#Oh Marc

[age-of-moonknight]

“Dead Reckoning,” Moon Knight: City of the Dead (Vol. 1/2023), #3.

Writer: David Pepose; Penciler: Sean Damien Hill; Inker: Jay Leisten; Colorist: Rachelle Rosenberg; Letterer: Cory Petit

[darka-art]

This men... this men is going to be the end of me.

[ray935sworld]

If you ever want to know why I love MotoGP more than F1, it's the mentality.

Don't get me wrong, the fancy F1 style which is mostly professional with some funny moments is perfect. But it's mainly glamorous. It's supposed to be the perfect Monaco sport.

MotoGP has the expensive aspect as well. But they are just a bunch of chaotic man that love motorcycles and no one is trying to change that for the media.

In f1 people get media training about the "Can you wank yet" question. The laugh about "lol" from max or the "if my mom had balls she'd be my dad" quote was quoted way too many times. The webber glass smash or the angry hat through from brocedes is still legendary. Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg being "anything but lovers". I literally can't think of any significant media thing. Sorry.

Motogp is like... Let me post a picture of me touching my balls thorough my race wear. I think it was Quartararo who made a video imply that he's racing in fucking lingerie. They get ass smacks from their team before and after a session. Pecco and Bez are getting referred to as an old married couple. Rider jumping on (and fucking) each other in prac ferme. Jorge said that he'll marry his childhood rival in 2-3 years after they hugged (we know you're touch starved, Jorge but how good was that hig please?). Bez talking to Domizia (Pecco's fiance) and calling Bagnaia "OUR future husband". The Marquez brothers kissed ON THE MOUTH on International live TV. Martin and Aleix E. kissed each other in a club (I think it was them, no idea about the context). And Vale... He proudly said in an interview FFM porn is his favorite and he wants to be a member of the mile high club. I CAN GO ON.

AND IT'S NOT EVEN CONSIDERED EXTRAORDINARY BECAUSE EVERYONE DOES IT.

That's why motogp is better. Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[lingerdingdong]

Marc Revelado Documentary clip and English transcript

[aspenonthecoast]

inspired by (x)

[ivystoryweaver]

i'm sorry does it get more gorgeous than marc spector on that boat

[pokimoko]

One year ago today, The Goldfish (Moon Knight) gave me Problems (brainrot).

[batsplat]

like the motogp unlimited moment where joan is kinda terrified of him and marc looks like he's trying to figure out whether he can muster the energy to eat him

😂😂😂😂😂😂

This one is going to carry me through the day. Picturing cat marc contemplating with his tail swishing if he wants to raise his paw and squish this thing or go back to nap.

(extremely belated follow up to this)

referring to this clip from motogp unlimited, on the off chance anyone hasn't seen that masterpiece yet - in which we get to see mir on camera criticising marc for his towing addiction, mir panicking about the media reporting how he criticised marc for his towing addiction, and then mir telling first the honda guys and then marc himself how the media had made up that he had criticised marc for his towing addiction

say what you will about that show, but this clip is just absolute perfection. it has been living rent free in my head from the first time I saw it. the editing is on point... how it completely stitches up joan with the juxtaposition between him literally criticising marc and him insisting he totally hadn't been criticising marc... the way it cuts to a random clip of marc entering a building with the air of a trigger happy warlord, as if he's about to order joan's execution... joan talking to the honda guy - the "you'd better say to his face" line, mir visibly deeply unhappy at this response... hard cut to mir's tremulous explanation to marc. mir's gaze wandering somewhere bottom right while marc is serving full cannibal realness and is staring right at mir with a wide grin and dead eyes. the painfully obvious relief on mir's face when marc accepts his explanation. if you told me marc was sky high on painkillers during this whole conversation, I would not question it for a moment

this is not a grin I would want levelled at me. it's the kind of grin where I'd start worrying if I might find myself chopped up in pieces in the other guy's freezer in the immediate future. at this point in his life and his career, marc had bigger things to worry about than being criticised for something he had been repeatedly criticised for already and would be criticised for again countless times. this whole episode does matter in the vague sense that mir was the defending world champion who had replaced marc, but realistically it's just not the sort of thing marc will have spent more than two minutes thinking about. which was really mir's best hope - that marc simply could not be bothered to make space in the freezer for him

I compared this moment in the mind games post to casey suffering a mild case of headloss because he thought valentino had deliberately hidden his tyre compound from the competition (bridgestone had run out of paint) - and there is something to how your reputation for mind games can become so strong that eventually you don't really have to be doing any work because your competition will freak anyway. marc isn't actually doing anything in this clip... he's just vibing. admittedly he's doing so in that uncanny valley ever so slightly inhuman way he has about him, like he's currently hashing out the logistics of sauteing your liver, but he is just vibing

[biolizardboils]

seriously, please support your local library!

Songs used:

Tubthumping by Chumbawamba

Library Card by Michael Yarmush from Arthur and The First Almost Real Not Live CD (or Tape)

YouTube link // SoundCloud link

[age-of-moonknight]

“Let’s Dance,” Moon Knight (Vol. 9/2021), #21.

Writer: Jed MacKay; Artist: Alessandro Cappuccio; Colorist: Rachelle Rosenberg; Letterer: Cory Petit

[ray935sworld]

Okay. Whore.

[kingcrow01]

DC/Marvel Pool Noodle Party 2024

Week 5 | Mercs & Murder Husbands

Marc Spector & Harley Quinn, 0 fics!

@dc-marvel-crossovers

Here’s the outline of the event for those interested. TLDR, This event celebrates relationship tags that have less than 30 works on ao3, both platonic and romantic. The rarest of rarepairs!

Inspired by Harley harassing interacting with Marc and Damian in chapter 20 of in labyrinths of reflections by @blackkatmagic, specifically these lines:

“Fuck the hell off,” he growls, and gets a hand on her face as she tries to kiss his mask. She’s wearing a lot of lipstick, and he'd rather not run around the rest of the night with a black lip-print on his face. 

and

Harley blinks at him, big eyes and blond pigtails and smeared makeup that makes her look like a raccoon with a hangover, and then laughs. 

Ho-ly-shit, I cannot begin to express how happy I am with this piece! Initially I was having a hard time with MK’s suit, to the point that I was contemplating just dropping the whole project. (I hate drawing superhero suits, why do I keep on doing this to myself) Like always, all it came down to was retaking my ref and utilizing that handy-dandy line of action, and I finished it pretty easily after that.

Damian was a last minute add-on, and I wanted to draw him on Marc’s right side and a head taller (kids are bigger than you think!) but I ran out of room on the page. I ran into the same problem with Harley’s mallet; I wanted it to be bigger, but with the angle it had to sit at to rest against her thigh, I kept it on the smaller side. 

This piece has made it very clear how limiting my sketchbooks’ size is. For example, I have an idea for another week in this event, but it literally wouldn't fit in this sketchbook so I’m not going to make it. Digital art 1: traditional, 0.

I tried out a new lining style as well, and I’m never going back. Before, I was making every line the same width, but it’s SO much more impactful with alternating line thickness! I attached the lined final sketch below. Do you see how much of a difference it makes?? (Written early May, so I've been using this style since.)

Details:

I think it’s silly that Harley’s boots are covered in blood, but not her actual weapon lol

Harley is as tall as she is because she’s standing on her toes in platform boots

The tattoo on Harley’s midsection is of ivy leaves (though, it’s not poison ivy) as a sort of homage to Ivy. Not that she’s dead or anything. They’re just. Lovers. So, tattoo.

I got to put NO WORK into shading the black parts of MK’s suit, and that was FABULOUS

I wanted to give her colored shoe laces, because I love small details like that. I would love to give characters any color of laces, but some of them seem to have negative meanings, especially on Doc Martens, so I went the safe route and gave her purple laces, which represents gay pride. Yes, I know she’s bisexual, but I felt like I didn’t have many options.

[moonshynecybin]

does vale just have like wildly low emotional intelligence to be this delusional about their fallout (he’s ignoring like. large swaths of context for 2015 i think. like it’s crazy that his and marc’s stories are so wildly mismatched not just in terms of content but also in terms of TIMELINE) or are his unique trauma responses to a tough childhood and fame and competing in god’s most awful death sport just insanely damaging. wait just answered my own question. um.

[le-chevalier-au-lion]

choke the girl to get her: rosquez [e]

There it is—a faint little shiver running the length of his body, a sheen of silvery sweat pooling on his throat, Marc’s spit-shiny lips falling open, slack with hunger. His eyes are keen, electric, pinning Vale in place.

Another man would’ve gone for plausible deniability.

Lights off. Hidden faces.

Marc, ever the psycho, digs his nails into Vale’s hip hard, thumb splayed over his tattoo. He hisses at the scraped raw flash of pain—of course there’d be pain—and jerks against the cradle of Marc’s thighs.

The heat is obscene. Marc had always run hot, he remembers, but inside him is disorienting, scrambles all of Vale’s thoughts. He fumbles for coherency first, his tongue coarse and thick and slow, and decides against speaking altogether. Pants wetly instead, shaking with the struggle of not moving. Much. Someone needs to be careful, and it’s not going to be Marc.

He leans forward. Marc’s fucking eyes are still on him, so Vale grabs the hair on his nape and pulls—tips his head back to suck a mark on the hinge of his jaw.

Marc goes tighter around him. Feverishly sweltering. Vale grunts and flinches, a minute, knife-to-the-guts sway that gets him deeper inside. The room around him blurs.

“Can you just,” Marc breaks off, frustrated, jolting against his grip.

Both his hands grab Vale’s waist, and his legs lock in around the back of his own. He wrangles Vale like his bike—moves him and uses him. Each time he’s made to fuck in is tiny and torturous. Marc’s chest heaves with breath, his brow furrowed. He might as well be having a religious experience, Saint Teresa with her angel, being cleaved open with a flaming arrow.

Vale bites on the jut of his collarbone, leashing back a searing whine. He has of couple of inches on Marc—in Marc, ha—and it doesn’t matter. If Vale manhandles him, it only happens because he wants that. Not a revelation, but it still lands like out-breaking himself into the gravel, that Marc lets Vale play with him marionette-style. He scrabbles for air. For the fleeting string of his sanity.

“You can’t take it easy once in your fucking life,” Vale bites out, strained.

Marc had been tense around his fingers, expression guarded and laser-focused. Is tense now, around his cock, skirting the edge of hurt—he has a strangle hold on Vale’s nerves and gets mean with it.

There’s a laugh, dizzy, punch-drunk. “You always knew that,” Marc states.

And so what?

Vale huffs. He rubs Marc’s quivering sides, moves in gentle ripples. Tries to make him unclench. Tentatively, one of his fingers slides down the V of his stomach to settle over Marc’s hole, where he’s spread wide and obscene, rubbing against his sensitive dick as he pushes in.

He’s gentle there too. Keeps it slow and featherlight even through the pound of blood in his ears.

Marc relaxes a fraction. The wobble of his frankly indecent mouth goes from voyeuristic PT/self-martyrdom video to sex. Vale wants to freeze that moment—then feels magnificently stupid and shoves the hard wash of sentimentality away. Focuses on the dirty grind against Marc’s ass.

The light in Marc’s eyes is ardent, dangerous. He strikes out like a wild animal and grabs Vale’s other wrist—his bones creak with the strength on that hold. There’s a flash of white—his teeth—before he brings it to his face and presses a kiss on the soft, fragile skin there. Vale watches. Can’t tear his gaze away. His heart is an erratic, arrhythmic hum inside his chest.

And suddenly it spikes.

Marc oh so slowly puts Vale’s hand around his neck. A strangled thing pours out of him, and there must be a line between his prickling palm to the throb in his cock. His vision narrows down to this, only this, only ever this. He feels like he was wired wrong. And he remembers—

“You fucked me better when you were angry, Valentino,” he says, saccharine with viciousness, and swallows. Vale tracks the flow of his throat with his fingertips.

“Christ,” Vale manages to spit out, shivering. And then:

“Fine, fine.” He aims for magnanimous and misses by a mile, words pried laboriously from him. “We do it your way.”

They’re historically good at making it hurt. This—this toothless, age-worn version of them, skirting around old wounds, honey-sinuous—is pretty new. Awkward.

Vale gets Marc’s thigh over his shoulder. Bends him in half and spreads him wide. The vision he makes is cheap and sweet-sticky and—shit. His thrusts pick up, the noise of skin-on-skin deafening in the shrinking room. Marc tips his head back as far as he can, a moan caught on his tongue, lashes fluttering madly over his cheeks. Handsome. Because of course he is.

That never changed.

His hand flexes once around his throat. Just a flicker, a promise. Marc’s eyes widen, and he freezes. Like this, he looks younger. A lot more reckless. Vale needs to stop thinking about it.

When he squeezes, Marc’s spine arches off the bed, chasing that harm with a wild-eyed, sloppy dizziness. He spills a noise that’s half plea and half grunt. Vale is hyperaware of every single one of his knuckles, of the strength cording his arm. Marc isn’t.

Despite that, he holds on to Vale’s elbow and—

Marc shoves back against him—scratches him, the bite of his nails fiery, and bucks riotously —until Vale grows cruel with the choking. Holds on, going cold and burning as Marc starts writhing, his eyes huge, chest heaving convulsively. The space between them reeks of this ugly, cleaved-open desperation.

Once he lets go, they lick into each other’s mouths, graceless, starving, no pretense to hide behind.

Sex with Marc has always—

The first time they did this was in Motegi, maybe, he thinks frantically, unable to resist choking Marc again, lost in a helpless undercurrent of bitterness he’d tried to curb for the span of tonight. Vale had gotten pole, but Marc shrugged—smiled shark-like, unapologetic, the same old tune of 2016—and said I’ll get you anyway. I’m winning my fifth.

His head goes taffy thick. The next memory is him pressing Marc against the door of his motorhome, his bottom lip stinging and bleeding and staining them both red, his hand like iron on that neck, squeezing hard.

Vale wishes it weren’t so easy to hurt Marc.

(Wishes Marc didn’t chase it so much.)

“Can you save the guilt trip for later?” Marc hisses, his voice wrecked to hell already, the shape of Vale’s violence engraved on his golden skin. It’s a mind fuck, how much he wants to tear him apart, squeeze enough to have Marc crying, begging.

His stomach swoops. He’s so close to coming his vision starts to blur.

Marc’s mouth—infuriating, insolent—is still bent around the next complaint. The next needle he’s going to shove under Vale’s skin. He reaches blindly for his cock so he won’t. Brash displeasure stutters, and his face fractures and softens with an unfiltered, unguarded desire. Whatever he manages is a jumble of fluid Spanish that crashes around Vale like Kingdom come.

Time sloshes around them, a frizz of champagne. Marc eases finally now that Vale has one hand on his dick and the other pressing down on his airway. Sinks into sensation and sighs.

When he comes, he does so with a flutter of a wrecked sound, barely anything, struggling for breath. His stomach trembles, his legs too, and the stark white coating his flushed dark cock and his tanned abs makes Vale ache to lick it up.

Marc is scorching hot on his dick, a delirium, and Vale’s thoughts tangle around nothing, finding no purchase—look at you and Jesus Christ and fuckfuckfuck.

He lets go of Marc to brace himself on the bed. Buries something that tastes an awful lot like I love you with a bite on the swell of his pecs, the imprint of his teeth rose red. Marc makes him cruel, but even that loses focus, sharp edges dulled with an afterglow, with the frenetic haze of Vale’s building orgasm. He’d cut this out piece by piece, scrubbed himself raw to forget—

Stupid. So fucking stupid.

The last ten years flash technicolor before Vale, and the marks on Marc’s neck too. He comes with a jerky shudder that zaps through his entire body. His bones go liquid, and the world trickles around him, along him, spotted dark. Vale distantly hears a keening groan that must come from himself.

In the quiet that follows, Marc blinks at him, bleary and tired and unworried. Tucks his head under his chin. They’re sticking together—sweat, come, over a decade of knowing. Vale holds him close with an arm over his shoulders, skimming over the knobs of Marc’s spine, and it’s almost like they were never hard on each other.

[batsplat]

Your post about sete/vale rivalry is literally so informative it's like a pivotal post to fully understand the way valentino's mind works. You're his friend just up to the point you are not (mainly after perceived crimes not backed up by any real proof apparently). Valentino literally turbodivorced every guy he was friendly with in the paddock (and the irony of two of those turbodivorces happening in the same place isn't lost on me)

I did do my best to keep marc out of that post and let the parallels speak for themselves but like. yes

what's interesting to me about this rivalry is that it's... kind of his first rodeo. I mean he'd obviously had rivals before and a feud and all that and him and biaggi were constantly *gestures* - but one of the most common complaints about valentino is that he switches up towards you when you actually become a serious threat. which!! I still fully believe to some extent is natural, this is sports, they're competing, and I take more seriously with some of valentino's victims than with others. (melandri is always the one where I'm a bit? valentino no offence but why would you bother, in 2005 there wasn't a title fight and in 2006 valentino actually got on really well with two of the four other main contenders and at the very least didn't actively have a problem with dani. so maybe just a melandri problem question mark.) but I do feel like sete was... maybe not the first, but the first that was this extreme. and, very much topic for another post, but he really does learn a lot from the sete rivalry. a lot of the tactics and performance art and all of that, how he uses all of it to demoralise his enemies - this rivalry was kinda the blueprint

but, at the same time, of course it was a different valentino that marc ended up fighting, and not just in terms of how fast and competitive valentino was at that stage of his career. this is something that's quite hard to get across sometimes, because the natural inclination is to just... look at all the past instances in which valentino was a dick and conclude that he has, in fact, always been a dick. but he wasn't just statically malevolent for a twenty plus year career, and it's important to... reinsert context to assess how he developed as a rider and as a character during that time. it's not twenty non-stop years of valentino feuding. and marc is facing a valentino who had inevitably changed as a result of years of injury and poor results on a poor bike. valentino was pretty open in 2012 that he was returning to yamaha after two years on a donkey of a bike to, y'know, see if he was still fast, if he still had it in him - because he genuinely did not know (stop me if this reminds you of anyone more recently). he was so frustrated in 2013 with constantly finishing in fourth place that he took the truly radical step of firing his crew chief jb. one more try, one more change up to see if he could still be fast

it was only in 2014, where, okay he was losing to marc, but he could feel that he was competitive again, he could semi-regularly beat jorge and dani at the very least... then comes misano and he beats marc in a direct fight, draws an error out of him, gets him to crash, and marc shows up at his ranch and manages to strongly signal that he does actually really want to beat valentino. and that, in a way, shows that he was beginning to take valentino seriously as a competitor again (which I would suggest he wasn't doing at the end of 2013). that's something that's easy to miss about the ranch episode: yes, it's notable how much they were treating each other like hardened rivals, but it was also notable they were doing so in 2014, given the kind of season marc was having. maybe it truly was the worst possible timing. maybe it truly was the race in misano that made both of them go. hey. this really could be happening

but it's still a humbled version of valentino, it's still a version of valentino who has already kind of had to make his peace with the fact his time might very much be over. to me, in a way it's more dramatically satisfying if he did make peace with it, if he was more or less all right with marc making the sport his own. okay, there's always going to be a little bit of bitterness, a little bit of envy... because he wished he could still do what marc was doing, of course he did. but by the end of 2013, he knew it was more likely than not he would never be involved in another title fight. he thought his career might be ending after the 2014 season. he told the world if he wasn't competitive in the early races in 2014 then that would be that, and I think he meant it

there was no guarantee he'd have a season like 2015 - sure, he was working harder than ever and making radical personnel choices, all in the hope he still had something more to give... but he didn't know it would happen. it was really really unlikely!! there's a giddiness to him in early 2015, almost like he couldn't quite believe himself he'd get that chance. and then, yes, he does withdraw from marc, he does go back into title fight mode... but relatively speaking, this is still a more agreeable version of valentino. this is still a version of valentino who is determined to not start shit with jorge - it's odd to watch, but in those 2015 pressers valentino is constantly engaging him in conversation, at a time in which the marc chatter was already dropping off pretty sharpish

(incidentally, I think vale was proper pissed off at how jorge reacted to the whole sepang thing and how jorge was angry with valentino, which is very funny to me. like at catalunya 2016 vale's going!! I actually made an effort with this bitch!! I was nice to him for three years, does that count for nothing??)

valentino also doesn't blow shit up over assen, even though by his standards marc should be giving him plenty of reason to. he's definitely cooled off towards marc, but he's still giving him the benefit of the doubt where he wouldn't have done so with past rivals - which, yes, I do think partly reflects how he felt about marc, but also reflects how he was approaching that year and that phase of his career as a whole. he didn't really want drama; he wasn't really looking for any distractions from the actual title fight. which doesn't mean that he wasn't already changing his behaviour towards his competitors in response to the demands of the season - it's just a question of the extent. here from a write-up of assen 2015 (I don't entirely agree on the point of the effectiveness of valentino's mind games, though I do agree - like valentino himself does - with the general idea that most of the work needs to be done on-track):

in the end, he cracked. I guess that's what generally happens when you put someone under that kind of pressure - you make them revert to type. valentino wasn't arrogant or entitled or over-confident in that season, he was desperate. he'd been given this unexpected chance and he was throwing everything he had into making it work. body, mind, soul, all of it, wringing himself out in pursuit of this dream. he could feel it slipping away at several points that season... that four race jorge win streak where he led every single lap and it was kind of like? okay, you just can't do anything about that. valentino can't match that, not at this stage of his career. or brno, after which they were level on points and jorge led on countback and it just felt like valentino so obviously had a consistent pace deficit that surely this could only go one way. all these moments where it felt like it might actually be over, in the least dramatic way imaginable. in many ways, this wasn't really a title fight that should ever have been so close - and it's to valentino's credit as a rider, his versatility and willpower, that he was even able to push things as far as he did. but he did know he was hanging on by a thread, and he ended up playing the last hand he felt he had available

obviously, it wasn't really rational calculation that made him do what he did in sepang - though there probably was an element of, y'know, might as well. but he believed he detected a pattern of behaviour in marc - not entirely incorrectly, because it did feel like marc approached his battles with valentino differently - and fashioned himself a conspiracy on the basis of it. he hoped it could change the momentum one last time; he decided to make one final roll of the dice. and then, of course, marc reacted in a way that has ensured valentino will never stop believing in his conspiracy theory. because of course marc did, because of course he never would have taken it lying down. because valentino knew from the moment marc engaged him in that battle at sepang that it was almost certainly all over, because he lost his temper - which usually helps him, except when it doesn't. because they both lost their tempers and ended up just wanting to hurt each other, to prove a point. because that's who they both are

the main point I'm trying to make here is kind of.... it's just how I personally read the sete stuff - yes, these are the same patterns of behaviour, yes, a lot of parallels do obviously present themselves. I've long felt that sete is the single most significant valentino feud to understanding what happened with marc. he's the only other one who valentino was friends with, the only other one valentino felt hurt by on a personal level, the only other one who valentino changed his behaviour towards from one day to the next. and I think under the right circumstances, if you give valentino enough of an excuse and enough of a prize to aim for and have planted enough seeds of suspicion in advance... you can get this situation where the competitive paranoia takes control and he buys into this whole betrayal narrative and he decides he needs to go nuclear. and it also gave him a script to follow - one he knew could work because it had. except of course it could have gone very wrong in 2004 too. what happens if he's so desperately determined to ruin sete that he bins it in phillip island and finds himself only barely ahead in the points going into the title decider? compare that race to phillip island 2009 - obviously, there's a sizeable difference between the level of opposition (especially at that circuit) and the '09 race probably wasn't winnable, but he still ends up eventually deciding to settle for second behind casey because he doesn't want to risk losing the championship to jorge. he's not casey's biggest fan either, but he never came close to losing his head fighting him. it's different. he might do some of his finest riding when he's angry, but where there's anger there's also volatility. and, on occasion, there's also some really bad choices

if 2004 is the moment where he's properly learning to play these games, then 2015 is him falling back on these tools when he really had basically discarded them. it'd been five years since he'd engaged in mind games in earnest (I know him and casey were constantly at it in 2011-12, but whatever the hell that was about, whatever part of their psyches they were appeasing there, it obviously had fuck all to do with on-track competition). that's a long time! there's a 2014 interview where he's asked about his work on the 'mental side' against his rivals:

the first thing he immediately stresses is that there's zero point in doing any of this if you're not fast enough on-track to back it up. if you are fast, sure, you can do some off-track 'work', especially if you know it makes your rivals suffer :) but it won't have the same effect without the on-track performance. so even if we want to say valentino hadn't mellowed post-2012, even if he hadn't grown one jot humbler in his heart of hearts, even if he wasn't swayed by any genuine fondness for marc, he still knew the maths just didn't work out in his favour with his current opponents. he couldn't deploy his favourite tactics against jorge because jorge insisted on spending the entire season either two spots ahead or three spots behind valentino, and the off-track stuff just can't work if you're never sharing space on-track. it could and did work against marc, but he wasn't trying to score psychological victories against marc! certainly not by the time they reached assen and marc was basically out of that title fight. so there wouldn't have been any point in trying to fuck with either of them in that way off-track and, well, it could easily backfire. which is something valentino understood perfectly well until they were 88.9% of the way through the season, and then he changed his mind at what was almost the very last possible moment. which I think speaks to how desperate valentino was to make a mistake like he did at sepang: he felt it was all he had left to try

the other way in which marc comes into this whole thing is that.... I mean, he knew about all this stuff! this is the thing right, maybe he wasn't watching the sepang 2004 press conference as an eleven year old and later going 'huh' but broadly speaking, he will obviously have been aware of how this went down, qatar controversy and all of it. he's sitting right there in that jerez 2015 presser when valentino is asked about sete and in response valentino says sete played 'dirty games'. he's obviously aware of the whole jerez 2005 situation, not least because he copied valentino's overtake in his third ever premier class race. which in turn sete was watching unfold, and is still having thoughts about in 2023:

so it's kind of... y'know, you've got marc, you've got someone who's still very much the heir apparent despite all the drama between him and valentino. if you're sete, do you look at marc and see somebody who valentino hurt in similar ways to what he did to you, or do you look at marc and see another version of valentino? do you see both? it's again that thing of, if you have a problem with some of valentino's more aggressive riding then you will definitely have a problem with marc. because of course marc is the escalation, because valentino generally picked his moments a bit more and adjusted his levels of aggression more to the situation, whereas marc is mostly just Like That. so sure, if you're sete gibernau you can look at marc and see another one of valentino's victims, but at the end of the day you're also going to see his legacy

and this from 2017:

not an original thing to say obviously, half of motogp has said it at one point or another. but. still. meaningful to me!

that tension between 'fellow valentino rival' and 'valentino's successor' is imo inherent to the jerez pass situation, because (along with laguna seca) it's an example of marc actively inserting himself into valentino's legacy. and the thing is, right, these aren't just neutral fun passes that everyone remembers because they looked cool: they're the biggest flashpoints of their respective feuds. marc did to jorge what valentino did to sete - and then he did the most valentino thing imaginable and went to jorge when he must have known jorge would still be furious, making him publicly reject his handshake and starting up a whole lot of discourse™ that would take forever to die down. marc knew immediately how controversial what he did would be and was completely at home in the chaos. it's not just the pass that does valentino proud, it's the shamelessness

while that race might not have had the same repercussions as '05, at the end of the day you do have to remember that those passes have a lot of baggage and controversy attached that marc is also making himself a part of. in the case of laguna, it's valentino addressing livio suppo in the presser because of all the grief suppo and casey had given valentino over the '08 overtake. in the case of the jerez pass, it's sete talking about how alienated he is by this whole approach to riding that marc so completely embodies. and the whole thing has come up quite a few times since 2013, because everyone loves bringing up last corner passes at least once a year when they show up again at jerez

so for instance we have this clip from 2016 (fourth race of the season, vibes still in hell), where the riders are asked whether they'd prefer to be in first, second or third position heading into that final corner. not all too much to say about this one, really. jorge, who it seems has at long last learned his lesson about what to do when you've got a lunatic sitting on your rear wheel headed into the final corner of a race, stresses that he'd protect the inside line - not least because these two fuckers would dive on the inside through the grass if you give them half a chance. also, decent gag from marc! good on him. not always easy for those who have decided they hate him so much so that they refuse to laugh at anything he says

then we have this from 2017 - where sete is in the room - asking four riders who they'd want to arrive at jerez's final corner with. three guys give pretty boring answers, though you'll note in 2017 valentino does actually mention his battle with sete (*gestures with his head in sete's direction*) in the same breath as the one between "marc and jorge". those three boring answers are followed by a great response courtesy of jorge. the question doesn't actually specify, but obviously jorge immediately zeroes in on valentino and marc since they are. you know. the two guys with a history of doing last corner jerez crimes. and they're also two confirmed lunatics, though jorge believes that valentino at least might be a little less reckless now that he's a little older. hey, maybe even marc has become 3% more sensible at the advanced age of 24 (funnily enough, vale when making that overtake in '05 was two years older than marc is in this clip). it's a sweet moment - but, without wanting to belabour the obvious, it's also another way of showing how irrevocably linked both the passes and the blokes executing them are. both valentino and marc are 'hard brakers', to put it lightly. two peas in a pod, from a man who would know

we do also of course get sete reacting to valentino's answer. idk what this facial expression is but I sure am compelled by it (thank u to dani pedrosa for working with sete in 2017 so that we'd get live sete reaction shots. I am very grateful)

okay so those two I included because. well it's just kind of neat and fun that this is a parallel they won't ever escape. linked legacies and all that. but I am actually building up to a point here, and it's to do with how even post-2015, it's not like marc is always overflowing with sympathy and compassion for valentino's other victims. he knows his lore! he will know at least the general details of the sete relationship and how it deteriorated and what valentino did to him afterwards! so let's bring in austria 2017, a time at which the vibes between the two of them aren't actually. catastrophic. exhibit a:

so in this presser, valentino is asked if his overtake on jorge at catalunya '09 is the favourite of his career, and he says it was special because it was the last corner - he can't remember any other examples of him making a last corner overtake in the premier class. at which point marc taps valentino to point out sete:

the expression marc makes in the thumbnail - that's how he looks when he's eagerly waiting for valentino to put two and two together. the thing is, right, this whole feuding business, the way valentino treated his rivals, how he was pretty awful to them... all of it will have been stuff that marc actively enjoyed as a fan. and even post-2015, when marc has experienced some of the very worst valentino has to offer, marc still finds the whole jerez thing pretty funny, not just the overtake but what it meant for the relationship between valentino and sete. he makes valentino aware of sete in the room, because of course he would never forget valentino's greatest hits. like, remember why this exchange is funny: everybody knows this overtake was a super controversial thing and a big source of tension between the two of them and valentino's forgotten about it. and marc's laughing at this!! in 2017!! "after we have a bit problems" and marc thinks it's hilarious!! buddy

one more presser moment, from 2019. just a bit of context here - earlier in the presser they were asked about dani getting a corner named after him at jerez and valentino went 'yeah good for him but I wouldn't want a corner named after me !!' and marc talked about how he'd gotten a corner at aragon named after him the year before. so now, the riders are asked what their favourite bit of the jerez circuit is. the joke here goes a) marc says 'last corner' the way he does because everyone knows he did a terrorism there, b) jack miller says 'you mean jorge lorenzo corner' because everyone knows it's funny marc did a terrorism on jorge there like a day after jorge got the corner named after him, and c) marc says 'it's valentino corner' because everyone knows his move was copying the move valentino did on sete. and... 'valentino corner'... first of all why would you do this to your literal teammate jorge lorenzo... but again the whole reason this exchange is funny is because the premise is that they did the same thing, valentino to sete and marc to jorge. implicitly, it's making the link between the pair of them and how they terrorised their rivals in the same way. still. in 2019

speaking of legacies, there's a moment in the 2016 catalunya presser where valentino is asked how that duel compares to his past duels in 2007 and 2009 at that circuit (notice the blatant and unchallenged sete erasure - 2004 and 2005 were really great but okay). and valentino says he counts it on the same level as the jorge fight - "was three great battles with three great opponents". which, y'know, I really love 2016, I think it's fantastic, but marc makes a mistake on the penultimate lap and denies us the most dramatic of finales. like I think it's completely reasonable and nice for valentino to count it in that same camp as the 2009 duel, but I also think it wouldn't have been crazy or disrespectful or anything if he'd gone 'yeah that was great but not quite the same thing'. this definitely might be reading too much into it (surely not) but given how valentino has since occasionally left marc out of the rivalries list, said he wasn't his toughest rival etc etc, I do think it's kinda notable that during that moment of 'reconciliation', valentino allowed marc to be part of his legacy - even if it's just in a small way. 'great valentino catalunya battles' is a pretty cool group of races to be a part of, y'know? the infamous overtakes, the duels, these are the things people remember. these are the things marc remembered, as valentino's fan - inevitably, it'll mean something to him. it's a legacy he wants to be a part of, by fighting valentino, by emulating valentino, and sometimes valentino lets him and sometimes he'd rather leave marc out in the cold. you'll note that in 2019 he doesn't really engage with the "valentino corner" gag from marc and instead goes with the far more neutral turn 5 as his own pick

in the very very immediate aftermath of sepang (aka december 2015), marc did openly make the comparison between himself and valentino's other rivals:

and it's informed his whole approach since then - it's a big part of why he's tried to be quiet about the drama with valentino over the years. he knows how valentino behaves towards his rivals, he always has. he knows he can't beat valentino off-track... but (beyond his undeniable mental resilience) he's just fortunate enough that with his talent and the way their career windows have overlapped, more often than not he's been able to out-perform valentino on the track. and y'know, it's an interesting element to the whole thing I feel... marc was a fan of valentino's for a lot of reasons - he was very much a fan of the complete package, if you will. including what valentino did to his enemies! it's not like that aspect of vale was some kind of closely guarded secret; it was like a top three valentino rossi talking point for years and years. (part of the subtext of assen 2015 is marc not really enjoying being on the receiving end of one of those classic valentino scam wins, when marc had been intending to do that to valentino.) again, those overtakes of valentino's weren't just famous because they were cool, they were famous because they helped valentino fuck with his rivals. it's not just about emulating his on-track aggression, it's about emulating how valentino did his best to get in his rivals' heads. when we talk about marc 'being a fan' of valentino, then it shouldn't be ignored that this involved marc being a fan of what an absolute and utter asshole valentino was. and like with all things relating to valentino, I'd wager marc has pretty complicated feelings about this. at the end of the day that's also part of his make up as a rider... but it also really burnt him personally...

it's almost like an identification thing, isn't it. if you're marc and you're thinking about valentino's past rivalries, whose shoes are you placing yourself in? in many ways it should be valentino's rivals, because of course some of their experiences mirror marc's. and there's a rare moment in the winter of 2015, when he's still in the process of trying to make sense of everything that's happened, where he does make the connection. but apart from that, he's shied away from it - even when he's criticising valentino, he's generally not framing what valentino did to marc as indicative of some broader character flaw. it's casey and jorge who explicitly make that link, not marc. he's still kind of... idk, separating that out. obviously, marc would far rather be valentino's successor than another one of valentino's victims, even if he hasn't really been given a choice in the matter and has ended up being both. I don't really have any evidence to back this up, but my guess is that deep down he feels like what valentino did to him was different from what he did to those other guys. and in some ways he's right and in some ways he's wrong

unfortunate, isn't it. you're a fan of somebody with a reputation for fucking with his enemies, which is fun and neat and you kinda want to copy how he does it - maybe put your own spin on the whole thing but you're still into the general vibe. you enter the sport at a time when you can still fight your hero, but he's kinda washed and he's too old to be starting new feuds (*bzzzzt!!* incorrect! you are never too old to start feuds) so there's no real danger. and you share a bond you think on some level is different from whatever those other guys had going on, even sete gibernau, whoever tf that is. and then you become real rivals and realise how extremely not enjoyable it is to be losing to him yourself and you really want to show him and maybe you do push it a little far along the way. but it'll be okay. it's all fine... until he decides it's time to destroy you. and on one level you do obviously see the parallels because you're not an idiot... but on the other hand, none of that stuff, none of what he did to those other guys - it wasn't ever going to stop you from being a fan of his. it's the bits he did to you that are the problem. and at the end of the day, you'll never quite be able to let go of the twelve year old boy inside of you who found jerez 2005 really, really cool

anyway

[spectohr]

i miss the moon knight system so effin much it's almost two years i haven't rewatched the show but i don't wanna relieve /that/ pain all over again in episode 5 do you see my problem here