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batsplat · 3 months

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from the stuff i’ve heard marc’s former honda teammates (dani jorge and pol in their media careers but joan also i guess) say about him now that they’re racing is generally quite positive, both on a professional/riding level but also seemingly on a personal level? i’m wondering what you make of that given that, yeah, marc doesn’t seem like a very good teammate (unless you’re alex who i’ve left off this list). like MARC wants to separate on and off track stuff and it seems like all of these guys are willing too at least in retrospect, so he can’t have truly burned bridges with them. do you have any thoughts on that

(x, x) most riders are quite good at not burning bridges with each other! it's not like marc's competitors don't know that this stuff is kinda part of the game. I mean, all of marc's past teammates were also trying to assert themselves within the internal hierarchy... you can say that certain teammates engage in 'worse' behaviour than others, but, like, these people do understand they're supposed to be fighting each other! a baseline degree of nastiness is factored in and will be accepted to a greater or lesser extent by your rivals - especially when it comes to asserting yourself in intra-team power struggles. you might hate the other guy in the moment, but generally speaking once the active part of the rivalry is done with... you will probably get over it. marc's fellow riders are aware of how ultra-competitive marc is - and to a certain point they do respect it, not least because they're aware that this is part of the reason why marc has ended up with all those titles. it's like dani said, right, it's marc's strong suit. and in general, you do have to say that there's relatively few teammate pairings that devolve to the level of toxicity that it completely destroys the interpersonal relationship. you might need some level of preexisting animosity... most of the purely competitive sins can be healed with a little time

on the 'separating on-track and off-track' thing... well. this is kind of a question of how you define these things, you can say that marc generally speaking isn't going to massively hold grudges over isolated on-track incidents or whatever... but he doesn't just leave his fighting to the track, and personally I've also never felt he can entirely separate these things out in his mind. can you really say his professional and private relationships with other riders are completely detached from one another? mostly, he's opted to be pretty disengaged from his fellow riders as a collective, and obviously that's a good way to not take things too personally... it's all part of the game, isn't it? sometimes it's good to go with the straightforward approach: marc tells you he will make your life hell, he does indeed make your life hell, and then you both move on with your lives and can maybe actually have a pretty amiable relationship with him in years to come. he's not really defying your expectations at any point here, is he now? it's still a question for each of them as individuals as to whether they think that kind of behaviour is above board and acceptable or not... but everyone by now knows that marc plays these games, so it's not like they're going in blind

and it's not like other former teammates are constantly badmouthing each other. I mean... look, let's just cut to the chase here and bring in valentino as our reference point (as he is for the sport as a whole, which by the way does also help create a certain baseline of acceptability for marc's antics - maybe goated riders are just supposed to be dicks who knows). vale's premier class teammates were 1) nobody (2000-01), 2) tohru ukawa (2002), 3) nicky hayden (2003; 2011-12), 4) carlos checa (2004), 5) colin edwards (2005-2007), 6) jorge lorenzo (2008-10; 2013-16), 7) maverick vinales (2017-20), 8) franco morbidelli (2021), and 9) andrea dovizioso (2021). of these eight men (let's just exclude 'nobody' for now), do you know how many had serious complaints at any point about valentino as a teammate? that's right, it's one guy. one. some of valentino's other teammates, like hayden, checa and edwards, were even quite actively positive about their whole experience. this is the thing - you do need some specific circumstances for teammate rivalries to escalate from 'being kinda bitchy every other month' to 'actively fantasising about stabbing each other'. not accounting for natural interpersonal animosity, let's list some circumstantial factors that you need to get a bridge-burning-worthy level of feud:

you need a competitive bike. it is possible to beef about development direction when you're in the trenches (cf late 2010's yamaha, 2020's honda)... but generally speaking this is going to be quite low-level petty stuff, not actual war

you also need something that approaches competitiveness between teammates. if one teammate is unquestionably stronger than the other one, then it is very unlikely that you are going to get any open hostilities. the tension comes when the two sides are close enough to each other for the internal hierarchy to actually be a contentious issue (this is also basic self preservation... if you're the far weaker teammate then you do not want to make the situation troublesome, because then you will be the one to be fired)

following on from those first two things... well, it doesn't hurt to have a title fight in the mix. there are also other ways you can generate competitive stakes, like, for instance, if you and your teammate know that one of you will be out of a job soon. basically, it helps to have something to squabble over

it is maybe easy to forget how rare it is this century for teammates to be fighting directly for a title, let alone over the course of multiple seasons. only two 1-2's since the year 2000 and they're both for the factory yamaha's (though 2006, 2011-13 and 2017 did all prominently feature two factory hondas). which means that for valentino, the prerequisites were met just the once in his premier class career... and yes, the results were pretty memorable, but (topic! for! another! post!) it's worth pointing out that even that relationship was pretty much 'fine' whenever there was a sizeable disparity between the two of them performance-wise (2008 and 2013 are the most clear cut examples). I think the way I'd frame it with marc is that he has a bunch of mildly dubious strategies up his sleeve to assert himself within the team, which don't really deviate that far from what you'd expect from a rider of marc's calibre and only need to be escalated under specific circumstances. that doesn't mean he doesn't have the potential to be ruthless, but up until now it's mostly been a fairly 'acceptable' level of ruthlessness on the intra-team level... and not something that is likely to make other riders actually hate him

taking marc's teammates one by one... dani was the closest to meeting the bridge-burning prerequisites, though he was only a title rival in marc's rookie season. and marc did go further with him than he did with anyone else, and dani has made some pointed comments about marc's style as a teammate... but yes, he is fonder of marc these days. partly I'd just emphasise again that this is a fairly natural progression when you've stopped directly competing for long enough, and partly it's also just a question of individual personality - dani's not massively into holding grudges. then there's jorge, who... I mean, they might as well not have been teammates, given that jorge was either too slow or too injured to even be sharing any track space with marc. you have to put that one down primarily to circumstance, seeing as jorge's own track record on the teammate front isn't exactly spotless. marc and jorge beefing in 2019 would have been pretty dumb and also a massive waste of everyone's time in a year in which marc singlehandedly won the team's championship. even those two needed more to get things going

moving on to the dark years, pol and marc had an extremely stop-and-start partnership on a honda that was generally pretty uncompetitive... so the only stuff they could get ever so mildly irritable about were riveting incidents like 'marc saying pol wasn't the biggest championship threat' (neither of them were) or 'pol saying he'd copy marc's set up' (which proved entirely useless). not exactly title decider territory, is it now, and marc very much had pol covered as a challenger throughout their partnership. also, those two do have a longer history! they've known each other since they were kids and hold a pretty significant place in each other's careers. now that pol's more or less retired, it's natural there'll be quite a lot of sentimentality there - which will paper over any small cracks that appeared during those two years. and joan was a one year teammate at a time in which the bike was consistently close to offing them both. they only managed to start a sunday race together as teammates on thirteen occasions. it would take some serious effort to engineer a feud with that little opportunity, and, really, why on earth would you bother. maybe if honda had gone for rinsy rather than joan for the factory seat, it could've been a bit more prickly, but it's unlikely that it would have escalated beyond that

this is the thing, right, the only one of these partnerships that would have been worth burning bridges over was dani, and even there marc pretty much had him handled after the first season. in general, marc has been pretty clear on how he's not interested in making friends with the other side of the garage while the teammate relationship is ongoing... which is fine! there's some prominent-ish teammate pairings that are actually good friends, some teammate pairings where one of them is actively helping out and advising the other one, but some riders prefer to just keep their distance. it would have been a little silly of marc to start a feud with a teammate who is galaxies away from being a competitive threat, let alone a title rival, but generally it is possible to toe the line between 'attempting to suppress your internal rivals enough to stop them from becoming a problem for you' and 'taking radical enough action to make your internal rivals despise you'

especially in the post-dani era, marc never really had any need to push things too far... and, let's face it, how many of your teammate relationships end up with burnt bridges is also quite frankly a question of luck and circumstance. do you want to guess which top rider on paper has the worst track record this century with premier class teammate feuds, in terms of a) how many they've had, and b) how little public reconciliation there has been since the end of the rivalry?

yes, that's right, it's the first name that comes to mind when you're thinking of toxic and conflict-prone riders: andrea dovizioso. that old devil, constantly causing trouble. just couldn't stop undermining his poor, innocent teammates. can somebody please stop this ruthless bully before it's too late

I think you get the point. I would personally suggest that dovi is not in fact the worst teammate it is possible to have in a motogp top team. he just happened to find himself in a situation where he was teammates with two separate guys he did not click with at all, in situations that involved a pairing of riders who were (or had the potential to be) competitive with each other, as well as some proper stakes attached to the rivalry. in general, situational factors are going to determine this stuff more than anything else... and marc more often than not does have a reasonably good feel for picking his battles. he's flirted with the line, but he's mostly avoided crossing it. he hasn't had to

#'joan also i guess' hold on now anon that's his former teammate relationship that's most important to ME i love them...#elephant in the room is 'let's revisit this in 1.5 years time'. ik people will try to make that just about the vr46 factor but *shrug*#i kinda feel like maybe i should have mentioned in the casey/marc post that casey is arguably more of an outlier than marc is #like his alienation with the sport ran deep which is how you get him engaging in melandri slander who was pee one million in 2008 #y'know casey/jorge ducati was a real possibility for a hot second and my take on that would ALSO be 'hm yeah maybe not <3'#ESPECIALLY given that it's quite likely the incoming jorge would've been paid way way more than casey was ('09 ducati... let's not even)#AND given how yamaha had repeatedly burnt casey and then handed jorge the seat on a silver platter... like idk man!!#genuinely fascinating '10 counterfactual... i do like casey/marc but i've also game planned casey/vale and casey/jorge i'm a completionist #(either dani or vale would've likely won the title in that timeline. but crucially casey/jorge interpersonally would've been. well)#//#brr brr #batsplat responds #i need an ask tag so badly but i can't be bothered to back tag... i'll do it at some point #in my notes i did once actually rank the aliens by how much they'd suck as teammates but the order might be a wee bit controversial #i'm sorry to the guy i ranked number one but he did objectively have the worst track record like... it has to be said #i think u have like. different modes right. where how bad u are as a teammate is scaled to how big the threat ur facing is #now EYE actually think marc's not got a particularly *great* neutral mode either but it's not bridge-burning mode #also what even is a burnt bridge... i mean god knows even valentino and jorge are taking photos together these days...#jorge's still conducting autopsies of old beef every fortnight but otoh he's joking about motegi on instagram which is crazyyyyyy #you genuinely cannot. CANNOT convince me that if marc/jorge had had a title fight as teammates it wouldn't have been a MESS #there is literally no way. none whatsoever #and if i said dani had a higher number of strained premier class teammate relationships than valentino did... what then...#constantly inserting the words 'premier class' to cover my ass for 1998 but in fairness the other two were WORSE!! so much worse #valentino did Not have good role models i swear almost everyone he fought before the age of 23 was very much on one #anyways.

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nerosdayinanime · 1 year

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reminiscing about a life left behind

this is after the reunion at the bar, when Giyuu left Makomo tried to talk to him & figure out why he faked his death (then came back??) and left pretty soon after when he not so subtly brushed off her questions and vaguely apologized for disrupting things. Tengen & Kyojuro got extremely worried about him immediately ordering as many drinks he could at a time and being his usual happy-go-lucky self after Giyuu- the quietest and least confrontational person in the whole office -sent him to the floor in a fit of cold rage. They watched (and joined, though not to the same extent) as he got absolutely wasted, his suddenly saccharine attitude showing off just how much of his personality is just a performance.

Between the revelation that hes a demon slayer- a hashira just like them -and finally noticing the seam in his otherwise perfect mask, the both of them figure he's just as fucked up as they are from their job. Tengen has his own guise of extravagance, Kyojuro always being loud and proud to hide his insecurities- but Sabito was subtle about it. He was happy and playful, but not too much so like Kyojuro was- he also became a master of diverting attention from himself, they didn't know much about his personal life or hobbies- or anything outside of when they hung out or stopped by the little grocery store he worked at. Didn't know his favorite color, what genre of music he liked, what his favorite movie was- didn't know if he's ever had a partner or other friends, nothing about his school life or parents or if he had any siblings- nothing! He was a ghost of a person, like he merely popped into existence when they met him. That's probably not too far off- they didn't meet Sabito that day, they met his empty smile. Without ever realizing there was nothing behind it.

Thoroughly disconcerted by the realization and very worried about Sabito chugging alcohol like he had nothing left to live for while laughing like there was nothing wrong, they kept a close eye on him. When he starts getting quiet they force him to stop drinking and drag him back to his apartment and stay the night crashed on the couch & floor. In the morning Sabito was fucked. Absolute shit time. Had a vague feeling he shouldn't think about anything so he didn't, just fucked around with a worried Tengen & Kyojuro until they left. Continued not thinking about anything, did a bunch of chores and errands so he didn't have to think about Giyuu. Even fixed a neighbor's ac unit with the help of a youtube tutorial. As soon as the sun started setting he donned his slayer uniform and ignored painful sting in his heart at the sight of his old fox mask hanging on the wall, settling his face into the same empty smile as the default slayer mask he uses now. That night he was a beast- merciless and scathing strikes, chasing down terrified demons like he had a score to settle. Completely ignored other slayers he ran into, simply pushing past them dealing the kill and moving on.

This little routine continued for a few days- overworking himself desperately trying to keep out of his head, deflecting and straight up ignoring Tengen & Kyojuro asking about how he's doing, fleeing any of the other hashira or water-fox squad trying to ask about him and what all he's been doing the last several years, pissing off lower-level slayers he steals kills from. He works until he passes out from exhaustion, getting up and doing all it again when he wakes. A few weeks later and it catches up to him despite his attempts at running.

Giyuu hates him.

Rightfully so, he left him to burn like a coward and a fool. And did what with his time? Do nothing but make more mistakes? How many people hes lied to and let down? He's done nothing but run.

He knew it'd happen. As soon as he stopped moving he would never want to start again, as soon as he stopped running, as soon as he tripped- as soon as he hit the ground he'd never want to get up again. Years of grief stress and denial hit him all at once, he doesn't know what to do. Walls too high to see over, too deep to dig under, too thick to simply power through. No one on the other side who really needs him anyway.

Why does he even bother?

He stares at his fox mask. Hand crafted by the man he thought of as a father, who took him in and taught him to defend himself and protect others. Real good job he did of that. All he's done since he started running was hurt hurt hurt. The people he cared about and respected the most- abandoned. Everyone else left in the dust like they were nothing.

What fucking good..

...

He thinks of the better days. When he was a son, helping his mom water the plants so they'd bloom bright and vivid. When he was a brother, helping his little sister reach the top shelf for candy. When he was a student, fueled by his grief and anger with a promise not to let anyone else lose as much as he had. When he was a friend, pulling Giyuu out to see a meteor shower in their favorite clearing. When he was a boyfriend, feeding popcorn to Giyuu laying across his legs watching a movie together. ...He threw that all away and for what? So he wouldn't have to face his failures? How fucking pathetic.

He'd never have any of that again. Burned his bridges, destroyed the foundations, turned the ground to shifting sand. His head thunked against the wall behind him, why did he have to fuck everything up?

#neros art tag #vigi au #sabito #kny sabito #read After the main post- sui & hospital stuff warning in further tags:#then it gets to the part from Smokey Eyes :)#he gathers up as much shit as he can and starts chugging. he gags but gets it all down.#ties the fox mask in place to hide his shame and let him fall asleep in a peaceful dark. breathed in the sweet smell of chloroform until #he finally went out. Ten & Kyo usually at least get a 'read' even when he ignores them so they notice theres nothing. they try calling-#he doesnt pick up. not even after the 7th time when he for sure wouldve snapped at them to fuck off already. The both of them quickly head #over to his apartment thinking he finally snapped- Tengen nearly screams when he opens the door and sees the creepy stare from the mask #Kyo hurries over to his slumped form and realizes how cold he is the same time Ten notices how slow his heart's beating. full panic mode.#they rush him to the hospital where he gets revived- Kyo grabbed some of the mostly empty bottles he found and Ten tells them it most #definitely wasnt some accident or mishap. sabito blearily starts fighting back when he comes to enough and they have to strap him down so #he wont hurt himself or any staff. eventually hes stable enough for ten and kyo to come in again and theyre so thrown off by his demeanor #hes a broken man. for once his real self on full display. anguish sorrow shame and exhaustion writ into his very being. silent tears #tracking down his face. he doesnt move- doesnt really react when they walk in. the little fight he had was gone. just follows them with his #eyes. doesnt respond when they try to talk to them. he just lays there looking at them with a sadness like he expects them to leave #kyo sits next to him and comfortingly pets his head. sabito closes his eyes in defeat- fresh tears and a shakey exhale.#the two of them sit and talk at him for a while- very serious about enforcing that they deeply care about him.#'dn't..' 'dont? dont what? care about you?' 'm not good.. bad fr u...' 'tough luck man. i care about you anyway.' 'yeah!'#of course the two of them can only stay so long before they're kicked out since its late- plus they have jobs to do #tengen leaves his personal phone with sabito so he & kyo can text/call when they can- sabito's stuck at the hospital for a while tho #next day when kyo's at the office giyuu asks what him & ten left the office in such a hurry for 'uhhhh. cant say' 'why not?' 'hippa'#'..since when were you a doctor?' 'im politely ending this conversation! how has your day been so far?' '....okay'#thats it for now i think- i dont have much else after this point #glad to finally write it all down tho- 'm very bad about not doing that then forgetting #sabito does not have a good time in this au</3 no one does #everyones trying to cope with minimal therapy & the constant threat of death anyway #i need to do some more shit w the rest of the water-fox squad. flesh them out some. so far ive just been throwing concepts at a wall

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