#he's fucking bonkers don't judge me

[benetnvsch]

if I had a nickel every time I watched an anime where a character voiced by Patrick Seitz blows up a character voiced by Griffin Puatu I'd have two nickels which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice-

[rcmclachlan]

Relative Value (buck/tommy)

"And I feel for her, you know? I really do. The dissolution of a relationship, especially a marriage, feels like you're drowning in hot tar, and you spend every waking moment kicking your way to the surface to try and breathe. But if she brings up her divorce again while I'm in the middle of peeing? I'm going to divorce her head from her body."

Buck makes a face at the thought of Maddie's decapitated coworker. "Please don't send the 118 to that scene. I'm not so great with entrails these days. Send the 147—they deserve it after they botched that extrication on Monday." 

Maddie laughs, the sound tinny but comfortingly familiar coming through his phone's speakers. She'd propped her phone on Jee-Yun's dresser halfway through the call so she could put away laundry while she talked, and for the last five minutes he's been watching her fold Jee's clothes like she's being judged at the Olympics. 

It's nice to see that hasn't changed. Maddie should've been in jail years ago for the way she loads a dishwasher, but when it comes to laundry she's a goddamn wizard. When he was younger, his parents saddled him with taking out the trash and doing the dishes, but putting away the laundry was always Maddie's chore. She actually enjoyed it, the weirdo. She used to tell him the first whiff of warm Snuggle right out of the dryer was a cure-all. Also, she can fold a fitted sheet in under ten seconds. He'd timed her once.

Maddie takes an eye-wateringly orange shirt out of the laundry basket and with three decisive motions turns it into a perfect rectangle. If Jee ever decides she wants to go deer hunting, she'll be all set. "Since when are you not good with entrails?" 

"Since that guy was ripped in half last week."

It'd easily been the grizzliest car crash he'd ever been called to. It made the 405 pileup a few years back look like Disney on Ice. About halfway through tagging and bagging almost a dozen casualties strewn all over the westbound lanes of the Pomona Freeway, the guy responsible for the crash snapped awake while Hen and Chimney were setting up and drove off in a panic. The top-half of the motorist stuck under his car was dragged maybe sixty feet, and Buck had a front row seat to the sight of the poor guy's nerves and vasculature trailing behind him like squid tentacles before the driver came to a stop by hitting yet another car. 

"I'm also not eating spaghetti for the foreseeable future, FYI," he adds.

Maddie wrinkles her nose. "Okay, changing the subject: when do you leave again?"

It wouldn't be an overstatement to say the smile that question invokes explodes over his face. He feels it happen; the spark eats the fuse so quickly there's barely any lead-up and his cheeks burn from the sheer magnitude of the blast. 

"You look deranged," Maddie says, laughing.

"I feel deranged." He's been like this all week and it's starting to scare everyone. Chimney keeps leaving pamphlets for Clozaril in his locker. "Tomorrow morning. We're picking up the bird right after we do a coffee run."

"I wish my boyfriend was whisking me away to the mountains for a romantic getaway." Maddie heaves a theatrical sigh. "My husband says the best he can do is Shake Shack."

The whole thing is absolutely bonkers. He'd been minding his own business, half-watching a documentary about volcanoes with his feet in Tommy's lap, when they showed some insanely beautiful footage of Mount Rainier. And although his mind was focused on completing level 29 of Euclidea, his mouth was busy saying, "I've always wanted to go there." 

Thumb digging into Buck's instep, Tommy had made a thoughtful sound and said, "I'd tapped a buddy of mine to get us into Griffith Observatory after hours, but I like your idea way better. Let's do it."

If someone had told Buck 1.0 that someday a beast of a man would be flying him by helicopter to the Cascades for their two-year anniversary, he would've laughed his way into a pneumothorax. And then he would've tried to fuck his nurse. 

He looks across the living room to where their bags have been sitting, fully packed, since last night, and grins. "Tell Chim he needs to step up his game. You're worth Zankou, at least."

Maddie snorts. "Gee, thanks."

Behind her, there's unexpected movement, and every muscle in his body locks up as his heart stops in a moment of brief, blinding terror. 

It's stupid to feel this way after seven years, but a little part of him is still waiting for Doug to crawl out of the shadows like a wraith to finish what he tried to do. He's spent many a sleepless night spiraling to the soundtrack of Chimney's desperate, Do you know he's dead for sure? Did you see a body?

Buck did see his body, but a little voice sometimes whispers to him from some deep, dark place at two in the morning: it was freezing that day. It could've slowed the bleeding, could've kept him alive long enough to go to a hospital. You don't know what happened after the ambulance left with him. What if he survived? What if he's out there right now, just biding his time?

Which are bad and ridiculous thoughts to have because he knows that monster is dead, and frankly he's got better things to think about than Doug, who's absolutely having his skin torn off in hell right now—especially since his adorable, perfect niece is the one who came into the room. 

"Say hi to your uncle, Jee," Maddie says, smiling. In her hands, a pair of polka dot leggings becomes a polka dot brick with hospital corners. 

Jee-Yun jumps a little like she can't quite see him, and Maddie goes over to the dresser to obligingly tilt the camera down. 

"Hi, Uncle Buck." Jee-Yun waves, then rises an inch or two higher in the frame, and he realizes she's standing on her tiptoes. She cranes her head, moving it a bit from side to side like she's looking for something. After a few seconds, she drops back down, grimacing in disappointment.

He looks over his shoulder, but no one's there. "Sorry, kiddo, it's just me."

"Just you is fine, always," Maddie immediately pipes up, and he ducks his head with a smile. It's always nice to hear her say that. "It's just that… well, she had a question and we weren't sure if you were the one we should be asking."

Buck grins. "Lay it on me, Jee."

It's always a little hilarious to watch how Jee reacts when the spotlight's on her. She bounces and twirls a little, and her whale-spout pigtails move with her. For someone getting ready to enter kindergarten, she's got the stage presence of a Broadway star. "Uncle Buck, how do airplanes fly when they're so big and heavy?"

He opens his mouth to answer her, but there's nothing there, just an empty pocket of air that tastes vaguely like the ham sandwich he had for lunch. He closes his mouth with a click, stymied. He could've sworn he knew this one. Something about lift and drag?

"Jee, I-I'm sorry. I don't know off the top of my head. I could look it up for you?"

A little groan escapes her, but it turns into a shriek when a tie-dyed sweatshirt comes winging from off-camera and lands on her head. Jee wrestles the shirt away, static making her hair cling to her face, which she swipes with a whine. 

"That's why I wanted to ask Uncle Tommy!"

Buck has forgotten a lot about the tsunami. Time has softened the memory of how warm the water was, how it shoved its way into his mouth and nostrils like it was trying to find a way inside his veins, and that it was filled with so much debris it scored the insides of his cheeks bloody. But the one thing he never lost was how his feet went out from under him when that first wave hit like a freight train. He hasn't been able to ride a roller coaster since: he doesn't see the need to pay to experience the feeling of free fall again. He remembers every second of it like it just happened. 

He may be sitting on the couch with his feet firmly on the floor, but his stomach is thrilling at the familiar sensation of being completely unmoored. Only instead of being dragged into the dark, he's being pulled up into endless blue. 

Breathless with stratospheric joy, he digs his trembling fingers into his knees like it's going to do anything to keep him grounded, and chokes out, "Who, Jee?"

The look Jee turns on the camera is so confused that Buck isn't sure he was even using real words just then. It could've been a jumble of sounds falling from his mouth like aquarium gravel. 

"Uncle Tommy," Jee says, with the patient air of someone who forgot they were talking to an idiot. "It's okay if you don't know about airplanes, Uncle Buck. You drive fire trucks."

He's pretty sure he was just insulted. Behind Jee, Maddie's wide-eyed and mouthing an ecstatic oh my god! 

"Tell you what. When—" he swallows thickly, overcome "—Uncle Tommy wakes up from his nap, I'll have him call you and he can tell you all about how planes stay up in the air."

She mulls it over, and he can see the outline of her tongue poking the inside of her cheek like she's swishing the offer around in her mouth. Finally, she gives him two decisive nods of her head that has her pigtails bouncing. "Okay. When's that?"

"I-I don't know. Soon." If the lightning had struck a few feet away from him instead of dead-on, he thinks it would've felt like this. Any second now he's going to vibrate out of his skin and scar Jee for life. "Maybe I should go check on him." 

"I think that's a good idea," Maddie says cheerfully, coming into the foreground. Her eyes are glossy and red, and even with two screens and several miles between them it feels like she's about to wrap him up in the warmest hug. "Why don't we let you go for now? Uncle Tommy can give us a buzz later."

"Yeah, t-that sounds like a plan." He knows he's rocking the deranged look again, except it's somehow so much worse. He doesn't care. He hopes his face gets stuck like this. When he rolls into the station two weeks from tomorrow, he's going to take every pamphlet Chimney shoves at him and eat them.

Maddie's grin is threatening to split her face in half. "Give Uncle Tommy a big kiss from us."

He's going to do way more than that. "You bet. Bye, Mads. Bye, Jee!"

The very second the call ends, he's on his feet and practically running down the hall. Tommy had been coming off a rough 24 earlier when he'd sloppily kissed Buck and then staggered into the bedroom. It's been almost three hours and Buck hasn't heard a peep since. 

Buck makes sure to lift the bedroom door when he opens it so the hinges don't creak, and when he sees Tommy—sprawled diagonally across the mattress with his jeans still on and enough drool soaked into the pillowcase to fill a bathtub—his knees decide it's the perfect time to stop working. He clutches the door frame so he doesn't crumble to the floor under the weight of all this euphoria.

Jee thinks of Tommy as family. It's not hard to figure out the logic she must be using to get there: she has an Uncle Buck, who has had a Tommy for as long as she's been making real memories, and therefore… 

He can't help but wonder who else in the world is operating on that same intel. Jee has no doubt told the teachers at her kindergarten about her mom and dad and her amazingly cool Uncle Buck, but maybe she's also told them about her other uncle, who always lets her ride on his shoulders when they go to the park and who talks to her like she's a forty-seven-year old at brunch. Maybe she's told kids at the playground about the uncle who knows why planes stay in the air and who folded himself into a pretzel because she wanted him to sit next to her at the kids' table last Friendsgiving. Maybe she's drawn shitty pictures in crayon of two stick figures holding hands under a smiling sun, and when her classmates ask who they're supposed to be, she tells them, "That's my Uncle Buck and my Uncle Tommy." 

Inhaling shakily, he makes himself move from the doorway to the bed, crawling in as gingerly as he can. It's all for nothing, though, because Tommy cracks an eye open and fixes it on him. Buck scrunches his face up in apology, but Tommy just smiles a little and tugs Buck down, pressing his face into the space between Buck's neck and shoulder and settling with a hum.

Buck slides a hand into his hair and holds him close, breathing in old sweat and a hint of his own shampoo. "I love you, Uncle Tommy."

"If this is a new kink, I'm going to need at least another two hours of sleep before I'm prepared to tackle it," Tommy mumbles. 

Choking on laughter, Buck presses a kiss to the side of his head and wonders if it's possible to die of happiness. "Not quite. Your niece has a question about airplanes and wants you to call her when you wake up."

When there's no immediate answer, Buck is sure Tommy's fallen back to sleep, but then Tommy shifts a little in his arms, presses a kiss to his shoulder, and murmurs warmly, "Will do."

[brucewaynehater101]

It really gets me so mad that in Batman: The Animated series when all Joker Junior happens they let Tim go. Just like that. WTF???

That's your boy Bruce, the one you drive in your limo, the one that gets an allowance, the one that impersonates you so good because he's your son. And the minute he goes through the worst experience of his life you just let him go.

Like, I get my boy Tim, him been there just reminds him of his trauma, and if being away helps him, then go away, no one's gonna judge you.

BUT 40 YEARS OF SILENCE

Like. Man. Wtf.

And I get the series has other problems (Bruce and Babs together- yuck )

But Tim, hurt Tim forced to go through it alone.

It hurts me so much, it haunts me.

Fuck. I need to watch that series. I was a wee bit scared cause I thought, at first, that Tim got stuck as Joker. I couldn't handle that, tbh. I heard he doesn't, though, so I'm down to try.

However, that's so fucking tragic. Just Tim handling that trauma alone when Bruce is aware of it. I've seen some cool AUs where Bruce and the others aren't aware, but somehow it's worse where Bruce just ignored Tim (or that it happened to him).

40 is fucking bonkers though.

I kind of want an AU where Tim reaches the 10 year anniversary of the JJ incident. The only person who knows is Bruce (maybe Alfred if you want to make him guilty/bad). The age Tim is can vary (from like 19-24), but it'd be hella cool to see the fallout of everyone else learning that Bruce has been a dick to Tim for that. This would be cool if Tim was RR at this point.

Counter AU:

JJ happens when Tim is Robin, and Bruce fires Tim "for his own safety" or whatever. No one else, not even Barbara, knows about this incident. All they know is that there *was* a third Robin, but now there's not.

Other people rein Bruce in until Damian comes along. Maybe Cass helps or something (for plot purposes, Steph isn't Robin. She does get vigilante-adopted by Oracle, though, and joins the Birds of Prey).

Either way, Tim is no longer Robin and basically ignored by Bruce due to Bruce's guilt/fear (not an excuse. Bruce is a huge colossal asshole for that. This is just his reasoning).

The only people who know who the third Robin was are Bruce, Babs, Dick, Alfred, Leslie, Jason, and Talia (technically Ra's too). No one but Jason and Talia know that Jason knows who the third Robin was.

Bruce, once again, is the only one who knows about JJ and why Tim stopped being Robin (maybe Alfred too, but fun drama if Alfred finds out what Bruce did to Tim).

Anyways, Jason never attacks Tim because Tim wasn't Robin by that point. Damian doesn't either. They don't have favorable opinions of Tim, but he's not really important to them in the grand scheme of things.

Dick and Babs initially kept in contact with Tim, but they slowly stopped checking up with him due to the shitshow of their lives (like Jason coming back).

Tim moves out of Gotham for a few years. He was never adopted at this point and keeps up the fake uncle thing. He's pissed at Bruce for firing him (that man can not tell Tim to stop being a vigilante. That's so fucking hypocritical and that man isn't Tim's father), but he can't do anything about it. Bruce can't stop him from being a vigilante if he isn't in Gotham, though [Tim also gets the opportunity to heal while he's not in the same shadow of Gotham].

While Tim isn't Robin, he does maintain some communication with YJ. It's more distant, but they still go on missions together (as long as word won't get back to Batman). Tim is also more of a traveling vigilante who steals money from Lex or other billionaires to fund Tim's night job (he, begrudgingly, doesn't attempt to steal from Bruce. Babs would catch him). Tim also pockets some of the cash from crimes (particularly if the cops are corrupt and the money wouldn't go towards good causes regardless). Maybe Tim remotely manages DI as well, maybe not.

Anyways, years later, the batfam is slowly starting to heal. Jason is starting to forgive Bruce. The old man is putting in the effort to heal their relationship. Damian is healing and bonding with all of the family members in his own way. Dick has a much better relationship with Bruce, and Steph feels accepted by them.

Then Bruce "dies."

Tim stumbles upon proof of Bruce through his travels. He doesn't trust the Bats (especially after at least a year of no contact with them), so he tries to tell them about his proof as a not well-known vigilante. Red Hood has worked with him when The Outlaws crossed paths with him, but they aren't at the stage where RH trusts him. Tim doesn't trust RH due to a conversation or two about the man's hatred of the third Robin.

The Bats, drowning in their grief, push Tim away and deny him.

It stings, but Tim convinces himself to just shrug. What would he expect from the Bats anyways?

Tim goes through the effort of bringing Bruce back by himself. He then tries to dip immediately afterwards. He wants nothing to do with the Bats.

The Bats become curious about why a vigilante who seems to dislike would risk and sacrifice so much to bring back Bruce. They, like the nosy shits they are, try to investigate, charm, and stalk Tim.

Tim wants nothing to do with those fuckers. He wants to be left alone, fucking hell.

This dissolves into Tim trying to stay the fuck away from the Waynes as they chase him. He also can't help the fact that he cares about them, even if they piss him off.

More secrets unravel. Tim, wanting them to just go the fuck away, admits he knew the third Robin and that's why he doesn't like them.

Tim has changed a ton (personality and looks [he's taller and changes his appearance with makeup/wings]) so they don't immediately think of him as the third Robin. Tim also maintains a spotless civilian cover.

This cues the other Bats starting to question each other and Bruce what the fuck happened to the third Robin to make someone else hold a grudge against them.

I got so distracted. Oh well. Imma have to watch that series to feel the pain you're chatting about ^^ I wanna immerse myself in it, lmao

[whysojiminimnida]

Remember When I Said Taehyung Might Not Be As Gay As We Thought?

Don't judge a man by his milfy wardrobe, he looks goooood.

It was... awhile ago. Maybe as far back as 2021 although I do not feel like link-searching it. It's in the archives if I didn't kill it.

Granted, there was a lot going on, then. There's still a lot going on and until now I had no desire to ever - EVER - return to this hellsite. Because Taekookers are fucking weird, yo. And some of y'all got a lil bit up in my shit too as I (fuzzily) recall. Which: it's whatever. I'm extremely unsocial, don't even answer my own DMs. And it's not personal, so I get it. I don't need or want to defend myself, but I will protect people I care about. With my absence, if necessary.

OT: I also totally kicked the big C while I've been out so that was nice. Yoongi the cat is pleased that his noms will continue uninterrupted. I will be in wigs for at least another year. It's all good. Oh LOOK at what we have here. Don't come at me for publishing this, I will explain.

I got it from actual media days ago, okay, and also: there was no expectation of real privacy. Keep reading. Or don't, I'm not telling you what to do.

ANYWAY. I had to come back, mainly to say TAENNIE IS REAL I TOLD Y'ALL IDK WHY NOBODY EVER BELIEVES ME BUT HERE WE ARE. I'm gloating. Honestly, it's so rude, I'd apologize if I cared. But I am rude and snorfling into my cheerios about this. Tae just made me so damn happy, is all.

LET THE MAN BE BI OR HETEROFLEXIBLE OR EVEN STRAIGHT IDC. Jennie clearly makes him happy. Look at his "I'm going to Paris to see my girlfriend" face!

And in that very specific jewelry look, no less. Foundrae. Again. Still. Hm.

Here's what I can tell you based on my limited third hand no sources no receipts this is probably utter bullshit usual disclaimer: It's a soft open, kids. This whole "oopsie we just so happened to get caught taking a lil walk in public with our managers in tow during which date at least one of us signed several autographs, what a surprise" is in fact a soft open for what will likely be a public confirmation PRETTY DAMN SOON. It might happen before I get this thing published, actually, depending on when I get it up. If it's before May 22 at noon my time, no idea. If after, well. Guess we'll see. Jennie's supposed to show up at the screening of HBO's The Idol that day, screening at the Grand Lumiere at 10:30 CEST. One wonders if she will arrive alone, or bring a plus one. It's a big ask, and if he does it they're probably getting married, that's how big a deal it would be. So I'm not holding my breath, but.

This seems like a reasonable prospect for a plus-one viewing. Might not be the only one but... Jennie's IN IT so.

I'M NOT SAYING THIS IS GONNA HAPPEN. I think it would be a fucking POWER move if it did, but I also do not necessarily expect that it will. It COULD. It... MIGHT. It might not. Either way they're a thing, I'm telling you. They are, have been, a thing. For awhile. And it is apparently quite serious - like up to and including talk of engagement serious.

Remember when a bunch of folk thought that one gummy bear dude was going to jail for "hacking" Jennie's phone only there's been no actual movement on any "investigation"? Yeah. Trickle truthing, they call it. Give 'em a little bit, let them deny it and yell and chew on it for awhile before you give 'em a little more. But c'mon, nobody's wearing half the love-themed couple pieces at Foundrae for no damn reason.

Seriously they got the whole collection almost and both have been seen wearing them almost exclusively. For a year.See airport pic above.

Look, I don't have inside info on Taehyung. I do not. I ain't hang with his friends and I don't know him personally. Never met the guy. But I know a PR move when I see one and this is exactly that.

We all know how toxic stan culture can be. Some ToadlicKKers (and a few of us house elves) are certifiably bonkers, if stan twitter is anything to go by. And the guys, the company, they expect a whole meltdown. They know this is not gonna make half their fans happy. I mean the tkkers have a point in that it looks like they wanted to be seen. BECAUSE IT'S A SOFT OPEN. What Taejen/Taennie/Jenhyung and the companies also know is that based on historic shipper behavior, this is gonna come back on Jimin, Jungkook, maybe Rose' and Lisa. And by extension, the other members. Maybe not as much due to their respective distance, but still. I bet by the time I finish this it will have already started.

Oh look there it is. Fuck those bitches, really.

Good LORDT. I'm not adding the audio, if y'all are that hungry for psycho hose beast Jimin hate hie thee to stan twt.

But, totally off-topic kinda...

... wouldn't it be cool if Jennie, who speaks great English, was hanging out with Troye Sivan and was like "so you know my boyfriend tells me that his bffs..." I'M JUST SAYING NETWORKING IS COOL AND FRIENDS OF FRIENDS GET THINGS DONE OKAY.

You know that girl has the scoop. If Tae knows it, she knows it. Oh heeeeyyy Troye.

Also OT: I love that Taekook have been hanging out a little more lately. It's refreshing. I genuinely think having Jennie in his life has been good for Tae in several ways. And you know, I'm kinda surprised Taennie has lasted this long. I didn't honestly think they would. It warms my decrepit, sad old heart a bit. Turns out I have a lot more to say so IDK IDK, if I feel okay about it I might be back. Right now I'm just waiting for the official Taennie nod and the continued total meltdown.

[happypotato48]

Century of Love EP 3-4 Unhinged Tangent Thoughts

Ok ok ok we're going fast baby! need to catch up so i can start doing this weekly.

Kanom krok! if any of ya'll ever coming to Thailand you better get this dessert. imo it's the best Thai street food. i'm not fond with the ones that has corn in them, but for real the green onions ones are heavenly.

Best advice in bl ever grandma. yeah fuck them hoes whose only judged you for your past mistakes and social status.

Tit-bit about thai nickname trend. people who only has two kids usually named their two kids to rhyme and/or in similar theme. for an example Nammon (holy water) Namhom (scented water.)

This is a BL alright :)

the three (generations) stooges. god i loved this family so much.

This is the sexiest scene in all of the recent Thai BLs. fight me, this man brush work got me more work up than butt naked sex scenes. anyways i'm calling dibs on this man he's my future husband and non of you bitches can have him!

Yeah as much it is ashamed for me to admit this but i can only count to ten in mandarin.

Gramp you already had sex dreams about this boy. also the heaven don't give no shit about two men getting married. it's the dinosaurs that you have to be worry about.

The OG Y girl Nu Wa striked agian.

One bad choice and your life is ruined. i related to that.

One class solidarity flashback and this man is ready down to clown, respect.

I know this scene is suppose to be funny but like i'm trash so... berate me more Daddy!

Dashing! so since the marriage equality bill passed i've been start thinking about my own hopefully one day will happen wedding. and yeahhhh i'm a basic bitch i probably going to wear black but after seeing this maybe red is not a bad choice. still need to find a man first tho.

What did i said! our girl Nu Wa is the OG!

Another bad choice to be make, that's life i guess.

And now to EP 4!

I wish i have the audacity of this boy. it's very inspiring to be this shameless.

Ok i love this homophobic grandpa. idk why but i don't feel bothered by a homophobic lead in this show contrast to other older Thai BLs.

Noooo you hurts my baby old man! although bloody noise Tao is kinda turn me on.

Food!!!

I don't care i support this boy very bad choice in saving his grandma. this baby and his grandma deserved the world.

My heart! ahhhhhhh!!!!

*incoherent noise* Gay love is indeed magical.

I will kill you motherfucker. classist pig.

+1 Point for show up for the wedding - 1 point for not beliving your friends outlandish BL nonsense.

Hell yeah, this shit alway bothered me in vempire show.

Danm this boy is jacked! i support (as long as they're not straving themselves) twink death for all BL actors.

This show is bonker lol i loved it.

Hi uncle Suchat.

Yesss finally some good god danm Thai BL. these two EPs is so good, i loved the silly bickering between our leads but also how the emotional stuff are very much not overshadowed by all of the sillyness. i'm very much invested in Wee's quest to save his grandma and the genuine budding romance that started to bubbly up cause of the mutual cares and empathy that the leads has for each other. i'm having a great time with this show and i can't wait for this week EPs.

[woah-uhuh-uhuh-uhuh]

Christine Canigula was socially ostracized & developed a complex to protect herself: an essay

(suddenly i NEED to infodump about Christine actually so here)

Something I only noticed on rewatch: the way Christine will say something silly and then just kind of gingerly wait to see if Jeremy reacts well to it before continuing, almost like she's asking permission?? (e.g. the gap after the first stanza of "Play Rehearsal"). And it's only after he riffs off her bowling alley bit that she feels comfortable talking about her personal feelings with him (right before "Guy that I'd Kinda be Into"). The same happens with their "weird noise" exchange immediately before "It's pretty killer to sit and chat with you." I know theater relies on being succinct, and that 'bonding over shared quirks' and 'feelings talk' are both just crucial parts of relationship development... but I don't think it's a coincidence that it always goes in that order!

It's like Jeremy has to pass these *trials of weirdness* before she feels safe opening up to him and it drives me BONKERS so I wrote a whole 1000 word thing about it under the cut and this got too massive and I'm sorry. Also some autistic Jeremy meta at the end if that sweetens the pot hehehe

Table of contents:

Why she was ostracized

How she was ostracized

How that might inform her pattern of relationship development with Jeremy and Jake

How gender caused Jeremy's experiences to differ from hers, and how that affects their current relationships with "popularity" and peer acceptance.

1. Why she was ostracized

I am just so certain that Christine has been bullied or at least majorly outcast for a lot of her life. She's very obviously neurodivergent and because of that she can have these obnoxiously deep and repetitive interests, she can't judge if a piece of information will be genuinely interesting to someone, and she doesn't take social cues very well.

She frequently interrupts people when they're talking (an ADHD symptom btw), even when they're literally talking to her about the thing she wants to hear!

(C: "Do you find that? Because I totally find that!" J: "Uh, yeah, I-" C: "-And no matter how hard I try....")

(J: "I know the last thing I deserve is another shot, but-" C:"Jeremy, just... say what's on your mind.") (girl I'm sorry but that's what he was doing..... I have a whole other thoughtpiece on how this particularly fucks with Jeremy while they're dating but thats another thing...)

She doesn't seem confident in her interpretations of people's emotions and she'll ask/talk about them point blank (both theirs and her own) in a way a lot of people would find rude

("Uh, you seem really nervous...") ("Popular people are fucked up! *mutual laughter* …I mean, you're one of them!") ("I am flattered, this is new / still I'm not sure what I should do" <- as a response to getting asked out, that's pretty bold! Plus the entire part where she laughs at Jake's "rich boy routine") (also compare and contrast to Jeremy's "I don't know what I'm supposed to say right now." idk. are your allistic stage dorks in the room with us right now motherfuckers)

I'd go on about her hyperfixations/special interests too but I think Play Rehearsal pretty much sums it up lol

2. How she was ostracized

All this to say that I am CERTAIN she spent a lot of her schooling having "nice girls" patiently let her sit with them at lunch for weeks at a time until they finally get sick of her rambling and faux pas. Only when they leave does Christine realize that they didn't actually care about anything she said... And this happens over and over and over. (I know this seems hella specific but I swear it's an actual phenomenon... at least I'm pretty sure? sdjflksjf)

But anyway, it's clear that by the time they're juniors, Christine has kind of (and I do only mean kind of) figured out what behaviour other people respond poorly to. And from evidence I stated in the intro, I think she's become really careful about which people she lets herself get attached to. She doesn't want this to ever happen again - which means if she's going to hang out with someone, she has to know that they actually care about her, that they know she will sometimes be obnoxious or blunt, and they'll still be okay with that forever.

3. Applying this to her canon relationships

You can extend this to Jake, someone who sees her in her element in drama rehearsal (the thing everyone finds annoying about her because she won't shut up about it) and STILL likes her. I think it's a totally valid reading that her bluntness with him later ("Upgrade") is just because she misreads him / doesn't quite get the social standard that she should be white lying instead. But I think you could also read her as testing the waters. If she's really going to commit to dating this guy, she's gotta know he's okay with her being herself. And the fact that this guy (and I think it's significant that he is a boy, for reasons I'll explain in the end note) genuinely seems to like her is a whole new level of peer validation ("I am flattered, this is new") -- so of course she's gonna fall at least a little! It doesn't hurt that he's "tired of being the person that everyone thinks that I am..." just like her!

Her history with being pity-liked makes Chloe's "advice," that Jake's just toying with her and is going to move on soon, even scarier, because that's genuinely happened to her (on a platonic level) so many times before.

Jeremy is also a good candidate from the beginning because he's weird he's a weirdo he doesn't fit in and he doesn't wanna fit in you ever see him without this stupid cardigan on? that's weird! And she keeps warming up to him not only because they're getting to know each other but because he gets progressively more willing to not only tolerate (as Jake does) but *participate* in her weirdness!

First, she does something weird and he tolerates it ("Play Rehearsal"); the next time she's weird, he participates! (bowling ball before GTIKBI). Then finally finally finally he initiates the weirdness and lets her join in! ("weird noises" exchange before GTIKBI reprise).

And notably, it is THIS moment that canonically signifies that they've hit the apex of their canon relationship development. If there was an achievement called "Befriend Christine," it would have popped up right then and there!!!

IN CONCLUSION: YOUR HONOR I LOVE THEM T_T

4: Christine vs. Jeremy: Gender differences & how that ultimately impacts their social goals

I also think all of this would have happened to Jeremy too if he'd been a girl. But because, generally, young boys feel less social obligation than girls to take pity on the autistic kid (and because boys tend to be more quickly recognized as autistic) he just ends up completely alone for most of his school life (Michael nonwithstanding - and yeah there's an important distinction between your childhood friend putting up with you and knowing that, woah, I guess literally nobody else ever will).

Meanwhile, Christine has had people "put up" with her, and she's SICK OF IT!

That's part of why their complexes are so different, because Christine is trying to check everyone she meets to make sure they'll be okay with her weirdness before she gets attached, Jeremy is trying to eliminate his weirdness altogether because he's never even experienced his peers listening out of *pity* so how the hell can he expect someone to ever listen to him out of *interest?*

Jeremy has never had someone pretend to like him before, so he completely lacks Christine's fear of befriending someone who secretly hates you. He doesn't realize how bad it'll hurt him if he destroys his real self for popularity, if he befriends people who would have bullied his real self. He doesn't know what disingenuous friendship feels like, so like a very young Christine he's still actively trying to get there because he thinks it's the only kind of validation he'll ever get.

Do you see what im saying? Do you see it???? AUAUGUGUUGGH

THANK YOU FOR READING!!! If you have thoughts or even rebuttals please share i am so desperate to discuss the blorbos

[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

[absolutebl]

Heya ABL !! Hope you're having a nice day .

So I recently started watching Laws Of Attraction and ngl Mr. Charn's smile is one of the most terrifying smiles I have ever seen in all of the media I've consumed throughout my life . He's the kind of person I won't fuck with. Ever . And that brings me to the question I have for you . I'm curious to know, who are some of the characters in BL you'd absolutely NOT fuck with irl?

Characters in BL I would NOT fuck with IRL

OMG I love the question, but I have a ton of answers, a busy work day, and tumblr keeps eating my posts so I'm gonna be super rough with this one.

Criteria

Generally the red flags I avoid are:

broken beyond repair,

unpredictably unhinged (elbows everywhere),

just too angry,

stalker

looking for salvation (AKA deal with your own damn problems)

AKA baby, you aren't smart enough to be worth the drama.

Ready? Here we go.

The "You Legit Unhinged" Bracket

Charn in Laws of Attraction

Currently my favorite character by a land slide he's evil, manipulative, bonkers, and damaged. RUN AWAY.

Devil Judge goes in here too. Not BL but... The "censored off my lists" Chinese historical BLs have tons of these characters.

The "baby is WAY too extra" bracket

Aoki in Kieta Hatsukoi

No thank you. I like my life peaceful. Sweetie, you cute but CALM TF DOWN.

I'd put quite a few other disaster ukes outta Japan in here, the kids of Mr Unlucky, Senpai, etc...

The "your damage is on the outside" bracket.

The men of My Beautiful Man

Yeah, neither of them. BOYS. I mean to say... BOYS. You are way way WAY too much work.

I'm coming around to putting both Weatherman boys into this bracket too, and what's his bucket from the Pornographer series. Oh and Takumi! Ugh.

The "a boyfriend is not a therapist" bracket

I couldn't pick a winner for this bracket so here's my list:

My Tooth Your Love's Bai Lang

Uea in Bed Friend

What's his name from The Eighth Sense (probably quite a few other Korean BLs, actually)

Fiat in Don't Say No et al

Team in Between Us

Sky in LITA

Anger management issues

Semes in: Love Syndrome III and Dinosaur Love

and Type in TharnType

Stalkers need not apply

Secret Crush on You

Be Mine Super Star

Love Mate

Currently airing stalker pulp thingy.

There are more. A lot more.

You're not romantic, you're just a jerk

and probably should be in prison

Tharn from TharnType (could have gone into the first bracket too)

Bohn in My Engineer

Pai in LITA (bite me)

Pure in My Gear Your Gown

Some of these may surprise you because they're some of my favorite characters. But just because I like them on the screen doesn't mean I want them in my life.

I left the Japanese dark BL off this list for the usual reasons.

Honorable mention:

[sgiandubh]

Wait. Ship on and don't panic are things you've said a few times. Who is panicking? Why wouldn't we still ship? Are there "shippers" who actually think Sam and Alex have a thing? I said "shippers" not anti's (I know what they think). It drives me bonkers that Sam isn't allowed to have friends of either sex (never mind business partners). Before Alex it was Luke and/or Matt Neal.

Dear Panic Anon,

That is a very good question and thank you for finally asking it: I think it was much needed.

Maybe panic is not exactly the right word; that being said, I wanted to trigger a reaction. And judging by your speedy comment, I was right on the money.

After ten years of shenanigans and innuendos, our troops are weary. Much of the sadness that punched me in the gut, as soon as I opened this page, came from at least five years of non-stop, unsanctioned and therefore perfectly irresponsible bullying from Mordor. It is one thing for the leads to try (and fail miserably) to gaslight part of their fans. It is another thing altogether to see a faction of the fandom constantly trying to gaslight the other one.

This has consequences: some people are tired, confused and also very thirsty. Some play both sides (I know who you are and you will soon be blocked, all of you). It is not easy to tell who's who and much less to trust someone: I consider myself immensely lucky to have almost immediately met some extraordinary people that I consider friends. So maybe it's my Southern mamma side, but yes - I do tell people not to panic for nothings, in an attempt to prevent/stop unneeded drama.

As for Norouzi... that guy only had to be spotted at the Keepers of the Quaich gala for vicious speculation to immediately start. The Dimwit from Madrid bets her quarter of a braincell that S's coming out is imminent. Meow Kabob dragged herself out of her basement, after two weeks of eerie silence (I wonder why...). Many newbies are confused and probably shocked at the state of play - and what is worse, unwilling or unable to choose a camp.

And look at you, thoughtful Anon, perfectly summing up the situation: 'Sam isn't allowed to have friends of either sex (never mind business partners).'

How come, 'isn't allowed'? That is such an arresting thing to say.

The very way you worded it speaks volumes. About how ridiculous and abusive this whole dynamic is. About how mean and stupid these people are. And then be glad S doesn't give a flying fuck anymore about whatever this fandom thinks. It is my firm conviction and I am glad it is so. It is the only way to remain sane when you know you are the focal point of all this menagerie.

Let them eat cake play bingo, Anon.

He does it his way. And it works, of course it does.

[blubushie]

When a piece of media somehow misses the most basic gun safety rules you’d tell to a CHILD it drives me fucking bonkers. I saw a war movie with Chris Hemsworth a few years ago and at one point his character said he knew the villain’s gun wasn’t loaded, “Because the magazine is out hurr durr!” I learned that’s not true when I was FUCKING 10. I didn’t know whether to scream or smash the tv first

OH MY GOD YEAH I HATE THAT SHIT. DOUBLE WITH CHARACTERS WAVING AROUND LOADED WEAPONS IT MAKES NE SO NERVOUS.

I judge art too. Like heavily. Any art with a character holding a firearm and I always check if their finger is on the trigger if they're not aiming and I fucken JUDGE if it is lmfao

I saw a film a few years ago, don't recall what but something low-budget and cheesy, where the "cool action protag grabs loaded weapon out of someone's hands and disables it" trope was done, except he just reached over and hit the mag release so the mag dropped. And that was it. He didn't cycle the slide to eject the chambered round, so the villain still could've and SHOULD'VE shot him. And that scene was so stupid I stopped watching the film.

On the OTHER hand, scenes where a character disables a weapon but leaves a single round chambered and ACKNOWLEDGES the still-chambered round? FUCKEN LOVE THAT SHIT. Drop a dying man's mag and pass him his pistol back with a single round chambered and let him make his choice while you leave him dying in the desert walking away like a badarse. If he shoots you with it he's stupid.

[briliantlymad]

I dunno I just don't like a lot of people insisting that the jedi council didn't hate anakin or hadn't already judged him since they first saw him at age 9. They did nawt want him. And we know for sure that anakin internalized that.

Like. Yall make me feel crazy I feel like I'm remembering star wars wrong cus anakin's opinion of the council wasn't fully unfounded. Like maybe grossly exaggerated? Twisted? (I'm trying to fit the right word) towards the end when palpys decade long manipulation fully manifests but.

They literally thought he was always going to fall. That he wouldn't ever be a good jedi. He wasn't allowed to do anything that wasn't always looked at disapprovingly even if he did something right.

Like.

They looked at a little kid and saw a threat and somehow despite him doing his best throughout his time as a jedi they never seemed to look past that. The whole "they don't trust me" line didn't come outta nowhere. They literally did not trust him. Ever. He didn't get the same treatment as the other knights. Bro didn't even get half the support and double the judgement 💀💀💀

By the time we get to the tail end of clone wars and padmè's pregnancy are we really surprised he didn't tell them the truth? Didn't turn to them for support?

People love to bring up that paragraph about Yoda telling dooku they would've helped that jedi who hid a child from the council but yall are bonkers to say they would've afforded anakin the same liberty.

"Jedi have feelings too" yea so does anakin they never seemed to hold his feelings into consideration tho.

Especially as most of them would've seen that as an affirmation to their opinion that anakin would always have given into his attachements and fallen

Why would he look at the council favorably after the poodoo judgement with ahsoka, their disregard for him as a jedi but also a person with feelings and their disdain and judgement at every turn all the while having a snake whispering in his ear

A huge chunk of the movies was about how anakin, the council and the republic all fucked up in different kinds of ways which allowed palpy to snatch power

Begging everyone to stop acting like anakin's mistrust of the jedi was just in his head.😭😭😭

[sabakos]

>not fucking the stinky catgirl

pathetic^2

Yeah, in retrospect that would have made my freshman year of college far more interesting. Likely... worse also. She was bonkers. And a philosophy major. So I mostly don't regret not going for it even though my friends all judged me for it at the time.

Admittedly I mostly forgot stinky catgirl existed after freshman year due to a lack of object permenance for people, but I thought she and I were at least still sorta friends after I turned her down, until a year or so later when my then-boyfriend ran into her under other circumstances. Apparently she got very... quiet when she realized he was my boyfriend and made a very weird face about it which I had to explain to him later. To be fair I think once I explained the situation he was also kinda judging me for not fucking stinky catgirl so meow meow meow.

[shovson]

https://twitter.com/SilverArrowsNet/status/1707690621639495713

I am curious about your opinion for checo's words about george... imo it's unnecessary, but at the same time i feel like some rbr fans (or just max fans) are being so mean to checo. bro just wants to keep a job like all of us

if you don't feel well with this ask please ignore!! <3

it's unecessary, yes i agree with you anon. like why'd he have to throw my boy gr into this

but i've got some feelings abt checo that im gonna put under a read more bc i know everyone won't agree with me. nvm the read more function is buggy as hell LMFAO

i agree though. i think a lot of people are being mean to checo and i think some of it can be chalked up to the fact he's just not performing as strongly as let's say the beginning of the year. like suzuka was fucking bonkers and none of the shit he did can be defended you know? he's been in this sport for more than a decade now unlike george....like obviously people are going to be more critical of him because of that experience.... he's clearly choking and rb should probably be trying to iron out whatever is going on whether its a mental hangup or car issue.....

BUT i DO agree with checo saying that the media + everyone else is judging him harshly because of his nationality + race. it's kind of wild,,,,even on f1blr, a space i would probably perceive as being """more progressive""" than other sports spaces that a lot of drivers of colour are either treated like an afterthought, a prop for whiteys, or hypercriticized. people will say "oh it's sports!!! of course im going to have biases" which is true. but how about when the media is doing the same thing? as a poc it does raise a lot of red flags when i see people dismissing the achievements of drivers of colours over and over and over again! the fact that poc have to perform a such a high standard anyways or else they get scrutinized and their identity becomes a fucking weapon to demean them more. like god forbid checo just....not perform right? nah helmut marko gotta say its bc he's fucking brown thats the reason why LOL. the fact that a lot of people INCLUDING THE MEDIA are saying its fucking over for him.......but they wouldn't say that about other white drivers who have similar trajectories says it all for me. as you said he's trying to keep his fucking job and i really don't think everyone is making it better.

tl;dr - gr made a mistake and checo is flopping a little but they're being racist to my mans.

[the-demi-jedi]

Luke reads The PROX Transmissions

So the main hero is apparently some kind of genius scientist, but also an absolute trainwreck. Off to a good start.

Stephen must look so absolutely ridiculous walking around with, like, a window shaved in his hair with a number tattooed on his skin. Man should have shaved both side of his head to just look less like a madman, but I also understand that at this point, he doesn't give many fucks about what people think.

This makes me think whether Stephen is based on Dustin or if Dustin is, like, a separate entity in the lore.

The amount of profanity is rather... excessive for a book that presents itself as a sophisticated sci-fi novel.

Seriously tho. There's something so funny about the fact that Starset has exactly 0 curse words in their entire discography while this book has at least one F-bomb per page on average.

"Aston Wise was a drunken asshole." Well, I'm not sure if you're in a right position to judge, Mr. "has sex with students" Browning.

Aston Wise is like Elon Musk if he was as cool as he thinks he is (but man he's indeed an asshole)

TBH I never really understood that "pathetic sopping wet dog man" meme, but I think it could apply very well to Stephen

I like how both Aston and Steven are supposed to be some kind of geniuses yet they seem to share a single braincell

This book can be pretty campy sometimes. And I definitely do NOT mean it in a negative way.

Evil CEO, aka. the most realistic villain

Motherfucker pays his people 37K per year and then [shocked Pikachu face] when they betray him

Regretfully, I have to inform you that not even this book is immune to the "breasted boobily" trope.

So Dana's daughter is Sarah? For a second, I thought it might be Sarah the Sarah aka. the BMI influencer from the "Icarus" video, but that's not consistent with the timeline.

It's incredibly in-character for Aston Wise to think like "What would be the best way to introduce people to a message from the future about the collapse of civilization? LET'S CREATE A KICKASS ROCK BAND AND THEY'RE GONNA PLAY IN SPACESUITS"

One of the book's most bonkers qualities is that it regularly and fluently oscillates between "pulpy, campy thriller feat. suited thugs with guns" and "the deepest, most profound, most thought-provoking shit you've ever read with your two eyes"

It's so funny how Dustin describes himself as kinda politically neutral and yet. The villain is a CEO of a megacorporation. The shady villainous organization is called "Collective of Industrialists" and they're like 0,1% away from being those comical cartoon capitalists with top hats and twirling mustaches. The Message, the very thing Starset is about, can be basically boiled down to "unchecked capitalism can and will cause utter, irreversible collapse of the society". While there are phrases used like "healthy capitalism" (which I'm not sure can exist), the book overall is more left than beef on pizza.

"Jay Bezie, the owner of a major internet retailer" LMAOOOO

"Partick Walman" the author just fucking GAVE UP on being subtle

I'm feeling weird about the concept of the Everything Machine being able to print, like, fully functioning humans. What makes it so that it doesn't just print a lifeless body? Then there's this whole debate about soul / some "spark of life" that can't be replicated. I know the Order are all scientists so they don't give a damn about it, but what if they didn't colonize PROX, but only filled it with some lifeless flesh drones?

Okay so overall, the book ended in a very satisfactory way, but also left enough cliffhangers and loose ends to make you HYPED for the sequel. Also... it raises some questions about the lore revealed in the Divisions/Horizons era. How did Aston become "The Architect"? Does it mean he's evil now, or just a persona non grata for the Order? And what about the takeover of the Starset Society by the Order of Teslonia (which signalled the release of "Horizons")? Does it mean they are one entity now? And what role does Stephen Browning play in all of this? So many questions.

Overall 10/10, a must-read for every serious and self-respecting Starset fan.

[leopoldainter]

Then something bonkers like

What about yours, Mines alt fine.

Is it bereaking of glass I'm gone once they decide to let someone "anyone 'outThere I'm going place6 then you b

Been getting, pretty pretty steady business. Bang bigger younger blacker possibly irevetrovertable of flubberking. Flabbergasted, Nows in a logo for trapped at high price in stock. Under her breath. More fucking kids, and a solutions guy.

Great I could have been getting drunk.pascals glaze deCease. It's like french Marx for the narrowlyConfinedDiagonally. You'll need to be wrapping tooths into books straight through take off a shoe, then the sock. Give Heather a look to remind her that's never

Takes a man hole to octopus ville. Toss it out if it's unplugged battery is dieing look for your grey scale Nuyup there's more buttons that don't do anything but give you an order for your dot matrix so you could add one matrix to another of proper value Valuabley valued by someone whose at least taken stairs befor. You, see don't you?

We can rip it off Nbrace a brick to pong. Now you can Google yourself. It's s flipper... we got a few threads on sUpremePlex unless... is there a Kmart near you?

You never ask someone ther

It's also international yugio half pack full dose. Where'd they cram the how.

I know but I'm just astrolopethicating. You see rosses outfit when close to the librarary Judge .

I thought kramer dumped your ass. You only get a closer shit as stranger things remiss. I'm red in this down to gear. Help yourself elaine.

I think I might just rip a pocket hole through a jujjyfruit theater tornado. That's not how you say you care.

One day, I won't have a choice but just stay fired. Or on my way, or whatever Harrison does.

He just waited out on the catwalk

Afterall once it was obvious it was Disney's now it wasn't so clear who'd be anakins dad. Here's, a gum and it ...unwrap can Tobias use that hand

Tobias was trapped as a bored one point cuz that was what the anamorphic rule was.

That's true one was a Hispanic allergic to a crocodile. She was there at the barn just serpent.

Is this nit right

A flagrant disregard for lawn maintenance and childish suggestion anyone was worried about bingo until its like, no where's the tires get that bounce from it went straight up what's onthe way from the manholes got that much kick. Then auto safety center mock ups a tear out, got a cmenttoBrave gray lay. Gets sprayed to set up a decent ring Hype feed. Gotta make you ask why isn't that this week. Who dis? Maa a,

Maybe she has an allergy... to the specimen

When you want so etching YTV off the shelf fresh it's there

Then there are head shaved auditors suggesting that they know what leo should teach the plants next. I know, the fattest safest witch, but not yet.

So maybe instead a solitair spidery cell. Yeeaho'miKnie. She's definitely the whitest,by the cat incident She's off etu. The third nip like she wanted to graduate. That's potential basin. And by the way it is a floaty potty crue for to.

Alex misses Leonard. He did bubbles like bubbles weren't just suds. Leave me a hunnyCasket. One day I'll have to explain diplomas to people, no i don't think your fish bowl were tank

.hi-Mark Lilly. I got foot #

If you want to not mix up Mike Myers and rick moranis. Then why is Sam L there farting, the windows got wheelbareAll wagonDials.

So true, then why is be starting of I am your oartner lower cut and directorate Blaine says stay friendly gets stabbed almost instantly. But then goes and whites the deads prints. It'll be a while till I get these boots zipped up again, it's Keri but she's still at the bar going over his bus transfer. Why can't they call it anything but brozier if I ever get my hands on him

She tries miracleNaptime. Super secret! I can't just stab the bal down

Not yours....maybd

I forgot you did that

She can't hide a camera in that clutch

His chair's a downturnaround abbey. How many albums are these people covering his smoked knuck

She isn't making me any on that paralele how many into the lil,Ese when did you decide to take up. Poinsettia for the thirsty.

There's a lot of baby formula problems going back to long

As if Latin to just up to vowel then see if its milhouse.swussGerman and italian Others double cross my zinfaeligur hex. Bug poket quart.r.or.hurtSleisse it's gotta be about hold. Theres e-crytion. Otherwise what else. There's Fleming. A kind of super gun turret line. There's mark up hill.

Where's a good place to crash in Tuscany...

I haven't got a good enough dial on my own squanch.

Pretty, prettyfresh

Where's the good one off to in a hurry jeez she's gotta makeup her mind where's the fireVet nurse. Something tells me she got a briefcase of spoons under a bed somewherRN. Lay off

I think eventually everyone tries a French form.

It's just onion

Her caged partridge is of to s good start

Of course why not go for the neck. No. The button.

She is younger st least. Damn, red leather. I just found a Toblerone I can fit in my pocket then you put a cheese icing on a red velvet cupcake.nuh uh she does not know what a hooka does. That is a car pull tunnel syndrome if I ever did see so manyvetvetMASH its britney she was right remix a dip9

She was armed and chested hey armed achey tongue which kind if Toyota. The truck. And your.. in the back. Miss wat time's it . She is y#k I can do this how'd Dumbo do it ...Where's my Louis louise casset. Thats coming from the red woman she couldn't just try the handle. Arnie looks at the rearcroDuh relaxdbomb goes off of course I Cary a tune myself

To crystal peak ok I hope they keep there slons in success full chopper fashion.

I'm still carry

Is that what foster is, I can not get these ribbons from your type writer to process

She's not wearing floating. Your doing marioVerse

Eddie's like please let me drink!

Pretty pretty much usbc my friend or zeek from the rick episode and the shelving apparatus

It's a curt

In

Tended

[suffering-and-happy-about-it]

The Criminal Mastermind, Part 1. (Love's Wrecks, Part 8.)

Description: Heartbreak is one hell of a bitch. And one Edward Teach could tell you all about it. Yet thanks to Fate being a little trickster, there’s a person who enters his life to remind him of how nice it is of having someone he can confide in, someone he can care about, and someone he can trust. To remind him, what it means to have a friend for better or worse.

Part Summary: Back on board the Revenge, the crew was up to its usual shenanigans - unfortunately, it wall becoming a bit too much for all of you. And therefore, you decide to figure out something that would allow you to have a break.

Word Counter: 6 K

A/N: Uh, so obviously I have disappeared for a long, long time and I had to find my way back into writing and continuing this series naturally. I had a plot point I wanted to get across in mind, I know what part of the story we are in. I just wanted to go back to approaching it with sense and emotion, and I found out that if I'll want to have the characters have a good dialogue, these chapters will be long as hell. Therefore, I decided to divide this chapter into 2 parts. :)

Tagging: @le--petit--croissant @missdictatorme

Series master list:  h e r e   | Series playlist:  h e r e

Anyone on board the ship understood how it happened or how did you manage to lure Edward out in the first place, but they started seeing their captain way more than once every two, three weeks. Each noon, he’d take a stroll around the ship to check that everything was in place, so he could greet and chat with his crew before he'd disappear once more; it could be felt that the captain's presence is making everyone's mood a bit better. Besides boosting the overall morale, it ensured that Izzy's competencies as Ed's right hand were heavily reduced. Now, he couldn't bully anyone into oblivion no matter how much he wanted to - sure, you were still just "useless fucking fuckers", "a bunch of twats and morons" and "brainless idiots", but he couldn't throw anyone overboard just for his amusement. It could be felt that Edward is slowly picking up the reigns of captainhood by chatting with all the men and asking about what is on their minds, by giving them direct orders, and occasionally, he stuck around for long enough to laugh upon hearing their newest, craziest stories. This was pushing Izzy off his usurped pedestal - now, he pretty much resembled a small and ugly dog who was all bark and no bite, which was funny enough to watch in itself.

Captain’s presence could be also felt in the way boys approached their tasks, completing each one with much more enthusiasm and care than before. The ship was in a better shape now when compared to whatever you guys were doing in the past few weeks; by all means, it all looked the same, but it felt so different. It felt much better.

While clearing your throat, you wiggled to find a better position to lay in while putting one of your palms below your head. It was yet another lazy afternoon on board the Revenge, just after you and Pete finished playing a game of tennis in the subdeck - needles to say that he managed to roll you over once more simply because he knew the actual rules, while you had to learn step by step; sadly for him, you were catching up at a fast pace. Now, it was time to lay down, close your eyes, and suntan during your afternoon siesta. This time, Frenchie and Roach joined you; there wasn't a word spoken and the air was beautifully warm and humid just enough, almost refreshing.

Now, at this hour of the day, the sunshine was dim and less direct so it was pleasant for you to bask in it for hours on end. Sure, each of you had responsibilities they were supposed to be doing, but afternoon siesta was way more important than whatever it was all three of you were supposed to be doing. As you sighed, clearly lost in your thoughts, Frenchie turned his head to you and asked you about what you were thinking of. "I'm just thinking... It's amazing that we were able to get the captain out of his quarters, but he's still kind of meh and keeps to himself." - You mumbled, making both of the men hum in agreement. - "So... What if we'd prepare some sort of fun activity for him, you know? That's where I bumped into an issue - I don't know, what is that something that he enjoys? Something that really fills his guts with excitement?" "Let me see. The screams of innocent people, seeing ships going down in flames, watching his portrait on wanted posters..." - "Also, plundering, pillaging, stealing, setting stuff on fire in general, making people scared, I'm fifty-fifty on torture... Music and art if he's in the right head space. You can choose, really." - Roach counted on his fingers, making you lazily turn your head to look at him. "Is there anything that isn't listed as a crime except the last two?" "No, I don't think so." - Frenchie answered this time, Roach immediately seconding his words. - "It's a pirate captain first and foremost."

"But I don't wanna sink another ship, guys, that's all we're about these days. Wasn't the French one enough for this week? We split the treasures and all of the sweets pretty equally. And we also traded all of the captives for a decent amount of gunpowder." - One of the guys wanted to object, but you shushed them even before they managed to take a breath. - "I remember that happening just because Wee John was giggling as he rolled the barrels on board - he even wished them good night. You all got your fair share of plundering this week." "Uhm, Y/N, I don't know if you caught up with that information yet..." - Frenchie sat up, waving his palms around in a grandiose gesture. - "But you are kind of a pirate now. That's kind of what we do, it's our whole thing."

For a bit, you were looking at each other; you were furrowing and Frenchie was looking at you with his mouth open and eyebrows rose, as if he was waiting for the information to click inside your brain; at which you had to roll your eyes and scoff. Roach, on the other hand, couldn't be more unbothered by the topic of your conversation - he rose his hands above his head, spreading all over the wooden part of the deck. He loved to tan. - "Okay, fair, you got a point Frenchie. Nonetheless, I don't think that's what I'd like to do to cheer him up." "Fine, what would you like to do, then?" "What about something that can be could be taken as a minor offense? Let's steal a... Barrel of oranges or a bolt of fabric." - You proposed, having Roach giggle and Frenchie look at you with confusion.

"I don't recall that anyone would be calling Blackbeard the 'Orange stealing pirate'. Let me tell you that if you'd be out there pirating on your own, you'd be a horrible pirate." - The man muttered, laying back onto the deck himself as he shook his head with peals of genuine laughter. Stealing oranges, wow. You could be out of this world at times. "If I was somewhere out there on my own, I wouldn't be in the pirate business at all, just to remind you." - With that, you picked yourself up and stretched your back with a long, lazy yawn. The sky was slowly getting darker, so it was an ideal time to brew some tea and carry it to Edward's quarters. - "You two better come up with something interesting then, sir pirates. I'm off!"

While humming one of Frenchie's lute songs you walked into the kitchen, just to see absolute havoc breaking out in there. Swede was laying on the kitchen table, screaming for his dear life, while Buttons was standing at the head of the table - holding a cleaver risen above his head. The smile he had on his face was terrifying, to say the least.

Olu must've found this situation going on since he was trying to defuse the situation; he was asking Buttons to take it nice and easy, to put the cleaver down, and to talk it through... As a crew. Needless to say, it had little to no effect on Buttons. While the three men were to screaming at each other unintelligibly, you carefully tiptoed behind Buttons, knocking the cleaver out of his palm. The blade of the kitchen tool slid into a small cranny between the wooden planks, not falling through thanks to the handle. Which, of course, prompted Lucius to squeal in surprise. As everyone in the kitchen fell silent, you could hear Lucius' mumbling coming from the subdeck before he fell silent.

"What in the world is going on here? Are you two rehearsing a murder scene up in here or is it that finger thing of yours, Buttons?" - You asked tiredly, snatching the cleaver away from Buttons' proximity to put it back in its place, nudging his shoulder. It was the finger thing that was driving Buttons in the last few days, so you knew that he neither Swede planning on performing any sort of play anytime soon. - "That's the third time this week alone, Buttons. We're getting fucking sick of it. Olu, take that poor man away from here and tell Pete to look after him for a bit, thank you." "But..." - Buttons objected, making you turn your face to him once more. "No buts or butts. Come on, what did we say about eating, sewering, or cutting parts off your crewmates, eh? This is also Roach's favorite cleaver, he would get upset if you'd..." - With an exhale, you put a pot of water on the stove to start brewing, leaving your elbows on the counter with your eyebrows risen. Olu was helping Swede off the table in the meantime.

"Olivia told me I need to finish this ritual before the next moonglow baskin'." - The guy told you with a serious expression, rising his chin up and popping his eyes out as he tended to usually do when he wanted to appear terrifying or mysterious. Unfortunately, it was to no avail. - "Need to get one finger, notin' more." "And I'll tell you once again that there are various ways of acquiring a human finger. You can haggle it on the black market next Harbor day or something! Mother of Christ, you don't cut it off your friends! We kinda need the crew around in case you haven't figured yet."

"What if ya gimme one of yours, lassie?" - Buttons asked with his eyes narrowed, walking closer to you. Whatever happened to him, he was seriously out of touch this time, freaking you the hell out. And, of course, of all people, he had to corner Swede... The biggest blunt man on the ship. "Out. "Won't even hurt a bit, I promise." "I said out. Go. Now. Bye." - And with another exhausted sigh, you watched as Buttons walked out of the kitchen with intense mumbling right as Olu came back. After Buttons was truly gone, you both just leaned into the counter and stretched the napes of your necks, not believing anything that was just happening right in front of your eyes.

"What is going on? It's been barely two days since Buttons attempted to cut Fang's finger off while he was asleep - good thing Jim was coming back from the toilet that night." - You said, walking to the stove to check the pot, steering the water a bit. - "Why would anyone in their right mind want to cut off someone's finger anyway?" "Something tells me you've just answered yourself." - Oluwande muttered out, watching you prepare the tray and the tea itself. - "In their right mind, see? We don't know where is Buttons from, but people must've been insane there. I think we all need to catch a bit of breath, you know? We need to relax and have a bit of fun. The last two weeks were a killer, even Jim is pretty on edge the last few days."

"Uh-uh, that's not a bad idea, Olu. Truly. What do you usually do when you need to catch a bit of breath? Haven't been part of this kind of crisis yet." - While asking the question, you were preparing also a piece of pie on a small plate with gold-laced edges, your newest savaging find. - "Do you... Tie Buttons to the musk so he wouldn't eat anyone on the ship? Let Swede pretend he's your mermaid by letting him sing all day long? Maybe a bit of wrestle matching in the subdeck with Pete and Wee John? Hard to tell, actually."

"All of that sounds tempting, one way or another." - The man answered with an amused scoff, helping you fetch the sugar and milk. - "Truth is that any of us really knows. It was usually Stede who made us slow down and sit down, who came up with a certain activity and let us do that until we talked about what was going on inside our heads, because he believed bottling everything up hurts us even more. I can see in hindsight that he knew what he was doing, it was pretty relieving." "Stede sounds like a really wise man." - You smiled sentimentally, pouring hot water into the kettle, preparing the herb mixture to brew.

"Well, since you bit the topic of Stede... How are things the captain? Have you talked about them yet? Or anything else he should know?" - Olu eyed you down, holding the door open for you as you balanced the tray in your palms. - "We did... If Stede's what you're talking about. I mean, he definitely didn't share the details, but I came to my understanding of how everything went down. There are other things I still need to tell him, but, all of them are tricky." "Don't bottle it up." - Olu sighed. "As I said, Stede is a wise man." - With that, you set out on your way. - "Oh, by the way, Olu." - You whispered, turning your head back to Olu, making him come closer. - "Go to Lucius and ask him for another fairytale book, we're almost done with Andersen." "Will do, ma'am."

As usual, Edward was sitting in his huge, plushy chair - this time, he was sitting in front of an opened window with his ankles laying in the window frame as he stared onto the land appearing on the horizon. Upon watching you enter, the man sent a smile your way before picking himself up and helping you set the tea. After the whole 'basking in the moonglow' hurray project you came up with, something had shifted between the two of you - you couldn't quite put your finger on it or name it, neither you wanted to, but everything suddenly felt more personal from that point on... The atmosphere was different. And it necessarily wasn't a bad thing. Oftentimes, Edward started noticing small itsy-bitsy details you'd never suspect him to register; one time, that was a week ago, the man extolled the fabric of your new shirt which was given to you by Lucius, freshly cleaned and everything. He also noted that the color of it suited your eyes very nicely - and you'd never suspect the man could be into anything fashion-related in the first place. Lucius, upon hearing the prases you've been given, grinned and bumped your shoulder with his palm.

This time certainly wasn't going to be an exception. Just upon looking at you, Edward noticed that the black circles under your eyes deepened a bit and that your eyes weren't as glowy as per usual, immediately chiming in on it. - "Well, you're looking fucking exhausted. Something happened, something I would need to know about? Are they giving you a hard time?" - The captain said as he poured you a cup and pushed it closer to you, trying not to dwell on you with his gaze for too long. "Buttons tried butchering a member of the crew again, Swede from all of the people this time. Remember how I told you about the whole Fang thing? How Buttons wants someone's finger?" "Mhm, certainly do." "That nut job just picked up Roach's best cleaver and cornered Swede on the kitchen table... And you know how simple can Swede get at times, so he was just lying there like a dog waiting for his treat. I swear... If Buttons murders someone, it's not on me."

"That sounds like something I'd laugh at, not gonna lie." - Edward muttered out with a scoff in while pushing another chair next to his one; this one was for you. He wanted you to join him in staring at the mainland on the horizon... Which certainly could be another relaxing activity to do in the afternoon. You caught yourself enjoying it quite a lot. "Fun? Try coming and calming the havoc down; Buttons hissing and mumbling god knows what, Swede is screaming at the top of his lungs and Olu is sweating, waving his palms around chaotically, trying to defuse the tension; God bless him. And after we managed to get Swede out, Buttons turns to me, and will all the audacity he asks me, if I'd give him my finger." "If it gets fucking bad, you know you have my permission to lock Buttons in the closet until he gets over it." - The man reminded you, sitting beside you while letting out a long exhale.

"Well, while talking about 'getting over it', there's this one thing,, actually." - You assumed, leaning into the back of the chair with a contained smile. - "Shoot, I'm all ears." "Olu said that the crew used to do some stuff which let them express what was worrying them, back in the day... What I mean is that they got it all out and felt better afterward, you see?" - Even though the pitch was subtle and you didn't mention Stede's name either, Edward precisely knew what you meant. Grinning, he hummed and prompted you to carry on. - "I wondered if you'd maybe know about something? These guys really need a breather." "Sorry to disappoint, but none of that was never my area." - Blackbeard muttered almost immediately, using the tone that usually signaled you to back off. For a moment, you were both silently staring off into the distance; you didn't speak up solely because you could basically hear the thoughts going through Edward's head.- "On the other hand, if you'd come up with something, full send it. I'll make sure Izzy won't bother you."

"I'm taking your word on that." - Agreeing on said matter, you started asking him about his day and what was on his mind, chatting away as you always did. And as per usual, it turned into a pretty interesting conversation and to your surprise, you learned that Edward is planning on anchoring in one of the nearby towns to restock. But this time, it wasn't to be any small village located at the end of the world but rather a whole ass big town. At first, you didn't seem to realize what he was trying to get across, yet when you did, you froze for a bit. "Oh." - Was all you said upon the realization. The next question was uttered in a quiet trembling voice that almost brought Ed's heart to the edge of breaking. - "But... I'm a member of the crew now, am I not?"

"You adapted well and did everything you had been asked for and even more than that, for sure, but, you see..." - The man clicked his tongue and looked at you with an unhappy furrow. - "There's this whole drama about you being the wife of Judge Trott and I don't think I'll manage to change Izzy's mind this time." There was a pretty long moment when you two simply remained staring back at one another, the idyl being suddenly thrown out of the window and long forgotten. To be frank, you hoped that maybe, just maybe, Ed would forget about the whole selling you into slavery ordeal.

Since you've joined the crew, you have found yourself at the center of defusing many conflicts... For example, it was you who talked Wee John out of trading two barrels of gunpowder for one of the teacups Edward really adored, it was you who spoke to Roach regarding his torturing tendencies (and persuaded him into not giving in to them) and first and foremost, it was you who was spending their time reading the crew bedtime stories; if he'd need more proof, it was you who came up with the birthday party idea and who also swayed said birthday man from cutting a finger off his crewmate - multiple times. Blackbeard's men liked you, they were glad that you were around... And you knew that Ed must've been enjoying himself to one degree or another. Given how quickly all emotion evaporated out of your face, Ed could easily recognize that you became distressed. The glow out of your eyes disappeared altogether, your lips were opening and parting on their own as you tried coming up with an answer, shaking your head in the end. With a sigh, you put your cup on the side of your chair and picked yourself up to clean the morning tea off the table so you could leave the cabin. At least he told you only the day before you were supposed to go which was pretty considerate of him.

You could... Spend the night on your own at the very beginning of the deck; there was a small, secluded corner right under it, a small ridge that was hardly accessible for everyone but you. It was Lucius who told you about the spot and you went there anytime you simply needed to catch a breath. The night was seemingly going to be warm, so the air would be gently breezing, letting you close your eyes as you'd breathe in the fresh, salty air and let droplets of water fall on your skin. It would be pretty nice to do before you'd have to... Work somewhere in utter, deep dirt while listening to every order and get whipped in case you would misbehave - in case you wouldn't be considered to be just a piece of meat.

"Y/N, come on, I didn't mean it like that. I don't want you to go." "I just... Forgot about this entire deal. For quite some time, this ship started feeling like home to me, I've..." - You wanted to tell Edward how much you appreciated his hospitality and that thanks to all of his men, you felt like you found a place to which you belonged. They were treating you as their equal, always made sure that there was anything bugging you off or ailing you, who made you laugh all the time, and who felt like... Family. As insane as it seemed, they felt like family. All of them. - "It's nice that you'd like me to stay and join your crew for a bit more, captain, but... Honestly, it'll just be better to get on with it like the civilized, adult folk we are." Upon hearing your tone and all of the posh, formal phrases you decided to use, Edward rolled his eyes and scoffed without any sign of amusement.

Frankly, Edward was keen on forgetting the whole deal too - you weren't by any means the best pirate he had bumped into, quite the opposite in fact. But by being your least-pirate self, you were proving that even an ordinary posh lady could be helpful. And... The man even had to admit that his selfish self wasn't ready to see you go just yet; as of that time frame, you were the one who was taking most of the baggage off his mind, who talked to him about everything and anything, someone who became his great friend, who made him feel there's still light and love present in the world around him, that he doesn't have to be only the Blackbeard everyone was so terrified of and... He liked you. In what way precisely Ed wasn't sure yet, he simply knew that he liked having you around.

"Shut it for a moment, will you? I totally put it wrong. The last time I made a similar pack with Izzy, I wasn't able to change his mind and it almost cost us the life of the entire crew - he's very stubborn and vengeful when it comes down to it. But I haven't said I won't be trying to change his mind again." - Saying that, the man stood up and watched as you put the porcelain down, looking back at him. Your expression hasn't changed a single bit; if anything, you were looking more pissed than before. - "Fuck, listen - I appreciate you as my company, wench. You're everyone's friend and the crew would mutiny and throw me overboard if I'd let you get sold off now. Regardless if you're the wife of Judge fucking Trott or not, why would I care? If you'd like to get out, just say the word. I'll make it happen. If not... Stay for now."

"Are you being serious or are you just making sure I won't freak out?" "Listen closely." - Blackbeard pointed his finger at you and furrowed, his already dark eyes darkening a bit more. - "I've been a lot of things throughout my life, okay? A captain, a pirate, a whoreson, a murderer, a plunderer, a thief... But I've never been a fucking liar." It was this statement of his that brought to the other topic you wished to discuss. The longer you've been putting on the Mrs. Trott mascarade in front of Edward, the worse you felt. By that point, it felt like it didn't even matter if you were just a simple servant or a posh lady, it wouldn't change anything about the dynamic you and Edward carefully created step by step.

Edward Teach might not have been a liar, but you sure were... Weren't you? The silence in the cabin was getting pretty loud as you slowly inhaled, leaning your palms into the desk of the table. It was probably the time to tell Edward that you might've not been exactly who he thought you were the entire time, it was the time to get it off your chest. No way in hell he'd get a lot of money for you, in case anyone would pay him for a mediocre-looking slave like yourself. Especially if the entire story behind it was crafted by you, Olu and Frenchie. Did Trott even have a wife? How on Earth would any of you know? You were just mediocre fucking pirates trying to make a living.

"It's pretty strange to bring this up, but I already knew it would come sooner or later. We need to talk about something, I feel like." - The entire posture of your body was telling Edward that you weren't feeling comfortable at all; your gaze was shooting all around the room while you started to tap a melody onto the wood. - "Just promise me you won't freak out or anything. You see, it's funny, but my name..." The confession was on the tip of your tongue and it almost flew out of your mouth; but at the last second, Izzy swung the door wide open. If that didn't happen, you'd tell Teach all about how you came up with a cover-up story and you'd explain to him that you were just a poor servant who was sailing along with their ma'am and found themselves caught up in the middle of a naval battle. That's who you were and against all the odds, you were pretty positive about Edward being cool with it - for some reason, you were positive that this could be a hilarious story to bring up at some pirate gathering or whatnot; if pirates gathered, that was. Yet, the moment was disrupted when you stepped away from the wooden desk, shyly looking away while picking up the tray once more. As soon as Izzy started rambling about Buttons' deteriorating mental state, about which you already reported to Edward, you knew that the chance was gone. And you also acknowledge that it will take you a long time to gather up enough confidence to bring it up again. You disappeared quietly, without interrupting the conversation; mainly because everything Izzy historically muttered to the captain was hilarious in itself and you didn't wanna miss a word from the rat's monologue. Just as you were closing the door, you nodded at Teach with a genuine thankful smile and left them to it.

It was hard to keep yourself relaxed and make sure your mind was in order as you tried to fall asleep. The men were sleeping around you, snoring loudly; Frenchie, who was commissioned with having the night watch sleeping in the crow nest as well. The air was warm, the sky was clear and the ship was swaying gently from side to side, but even the view of the stars wasn't enough to lull you to sleep. No matter how much you tried, even through believing in Ed's promise, there was some sort of panic arising inside of your chest. You were so off, in fact, that when you heard the crew yapping and bicker during dinner time, you just stabbed the tip of your knife into the wooden deck, storming out of the room with little to no explanation just so you could take in a fresh breath.

The entire morning, as you prepared the ship for docking and made sure that everything is tidied up and in its place; like the rigging and the lock on the door leading to your gunpowder supplies since Wee John was weirdly keen on staying behind just to look after it. Olu and Roach, as usual, put together a grocery list that needed to be bought so you wouldn't starve for the next week. The entire time, your stomach was grumbling and your palms were shaking as you attempted to fold the ropes into neat loops and knots, just as Buttons taught you; everyone else seemed to be in a good mood overall, they were ready to spend their afternoon in a normal city for one... Not realizing that your entire future might've been on the line that morning. And you weren't to ruin the mood for them.

By the time Pete and Olu disembarked to make sure the ship is properly anchored and to talk to the person who was overseeing the docks, you were practically breaking down. The worst part was that you were barely being overly dramatic; there were tears in your eyes, your breathing was incredibly shallow, and your head? Your head was empty. As you saw Izzy eyeing you down upon walking out of Ed's quarters, you knew that this was the moment of truth - now, your breath hitched entirely as you watched the man back, furrowing at him while holding the wooden railing in your palm. And in the last moment, Edward embarked from behind Izzy, dressed up in his captain attire. This was when most of the crew turned around to look at them with genuine surprise in their expressions, watching both of them descend the stairs while walking closer to you. - "Mrs. Trott." - Blackbeard nodded with all due politeness, prompting Izzy to talk.

"I and the captain were talking about what we should do with you for the last half an hour." - Every word Izzy had gritted through his teeth while pretending that he has at least one ounce of respect for you was harming him internally, for sure. Last few weeks, you got used to bickering and spitting various phrases at each other since he was the right hand and you knew very well that you could talk back at him anytime you wanted... Because Edward liked being around you and thus, speaking while pretending you're at least somewhat respecting one another was rather complicated. - "And we agreed that we wouldn't get any sort of good coin for you here, at this fucking end of the world. On top of that, the morons would've most likely arrested us if they'd gotten to know that we captured you. Therefore, Jim and Olu will keep a close on you. If you say a word to anyone, wench, I swear to Kraken that I..." "That's enough." - Just as Izzy's facade started to break, Edward put his palm on Izzy's shoulder and pushed him away from you.

As the statmenet ran through your mind, it was easily read that you were outright confused, attempting to pick up whatever Izzy was laying down. They wouldn't get paid properly? Yeah, right, no surprise there; you were barely worth a hen, let alone a pouch of gold. Arrested? For abduction? But then... Oh, you realized, your gaze flickering between the two men. It all clicked together. Holly hell... Edward did it - he managed to either talk Izzy out of selling you entirely or he managed to sway him some other way. Whichever of these two options, you were grateful beyond any reasonable reason; without realizing you were doing so, you caught Izzy's palm to shake it. - "Thank you so much, sir. So, so, so much." "Stop, for fuck's sake you wench, let me go. All of you other idiots, come here!" - While taking in a deep breath, Izzy stepped aside and started adjusting his shirt; he did that anytime he got uncomfortable.

While Izzy told the crew anything you needed to do in the evening and what were a few exquisite specialties you needed to haggle somewhere on the market, you and Edward stayed behind and leaned your elbows into the railing. With a grateful smile and glow in your eyes, you looked up to Teach and nodded at him. - "Thank you." "I didn't manage to change his mind entirely, but I bought you a few weeks." - Edward muttered back, smiling back at you unknowingly. - "You're welcome. I'll need to make him busy, though; I came up with some fortuitous task, so..." "Sounds like you're gonna have fun, eh?" "Don't make me sell you." - Edward muttered silently, noticing that Izzy is already leaving the ship while still mumbling nonsense angrily. Since you could hear that he was joking, you just scoffed and waved at them as they left the deck. - "It's still on the table."

You still did just as you had been told to do; you were following Olu and Jim around, marking this as yet another of your Harbor days. This one, though, was more special than all the other Harbor days; this time was big and modern, showing off everything that modern society was proud of. Each of the women was dressed in expansive dresses, having jewelry hanging on their necks and ears; their wigs were almost hilariously big and their faces were drenched in make-up... Oh, home sweet home. While exploring the town, you bumped into a few curious shops you visited; there was a store full of luxurious expansive fabric, and a butcher filled with fresh pieces of meat which you all watched with your mouth open. And then, you saw it - all three of you were standing in front of it, looking at the building sitting in the middle of the plaza. Jim and Olu were discussing the architecture and exterior of the building with quite serious faces, yet your expression remained too dumbfound.

"That's it." - You mumbled quietly, shooting your gaze back at the fabric shop. The bank, the fabric shop, a bit of acting, pulling out a fuckery while engaging the entire crew... You'd kill two birds with one stone. - "Oh dear, that's it. I just figured it out." "What did you figure out?" - Jim asked you upon noticing that you were really out of it, looking at the fabric shop, then turning your head to the bank and back to your fabric shop. - "Are you okay, Y/N? You're not looking good." "I figured it out. The activity that will allow you to take a breather. We are about to rob a bank... But with a twist."