Tumgik
#i think the title is hot
hungharrington · 3 months
Note
Your last blurb has me thinking of Steve and soft early relationship smut where it’s still fairly new and exciting and he’s just so sweet and wants to be close to you 💔💔
this is basically the premise of a little less conversation BUT it’s also such a good prompt anyways that i wanna write something goofy n domestic hehe <3 u put heartbreak emojis but i’m making this goopy sry! and actually it’s not even soft god i’m sorry MDNI this entire blog is 18+
Tumblr media
Steve sinks into you in one slow thrust and makes a noise like he’s been stabbed, his forehead to your collarbone.
For one very long moment, he doesn’t move.
“You… you okay?” You ask, all breathy yourself. Your cunt pulses wildly, eager for him to start moving, for some friction— but you’re worried he’s maybe hurt himself somehow. “Steve?”
“I’m good,” He hisses, voice all tight like he is very much not at all good. It blends away as a husky tone threads through his voice. “God, sorry, you just feel—“
He gives a little rock of his hips, pulling out an inch and thrusting back in and a beautiful moan pulls from his lips. He does it again, pulling out a little further and pushing himself back in to your wet, inviting cunt.
He groans again, “Oh my god, I like you so much.”
You startle a laugh, your arms around his neck sliding down so you can pull his head up a bit. Steve’s flushed and looking sheepish by the time you get him face to face. His hips haven’t stopped moving, still small, perfect thrusts in and out, driving you mad.
“Sorry,” He says again, half panting. “Not the best thing to say the first time we fuck but,” He huffs, a throaty moan slipping out in the middle of the sentence. “It’s true.”
You’re beginning to pant too, all your inhales sounding gaspy and high. Your thighs spread more instinctively, pulling them further back to your chest, letting him get in deeper.
“N-No, it’s good,” You say, smiling a bit as he focuses on your face, his lips parted and pupils blown wide. “I really like you too.”
Your words inspire another moan, particularly loud, and his hips rut into you with more fervor, a soft lewd squelching noise beginning to fill the bedroom. Steve moans shakily, peppering sloppy kisses up the side of your neck.
One hand shifts on your hip, sliding up to press your leg further out and unexpectedly, and there’s an audible pop of a joint cracking. Steve stills instantly, still inside you, as he stares down at your hip.
“Oh my god—”
“No, no, it’s fine!” You hastily interrupt, knowing what he’s thinking. You tug his gaze over to you and away from your leg, seeing the smidge of panic in his eyes. “It just cracks sometimes, you couldn’t know that, it’s fine, it didn’t hurt.”
Steve deflates rapidly, giving a relieved chuckle against your chest where he buries his face. When he speaks, his words are all muffled, “I thought I broke your hip.”
You can’t help it, you laugh a bit at that— imagining his panic at the thought. For the third time, you urge his face up and out of hiding, leaning up to nuzzle against his face.
“Quickest way to end a relationship ever,” He jokes, but you can hear the genuine worry beneath his humour.
“No, no, I’m sorry I should’ve told you,” You murmur tenderly, dropping little kisses along his cheeks and nose. His face blazes hot beneath your ardent affection. “But hey, we’re figuring it out, aren’t we? That’s part of the fun, yeah?”
You use your ankles, crossed over his tailbone, to press him into you and Steve gets the message quickly, starting up his gentle thrusts again with a grunt. The soft noises of sex resume, mixed with your combined low moans. The rhythm from before is easy to slip back into. Your cunt throbs hotly, pleasure starting to drool through your stomach.
“Yeah,” Steve breathes heavily, watching your face closely. “Part of the fun. Fuck, you’re so pretty.”
He says it so sincerely that it makes you gasp, clenching around him and eyes screwing closed for a moment. A low whine crawls out your throat.
“God, fuck you for saying that,” You say, with no heat at all. You can’t open your eyes just yet, you’ll combust if you see how handsome he looks right now.
“Yeah?” Steve huffs, sounding a little smug. Your cunt gushes at the sound of his voice. “Oh, you’re right. Figuring this stuff out is the fun part.”
You whine as he fucks in a little harder, the angle just right to have your gut twisting up in pleasure. Your breath is ragged and you finally open your eyes again, swallowing back another sound at the sight of Steve. Messy haired, pink cheeks, reddened lips. He looks hotter than you’ve ever seen him.
“Shut up and hold my hand,” You say— because two can play that game. It works a charm. You can feel the stutter in his hips, see the ripple on his face, hear the whimper in his throat.
Steve keens, tucking his face down into your neck again. His hand searches the sheets til it finds yours, fingers intertwining before he presses your linked hands into the mattress and ruts into your snug cunt harder and faster, deeper.
“F-Fuck,” He stammers, a moan lilting the word. “I like you so much.”
You can’t even laugh this time round because your mind is starting to melt a little at the edges— but it makes the pleasure all that much better, knowing he means it.
1K notes · View notes
mittthrawnuruodo · 1 year
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
ND-5 & tags
2K notes · View notes
rainymoodlet · 7 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
this is the police- the sim is too hot, i repeat- (arizona sutton, she/they)
579 notes · View notes
ratatatastic · 3 days
Text
"thank you so much! lets hear it for my d-partner, gus forsling! woo!" *goose chants* "ekky you gotta get your cone" "WOO!" "classic classic"
how much chaos can you instil into a single 45 second clip
Tumblr media Tumblr media
the hug and the way ekky slides his hands across his shoulderblades and followsthrough until his upper arm like he needs to soak in every single second of contact or that he shakes his shoulders and decides no i need more let me grab his wrist i NEED TO GRAB HIS WRIST i need to feel all full points of contact
also lol at goose trying to keep his modesty by adjusting the swedish flag to cover his nips oh honey we've seen it all already
Tumblr media
ekky seemingly wanting to get one more extra pat in but forsy is already moving away so it just kinda dies midway through (sumn sumn million regrets sumn) ladies and gentlemen we've walked into a drama with the awkward boy next door whos the second male lead and more endearing than the actual main lead
Tumblr media
and like an adonis himself the flag barely clings onto one shoulder and becomes more akin to a tunic wrap not unlike the exomis yeah
Tumblr media
also ekky too enraptured in his publicly loving forsy activities and clapping that forsy has to point out to him to get his cone before it presumably becomes a tripping hazard before goldie does lmaoooo
Tumblr media Tumblr media
he said okay alright shows OVER back to regularly scheduled programming thats enough school of harlotry for him thank you very much
Panthers Championship Parade | 6.30.24 (x)
38 notes · View notes
yashley · 1 year
Photo
Tumblr media Tumblr media
"She's so charmin', y'know! She's just so--"
#critical role#imogearne#imogen x fearne#ygifs#IMOGEN GETTIN LOST FOR A SECOND IN FEARNE'S GAYZE AND SHE STARTS STAMMERING Iiiiiiii#fearne making imogen blush but imogen JUMPS on the FIRST distraction from that is SOOO good 2 me it's like ooook#she literally literally immediately is like ANYWAY and it's SO good y'all just had a moment and you literally are like UH SO WHATD YOU SAY#I just want to chew on it I just want to study it I just want to take out a mortgage with it and really have holiday card memories with it#you have a 6ft faun you keep reminding everyone is hot leaning towards you teasing you to choose between her and you what - don't lose it?ok#being able to fluster even stressed out imogen like that power trip alone I hope she starts to chase that feeling#the FOREVER GONDOLA RIDES is what I'll title the fic of fearne constantly flirting with imogen just to try to fluster her#and imogen's just like I don't think I should be alone with fearne and everyone's like all right makes sense#and she’s beetred cos she wanted them to ASK WHY so she could try to have a dialogue about Thinking? Fearne is Flirting#but she's like that with everyone!!!!! and they all are like yeah that's true and imogen just is like  . of course ! ! ! and they squint#like you knew this why do you seem disappointed all of a sudden and imogen vax-es out of the room#it's NOT that she LIKES her LIKE THAT it's NOTHIN I'm watching it cos it's like this is happening while also not happening pretty gay
407 notes · View notes
batsplat · 2 months
Text
following on from this. not to always bring marc into everything (sorry marc) but if assen 2015 had happened against jorge, valentino would have very likely pulled something similar again imo. rather than what he actually did, which is approach marc almost immediately for a nice normal friendly handshake and backing off during the podium celebrations. should be noted that during laguna seca '08, valentino was very much committed to yapping at casey on the podium with the world's biggest smuggest grin on his face
partly that disparity is because jorge not marc was the direct title rival, partly it's because valentino was treating marc with kid gloves right until the second that he wasn't, which marc was seemingly entirely oblivious to. if anyone other than marc had said what he said in that presser, had then continued on with similar rhetoric during sachsenring, valentino would quite likely have gone nuclear. he's done it over less than that. his fondness for marc made him continue to exhibit uncharacteristic restraint... except that fondness unfortunately is what left valentino feeling so very betrayed when (to his eyes) marc could not leave well enough alone
#it's so delightfully tragic isn't it. a lot of 2015 played out the way it did because valentino genuinely wasn't looking for beef#but then felt backed into a corner and decided he had no other option than to blow this shit up#if casey says 'what I think is that we won the race' valentino would've torn him a new one then and there like...#if sete had called assen his best race of the season valentino would've reached for the chalk and incense even sooner#though fwiw I do think the relationship was basically doomed from that point. something would have happened sooner or later#2015 is so funny conceptually because there was already something *off* about it most of the way through. you have the familiar beats#but they shouldn't be HAPPENING with marc. they should be happening with the actual title rival - who vale never properly fought all season#assen 2015 should've been laguna should've been catalunya hell it should've been assen 2004 but it couldn't be#valentino kept accidentally inflicting the psychological blows on the wrong guy because jorge just refused to end up in a straight fight#assen SHOULD have been a pivotal race. but of course it couldn't be because what psychological blow was jorge lorenzo being dealt?#btw the unwillingness to beef doesn't just extend to marc. valentino makes a concerted effort to be uncharacteristically friendly to jorge#still think he would've rubbed assen in his face but. overall! he was trying! which again. very ironic#funhouse mirror ass season i love it dearly#//#brr brr#slowly dipping my toes into dropping 2015 hot takes on tumblr dot com... for so long these have been between me god and my google doc#i love jorge i think he's been involved in a lot of iconic battles i think it's funny not a single one of them happened in 2015#minus kinda phillip island but even there it did feel like the other three were Doing More than him#also just a different vibe to a proper one-on-one. a WEIRD title run where the third man that whole year walks away with the trophy
45 notes · View notes
alangdorf · 5 months
Text
Tumblr media
Listened to Eternal Dance Engine ~ Shall We Dance!! one too many times (and then like a hundred more times afterwards for good measure) and dropped everything to go draw this. Also tried out a new shading process which kinda did what I wanted it to but I’ll keep experimenting
36 notes · View notes
ennard-is-near · 2 months
Text
Circus Baby totally recognized Michael.
I don’t know if this is a hot take, but she lies throughout the entire game, why are we taking her word for this one thing? I think that she knows (or at least suspects) that Michael knows who she is. Michael and Elizabeth are siblings and they have a pre-existing relationship, even if we don’t know anything about it. I think Circus Baby is super clever, and for whatever reason she knows that Michael is more likely to trust her if he doesn’t have that pre-existing relationship to go off of. So Baby pretends, like she loves to do, that she doesn’t recognize him.
I don’t know why she picked Michael to scoop, or if it was more of a “next guy who comes through that door, we kill” sort of situation. I don’t think the other animatronics would know who he is (why would they?), but especially based on how Circus Baby plays of Michael’s emotions (acting like a little kid, doing Elizabeth’s voice in the secret night, etc.) she knows exactly who Michael is.
Also she’s not stupid, she’d recognize her own brother. I don’t know why Michael says “They thought I was you…” because nobody ever says that (he is projecting maybe…) but either this can be ignored, or she’s smart enough to recognize two people are similar enough looking to be father and son. And if that’s the case, why wouldn’t she be smart enough to recognize her brother?
Plus, what are the chances that they’ve been down there a really long time, lots of maintenance guys come down there, and the one guy they choose to do the whole ‘manipulation and scooping’ thing to just happens to be Michael Afton.
Honestly, the whole thing with Circus Baby saying “I don’t recognize you…” over and over is a little sus. Like if new employees come down there all the time you’d definitely be used to it by now? Do you make a whole show of not recognizing every single new employee you meet? Why? To me it reads like Baby’s testing the waters with him a little, seeing how he’ll react to being spoken to directly, and seeing if he reacts to not being recognized by her.
✨ Also I just think it’s more fun ✨
19 notes · View notes
djsherriff · 9 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Are we still making Simon a tumblr sexy man?
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
56 notes · View notes
jamminvroomvroom · 1 year
Text
yes but does anyone remember how rbr behaved when lewis and merc were dominating? lewis suggesting a constructive development idea doesn’t really compare to horner and dr crazy crying to the fia every weekend. the fia did limit and police mercs development! multiple times! and also, max threatens to leave the sport every time there’s a format change that doesn’t quite suit him. so yeah, i think lewis is more than allowed to make suggestions, despite already having 7 titles.
83 notes · View notes
galwithalibrarycard · 10 months
Text
When I say I never listen to music this is exactly what I mean: I was today years old when I listened to “Hozier” (self-titled, 2014) for the first time. It is 2023.
33 notes · View notes
lokh · 7 months
Text
the problem with having a landlocked room (window opens into another room) is that if i want the benefits of the ac i need to have the window open. which makes it really really obvious when i decide to close it for no apparent reason in the middle of a hot day
21 notes · View notes
kebriones · 10 months
Text
Okay but, if they were to actually make a proper statue of Alcibiades to put in a park or something, what would the concept be? Like, we can't just have a plain ol' standing dude, he needs to have *something*
43 notes · View notes
giantkillerjack · 1 month
Text
Uh-oh! You are like, SOOO awkward!!
You're so awkward that it is occasionally mildly uncomfortable for people!
You're so awkward that sometimes people are confused by you and then there are awkward silences!
You're so awkward ...... that ultimately no one is harmed!!
Oh damn!!! What a vile crime you have committed! What an unforgivable thing it is to make a fellow human briefly confused!
Why, if *I* were ever briefly confused and kind of uncomfortable as a result, I'd be devastated.... by the absolute net zero change in my happiness and health! - From which I might never recover!! Yes indeed! No punishment can ever be enough for you!!
So you better absolutely hate yourself for it.
Better be SO MEAN to yourself about every single missed social cue so you don't forget your horrible crime! Meaner than you'd ever dream of being to someone else for the same thing! This is YOUR responsibility!
You need to show the world that you KNOW you are bad by punishing yourself constantly! After all, think of all the people who BENEFIT from you punishing yourself! - No, really! Think about it! Think about who benefits from your pain.
Think of alllllll the definitely-good people that your definitely-necessary self-torment definitely helps! I mean, you can't just cut off their definitely-life-sustaining supply of your suffering, right?? Sure, everyone else has a breaking point, but you're probably the only person in human history who doesn't, right? Best not to question it probably. Sure, it's a symptom that billions of people with trauma have had, but who knows? You could be a one-in-seven-billion exception. Anything's possible!
Instead, better just accept that idea that bullies carry like guns in holsters - the idea that people who have trouble with social cues deserve to suffer. Better carry on the burden they placed on you until you drop. Aid the cause of the callous by enforcing shame and suffering upon yourself extra hard; try your best to do their work for them. They're very busy.
Better not recognize that you need patience and kindness to heal from your trauma. Better not find out that it was trauma rather than personal weakness filling your head with self-hating thoughts. Better not find out it wasn't your fault.
Better not find out that awkwardness is not inherently harmful or unkind, and, in fact, the people who act like it is *are the ones enacting harm and being cruel.*
Better not get righteously angry when you realize just how much unnecessary damage this has done to you. After all, if you get mad, you might realize you deserve better. You might even feel brave enough to DEMAND better! You might build boundaries that keep you safe! You might make other people think they deserve to feel safe too! And we obviously can't be having that, so...
Better not show yourself even a little kindness a little bit at a time.
Better not make a habit out of it after all that practice.
Better not get confident.
Especially if you can't first wipe out every trace of awkward. (And you probably never will. Because people who experience absolute social certainty at all times tend to be insufferable assholes that enforce the status quo. And you just don't have the stock portfolio for that.)
Better not be confident and awkward because then you might confuse and delight people
- you might accidentally end up making other people feel less shame for their social difficulties
- you might make isolated, traumatized, and shy people feel like they deserve to be included in social situations
- you might even make them feel they can be themselves around you
- you might start loving the effect you have on a room
- you might enjoy conversations more
- you might forgive yourself and bounce back from shame more easily and frequently
- you might come to enjoy some of those moments of harmless confusion you cause because NOBODY expects the Confident Awkward, and that can genuinely be an advantage in social situations
- you might stop apologizing so much.
- you might find that socializing is like a video game: it requires practice but also a safe space for it to be fun and positive.
Or if you can't become assertive and confident, better not remain awkward and shy and quiet, and then love and forgive yourself anyway!
Why, it would be carnage!!
In either scenario, you run the risk of finding out that it's not your fault that safe spaces full of kind people can be really hard to find, create, and nurture. You could end up building a skillset that helps you do those things if you're not careful!
If you start giving yourself even the tiniest amount of grace at a time, you will find that you've accessed a gateway drug with extreme long-term side effects:
- You might realize that it was never your fault that it took so long to like yourself.
- You might realize that you were always worth talking to, even when you didn't like yourself and communication felt impossibly difficult.
- You might realize that you'll still be worth talking to even if communication becomes harder as you age and/or experience disability.
- You might come to know that you deserve to be heard even on bad days when words come slow and blurry.
You might discover that you were always deserving of kindness, first and foremost from yourself.
So. As you can see, it's FAR too much of a risk to start granting your awkward self free pardons for your many heinous and harmless crimes. Better to just leave it there.
#social skills#i have a few posts now in my ' social skills' tag#original#maybe eventually I will compile them and polish them in some meaningful way. I know what I want to call the book title#in big text it'll say 'I'M AUTISTIC' and then beneath that in smaller text 'And I Have Better Social Skills Than You'#or something to that effect. and the cover of the book will be me making an exaggerated smug face like the little rascal I am#challenging the viewer to pick up the book and see if they can prove me wrong.#and then the entire first section of the book is about how actually the issue with our society's social skills is the harsh judgment#for people who have trouble communicating and not the other way around. I don't actually think I'm the#most charismatic person in the world by a very long shot. but i do know that I have put more thought into my social skills than#most allistic people and frankly i have surpassed most of them. not because i am more persuasive or smooth or funny#(tho i am persuasive and funny lol) but bc i have questioned which social functions are more restriction than utility.#and instead i have focused my energy on actively learning how to make people feel safe. i feel social rules would benefit all people by#being a little more autistic tyvm. i don't think every person should dedicate themselves to being better at communicating#i think people should dedicate themselves to being kind and patient to everyone regardless of their ability to communicate#I think our society wrongly links communication ability to intelligence and intelligence to level of humanity.#when in fact all three of those things are fucking unrelated and connecting them inevitably leads to#really fucked up views on disabled people that hurt us. and then with that aspect of the book firmly understood and established I would#go on to recommend some ways to make socializing easier and more fulfilling (and less shameful and terrifying) for all kinds of people#it wouldn't be a book about Leaning In To Succeed in Business or 'here's how to avoid being the awkward loner at a party'#it'd be a book about how if you see someone alone at a party here's how to invite them to join your group without pressuring them#stuff like 'hot tip! if someone takes a while to type or speak a full sentence - talking over them b4 they can finish makes u an asshole!'#I know that a lot of people cannot or don't want to dump a lot of skill points into socializing like i did and they shouldn't have to in#order to experience basic dignity and respect. if we treat people like that then we just validate that people - especially#autistic children and elders and disabled people of manu varieties - have to suffer unless they learn all these arbitrary bullshit rules#and a lot of them are arbitrary bullshit! one of the reasons I throw people off so much is because I harmlessly break a lot of social rules#but I know I'm doing it and I'm not ashamed and people just don't know what to do with that! but a lot of them like it actually!!#i think it's a relief to be around someone so openly and unrelentingly weird bc what am I gonna do? judge you for being weird??#I only care if you're kind. not necessarily 'nice' or passive. Kind. Brave enough to care about people being treated well. Kind.#also I recognize that at least some of my ability to be openly weird is white privilege so that's important to acknowledge too
12 notes · View notes
starlightkun · 2 months
Text
know that i am a hot sauce by nct dream hater first dreamzen second
13 notes · View notes
batsplat · 23 days
Note
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.
14 notes · View notes