stop the shipping of wars to Israel. Follow them.
Educate yourself. Read into Palestinian history and the occupation. You can't common sense people out of decades of propaganda. If your arguments crumble when a zionist brings up the "disengagement of Gaza", you have to learn more.
Read Decolonize Palestine. They have 15 minute reads that concisely explain the occupation (and its colonial roots) and debunk popular myths, including pinkwashing.
Read on Palestine. Here's an amazing masterpost.
Verso Book Club is giving out free books on Palestine (I personally downloaded Ten Myths about Israel by Ilan Pappe. If you still believe in the two states solution, this book by an Israeli professor debunks it).
Call your representatives. The Labour Party in the UK had an emergency meeting after several councilors threatened to resign if they didn't condemn Israeli war crimes. Calling to show your complaints works, even more if you live in a country that funds genocide.
FOR PEOPLE IN THE USA: USCPR has developed this toolkit for calls, here's a document that autosends emails to your representatives and here's a toolkit by Ceasefire in Gaza NOW!
FOR PEOPLE IN EUROPE: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace targeting the European Parliament and one specific for almost all countries in Europe, including Germany, Ireland, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Greece, Norway, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Finland, Austria, Belgium Romania and Ukraine
FOR PEOPLE IN THE UK: Friends of Al-Aqsa UK and Palestine Solidarity UK have made toolkits for calls and emails
FOR PEOPLE IN AUSTRALIA: Here's a toolkit by Stand With Palestine
FOR PEOPLE IN CANADA: Here's a toolkit by Indepent Jewish Voices for Canada
Join a protest. Here's a constantly updating list of protests:
Global calendar
Another global calendar (go to the instragram of the organizers to confirm your protest)
I still argue that bleeping someone like Gorden Ramsey is bullshit so that people who love and find swearing fun can pretend that they didn't just hear him call someone a fucking donkey, because there was a bleep... like they don't know the exact word he used, like they didn't think it, and like they didn't have fun with it
Cause I bet you... any amount of money you want honestly, that if you asked Gorden Ramsey not to swear he just wouldn't... I don't think they ever bleep anything in shows where he's helping kids cook
No, people find swearing fun, it's entertaining... they just don't want to admit they like it because it's naughty
And to be clear I'm directly pointing to this and pointing to 'unalive' and drawing a line between them for how we got here
Bruce was expecting a very normal day. If you consider having to deal with the chaos of his children and being a vigilante at night as normal.
But nonetheless, a very simple day of his normal routine and once a week dinner with his family.
Only to be broken by a phone call by someone stating that his son has been kidnapped.
Bruce didn't answer right away, he was mentally counting his sons who, are all counted for, are on the dinner table.
"Which one?" Bruce eyed each of his sons and counted them again just to be sure.
"Timothy Drake-Wayne."
Bruce immediately eyed Tim who was sitting in between Jason and Cass.
Tim's here.
Then who's the one being kidnapped?
"Bruce?" Dick spoke up, thinking that something was wrong the way Bruce was looking at all of them.
Bruce slightly waved at Dick, telling him to calm down first. "What do you want?"
Dick's question seemed to catch everyone's attention since they were all looking at Bruce now.
"Two Million. Or he gets it."
A standard threat. The kind he was expecting.
"Can I speak to my son?" This earned confused looks of his children and Bruce waved them off gesturing that it was not what they were thinking about.
"Alright kid," The kidnapper from the other said grunted, almost sounding smug. "Say hello to Daddy."
Bruce could hear heavy breathing, almost sounding like a grunt. It made Bruce slightly worried. "...Tim?" Bruce decided to speak first. "Tim, Are you okay?" And Bruce hopes that he is.
A soft grunt responded. "Hi." A croaked voice managed to respond. It sounded young. And was punched in the stomach. He should know, almost all of his children had experienced that way.
"Don't worry, chum. I'm getting you out of there." Bruce tried reassuring the kid, worried about what they might do to him. Because this isn't Tim. Tim is right across from him and these kidnappers basically had kidnapped the wrong person.
He gestured to his children, a familiar gesture, for them to head to the cave and suit up. They quickly followed, not without worried glances and confused glances at Bruce's way.
"No.." The kid had said, choked out which made Bruce paused on his step in confusion. It caught his children's attention, stopping as well.
"Uhm...Dad? I'll be fine."
Bruce believed that, for some reason, but it didn't stop his worry. But the next words from the boy made him blink
"Please give me your permission."
"....To what?" Bruce asked confusingly. Permission to what?
"To hurt."
Bruce has raised enough children to know enough about silent words in some part of the sentences without right out saying it.
To hurt them.
The kid is asking permission to hurt his kidnappers.
Bruce should say no and wait for help. Should be saying that help is on the way.
Bruce should say that he'll come and save him.
Now, Bruce doesn't normally follow his gut. It causes too much mystery and had no explanation to either it would be a good thing or a bad thing.
But right now, for once, Bruce would agree with his gut.
"....Alright."
Static came in the phone, like it was losing signal but he could clearly hear the boy voice coming out like an echo.
"Good."
"What the-- AAAHHH!!!"
Beeeepppp
Bruce blinked as he looked down at his phone after the call ended.
.....Should he have not give him permission?
"B? What's wrong? Did something happen?" Dick asked, increasingly worried now as he saw Bruce staring at his phone.
"....Suit up." Bruce concluded. They should find the boy as quickly as possible. "And call an ambulance."
Bruce could see the confused look at everyone's faces as he walked passed them.
"Wait, B!" Duke had spoke up running after Bruce with his siblings. "Was someone hurt? Is it another gang fight?"
“What,” Tim breathes out faintly, “the fuck is that?”
Language, Bruce thinks faintly, though he doesn't manage to get it past his lips.
He is a man who prides himself on being ready for anything, but he most certainly didn't expect something like this when responding to the Batsignal tonight.
“That is a Pit Demon,” Damian's voice asserts through comms, grave in a way that betrays his collected mask. He's unnerved. “There is nothing else that could be.”
Bruce is unnerved too, though he refuses to show it.
Gordon had half the block cordoned off so no civilians would come through by the time Bruce and Tim - the closest at the time - had arrived on scene. The alley itself is blocked in by police cruisers, though the officers are staying very firmly behind the line and not approaching.
It's no wonder why.
The…thing backed into a dead end alley looks like it's made of smoke and shadow, all long sinuous lines and dangerous angles.
It's vaguely Humanoid in the sense that it has a long torso, arms and a head. The arms are too long, the fingers curved and wickedly sharp. The face is a well of deep shadow, a smooth slate broken only when it opens its jagged mouth to show off a full arsenal of fangs.
The only other facial features are the solid, glowing Lazarus green eyes. Wide and lamp-like, they give the distinct feeling that the creature's sights will not miss anything.
There are no legs. Just the sinuous curves and overlaps of a long smokey tail. It whips about with agitation.
Floating like mist on the water is a head of white hair, edges fuzzy and undefined like it can't decide whether it's a solid or a gas.
The creature lays with its chest nearly flat to the ground, propped up only by those horrifically sharp hands and poised like a predator ready to push off into a sprint.
Glowing Lazarus water seems to pool slowly beneath it, streaked here and there as evidence of past movement.
Bruce finally finds his tongue to question Damian. He can see his youngest standing on the opposite roof of he and Tim, the two buildings that form the alley their perch.
“You've seen something like this before?”
Damian hesitates. “...no. But there are stories of things coming out of the Pits. I doubt I need to explain why this seems to be one of them.”
With that color green shining out of its face and streaked across the alley? No. No, he doesn't.
“Do your stories have any clues on what to do when one shows up?” Tim asks, unable to tear his eyes away from the creature.
Damian scoffs. “Close your eyes and hope your end is quick.”
“Lovely,” Tim bites out, voice a little higher pitched than normal.
“We won't be doing that,” Bruce responds dryly, two taps coming through the comms notifying them of Black Bat's arrival.
Bruce looks up and has to search for her for a few seconds before he can make her out in the shadows of Damian's rooftop.
“I'm still five minutes out,” Dick comms in. “What exactly are we looking at here? Can Oracle give a visual with any cams?”
“I wish,” Oracle chimes in. “Even through the mask footage I have no idea what they're seeing. The feed is corrupted to hell and back whenever it's in frame.”
“Really? In person it looks like-”
Tim is cut off when the officers below make some kind of movement the monster clearly takes issue with, the snarl that almost physically ricochets off the brick walls making everyone wince.
It's like TV static and the crackle of lightning striking a tree, like glaciers cracking and shifting underwater all rolled into one.
The hair on the back of Bruce's neck stands on end.
“Fuck. It's like a living shadow, but all sharp and wrong and angry-”
“No,” Cass cuts in quietly, silencing everyone.
“...Black Bat?” Bruce questions lowly.
“Not angry,” she responds, as sure as ever when assessing a target - no matter what kind of target.
“Scared, hurt. Guarding chest, trying to hide it. Wants to scare us away, but making no move to attack. Posturing.”
The thing about Cass is that they trust her reads implicitly - her reads of people.
She wouldn't speak up if she wasn't certain, and she wouldn't be certain if she didn't see something painfully human in the creature below.
“...what do you suggest?” Bruce asks after a moment of tense silence, trying to reassess the creature and see what she sees.
He at the very least wants her opinion, so they can weigh it in formulating a plan here.
Cass keeps looking for a long moment, before she looks across the gap at him. “Needs help. Reach out - at least try.”