#he makes brain go brr

[fatedroses]

I draw a sketch to simply offer my own personal little headcanon and theory that Zenos was the only other descendant Emet got close to (knowing him probably unintentionally) besides Lucius.

Obviously we never see them interact directly, but several little worldbuilding tidbits do make me ponder about certain things, like the possibility lorewise that it could've been Emet that named Zenos, and the fact that they share certain habits and potentially interests.

[sunset-synthetica]

I like her a lot

[batsplat]

if more people knew Herstory (aka 2004 season and sete&vale) so many questions wrt 2015 season(mostly “why would vale….”) would immediately be answered addfghjk like guysssss guyssssss

it is kinda funny that there's a simple cheat code out there to understanding most of valentino's career but it's just about long enough ago that most people simply... ignore it. like there's a three year span that more or less tells you what you need to know about him. it's like you say! pretty much every possible "why would vale..." secretly has a straightforward answer, and 9/10 it's something that was established in 2003 to 2005. simple as

if anything it's almost annoying because it's too easy. the 2004/2015 stuff in particular is incredibly funny. oh, so you say you have a controversial last lap at assen where valentino beat a rival in direct combat and said rival reacted surprisingly poorly, making valentino reevaluate his relationship with the rival? might that tell you something about how a seed of suspicion once sown can remain dormant for months until valentino is given cause to revisit it? valentino quite literally says in his biography that he could never have hated biaggi because he wasn't a friend and didn't have the power to hurt him... the sepang pressers thing is genuinely just silly, I know this is mainly a function of when they happen in the calendar but what a bizarre coincidence. 2015 is like a slightly more opaque funhouse mirror version of 2004 - but so many of the major beats are virtually identical. which means you've got a season Out There where a younger less experienced less guarded less cynical valentino basically walks you through his internal processes so you get a really good handle of what his deal is. he's piecing together his identity as a competitor going forwards in real time - and then in 2015 he just reminds you of what exactly that identity involves. it's a reaffirmation and not a departure... he's not that inscrutable after all, in the end

[dailyperkele]

Headcanon Week

Day 4 - Feathers' feel

Even when his feathers are detached in an attack, torn or shed there is a period of time in which Per'kele can still feel through them- primary feathers' feel lasts longer than secondary ones.

For example, when he launches them at the contestants, even if they're no longer attached to his body, he can still feel the feathers slash through the skin of the adversary. If they were to ricochet against him it'd feel like stabbing oneself with your own fingers, feeling both the cut and the cutting at the same time.

Stepping or breaking a shed feather that still has feel would be like stepping on his arm or plucking it from the skin.

[tired-reader-writer]

I'm struggling to find it in my notifications but did you mention something about having considered Team Zahhak!Narsus a while ago? And/or Arslan? I think I meant to go back and ask you about it but forgot. Anyway it came to mind again now and I am super curious! (I hope I didn't just... dream this up somehow, lmao)

...I can't find it either.

I know for a fact that I mentioned it, though! Which makes it all the more irritating when I can't find it, lol 😭

In Narsus' case it's more on the side of sheer ✨Aesthetics™✨ and the thought that “holy shit Narsus would be a terror if he were in Team Zahhak bc I'd bet he would find all sorts of new horrible horrifying ways to utilize their magic” and not much more thought put into that— I don't think Narsus as he is in canon (or even recently pre-canon) would have the capacity to be a Zahhak mage, he loves his country despite everything, despite having been thoroughly disillusioned by it, but perhaps a much, much younger Narsus... but even then I feel like he wouldn't last long before breaking off because he's much too headstrong and too smart for his own good and the Master has no use for a puppet that keeps questioning and pushing boundaries, one with a too-strong will. Maybe. The aesthetic fucks, though.

In the case of Arslan (again, I don't think he has the capacity of horribleness to be a willing member of Team Zahhak) it's kinda a riff of Wolfpack where he was spirited away on the night of the massacre by Team Zahhak mages instead of being found by Shapur... Or he gets kidnapped in a canon-adjacent setting and his mind gets broken (or he just straight up dies and they end up puppeting his corpse, terrifying), unless one takes such drastic measures as severe indoctrination or just straight up death I don't think he'll willingly stand by their side. His is some more ✨aesthetic™✨ yes but also the looks of horror from the people who knew and loved him when they see a half-undead Arslan w dead dull eyes and black veins on his skin... Plus he'd look like a ghost in black, esp if his skin looks unhealthily pale like he hasn't seen sun in an eternity.

[millenari]

you ever think about the difference in how bomba and demeter talk about Macavity in his song and just OOUUGGHHHH

Look. Listen. When Demeter talks about Macavity in the song she mostly touches upon his abilities and achievements to describe him. It almost sounds like she's bragging about him- she mentions twice that he can outsmart Scotland Yard and refers to his reputation as a criminal and also a magical cat. The only time she refers to his appearance is when she says he is 'outwardly respectable' which -as we all know- is either totally untrue or, at the very least, not true anymore.

Meanwhile Bomba focuses on his physical appearance, and when she describes him it sounds like a completely different guy than Demeter's supposed 'respectable' criminal mastermind: he's unkempt, he's uncombed, his eyes are sunken in, etc. Also in almost direct contradiction to the 'outwardly respectable' line, she additionally claims 'you'd know him if you saw him'. She compares him to a snake, an animal most cats sure as fuck don't like, and calls him a 'monster of depravity'. I'd say her descriptions lean towards accusing him of being inhuman, but these are... you know. Cats. None of them are human. But either way she certainly labels him as completely 'other' than the rest of them: he is a 'fiend in feline shape'.

(And certainly this can be explained away as the two of them just having difference preferences. Bomba, as we know, likes Tugger, and she describes him as a 'curious beast' so clearly she has a type here. Meanwhile Demeter is sometimes depicted as having some kind of love affair with Alonzo, but nowadays she's usually paired up with Munk, a guy who doesn't really seem to display much sexuality in comparison to the other male cats, and demonstrates a lot of competence and emotional intelligence throughout the play. So it does make sense that these two specifically would fixate on these two different aspects of the same man.)

However they almost seem to be in conflict about their hot takes on Macavity. Take the middle section I marked off for example: the first time that 'there's no one like Macavity' bit is sung, Demeter sings it. Then later on, Bomba sings it. But when Bomba sings it she changes the second line, which goes from 'He's broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity' to 'For he's a fiend in feline shape, a monster of depravity'. She also mirrors Demeter's choreo from the same section as she sings it.

That makes her slight change feel very pointed, especially with the how she gestures towards Demeter during that line.

Demeter, fundamentally, is saying, 'there's no one like Macavity, he can do all of these insane things', and meanwhile Bomba is saying, 'there's no one like Macavity, he's a fucking monster' and she makes sure Demeter knows that's exactly what she's saying too.

& on that note there's even more context there when you look at their demeanor. Demeter seems to have a lot of conflict about her feelings, which is portrayed through her expressions mostly, while Bomba remains almost kind of playful and certainly enthusiastic through the whole song. Demeter --who is vastly conflicted-- tries to talk about Macavity's achievements when describing him. Bomba --who knows exactly what Macavity is and was and feels no shame about it-- is happy to talk about what an abomination he is and how attracted she is to him anyways.

And that makes the 'outwardly respectable/cheats at cards' moment feel really important, because Demeter tries to claim something that may be one thousand percent not even remotely true, (potentially to justify her attraction to Macavity), and Bomba cuts in --sometimes with amusement, sometimes with annoyance, sometimes without particular tone-- and retorts, 'i know he cheats at cards'.

Which regardless of if you interpret that line in the manner that seems most obvious: 'I know he cheated on you' (especially when there's a loaded pause between 'cheats' and 'at cards'), or if you take it to be more general ('I know he's more nefarious than he seems' for example) that line very much seems to be Bomba cutting in there and essentially expressing 'girl, give me a fucking break'. And well, one of Bomba's character words isn't 'frank' for nothing.

I also don't have it pictured in the screenshot, but the third time that 'there's no one like Macavity' bit is sung, it's sung by them both at once, and that notable second line that keeps changing says 'There never was a cat of such deceitfulness and suavity,' which labels Macavity as 'deceitful' but also 'suave', almost as if the two of them decided to compromise on their respective perceptions of the man. Which matches how they, by that point, have begun to dance in sync as well.

[adamsc0rpse]

I just made this silly adam sketch ‼️

(The nose is inspired by juggerheads art)

[atsumwah]

i love confident!matsukawa as much as the next person but something about flustered!matsukawa that makes me weak in the knees even more ???

[possibly-not-a-ghost]

I'm sorry in advance for the person I will become when Neuvillette is released.

[redxriiot]

I wanna chew on he like a little gomita

[raayllum]

Callum + still thinking about Rayla

[sansloii]

>:)

i finished the au for Roderick

[batsplat]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[fe4rm0nger]

giggling and kicking my feet the minute childe appears on screen :3c

[astxrwar]

ALL THE AUs!

Professor!bucky

Personal Trainer!bucky

Cowboy!bucky

Pirate!bucky

LET'S GOO!

Seriously tho, your writing is so amazing. It would be an honor to dive into alt-bucky psyche with you at the helm. Oh, Captain, My Captain.

AUGH anon you’ve plagued me with thoughts of hot ex-jock-who-was-D1-in-college physical therapist bucky x clumsy lifelong knee and hip alignment issues reader who is the embodiment of the “i don’t have rizz i have big doll eyes and many unsettling things to say” textpost + is at all times HYPERAWARE of how PAINFULLY HOT he is (and maybe even accidentally says that aloud! literally first meeting smth like “oh— wow, you’re really—“ *immediate alarmed I Have Said Too Much expression* . N bucky just laughs and goes ‘don’t worry, i get that a lot’ to which she’s very wryly like. “yeah I’m sure you do.”)

and then not only is he hot but he’s also charming and kind! very much “genuinely nice guy who was popular in high school/college and is still popular because he’s just. a good fucking dude.” which is worse! because that just makes him MORE hot! and here’s so much weird intimacy in physical therapy for knee/hip/back alignment issues (ASK HOW I KNOW!! bet you can’t guess!!!) and the POTENTIAL. augh. and then reader mentally being like “mmm this is fine. it’s fine! it’s his job and people react like this all the time because he’s hot and we’re all only human after all!!! it’s fine.” meanwhile bucky’s just like. helplessly endeared by the fact that literally any amount of physical contact shorts out her entire prefrontal cortex like overloading an electrical circuit because yeah people frequently do have crushes on him or behave in a way that indicates they find him attractive but what people do not usually do is completely lose track of speech mid-sentence because he’s touched them in any capacity. mm. i just need a lighthearted fic of dorky and easily flustered but still outgoing RC x a 40’sesque personality bucky with no major trauma or issues and with all of his Charm still intact. I dew not need to start another WIP i need to RESTRAIN myself

[intcrastra]

I like to think Jing Yuan once hated being teased with little nicknames by the others in the High Cloud Quintet, especially of 'A-Yuan', out of embarrassment in being treated as the youngest of the lot.

Nowadays, he desperately wishes to hear that very nickname the most, if only once more, by his ( now former ) friends. No matter how impossible that may now be.