#whether you follow them or not

[echomimus]

“i don’t like your ship but cute art :)” im gonna put your ass in a blender. take your backhanded compliment and choke on it.

i draw what makes ME happy. always have, always will. if my art finds itself an audience, it’s a bonus.

on good days, this kind of comment makes me mildly annoyed. on bad days, i just want to stop drawing those guys altogether.

[jadequarze]

I miss them T^T I miss the blue girlies

[lnmei]

Palestinian Fundraiser Donation Match! 🕊️🇵🇸

I decided to use a recent payment I received for an illustration to donate to every Palestinian who reached out to me this past week. Please share this list, and if you are able, pick at least one donation to match me! Many small donations can go a long way which is why I took the time to put together this post. (date: August 11)

@esraayyad14 | vetted here | match my €5 donation

@mohiy-gaza | vetted here | match my $5 donation

@azaxa | vetted here | match my €5 donation

@abedallhferwanagaza | unvetted but likely legitimate as reverse image search of gfm pictures turns up 0 results (post) | match my €5 donation

@mahmoud0hilles | vetted here (#198) | match my €5 donation

@noorabd1992 | vetted here | match my $5 donation

@ayaalanqarsblog | vetted here | match my €5 donation

@ahmedalnabeeh11 | vetted here (#218) | match my €5 donation

@ehabayyad23 | not yet vetted (created after all tumblr users vetting campaigns have stopped) but very likely legitimate as reverse image search yields no results (post) | match my €5 donation

@emanfamily81 | vetted here | match my €5 donation

@samarsh97 | vetted here | match my €5 donation

@mayadayyad81 | vetted here twice (#144) | match my $5 donation

@bisanalbalawi18 | vetted here | match my €5 donation

@malakabed | vetted here | match my €5 donation

@abdelmutei | vetted here | match my €5 donation

@lailashaqoura | vetted here (#152) | match my €5 donation

@fedao | vetted here | match my $5 donation

@motaz225 | vetted here | match my $5 (~$53 SEK) donation

@free-gaza2 | vetted here | match my $5 donation

@ahmadresh | vetted here | match my $5 donation

@falestine-yousef | vetted here and clarified here | match my $5 donation

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Horse Yaoi trotted so Horsegirl Yuri could fly.

[a-lilacsong]

This was originally meant to be a 100% goofy funny comic, but somehow it turned into angst halfway through. I still think it's funny that Minimus canonically learns the truth before Amber and James though.

(And thanks to @ograndebatata for helping me rewrite the script to be more fitting).

Comic Script: Roland: … So, now you know the truth about my first wish on the well. I'm sorry I didn't tell you before. If any of you has anything to say, please do. Roland: Okay… one at a time please. James: Does this mean I'm half-wishing well? If someone put a coin in my mouth could I grant their wishes? Roland: WHAT?! NO! Absolutely not! Sofia: I'm sorry dad. Minimus and I already knew, and I think he has told every horse in the kingdom by now. Roland: That's not… how did you…? Amber: Daddy… does that mean I could have killed Sofia when I turned her into a cat? Would she be dead because of me? Roland: No Amber. That wouldn't have happened. Don't worry, no one got hurt. Amber: But Sofia almost was! Roland: But she wasn't. She's alright. All of you are. I'm sorry I only told you now. but please remember we both love you all very much. And we'll all get through this together.

[trans-cuchulainn]

goodreads fascinates me because you get people who read hundreds of books a year and 68% of the books they've rated in the last 13 years (i.e. literally thousands of books) are 1- and 2-star reads for them, and a further 25% are 3-stars, and it's like. i'll be honest. if i thought 2/3rds of the books i read sucked that much, and the best i could hope for most of the time was merely liking something, i might start wondering if i actually, you know, enjoyed reading. or enjoyed those genres. or whatever

they have, in the past 13 years, rated 11 books 5*s, none of them more recently than 5 years ago, and frankly i would have gone and found another hobby by now if i was enjoying myself that little sdflkjdsf it just seems kind of masochistic at that point

[rainofthetwilight]

hot take I guess, but tbh I Don't Really Care abt bruise...I can 100% see why people ship it and it's cute ngl but I just don't care abt it, it never really grabbed me tbh

[thetwilightroadtonightfall]

so I’ve been trying to think of the best way to talk about Skuld’s fate for a while now and I think I’ve finally got it. My feelings about how she could be handled are a bit complicated (maybe even controversial? lol) but I hope I can make myself clear. This is essentially gonna be the post I point to whenever and if ever I need it later in the future. Thanks in advance if you read this!

If for whatever reason it’s confirmed that Skuld isn’t Subject χ and she gets together with Ephemer in canon (which I don’t believe will actually happen, but who knows), I do genuinely think there’d be something incredibly poetic about both of them leaving behind a legacy together.

Skuld as Subject χ is a super intriguing concept that I want to see get played out in canon, and even outside of that possibility, I would really love to just see her go on her own journey, have her own story where she can grapple with the events of khux in her own ways. But as someone who also happens to love her and Eph’s dynamic, I like to indulge in the possibility of them founding Scala together too.

Believe me when I say that I’m very skeptical of Skuld getting the credit and spotlight she deserves given the track record of how female characters are treated in this series. It would break my heart if Skuld got turned into an accessory or got shafted or worst case scenario, is used only to kickstart the Ephy lineage and nothing more outside of that. She deserves good, solid writing no matter what her fate is, I’m sure we can all agree on that at least.

And then there’s also the question of whether or not Nomura would ever establish a canon romantic relationship, and if he even should do that in the first place. I think it would be great, as long as it’s written in such a way that it doesn’t impede on the other types of relationships he’s already established. It could delve into some interesting new territory that can highlight the themes of kh, and make them even stronger and more profound. But you don’t absolutely need romance in order for that to be accomplished, ya feel?

Do I love Skuld and Eph together? Yes. Do I think they should be together (romantically) in canon? Not necessarily. You can both enjoy a ship AND recognize the nuances involved.

But anyway anywaaaaay, long disclaimers aside, these two characters have been through so much together…they witnessed two apocalypses. They’ve suffered the loss of a dear friend at their hands, along with their other friends as a result of horrible circumstances they had no control over. They stayed side by side as their home collapsed around and on them. But they also laughed together. They looked out for each other, stood up for each other. Encouraged and comforted and teased each other so they would smile.

From the very beginning, to the very end, they had each other over and over again. Clinging to hope with incredible resilience. From party members, to friends, to leaders. They’re both wonderful characters who I have no doubt would support each other throughout the rest of their lives, just as they always have.

I’ll be fine if a romance between them doesn’t become canon, in fact I’ll probably be pretty relieved. But I can’t deny that the idea of the two of them being entwined forever, bonded by the tragedies they’ve been through, yet also by all of their happy times and shared memories, is a beautiful thought to me.

Surviving to see the other side and building everything from the ground up again together, and seeing the legacy that follows their love, is a story worth telling, in my opinion. In the end, if that’s a story left to us fans to tell, that’s more than enough for me. We have so much to work with. Regardless of what Nomura and/or the rest of the writing team choose to do, I don’t need them to be a canon couple to enjoy the profound love and care they have for each other.

TL;DR - Whatever happens with Skuld, I’m down for the ride. As long as she’s present, period, I’m here for it. Just…please for the love of god, let her be written well. I miss her so much and I need all these years of loving her character to pay off

[rahabs]

the fact that you would defend the israeli government after they’ve murdered 30,000 innocents in the largest bombing campaign in modern history is literally despicable and borderline evil. if a genocide documented ad nauseam cannot make you cognizant of israel’s colonial and deeply racist regime, then literally nothing can and you are beyond reasoning with. actually incredible how multiple history degrees have clearly taught you nothing about how a genocide works — or perhaps more concerningly, they have, and you simply don’t care because the victims are palestinian. the fact that you would use those very history degrees to excuse israel’s genocide of palestinians is deeply disturbing and indicative of the rancid hypocrisy within western academia. history will exonerate the indigenous palestinians, and it will be unkind to those like you who defended and cheered on their annihilation.

It‘s so amazing to me that you actually believe this, and that you‘ve so wholeheartedly swallowed the propaganda Hamas (known for using their own civilians as human shields, known for paying their citizens extra for killing Jews) has been peddling. So I am going to paste here some points others have already made that I‘ve saved over the course of information-gathering, though I doubt you‘ll bother to read or learn, judging from your asinine little comments here.

1) Palestine Gaza is a genocidal nation. The goal of the Palestinian government in Gaza is literally to destroy and commit genocide against Israel and kill every Jew by every means possible. This is literally written in their founding charter. "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. The Palestinian people know better than to consent to having their future, rights and fate toyed with.

2) Palestine is an apartheid nation that has ethnically cleansed 100% of their Jews and stole their territory after 1948. There used to be tens of thousands of Jews living in the areas of Judea and Samaria, which was renamed to the West Bank by Jordan. However they've all been ethnically after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and 0 Jews are allowed to live in Palestine today. 3) Palestine is an authoritarian dictatorship both in Gaza and the West Bank. Hamas won majority of the votes during an election in 2006, but the Palestinian president simply refused to recognize the results of the election and refused to hand power over to them. This resulted in Hamas siezing power in Gaza, executing hundreds of their political rivals, and they never held another election. Likewise, the leadership in the West Bank also refused to hold any elections and still continue to illegitimately cling to power. Abbas, the president of Palestine had a 4 year term which was supposed to end in 2009. He's still the leader today and has continued to postpone election after election. 4) Palestine supports the outright open murder of innocent civilians. I've already mentioned the charter of the Palestinian government in Gaza above where their goal is to eradicate Israel and genocide Israelis, but the Palestinian government in West Bank is just as horrible. There's the Palestinian Authority Matry Fund where they literally pay a salary / pension to any Palestinians who commmit terrorist attacks against Israelis, be it through stabbings, shootings or suicide bombings, and they've paid out billions so far. The Foundation for the Care of the Families of Martyrs pays monthly cash stipends to the families of Palestinians killed, injured, or imprisoned while carrying out violence against Israel.

5) Palestine is horribly corrupt oligarchy. Palestine receives billions from the USA and Europe in aid every single year. Whatever money isn't spent on paying literal terrorists, or on rockets to shoot at Israel ends up going to corrupt Palestinian leaders. Yasser Arafat, the first Palestinian leader, died a billionaire. Abbas the current President is worth $100 million. The Palestinian leaders in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, Moussa Abu Marzuk and Khaled Mashal have an estimated combined wealth of over $10 billion. Meanwhile the combined GDP of Gaza is only about $2.5 billion, meaning these 3 leaders wealth is equal to 4 years of Gaza's GDP. 6) Palestinians have caused wars and instability in every country that they've sought refuge in. In Jordan, Palestinains assasinated the Jordanian king in 1951, then attempted a coup of a the country in 1970. After they failed, they were expelled to Lebanon where they started a civil war with the Christian Maronites. This war lasted 15 years and killed several times more people than the entire Israel-Palestine war (150k died in Lebanon civil war vs 25k in Palestinian-Israeli wars). In Kuwait, the Palestinians supported Saddam as Iraq invaded Kuwait. In Egypt, they've been hit by several bombings by Palestinians. 7) There is no freedom of speech or equality in Palestine Gaza. No equality of sexes, no equality of races, and definitely no queer rights in the entirety of Palestine where you could be killed for the crime of being openly queer. [If you identify as a liberal, there is literally] no reason to support a country where majority of [your] friends would either have severely restricted rights, be treated like objects, or be thrown off a building just for existing.

Let me reiterate: Jews are indigenous to Israel. Jews have existed and lived in what we now call the Israel-Palestine region for thousands of years before the foundation of Islam, and even before the foundation of Christianity. In the game of “which Abrahamic religion came first?” Islam ranks dead last.

Israel as an identity as a people has existed for thousands of years and has been recorded as far back as the Iron Age on:

i) The Mesha Stele;

ii) The Tel Dan Stele;

iii) The Kurkh Monoliths; and (potentially)

iv) The Merneptah Stele.

While scholars have argued over the translations on the Merneptah Stele, the general consensus among historians, classicists, archaeologist, etc, is that it refers to the existence of Israel at the very least as a collective identity that existed at the time, and was called Israel.

They were eventually repeatedly forced out by other powers such as the Romans and many others, but that doesn’t change the fact that Jews had a continuous existence in Israel before being forced out by what people like you would normally call “colonising powers” were it not so contrary to your own ill-supported arguments. It also doesn’t change the fact that Jews, and Israel, existed before both Christianity and Islam, and long, long before Palestine.

So if your entire argument boils down to "who was here first" and the ideas of "colonialism" and "anti-colonialism" and "decolonisation", then I am telling you, Jews were there first. You could argue Canaanite groups like Moabites and Ammonites were there too, but Moabites and Ammonites don't exist as a continuous group anymore. No matter how you look at it, you are wrong, so let me parrot your horrible argument right back at you:

The fact that you would defend Hamas, a known organisation whose founding Charter literally calls for the annihilation of Jews, who have systematically purged Jews for years, who launched multiple attacks against innocent Jewish people (the music festival, the babies and the woman and the children slaughtered), the fact that there's a Palestinian Authority Matry Fund where they literally pay a salary / pension to any Palestinians who commit terrorist attacks against Israelis, be it through stabbings, shootings or suicide bombings, and they've paid out billions so far; the fact that you defend the existence of the Foundation for the Care of the Families of Martyrs which pays monthly cash stipends to the families of Palestinians killed, injured, or imprisoned while carrying out violence against Israel, etc... that you would defend this is "literally despicable" and not only outright evil, but ignorant to the nth degree.

If the continuous genocidal nature of Hamas against Israel cannot make you cognizant of Hamas' deeply racist, violence, and terrorist regime (to the point where none of the Muslim countries around them will take Palestinians in; even their fellow Muslim countries want nothing to do with them), then I'm not sure what to tell you. You say I am beyond reasoning, but from where I'm standing, your head is so far up your own ass that I don't even know if you're aware of anything that isn't the smell of your own shit.

It's actually incredible to me how you can ignore what multiple historians and scholars are saying because you want to cling to your idea that Hamas are just a bunch of "poor innocent brown people" who need help from the "evil white Israeli regime". Or perhaps, more "concerningly," that is just it: you hate Israel because you erroneously perceive them as white, and so therefore they must be evil. I don't know, but that is what a lot of anti-Israel sentiment seems to boil down to in the world of people like you.

The fact that you would excuse and ignore Hamas' outright horrific acts and ignore history is deeply disturbing and indicative of the rancid hypocrisy within the west, but particularly within western circles that claim to be "progressive", "liberal", and "leftist."

Hamas has said no to every ceasefire. Hamas has said no to every compromise Israel has offered even before October. If Hamas stops fighting, the war ends. If Israel stops, then Israel is annihilated.

History has already shown that Palestinians are not indigenous if we are playing the "who was there first" game with Israel and Palestine, you're just so ignorant that you will refuse to see the evidence right in front of you. You are the one cheering for the annihilation of an indigenous group, and the one history will frown upon is you.

[deoidesign]

What’s your favorite animal?

goblin shark

[etre-grantaire]

okay wait wait wait

so on Team Empathy we (ostensibly) have

Normal "I was kind of relieved to not have to hang out with Taylor anymore" Oak Swallows Garcia

and

Taylor "waits for Normal in a taxi for several hours" Swift

[velvetjune]

the chapter songs in Alan Wake 2,, flawless

[nerosdayinanime]

fuckign obsessed with sabigiyu... sabito's tough and snarky and brash when hes around people but then see him with giyuu and hes the biggest fucking puppy... constantly touching and being affectionate whenever he can, harshly stopping/snapping at anyone who tries to badmouth giyuu or even looks at him wrong, always glancing back when hes talking looking for giyuu's attention and recognition- he so freely displays his love and its just so sickeningly sweet to anyone around as witness

giyuu's a youngest child too, you know he'd eat that shit up. he fucking loves how much sabito spoils him- the occasional time sabito tries to be stern or ignores him all he has to do is bat his eyes and raise the corners of his mouth and sabito near immediately caves to whatever he wants. anything to see giyuu's full smile, and giyuu never hesitates with him

they know exactly what the other wants at a given moment, know when to be soft and sweet or when to be rough and wild- quietly sitting together close enough for their thighs to touch and enjoying the warmth of eachother's presence to playfully pushing buttons until the other snaps and gives their full attention to grappling the other to the ground. they'd both stop at the drop of a dime for the other for whatever reason needed, lovingly teasing and calling the other an idiot the whole way out

[batsplat]

new casey podcast have you seen it

https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=ye8wNfrvaPDjtpDV&v=IuwZN6aP8sg&feature=youtu.be

(link to the podcast) yeah I did, cheers!

there's not that much 'new information' per se within this podcast, though there's a bunch of nice tidbits about teenage casey. what stood out to me is how the framing of his journey to becoming a racer is... well, it's kinda new? it's not exactly surprising, because you could get a lot of this stuff from reading between the lines in his autobiography. the question of 'is this your dream or your parents' dream' is a very common one with athletes, and it's often a thin line... but, y'know, this podcast interview in particular is quite a noticeable shift in how casey himself talks about this issue. it's a shift in how he portrays his 'dream' of becoming a professional rider back when he was formulating his autobiography, versus how he's answering questions in this episode. his autobiography isn't free from criticism of his parents - but casey is always stressing his own desire to race. so you do get stuff like this (from the autobiography):

At this point things were getting serious. Dad used to say, 'If you want to become World Champion you can't be that much better than local competition,' holding his finger and thumb an inch apart. 'You have to be this much better,' he'd say, holding his arms wide open. Dad confirms this feeling still today: 'I know it's a harsh way to look at things but that's the difference between a champion and the rest. Just look at the careers of Dani Pedrosa and Jorge Lorenzo. Dani had Alberto Puig and Jorge had his old man, both of them hard as nails. If you want to make it to the top I think it takes somebody with an unforgiving view on life to help get you there. So I said those things to Casey, particularly when we went to the UK, because to keep moving up a level he couldn't just be happy with winning a race. If he wasn't winning by a margin that represented his maximum performance then he wasn't showing people how much better he was than the rest.' There's no denying that Dani, Jorge and I became successful with that kind of upbringing and sometimes you probably do need it. As far as I'm concerned Alberto was nowhere near as tough on Dani as my dad was on me or Jorge's dad was on him. That kind of intensity and expectation puts a lot of extra pressure on a father-son relationship that isn't always healthy. We definitely had our moments and there were a few major blow-ups to come. But at the time, rightly or wrongly, it was proving to be a good system for us and I was eager to continue impressing my dad and others with my performances on the track.

(quick reminder, jorge's review of his father's style of parenting was describing him as "a kind of hitler")

but in general the emphasis is very much on how much casey enjoyed racing, on how single-minded casey was when it came to racing. he might have been isolated by his racing (again this is from the autobiography, in the context of discussing being bullied by kids in school until he got 'protection' from his dirt track friends):

School life was a whole lot better after that but I still hated it. All my real friends were from dirt-track; they were the only people I had anything in common with.

and he's talked about how other parents misinterpreted his shyness as him not actually wanting to race, which meant they were judging casey's parents as a result (autobiography):

Mum tells me that the other parents thought she and Dad were awful because I cried as I lined up on the start line. She remembers: 'I was putting his gloves on his hands and pushing his helmet over his head. The thing was, I knew Casey wasn't crying because he didn't want to ride or because he was scared. He just didn't like the attention of being stared at by all these people!'

but like. overall racing for him was still something he portrayed as a very positive aspect of his childhood. something he always clung onto, something that was his choice to pursue

so... let's play compare and contrast with some specific passages of the autobiography and this podcast, you decide for yourself. take this from his autobiography:

After I started winning more times than not, and it was obvious my passion for bikes wasn't wavering, Mum and Dad decided that seeking out sponsors could be a great idea to help offset some of the costs of travelling to meets and keeping the bikes in good order.

and here, in a longer excerpt about what a sickly child casey was, what his mother said (autobiography):

'They tested him for cystic fibrosis and he was on all kinds of medication; you name it, he was on it. But Casey still raced, we couldn't stop him.' I know I was sick but Mum was right, I wasn't going to let that stop me.

versus this from the podcast, when he's responding to a completely open question about how he got into riding:

To be honest, I don't know if I was allowed to have any other attraction to be honest. I think it was, you know, you're going to be a bike rider from when I was a very very young age - and I'm not the only one to think that. I think my parents have stated that enough times to certain people and you know I was sort of pushed in that direction. My elder sister who's six and a half years older than me, she actually raced a little bit of dirt bikes and dirt track before I was born and when I was very young, so it was sort of a natural progression to go and do a little bit more of that and I think because at the time road racing was a lot more similar to dirt track. That was our sort of way in.

this was one of the very first questions in the interview, it basically just consisted of asking casey how he got into biking in the first place - whether it had come through his family or whatever. casey chose to take the response in that direction... it's not an answer that is just about his own internal passion, how he loved riding the second he touched a bike, how he loved it throughout his childhood etc etc (which is how it's framed in the autobiography) - but instead he says he wasn't allowed to do anything else. he says that he was pushed in that direction, that his parents have openly said as much to others. that he feels vindicated in the belief he was never given another choice

let's play another round. here from the autobiography:

Mum and Dad used to stand at the side for hours on end watching me practise at different tracks. They'd sometimes clock laps with a stopwatch as I went round and round. Other parents couldn't see the point in taking it so seriously but they didn't realise it was what I wanted. I was having fun. Working out how to go faster was how I got my kicks and I couldn't stop until I had taken a tenth or two of a second off my best time on any day. If another kid came out onto the track with me I would be all over them, practising passing them in different ways and in different corners, but most of the time they avoided riding with me and I would be out there on my own, racing the clock.

and this (autobiography):

I enjoyed racing so much that even when I was at home riding on my own I would set up different track configurations to challenge myself. I'd find myself a rock here, a tree there, a gatepost over there and maybe move a branch and that would be my track.

versus here, in the podcast:

Q: And did you realise at the time that you were - not groomed, is not the word but well you were being groomed to be a professional motorcycle racer, or obviously that was your only one reference point, that was the norm. Did that just feel the norm or did you think actually this feels a bit intense or how did you feel about it? A: I think it's hard, it's not until I sort of reached my mid teens where I started to have a bit of a reality check on what I was actually doing. Before then, you know I was competitive. I'm not as competitive as people think, I'm a lot more competitive internally rather than externally versus other people. I always challenge myself to things, so all those younger years was just getting the job done that I was expected to do. I enjoyed winning, I loved it, but you know I enjoyed perfect laps, perfect races, as close as I could get to that and you know from a young age I always sort of challenged myself constantly to be better. So I didn't just win races, I tried to win them - you know, if I won races by five seconds in a [...] race I'd try and win, you know I'd try and get to double that by the end of the day if I could. So you know that always kept me sharp and it stopped me from being sort of, you know, complacent in the position I was at. And it wasn't until sort of you know 16, 17, 18 that reality kicked in. I'd had a couple years road racing in the UK and Spain, been rather successful and then you get to world championships and you know maybe an engineer that was sort of - didn't have your best interests at hear. And, you know, I nearly finished my career right there after my first year of world championships just because of the reality of how hard it was in comparison to everything else I'd experienced up to that point. And, you know, it was a real reality check for me and I think it was then that I started to - you know consider everything around me and consider how and why I got to the position that I was in and that's when the mind started to change a little bit and realise that you know I really was being groomed my whole life just to sort of be here and be put on a track and try and win. And, you know, that was my seemingly most of my existence.

in all the excerpts, he stresses how much he enjoys his perfect laps, how much he enjoys riding, how there is genuine passion there, how dedicated he is to this pursuit... but then in the podcast, he's adding something else - how he'd been groomed his whole life into that role of 'professional bike racer'. that it was only in his late teens (when he was in 125cc/250cc) where he had this moment of 'man I never really had a choice in all this'

and another round. here's him talking in the autobiography about how all the money he got through racing went back into racing - but it was fine because it was the only thing he cared about anyway:

I don't remember seeing any of the money I earned because it all went back into my racing, although I guess at the time that's all I really cared about anyway. I didn't know anything else. Mum and Dad always said to me: 'If you put in the effort, we'll put in the effort.'

and here in the autobiography on how he just wanted to ride all day:

I couldn't ride my bike all day, though, as much as I would have liked to.

and him talking in the autobiography about his parents encouraging him and his sister to 'chase their dreams':

Mum and Dad encouraged both Kelly and me to follow our passions and work hard to chase our dreams. That might sound strange when you are talking about a seven-year-old but I don't think you are never too young to know that if you want something you have to earn it.

versus this in the podcast:

Q: And I've never asked you this before, but did you want to? A: Um... I think I'd been convinced of a dream I suppose. You know, yes I loved riding bikes and you know I really did enjoy racing... but there was lots of other things that I - I really enjoyed as well but just never had the opportunity or never was allowed to do anything else, so... You know, motorbikes for our budget everything fortunately dirt track was probably the cheapest way that you could go motorbike racing. You could survive on very very little in dirt track and show your potential in other ways. You know, yes, having good bikes and good tyres and all that sort of thing made a difference but it wasn't the be all end all, you could always make a difference in other ways, so... I think it was, you know - the best thing we could have done, racing through that. Like I said I enjoyed it, it wasn't until late teens, early 20s where I sort of was like, I don't know if I would have been a bike racer had I actually had a choice.

was riding really all he cared about? or were there other things he was interested in, things he just never had the opportunity to pursue? things he wasn't allowed to pursue? from the autobiography, you get the sense that his parents always deliberately portrayed it as casey's dream, something he was expected to work hard for in order to be allowed to fulfil. in the podcast, casey says it was a dream he was 'convinced' of. without wanting to speak too much on the specifics of this parenting relationship we only have limited knowledge of, this kinda does all sound like athlete parent 101: getting it into their kids' heads that this is the dream of the child, not the parent, before holding it over them when they fail to perform when their parents have invested so so much in their child's success. casey's family was financially completely dependent on his racing results when they moved to the uk - he was fourteen at the time. he was painfully conscious of his parents' 'sacrifice' to make 'his dream' possible. can you imagine what kind of pressure that must be for a teenager?

to be clear, this isn't supposed to be a gotcha, I'm not trying to uncover contradictions between what casey said back then and what he's saying now. obviously, this is all very... thorny, complicated stuff, and casey has had to figure out for himself how he feels about it, how he feels about how his parents approached his upbringing. but it is worth pointing out that this isn't necessarily just a question of his feelings changing over time - if the internal timeline he provides in the podcast is correct, he was really having that realisation in his late teens, early 20s, so on the verge of joining the premier class. that is when he says he had the thought "I don't know if I would have been a bike racer had I actually had a choice"... which is a pretty major admission, you have to say, especially given how rough those premier class years often ended up being on him. but then that realisation would have already come years and years before he wrote his autobiography, it would've been something he carried with him for most of his career. given that, you do look at his autobiography and think that he did make the decision to frame things pretty differently back then, that he decided to exclude certain things from his narrative. if this really is already something that's been festering within him for years, if he does feel like he wants to be a bit more open about all of that now than back then... well, hopefully it shows he's been able to work through all of it a bit more in the intervening years

(this is somehow an even thornier topic than his relationship with parents, but relatedly there is a bit of a discrepancy between how bullish he is in his autobiography about how mentally unaffected he was by his results, versus how he's since opened up since then about his anxiety. again, I want to stress, this is not a gotcha, he's under no obligation to share this stuff with the world - especially given the amount of discourse during his career about his supposed 'mental weakness'. it is still important in understanding him, though, how he consciously decided to tell his own story in the autobiography and how he's somewhat changed his approach in the subsequent years)

this is the rest of his answer to that podcast question I relayed above:

But at the same time you know I felt that no matter what I would have done, I sort of have a - my mentality of self-punishment, you know, of never being good enough that always drove me to try and be better and any single thing that I did, I didn't like it when I wasn't not perfect. I don't believe in the word perfect but I really didn't enjoy when I wasn't, you know, in my own terms considered a good enough level at anything I did so I would always sort of try to get up as high as I could regardless of what for.

at which point hodgson says exactly what I was thinking and goes 'god what a line' about the "mentality of self-punishment" thing. it is one hell of a line!

what's really interesting about this podcast is how these two big themes of 'this wasn't my choice' and 'self-punishment' end up kinda being linked together when casey talks about how the motogp world reacted to him... so again I'm gonna quickly toss in a bit from the autobiography (where he's talking about casual motorcycling events he went to as a kid), because it does read similarly in how for him the joy and competitive aspects of riding are closely linked:

It was a competition but it wasn't highly competitive; it was just for fun, really. Of course, I didn't see it that way, though, and I had dirt and stones flying everywhere. I don't think anyone expected the park to be shredded like it was. When I was on my bike, if I wasn't competing to my maximum level then I wasn't having as much fun.

and back to the podcast:

And also because people truly didn't understand me, that I'm not there just to enjoy the racing. As we're explaining, before that, you know it was sort of a road paved for me... And so the results were all important, not the enjoyment of it. And then you cop the flak for everything you do. I'm also very self-punishing, so it was kind of a - just a lose lose lose and it was all very very heavy on myself, so... It, you know, it took me till my later years to realise I could take the pressure off myself a little bit and go look you've done all the work you've done everything you can, you got to be proud of what you've done, so... Not necessarily go out there and enjoy it, because I don't believe you should just be going out in a sport where you're paid as much as we are expect to get results and just - you know - oh I'm just going to go and have fun it's like... yeah, nah, if you're just going to go and have fun then you're not putting in the work. And that's when we see inconsistencies etc. So I was very very harsh on myself and so even when I won races, if I made mistakes or I wasn't happy with the way I rode, well then yeah I'm happy I won but there's work to do. There was more to get out of myself and so that's where I copped a lot of bad... um, let's say bad press because of those kind of things and then they sort of attack you even more because they didn't like the fact that you didn't celebrate these wins like they wanted you to they expect you to I suppose treat every victory like almost a championship and you know it's not that I expected these wins but I expected more of myself and therefore maybe I didn't celebrate them as much as you know other people do.

kind of brings together a lot of different things, doesn't it? this whole profession was a path that was chosen for him... which he links here to how the results were 'all important' for him, how it just couldn't ever be about enjoyment. he always punished himself for his mistakes, he was under constant pressure, which also affected how he communicated with the outside world... he was so committed to self-flagellation that he made it tough for himself to actually celebrate his victories, which in turn wasn't appreciated by the fans or the press. so on the one hand, casey's obviously still not particularly thrilled about how much of a hard time he was given over his particular approach to being a rider. but on the other hand, he's also describing how all of this can be traced back to how becoming a rider was never actually his 'choice'. he's detailed his perfectionism before, including in his autobiography, including in discussing his anxiety disorder more recently - but this is explicitly establishing that link between the pressure he'd felt during his childhood to how he'd been pushed into this direction to how he then had to perform. he couldn't afford to be anything less than perfect, so he wasn't, and at times he made his own life even tougher as a result of his own exacting standards. this just wasn't stuff he's said in such straightforward, explicit terms before... and now he is

my general thing with casey is that his reputation as a straight shooter or whatever means people aren't really paying enough attention to how he's telling his own story. like, I kinda feel the perception is 'oh he used to be more closed off because the media ragged on him but since retirement he's been able to tell it like it really is' or whatever. and I'm not saying that's necessarily wrong, but it's not quite as simple as that. because he's not a natural at dealing with the media, he's put a fair bit of thought into how to communicate better with them (which he does also say in the podcast), and he's explicitly acknowledged this is something he looked to valentino for in order to learn how to better handle. because casey has felt misunderstood for quite a long time, he's quite invested in selling his story in certain ways - and it's interesting how what he's chosen to reveal or emphasise or conceal or downplay has changed over time. which means there will be plenty of slight discrepancies that pop up over time that will be as revealing as anything he explicitly says... and it tells you something, what his own idea of what 'his story' is at any given time. this podcast isn't just interesting as a sort of, y'know, one to one, 'this is casey telling the truth' or whatever - it's reflecting where his mind is at currently, what he wants to share and in what way, and how that compares to his past outlook. the framing of his childhood was really something that popped out about this particular interview... it's not like it's exactly surprising that this is how he feels, but more that he decided to say all of this so openly. some pretty heavy stuff in there! hope the years really have helped him... man, I don't know. figure it all out, for himself. something like that

[sonknuxadow]

it's kinda weird that shadow is known as the guy that uses guns all the time when there's like. zero undeniably canon instances of him using a gun. as far as i can remember the only media where hes shown using guns is shadow the hedgehog (the game) and he has one on the boxart yeah but if i remember correctly he doesnt have one in any of the cutscenes except for the opening animation thing but i wouldnt consider that part of the story just a montage of things that Could happen depending on what choices you make. and within the actual levels there ARE weapons you can use but theyre not all guns and the one you use, if you even use one at all, is entirely up to you the player shadow doesn't just grab a gun and make you use it. and while using a gun definitely makes the game easier there are very few missions where it's actually a requirement. plus due to the nature of the choose your own path thing its unclear which missions actually happened so we dont even know if the parts where you have to use a gun happened for real. and after this one single game shadow never used a gun again as far as i know. this whole idea of shadow being obsessed with guns and using them all the time doesnt really have much canon basis if anything it makes more sense for tails to be known as the gun guy considering hes the one who actually uses weapons like all the time

[emeraldblonde]

I tried to mod something and the good news is, it didn't crash the game. 🥳 The bad news is, not what I was looking for lmao.

Like, don't get me wrong. I've seen way worse (the stuff of nightmares) on a modding channel I've been teaching myself this stuff lately, so. It's not like I completely fucked this thing up or anything like that.

It's just... I still gotta ask though.

What went wrong here?