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#it is the most random sport
ishouldsleepbut · 5 months
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hi babes i see that you think you should working out via blackmail. i support it!! tbh thats how i do a lot of chores/boring shit. i blackmail and i bribe myself. works pretty well tbh. honestly its either work out for 30 minutes at home or face the horrors of the gym so. uhm.
love you!!
"horrors of the gym" that's so real. i always feel weird working out in front of other people just...eugh...no. no gym for me. and yes blackmail, bribery, uhh...breakdown. the only strategies that work for me sadly. also weird team sports. i play ultimate frisbee. we run around chasing a plastic disc and counting to ten. best and only sport i'll ever play. love you too bestie <3
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lelelego · 3 months
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I really love your fallout drawings! I was in the NV fandom when the game first came out, and one thing I really love about your art is how youthful you make boone look. I can't remember if there's a canon age for him, but the fan consensus at the time was that he was like, 22-24 but your art is the first I've seen where he looks that age. bravo!
thank you so much!! :"D i remember seeing he's 25-26 on the wiki or somewhere but i'm 50% sure that's not confirmed/has no source. while part of it is just my style, but i do love a younger look for him because i think it makes the shit that happened to him worse (emoji where it's the sunglasses emoji but also it's crying.jpg) and hones in on the fact that he's... borderline still a kid. he should be at the club.
anyway thinking about him at the club -> me drawing what i think he would wear on a run to the corner store
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batsplat · 3 months
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wait, is there a dovi/jorge feud???? i didn't know this!! also thank you so much for all you do for this community ❤️
not the only ask I've gotten about this and... look, rather than doing a proper write up that would take forever, I'm just gonna give my top ten fun... facts? bits of trivia. tidbits related to the two of them. quite long tidbits, on second glance. the highlight reel, if you will
(1) that time andrea dovizioso made 14 year old jorge lorenzo cry
the two of them already raced each other before the start of their grand prix careers, competing for the first time in 2001 in the cev when dovi was around 15 and jorge around 14. in riveras tobia's biography, here's jorge talking about their first fight:
I led the way at the start and Dovizioso and I escaped. It was our first head-to-head encounter, the first time we raced each other. My dad had heard that Dovi was a really clever rider and he warned me before the race. But just like in 1998 at Jerez, with Olive, I acted like a dummy and pushed for the whole race. I kept looking behind me to see the bastard still there! It was impossible to shake him off, he was watching me the whole race until the last lap. Three comers from the end I could hear his engine getting closer and I saw his shadow to my left, but he didn't come past. I thought to myself "This guy is going to try something in a second!" I decided I had to on a tighter line and close the door. Sure enough, Dovi went wider through that comer and then dived up the inside. I didn't close the door in time and tried to get in his slipstream, desperately hoping I could get him the next corner, but I ran wide and he won. I came back in tears, I didn't even want to go to the podium, I felt so cheated. I'd been on the limit for the whole race and I felt like I deserved the win more than he did.
so that's a nice and positive start! there's something charming about how even fifteen year old dovi was an absolute menace on last laps
also about that race:
'Jorge beat Dovi in Braga but in the previous race at Most, what a tantrum!' recalls Juanito, laughing. 'He didn't even want to go to the podium, he was crying like a baby! I can still see Dani (Antatriain) talking to him, trying to convince him. In the end he went but he didn't want to look at anybody.'
(2) the photo finish
in 2004, they were rivals in 125cc - a year in which dovi claimed the title and jorge was p4 in the standings. in the very first grand prix ever at the lusail circuit (pretty eventful weekend, you have to say), jorge and dovi crossed the line at the exact same moment
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(3) dovi's top three favourite career win
dovi and jorge progressed through the categories at the exact same rate, and after their 125cc rivalry they continued fighting in 250cc. they were title rivals in both 2006 and 2007, with jorge's aprilia winning out both times against dovi's underpowered honda. (the general pattern was that dovi clawed back a bunch of points from jorge in the wet - jorge, with perhaps the exception of a few years in the premier class until around 2013, has never been much of a wet weather racers, while it's always been one of dovi's strongest traits.) for dovi's 300th career start in 2019, he was asked what his top three wins were - and one of his picks was from way back when in 2007
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I'd recommend the race! which... well, I did in the race rec post - and I can only reiterate that these two kids do not acknowledge each other, not good vibes at all
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(4) jorge's thoughts on young dovi from 2008
Jorge has a lot of respect for Andrea Dovizioso and feels that his two 250cc world titles have even more prestige because he had to beat the Italian to win them. 'You wouldn't label Dovizioso as fast, particularly, but he's much faster than he looks. He doesn't set many pole positions but he is always up front in a race, fighting to win. He is very intelligent and you can't trust him an inch on the last lap. He has been faithful to Honda, he has great belief in them. His negative side is that he tends to play the victim too much. He'll say that if his bike had a better engine or if it was a bit faster he would win. He's even said that if he was on the same bike as me he'd give me a hiding. I think he looks for excuses too often sometimes, but as a rider and a person I don't have a bad word to say about him.'
some dovi traits read as very familiar, from how he's a better racer than qualifier to the intelligence to the last lap prowess. as for jorge saying dovi plays victim too much? well
also this:
ER: Don't you think that Dovizioso wanted to be World Champion too in 2006 and 2007? Don't you think he gave everything to achieve it? JL: He will think he gave his maximum but he will be lying to himself because nobody does that. Nobody gets close to their maximum, not even me. He will think that he didn't win because he was riding a Honda. There are very few sportsmen who will say, I deserve what happened to me and there are no excuses. I didn't know how to do any better and I've done things wrong.' That is the only way to be the best, the only way. People who make excuses don't get to the top. I know riders who haven't made it for just that reason.
plus ça change
(5) jorge's thoughts on young dovi from 2018
when they were doing their thing as ducati teammates (bickering), here is one of the things jorge said about dovi:
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dovi's been trying to undermine jorge's morale his WHOLE career... even when they were but teenagers... love it when you can really tell someone's been sitting on something for over a decade
(6) "also lorenzo is not my friend"
both of them moved up to motogp in 2008, jorge with factory yamaha and dovi with satellite honda. dovi had a very strong rookie season and finished in p5, only sixteen points behind jorge in p4 (who after a promising first few races had spent a lot of time that season crashing). after that, their fortunes diverged. dovi did not have a particularly happy time in the factory honda team and needed to do some shrewd negotiating to be retained by them for 2011 in that three-man squad, while jorge of course won the championship in 2010
here's a deep cut from 2011, a season where much of the excitement and drama was caused by marco simoncelli alone. jorge had exchanged tense words with sic in estoril, one race before simoncelli was responsible for a crash where dani broke his collarbone. the crash and sic's subsequent penalty meant that the three-way fight between jorge, dovi and valentino became one for the podium, with dovi and valentino eventually grabbing the two remaining spots behind casey. but during the race, jorge had executed a... questionable manoeuvre on dovi, one that did have some similarities to the sic/dani incident. given jorge's strong previous comments on racing standards, unsurprisingly the journalists pounced on this incident in the post-race presser and ask the podium sitters about it. here is the clip:
in this clip, dovi essentially says it was a dangerous move from jorge, but he wasn't sure what jorge's intent had been and he needs to watch the footage again. valentino (who had been the most outspokenly critical of sic of the three of them earlier in the presser) takes the opportunity presented to him to have a bit of a potshot at jorge. he says that dovi doesn't have the best relationship with sic but jorge had done something pretty similar in the race... at which point dovi goes "also lorenzo is not my friend"
which, you know. not exactly a major incident, but I find it very charming dovi felt the need to clarify that, actually, he doesn't like either of them. valentino also adds that by jorge's own standards, surely he too should have gotten a penalty. not exactly a meeting of jorge's biggest fans hm
(7) mapping eight-gate
well I can't leave it out, can I
so in 2017 jorge switches from yamaha to ducati and does not have a great time of it. a lot of weekends, he's just too slow, other times he shoots to the front of a race at the start (typically not great news for the rest of the field in his yamaha days) and then chews up his tyres before gradually dropping like a stone back through the field. at some point that year it became a bit of a running gag - especially when you saw he was the only big name to be picking a soft tyre and just went... buddy we ALL know how this is gonna end....
while this was happening, his teammate dovi was for the first time in his premier class career in championship contention. an extremely close title fight throughout the year with five protagonists until pretty late in the season, it eventually went to a title decider in valencia between dovi and marc. you know, the kind of year where every point counts. the race where marc put a bit of daylight between himself and dovi was phillip island, with marc winning a great dogfight out front while dovi had a bit of a horror show of a weekend. this meant that a lot would have to go right for dovi to have a chance of still winning the title... and sepang was already a match point race for marc
ducati had not won a championship since their 2007 title, courtesy of one casey stoner. after that year, their bike became steadily less competitive every season, reaching a nadir around the 2011-13-ish period. so by the time 2017 rolled around, they wanted this so so badly - even if they wouldn't have expected dovi to lead the charge. dovi had only narrowly beaten out iannone in the 'who's going to be fired for our shiny new lorenzo hire' contest of 2016, and really it was supposed to be jorge who was carrying ducati's dreams on his shoulders. but, never mind, they were throwing everything behind dovi now... no stone left unturned
which brings us, of course, to the subject of team orders. this discourse really took off at the penultimate race of the season at sepang, but was already brewing before that - and in phillip island, satellite ducati rider redding had been told early in the race to let dovi past
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here from marc at sepang:
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dovi had been in great form all weekend at sepang - and with his wet weather prowess being what it was, really there shouldn't have been any need for team orders at all. but he got a sluggish start, and the race unfolded from there... until eventually jorge was in first, dovi was in second and marc in fourth. in those positions, marc would have clinched the title there
and then, jorge got a message on his dashboard. suggested mapping: mapping 8. pit boards and dashboards and all sorts of boards will feature various codes during races, most of them completely innocuous - but of course they are a healthy source of all sorts of conspiracies. the timing of this one was certainly... notable, and speculation immediately started about how it might be a way of telling jorge that he should swap positions with dovi
jorge didn't end up letting dovi pass - it is questionable whether he really would have done so with what would have been his first ducati win on the line. in the end, he made a mistake that let dovi through so that dovi claimed the win anyway, keeping himself in mathematical contention in valencia. and jorge did say afterwards he was keeping dovi's title hopes in mind, kind of
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jorge also said he hadn't gotten any message indicating team orders, and of course nobody at ducati confirmed that mapping eight did have anything to do with team orders
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for what it's worth, this is what dovi said about their relationship at this stage:
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lovely! let's see what the vibes are like a few months later
anyway, onto valencia. this race was pretty boring despite being a title decider, but the jorge/dovi bits were just unequivocally the weekend's most enjoyable aspect and rather nicely spiced up the whole thing. dovi's chances were always slim going in, given he'd have to win the race and marc would have to barely get any points at all... but still, you never know, right? marc could always crash (narrator: he did almost crash). jorge plays coy early in the weekend about the whole 'helping dovi out thing', and basically just started putting in place...? ... very specific conditions...? under which he'd help:
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so during the actual race, dovi got stuck behind jorge in p5, with marc ahead of both of them. valencia is traditionally not a fantastic track to overtake at... so even if dovi had been faster, it's not like he'd have an easy time clearing jorge and cracking on. but they were beginning to drift further away from dani in p3 as ducati watched on, increasingly unamused by what was happening - and the tv cameras were of course kind enough to repeatedly show the ducati box looking deeply unamused. again, they went for the good old mapping eight message, which, hey, that could mean anything! they sure did keep showing it to jorge though, almost like he wasn't paying attention to it
eventually, they abandon all subtlety and go for a pit board message that does just straight-up tell jorge to swap positions. jorge kept ignoring the messages, lap after lap, and he never ended up letting dovi past. eventually they both crashed and marc claimed the title with a p3 finish, so it wouldn't have mattered anyway, but... still. the feeling was that this might things rather awkward inside of ducati
publicly, ducati was extremely keen to smooth over the whole controversy, saying they totally weren't mad at jorge blatantly ignoring team orders. jorge had, after all, explained to them (and the media, repeatedly) that he had totally been intending to help dovi by dragging him closer to dani
Giving his take on events, Lorenzo acknowledged that he ignored Ducati’s instruction because he felt Dovizioso’s chances would be boosted by having him directly ahead. “Even looking at this [dashboard] suggestion, I keep pushing until the end, because I knew it was the best thing for me, for Ducati and for Dovi,” said Lorenzo. “I helped him to improve his pace by one or two tenths, to be as close as possible to the first group. My intention was, and it was the case, that we arrive at the first group. If he had the option to win, I would have gone wide and let him pass. But unfortunately it was not like that. Maybe in some corners Dovi was close and I slow down a little bit his pace, but in general terms, having my wheel in front of him made him improve slightly his pace. I helped him stayed closer to the front group. “I knew Dovi was struggling, I knew his pace during all the weekend, and I knew he was making the best pace of the weekend just in the race. It was [because of the] help from my wheel. I’m happy because I was not wrong. If I was wrong and slowing him, I would be very sorry. But it’s not like that, my feeling was true.”
which, you know. is it really that easy to tell how much faster you are than someone who's sitting on your rear tyre? who's to say. dovi did certainly seem rather keen to get past
anyhow, of course there were plenty of fun dramatics post-race:
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'our rider ignored team suggestions not team orders' is a great line, fairs. there's plenty more of this from ducati, some excellent spin doctoring - and dovi was extremely magnanimous about what had happened:
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the whole thing was pretty undignified from all non-dovi parties, but it was also very funny so who's to say if it was bad or not
(8) runner-up-gate
let's check in on them in 2018, the second and ultimately last year in which they were teammates. remember that 'undermining morale' quote from above? those are from early 2018, after dovi says he wouldn't be surprised to see jorge elsewhere the following season. so, once jorge has complained that dovi had been trying to put him down his entire career, comes this:
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so that's something. jorge, dovi and dani have a three-in-one crash in jerez, after which some fingers are pointed but it all remains fairly civil, and a bit later dovi says that jorge's approach doesn't work at ducati:
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by the summer break, jorge's results had gotten better, but it was already too late to save the relationship with ducati and they parted ways. anyway, here's dovi and jorge having another go at it:
And while a rough patch for Dovizioso coupled with breakthrough back-to-back wins for Lorenzo in Mugello and Barcelona have now left the pair just three points apart in the standings, Dovizioso refused to back down from his claim when speaking to Spanish sports daily Marca ahead of the upcoming Brno race. “He’s won two races,” Dovizioso said. “Winning two races does not solve the problem of a year and a half. Lorenzo was not signed to win two races. Therefore I do not change my mind.” When the comments were put to Lorenzo, the three-time champion offered an ardent retort, stating that Dovizioso's rhetoric was proof of the claim he'd made back in April. “I'm a bit fed up with this situation, mainly because when I had trouble and he was winning, I was down there applauding,” Lorenzo told Spanish broadcaster Movistar. “What I said in Argentina - and the comments caused a big surprise - you can see that I was right. “He tried to undermine me, or downplay what I achieve or just attack me. As you can see, I wasn't lying. He's still doing it and now he says my method is not good, according to him.” Lorenzo intimated that Dovizioso was in no position to criticise him, as the Italian could do no better than runner-up to Marc Marquez in a 'perfect' 2017 season. He said: “I think my method has not worked too bad in my career. I've won three MotoGP titles and have 46 wins.” “In my second year in Ducati I'm usually faster than him, but maybe I should look at his method closer if in his best season, with everything going perfectly, he was second. Otherwise he's fourth or seventh usually. I'd tell him to leave me to go my way and to focus on his own and everything will be better, because when you have an angry Lorenzo it's usually worse for you.” 
fair to say that by this point the pretence at civility has mostly been dropped. I'm rather fond of the "lorenzo was not signed to win two races" line, though "when you have an angry lorenzo it's usually worse for you" is also really strong stuff. dovi tries to restore a little bit of peace:
Responding in turn to Lorenzo's tirade, Dovizioso sought to play down the conflict. “Jorge has his ideas and I think they are based on particular things. I don't think like him, but it's not a problem,” he told Movistar. “Everybody creates their own ideas based on what they see and how they live. “I don't think he has everything clear in his head about what's happened, but we continue the relationship that we started last year with respect, there's no particular problem. If he thinks this way, that's his problem."
so basically the classic 'idk what he's on about but it's not my problem' approach to attempting to defuse feuds
(9) twitter-gate
there's a few more on-track battles where it's nicely obvious how badly they want to beat each other, with jorge beating marc just ahead of dovi in austria and then dovi beating jorge in brno. jorge's season is increasingly derailed by injuries, which sets the stage for their next big spat:
The row was sparked by Dovizioso's comments to Sky Italia after qualifying at Sepang on Saturday, as he was asked what he thought of Lorenzo having to pull out of the Malaysian GP weekend with injury. "I don't know the details, I don't want to get into this, it's a bit of a strange situation," said Dovizioso."It happens often in Ducati or to certain riders, but I don't understand the details and I don't want to get into it and give my opinion." When it was put to him he was offering 'cryptic words', he added: "I leave things there, it's not my problem."
pretty vague, yeah. but anyway, I'm sure jorge had a proportionate response to this
Dovizioso's comments prompted a series of irate posts from Lorenzo on Twitter, with his first reaction being "Thank you very much @AndreaDovizioso! You are a real gentleman!". In his next post, he went on to call Dovizioso "an exemplary teammate", adding: "You applaud him under the podium when he wins and then... (That's right, he does not give his opinion, it's not his problem)." After that, Lorenzo labelled Dovizioso "envious" and described him as "a world champion... in 125cc."
the podium thing really bothered him, don't you think. their ducati in-fighting follows that general pattern where dovi says something... a little shady, a little ambiguous, where his intentions aren't entirely obvious... at which point jorge goes all in at fighting back and has a go at dovi - often not as much for what dovi is actually saying, but what jorge thinks dovi is implying. which is based on his understanding of dovi, the image of dovi he's built up in his head over the years, so that he is... predisposed to think ill of the intentions of the 'intelligent' dovi who always knows exactly what he's saying
again, dovi tried to downplay the argument, while simultaneously not exhibiting much patience for jorge's stance:
After the Malaysian GP, Dovizioso was asked about Lorenzo's responses to his comments, and the Italian accused his teammate of reading too much into headlines. He said: “Why should I talk to Lorenzo? I do not waste time on these things. He makes the usual mistake of giving too much importance to what is written, even without the context. "I have not pointed my finger at anyone and I have no problem with Jorge."
if I were ducati, I probably would've let the whole thing blow over given jorge was off soon anyway. but they decided the whole thing was so bad they had to organise a peace summit
Asked about the situation, Ducati sporting director Paolo Ciabatti admitted to Motorsport.com that the Bologna marque has already planned to sit its two riders on Tuesday in Milan to make it clear what its priorities are. Ciabatti said: “It is clear that the interests of Ducati come before personal problems between riders. On Tuesday we will be together in Milan, for the EICMA [motorcycle show] and we have in mind to spend half an hour to sit and talk to Jorge and Andrea. "We want to avoid similar things to what happened last weekend. "I understand that these kinds of situations can happen. Sometimes riders get nervous during a Grand Prix weekend and on a rainy day, with tricky conditions, sometimes they say things they shouldn’t have said."
god knows how that turned out
(10) wow, you guys aren't gonna let this go, huh
late 2020 and jorge's career is already over, while dovi's looks like it will be... paused, at the very least. which is always a good time to check in with riders on how they feel about their rivals - if they're still being nasty you know that shit was personal. from december:
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some quality petty material here. "I can't understand his somewhat peculiar mind" vs "he was envious of me since 250cc, but I wanted to give our relationship a chance". note too jorge talking again about how generous he had been in the face of dovi's 2017 successes, and how he feels like this was not reciprocated at all. jorge's complaints don't stop there:
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merry christmas!
not the only rider jorge has beefed with post-retirement, but compare and contrast with how he really hasn't been doing any of that with some of his biggest career rivals. valentino, marc, dani - sure, he still talks about the controversies he's had with them pretty regularly (to put it lightly), and he's hardly free of complaints... but mostly it's a distinctly nostalgic tone he's adopting with these guys. admittedly, it helps that none of those three have gone out of their way to say anything particularly inflammatory about jorge. still, the absolute lack of any sort of rapprochement with dovi of all people is pretty funny
bonus: that time when jorge skittled all of marc's rivals
you know how in catalunya 2019, jorge took out like? all of marc's major rivals in that era including himself in one go? with half a decade of hindsight, this was kind of hilarious, and it did also feature jorge having to eat a hell of a lot of humble pie and go to the three other blokes to apologise. anyway I have a lovingly assembled set of screenshots of all three of them emoting in their boxes after the incident, all suffering some form of an existential crisis. here is dovi contemplating the bleak realities of our brief lives on this planet:
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truly one of the world's least enthusiastic waves
bonus 2: another one for old time's sake
already posted this elsewhere, but this from late 2023 made me laugh
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"jorge came to ducati and thought he was going to beat everything, but in the end he didn't" uh huh
#also thank you!! that's really nice#valentino is absolutely SHAMELESS in that clip i'm crying... saw some low hanging fruit and took a chainsaw to the entire tree#laughs a bit TOO much at that dovi line. a little restraint I beg#andrea dovizioso#jorge lorenzo#//#jl99#ad4#morale tag#batsplat responds#very lazy post sorry but i just wanted to do something fast... i do think they're more interesting than just a list of drama#real lack of mutual respect... how little they get each other... also jorge's side of that 250cc rivalry is sooooo...#currently still cooking up that jorge/valentino post which means i'm obviously revisiting my jorge primary sources#and the way valentino and dovi get described in particular is... hm how to describe this... this isn't just a sports thing but -#- especially in sports and especially at juniors level you come across a lot of people who act like they're constantly on camera#jorge at that age has extreme sports film syndrome. his entire team also has sports film syndrome. the author has sports film syndrome#they're constantly trying to write character arcs for him. 'like a superhero after his darkest hour' that kinda thing#and that also means other riders sometimes get this treatment where you're a bit? this doesn't feel... completely in touch with reality#dovi's The First Rival who's there to help jorge grow... it's quite tricky to explain because you can't point to anything SPECIFIC#it's just tones and vibes really lmao#anyway my point is I do have Takes on this dynamic but for now. here is just a random assortment of stuff with a lil bit of context#I do love it when you have a kind of primary text for these riders. they're all COMPLETELY different#all with quite funny editorial choices that sometimes tell you as much about the blokes as the actual text itself#fwiw the jorge one was the one where i had the most moments of 'hm i'm not sure it happened quite like that but continue'
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koudelkas · 4 months
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cant decide b/w medium short hair or literally shortest possible hair on the back side of her head (leaning towards this)
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despair-tea · 2 months
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this was just an observation my friend made a while ago but it got me thinkin' a little bit. Personally, I got over my aversion to sports by fencing in college. Coz it turns out I didn't hate sports. In fact, I think training and learning the rules and pushing myself to improve is super fun! That's the same stuff I like about video games. And despite being a life-long poindexter, all that physical activity felt GOOD, and it was nice to connect with folks.
What I hated about sports as a kiddo was the shame. I hated people acting like I ought to know this or that (despite being a know-nothing child). I hated being excluded and looked down upon for not being good. I despised the way the adults around me treated kids wrt sports. Also I couldn't see and had asthma and neither of these problems got treated until I was on my way out of high school (getting my first inhaler was one of the main reasons I was able to fence at all, in fact).
combat sports are great to me because they're all about that individual journey. I didn't have to worry about letting a team down who might yell at me later for my performance. It's just me and my own heart and my love for the game - THAT'S sports.
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sout999 · 9 months
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i used to try and do a lot of things to combat irl loneliness, like volunteer at op shops/try to hang out with uni friends/work/etc but i kind of realized that unless i can be myself (QUEERO TRANS MAN) and feel safe saying so, social activities will be draining instead of enriching, and there's really no point socializing if its done while wearing some random mask/persona. this is also why overseas work was really tough..
i was thinking that the only time i feel generally safe to be myself is at anime cons, which is awesome, but it's also sad when your Safe Sphere is an event that happens twice a year. and your idea of top tier socializing is telling someone in four words or less that their trans flag vash the stampede badge is nice. and then retreating to your house for another seven months of screentime
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randomwriteronline · 2 years
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"Warden Melli!"
If Melli could have pretended not to have heard that, he could have just turned around and started walking extremely fast away from the Sitrus tree he had been harvesting berries from; but since it was absolutely impossible for anybody with mostly undamaged hearing to miss that shout, he groaned loudly and faced his Pearl counterpart as he clumsily slid down a small slope to come meet him.
"What is it now?" he whined snappily, glaring at the man through his narrowed eyes so venomously he could have overwhelmed anybody's blood with toxins.
Unfortunately, Warden Ingo had proved multiple times to be immune to poison.
So he stared right into the younger warden's pupils, not at all put off by the hostile look lodging itself into his haunted face nor seemingly recognizing the antagonistic tone: "I was hoping to speak with you," he answered candidly.
"Then be quick," Melli hissed as he yanked another berry from the tree: "I don't have time to waste with the likes of you."
"Oh, of course! I would not want you to run into delays on your schedule because of me - I will be very quick, I promise," Ingo reassured him. Before his Diamond counterpart could roll his eyes and scoff, he kept true to his word and got straight to the point: "I only wished to compliment you on your handling of Lord Electrode!"
Melli’s hand stopped halfway to the mostly full basket. He creased his brow, blinked, gripped the Sitrus in his hand a little tighter, and turned properly to the older man with a grimace stuck between confusion and distrust.
“What would that mean?” he asked.
Ingo adjusted his hat by th visor, a motion that would have conveyed his slight embarassment better if he had managed to wipe that frown off of himself: “Ah, I apologize, I recognize that was excessively vague - you see, I was warned before transfering here to look after Sneasler that Electrode was an extremely capricious Pokémon, capable of shaking the mountain to its foundations with detonations of great magnitude at the slightest hint of displeasure. “
The younger man curled his nose like a disgruntled Stunky and twisted his lip. Sure, the Lord of the Hollow was moody and powerful, but that was no way to talk about him.
“But despite having lived here nearly a year now, I’ve yet to experience anything even slightly close to such behaviour!” the other continued, speech suddenly turning emphatic: “In fact - and I hope you’ll forgive me for making assumptions based on my approximate knowledge on the matter - from what little I’ve seen of him on occasion, Electrode had always struck me as being mostly perfectly content and at ease! I can only attribute such a positive state to you working hard in order to make sure his every need is met! I would expect no less from a warden, of course, let alone one as fond of this Lord as you are, but the consistency with which you do so is quite remarkable - especially considering the challenges posed by his irritable tendencies!”
Almost in the same way one wakes from an unplanned nap, Ingo realized very suddenly that he had shifted his bright eyes to beam directly into Melli’s as he had spoken, volume of voice rising steadily, and that the other warden seemed now to make himself small in front of all this intensity, as if he were attempting to retreat in his own shoulders.
The foreigner quickly looked down to his own feet in mortification, pulling his hat lower upon his face to better relieve him of all that exhausting eye contact.
“Please forgive me, I... I got quite carried away for a moment. I only - I fear I was overzealous with my explanation, I did not mean to come onto you so strongly,” he mumbled, sheepish.
In the small bout of silence that followed he managed to mentally file a complete and exceptionally thorough formal complaint against himself for disturbance of the peace and catastrophic failure at what was supposed to be a simple interaction meant to form a positive connection with another human being - both equally unforgivable crimes that would have had to be rectified by either an entire day spent wallowing in mortification or a death sentence, the latter of which he would have very gladly accepted as his fate.
“Thank you.”
For a moment he did not realize that it was Melli who interrupted his stream of conciousness, because that voice so thin and weak barely resembled his.
When Ingo dared rise his gaze again (there was always the possibility that a lightning strike would have burnt him to a crisp to kindly let him known that was the wrong course of action) his Diamond counterpart struck him as suddenly looking incredibly young. Maybe it was his almost frightened expression, or the way his shoulders closed in on his chest, or how he nervously picked at his nails, or that strange tone with which he’d spoken.
Sneasler’s warden tilted his cap in a curt nod of aknowledgement before he could keep on staring any longer.
“I will let you resume your usual schedule now!” he excused himself quickly: “Once again, my honest praise for you well-done work. I apologize for having derailed the course of your duties. Have a good day, warden Melli.”
The younger man nodded quietly; he looked without a word at the foreigner speed away with an abnormally stiff gait, embarassed beyond belief.
-
Iscan sat away from the trimestral celebration, enjoying some peace and quiet. Festivities got quite overwhelming for him - so nobody thought him rude for stepping out of the settlement for a breather every now and then during these occasions. Plus, it was a nice clear night and the air was just cool enough on his skin to give him pleasant goosebumps.
Quick steps made him turn his head back towards his home, and he smiled welcomingly at Melli as he took a seat beside him and scooted closer, leaning his head on the wide chest while the older warden wrapped an arm around him.
They enjoyed the chirping silence of the Mirelands like that, for a little bit.
Then the younger played with a lock of hair and mumbled rapidly: “He said ‘m doin’ well.”
“Hm?” Iscan hummed, not having been paying attention.
“The Pear clan’s foreigner warden, Ingo - he said he thinks I’m taking care of Lord Electrode very well,” his friend repeated.
At that he nodded, pleasantly surprised: “Oh! How nice of him.”
It wasn’t often that Melli got positive reinforcement, what with his insufferable charade of superiority usually grating everybody else’s nerves into fine dust and discouraging them from offering him any sort of kind words about his work since he apparently praised himself abundantly on his own anyways; so he was very glad for Ingo taking the initiative to do so even though, logically, he was subjected to the pompous performance the most out of anybody else in Hisui.
The sound of fingers fidgeting had him wait patiently for the overthought subject of the evening.
“Why would he do that?” the younger warden whined quietly, honestly distraught: his tone was an almost perfect replica of the one he used as a kid when crying about someone pulling his hair or tripping him into a puddle.
Iscan cocked an eyebrow: “You didn’t like what he said?”
“No - I mean - he’s right, no? He’s gotta be, since Electrode loves me--” (and the older man knew that was no exaggeration, but honest truth) “--But why?”
The warm dark hand on Melli’s shoulder squeezed it comfortingly as Iscan tried to figure out something the other would have accepted as a possibility, eventually settling on a tentative: “Maybe he just wanted to be nice?”
“But that makes no sense!” his little cousin argued, furrowing his upset brow enough to give himself a headache if he kept that going: “I haven’t been exactly nice to him, so why should he feel like he should be with me? And he’s never in need of anything, so I don’t know what he could want in return - maybe he just wants me to owe him something, so he can use that to get me to do what he wants when he needs it most?”
The long sigh that deflated the chest he leaned against instantly worried Melli with the horrid thought of having annoyed the only person who liked him.
But Iscan tilted his head and twirled a strand of lilac hair between his fingers: “Look, now...” he began very gently: “I’ve heard a little about Ingo from warden Palina, and if I can trust what she’s told me - and I assure you I can, because she was very honest with me - he’s exactly as polite and nice as much as he’s strange. So I’m fairly certain that he told you how good of a job you’re doing because he really thought that, and just wanted you to know.”
A soft hum rattled the thin frame under his arm.
“Even if I’ve only been insufferable?” his cousin insisted weakly.
“Maybe he said those kind things because of that.”
“What do you mean?”
“That he might have wanted to get some good blood flowing between you two.”
“You really think so?”
“I don’t see why it shouldn’t be like that.”
Melli exhaled quietly.
He curled a little closer to his only human confidant.
“I don’t know what to do about that,” he mumbled.
“Well,” the larger warden laid his head on top of his as he hugged him properly. “I guess it wouldn’t be that bad of a start to be nice to him back, no?”
Some Zubats screeched happily further away, and Iscan hoped with all his heart Ingo would have liked the candy truffles and Pecha berries his cousin would have inevitably drowned him in, as the only way he could be honestly kind without betraying his carefully crafted mask was through edible gifts.
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bsaka7 · 7 months
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the wild play... tumblrs favorite team today (?)
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h-f-k · 3 months
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we have copa america, eurocopa AND the Olympics happening in the same year. My sports ass is LIVING for this.
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mitchmarner · 2 years
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not to be cheesy but i love sports so fucking much. i think it’s the coolest thing in the world how much it bonds the most random types of people in their joy/sadness/whatever. you’re all sharing a genuinely universal experience as you watch unfathomable athletic feats. it’s just sick.
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merlesrandomstuff · 10 months
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Ok, I didn't know there had been dutch skijumpers in the past
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dreamwriting17 · 2 months
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Not them talking about an insta ad for F1 tire pillows
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noahtally-famous · 11 months
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toxic yaoi dave and keith. the only thing they have in common is that they liked the same girl. keith rubs it in dave's face every waking moment he can that, unlike dave, sky was his girlfriend for a time bc he knows it gets under dave's skin; dave seemingly looking unimpressed--though one eye twitches--retorts without a beat that it was bc of dave that keith's alleged girlfriend conveniently forgot abt him and fell for dave in the show--keith's seething. they both despise each other. they make sure everyone knows it. but there's also this tension that gets people wondering. and they also kiss (angrily and otherwise). the kings of feelings denial, hate makeouts, and angry kissing
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mantisgodsdomain · 1 year
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In thoughts mostly unrelated to that - with all the "send in your spearmaster/gourmand/hunter/five pebbles/whatever" type things going around the Rain World fandom, we wonder if anyone'd be interested in, like, submitting their characters into a "your characters will probably die" type event?
We've recently been reminded of the existence of the BrantSteele Hunger Games Simulator, and loading it up with canon characters plus a bunch of OCs sounds like the kind of thing that could easily be fun. The day/night system it has might be interesting for making, like, some kind of Event, too. Scheduled posts and such. Could probably set up a theme for letting people track their favored contestants throughout the... however long it takes.
If there's interest, we'll probably make a "submit your characters" post, if there's not, then there's no need to strike a fuss.
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spookedbutters · 3 months
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When I tell you I’ve had such a huge hyperfixiation on NBA, the Dallas Mavericks and Luka Dončić the past couple of weeks it’s not even funny..
That lil shit got me inspired enough to draw… I haven’t drawn in months and suddenly this guy shows up and inspirations goes “yep, nows the time”
…I can’t tell if this is a good or bad thing😅😭
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kdsburneraccount · 4 months
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clark/reese kind of wbb equivalent of lukabook to me i fear
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