#i'm so bad at titling

[milla984]

Title: Put that baby spell on me

Creator: Milla984

Giftee: @boochhaan

Prompt: fluff, soft, cute

Relationships: Bheem + Malli + Ram

Rating: General audiences

Warnings/Tags: Modern AU

@celebrrration Holiday Swap 2022

“You said it was an emergency.”

Bheem lets out an impatient sigh as he keeps the door of his apartment open. “What does it look like to you?”

“A toddler,” Ram replies, his gaze continuously wandering from Malli’s tiny figure to the giant standing beside her. When she’s not trying to hide her face she’s peeking at him with her dark, wide eyes, squeezing Bheem’s leg so hard she resembles a barnacle glued to an underwater rock. 

“Well, there’s not a big difference,” Bheem groans, reconsidering his life decisions for the hundredth time in the last few hours.

Ram doesn’t even flinch. “Where’s Loki?”

“Business trip,” Bheem explains, “but the babysitter didn’t show up. She was desperate for help and asked me to take care of Malli until she comes back, tonight.”

“I still don’t see why I’m here,” Ram replies with a confused frown.

Bheem takes a short pause before answering. “I need you to stay with her while I get a few things.”

The sudden realization of what’s really going on turns Ram’s face into the textbook definition of shock and terror - the same state Bheem’s going through the entire morning. “What things?!”

“Oh, I don’t know... age-appropriate food, maybe?” Bheem struggles to control his urge to punch him, out of sheer frustration. “Orange juice? Milk and Parle-G? Right now all I have is leftover chilli chicken.”

“Why can’t you take her?”

“She likes to go ‘exploring’ if you’re not paying full attention to her,” Bheem sighs again, exhausted: shopping for groceries with an infant in tow is something he doesn’t have enough strength for, not today. “Listen, she’s got her Happy Animals coloring book and crayons. Just make sure she stays alive for half an hour… please?!”

With Malli still clinging to Bheem’s leg, Ram is not sure this is an ideal solution but he doesn’t have much of a choice in the matter; besides, Bheem is giving him his best puppy-dog eyes expression, a technique he’s skillfully mastered to perfection. “Fine,” Ram grumbles in a low tone.

Bheem finally relaxes and smiles, gently patting the girl’s head; she stares at him, scared and wary of the brooding man in front of her, but Bheem nods and smiles for a second time. “Ram is our friend, it’s okay.”

A solid minute passes before Malli decides to let go of his trousers to raise a tiny hand towards Ram, who in return seems equally hesitant to take it and moves a cautious step forward only when Bheem is ready to leave. “I’ll be back in forty-five minutes, max.” 

Ram is tempted to follow along but forces himself to remain calm: not even his extensive training could prepare him to embark on such a hazardous mission. He then closes the door and puffs, struggling to find the right words to speak to a child. 

“Sooooo… you like… animals?”

                ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿

It takes Bheem exactly twenty-seven minutes to run to the nearest grocery shop, grab some food and run back to his apartment; an easier task than expected, because once his mind clears a bit he remembers he used to love rice kheer, potatoes, roasted vegetables and mango dhal as a child. The fact that they’re also relatively easy to cook makes him fill his cart at superhuman speed and rush to the cashier, his heart pounding in his chest.

When he walks into the living room the first thing he notices is an unnerving silence, then Malli’s high-pitched voice echoes from the kitchen. “Blue.”

She’s sitting on a pile of cushions on a chair, her bare feet dangling up and down, and she’s pointing at the image of a silly faced horse in her coloring book - because she’s not the one doing the actual coloring. 

“Brown,” suggests Ram.

“Blue.”

“Horses are not—”

“BLUE,” she cuts him off, resolute.

“Alright, alright. What do I know about horses, after all,” Ram laughs and picks up the blue crayon, now convinced that arguing with a toddler is - indeed - useless.

Bheem puts the shopping bags on the counter, amazed by the unusual event he’s witnessing: even though Ram can be one of the most dangerous men in the world when he’s holding a gun, he’s letting a two-year-old girl boss him around without batting an eye. “Are you two getting along well?” 

Malli sees him and a split second later she’s climbing off the chair. “Anna!!” she shrieks, running towards him.

Bheem scoops her up to holds her in his arms while Ram stands awkwardly, the crayon still between his fingers. “I was… uhm, she’s still alive, see?!”

“I’m impressed,” Bheem replies, “and if I had to guess I’d say you were having fun.”

“Pfft, as if,” Ram shakes his head in denial while he lets the blue pencil fall on top of all the others, scattered on the table. “Have you got your age-appropriate food?!” 

Bheem nods and Ram rolls his eyes in response. “Thank goodness,” he mutters, grabbing his jacket; Malli whines and squirms to let Bheem know she wants him to put her down, so that she can tug at Ram’s trousers with both hands.

Ram shrugs. “I’m sorry, kid, I have to go. I was only filling in for the one who’s in charge.”

“Actually,” Bheem jumps in, “it’s lunch time but lunch is not ready. How about you two keep on doing... whatever it was you were doing, and I cook us something? Potato soup is okay?” 

The small girl doesn’t really answer but judging by the way she’s hugging Ram’s leg she’s not ready to exchange goodbyes yet, and Bheem smiles to himself. “I take that as a yes.”

Malli raises her big eyes to beg of her new friend to stay a little longer. “Did you learn this from him, huh?!” Ram asks when Malli drags him back to the kitchen table and he’s forced to admit he fell for the same puppy-dog trick twice. 

He turns to Bheem, whispering: “I swear... a single word about this with anyone and you’re a dead man.”

[mangofanarts]

Sunny and their crown friends (aka, their bodyguard, chauffeur and Accountant)

EDIT: @this-is-a-name-dont-worry Thank you for letting me know about their pronouns!! I wasn't aware :>!! Unfortunately I can't edit my tags to change some of it to they because I'm on mobile tho I'll use they/them for sunny more in the future!!

[szollibisz]

domestic curtwen. that's it that's the post

ironically the quote is from mercy denied forever by józsef attila (translated by ozsváth zsuzsanna and frederick turner) honestly. ngl it's not a great translation, but the last verse was good

[batbabydamian]

DC July 2024 Solicitations - Comics Featuring Damian! 🦇

BATMAN AND ROBIN #11

7/10/24

Written by Joshua Williamson

Art by Juan Ferreyra

Cover by Simone Di Meo

Variant Covers: Juan Ferreyra, Travis Mercer, Christian Ward (1:25)

Bruce and Damian plan the perfect father and son getaway…to DINOSAUR ISLAND?! When the dynamic duo uncovers a deadly family secret, their investigation takes them on a fun-filled adventure to rescue one of Batman’s greatest enemies!

THE BOY WONDER #3 of 5

7/3/24

Written by Juni Ba

Art and Cover by Juni Ba

Variant Cover: Khary Randolph

The cunning Tim Drake has always been the smartest of Batman’s sons…and the most comfortable matching wits with the most sinister geniuses on Earth. Damian Wayne doesn’t like feeling outsmarted—to him, no smugly-written insult could ever be sharper than his sword—so when he’s forced to infiltrate a super-villain gala alongside the sneaky Red Robin, the biggest danger the two of them face might not be Lex Luthor but Damian’s own temper!

*John Timms Variant Cover appearance(?) + potential cameo

ABSOLUTE POWER #1

7/3/24

Written by Mark Waid

Art and Cover by Dan Mora

DC’s epic summer event kicks off with a bang, as the combined might of FAILSAFE and the BRAINIAC QUEEN has at last given Amanda Waller the ability to steal the metahuman abilities of every hero and villain on planet Earth. As chaos erupts in the streets and a massive misinformation campaign sways public opinion to her side, the founder of the Suicide Squad methodically targets each superhero dynasty one at a time, starting with SUPERMAN. But even in this darkest of hours, a resistance is forming…and BATMAN is out for vengeance. It’s a shocking blitzkrieg across the globe that is decades in the making—and will shape the course of the DC Universe for years to come! Brought to you by the superstar talents of MARK WAID and DAN MORA—it all starts here!

*John Timms Variant Cover appearance(?)

ABSOLUTE POWER: TASK FORCE VII #1

7/10/24

Written by Leah William

Art by Caitlin Yarsky

SUPER NO MORE! With the assault on Metropolis’s heroes complete, Amanda Waller’s latest living weapon, the Last Son, sets his sights on the other most powerful supers in the DCU…the Marvel Family! Will their combined powers be enough to survive this terrifying threat? In this biweekly series we'll see the ABSOLUTE POWER event through the eyes of evil—as told from the point of view of the TRINITY OF EVIL!

*Rian Gonzales Variant Cover appearance

NIGHTWING #116

7/17/24

Written by Tom Taylor

Art and cover by Bruno Redondo

Everything Dick Grayson has built is crumbling around him. His life is spiraling out of control and Heartless is at the center of all of it. Now Nightwing must leave his city. Can he take back the power he’s lost? Or will Blϋdhaven and its citizens be lost to Heartless forever?

[toxintouch]

hii!! I just read cold spots and it was AMAZING!!! Im not sure if you wanted to continue the fic, but if you don’t mind could you continue with Veres part? I don’t know what you would write about but I just feel like that fic has so much potential to be a little 3 part series or something 🙏

<- Cold Spots TYSM ANON!! I put the Vere End at the beginning for ease of reading. For the sake of folks who would like to read this as a stand-alone... I think u can? With the knowledge that the premise of Cold Spots is that Mhin and MC/Sparrow went ghost hunting. Vere is said to have been responsible for a handful of local ghost stories, so…of course he makes some mischief.🦊 Also MC needs some Winter wear, stat.  A very light Possessive Vere warning in this btw, though perhaps in a roundabout way.  Plausible deniability is so important to him.

You putter around in your room at the Wet Wick as you go about your nightly routine. The occasional cheer or thud from below only accentuates your nervous energy, punctuating your reluctance to settle down and get into bed. You smooth the covers with your bandaged hands and fluff the pillow before extinguishing the lamplight. You tug the bedding up above your shoulders, fighting to get comfortable. As your eyelids finally start to droop, the flicker of a shadow catches your attention.   It dances and sways and bends and grows until suddenly it is right in front of you.  On top of you. Silken, blood red drips down onto your face, a knife gleam smile too close for comfort.  You breathe in a gasp, wondering if you should scream. “Vere, what–” “Shhh,” he coos, pressing a finger lightly to your lips.  His breath is hot against your skin. “I only came to keep you warm, pet.”

Heat Signature

“Poor thing.” Vere purrs.  “Your lips are so cold.”  He leans ever closer, his mouth hot over yours–hovering.  His other hand reaches for your face as well, nails trailing against your cheek in a teasing caress.

You feel even the thought of being cold leave your body, replaced instead by the unusual thrill he commands, that strange enthralling sway.

That heat you’ve come to associate with Vere; sweet tendrils of want that nestle in your bloodstream.

You squirm a little, though you can’t move much with him looming over you.

(You should probably do more to protest his intrusion into your room, you think to yourself, though, the majority of you is–curious, daresay even far too eager to–)

“Whatever trouble did you get up to that left you in such a state?”

At this you scoff, tilting your head back into the pillow and effectively knocking Vere’s finger from your lips.  

“As if you don’t know,” you accuse.

Vere looks entirely unperturbed by you shaking him off, his lithe fingers traveling freely along the newly displayed skin of your throat, making your pulse jump.

Vere chuckles at that, dark and silky.

“Being tight lipped about your adventures, hm?”  He angles your face just so, ensuring you meet his sharp eyes, his nose brushing up against yours.  “Not that it matters.  It so happens I do know what you’ve been up to.  Trespassing in places that don’t belong to you.”

“...It was an abandoned building.  I don’t think it really belonged to anyone.”

“And that’s where you’d be wrong,” Vere says, “everything in this city belongs to someone, darling.  You just don’t know what belongs to who yet.”  He peers down at you with laughter in his expression, though there's a distinct edge to it that you can't quite place.

“So, you're here because that building belongs to you...?”

“Hmm, amongst other things.  However shall I make you apologize to me for this most egregious offense?”  He asks airily, shifting until he’s beside you rather than perched over you, resting his cheek in his hand and letting his eyes slip closed. He's the absolute picture of unbothered leisure.  

(You’re not fooled–he’s simply waiting for you to let your guard down before he pounces.)

You open your mouth to deny any debts on your part (though, if your ghost hunting spot was indeed Vere’s hideout, you really do feel guilty) but Vere cuts you off before you can speak.

“Alas, I suppose it’s not mine anymore.  Within a week it will reek of wet dogs and cheap booze. It's a lost cause now that those drooling reprobates know it's inhabitable.  A pity.  By Eridia's standards it really was divine in its heyday.  Good wine, music, dancing.  There was this portrait artist who would paint the performances…”

His tone remains light as he reminisces.  But the look he pins you with is dangerous: his eyes gleaming bright, his canines bared in an irreverent grin.

“I had such hopes and dreams of reviving the place myself.  Some of the dances were very scandalous.  You never did share with me your stance on dancing, did you?”

You stumble out an approximate answer.  It’s…harmless information to give, isn’t it?

Though, judging by how pleased Vere looks, you wonder if you should have refused to say.  He looks positively wicked as he ponders your answer aloud.  “Oh, I’m sure you’ve got plenty of talents to share.  In another life, perhaps I'd have put you on stage.  Though, I admit.  I find myself partial to a private show.”

And–as expected–the moment you let your guard down, he's in your space again, crowding you.  Heat and proximity and the softest brush of his lips against yours, light enough to send a thrill down your spine, curiosity and a want so deep it surprises you.

“Well?”  He purrs.  “Care to audition?”

You can't hide behind the excuse of supernatural sway or charm or the thrall of hypnotic sunglo eyes.  It's not Vere's power that controls you. It's your own gnawing desire; starvation and longing that draws you to him despite all sense.

Kissing Vere is heady.  Dizzying.  

Kissing Vere is like being in conversation with Vere–a constant of giving and taking, being chased after and running to keep up.  It’s enticing and alluring and decadent and never quite enough, over too soon even as you feel yourself losing air, the rush of blood and sensation threatening to overwhelm you.

He gives a parting nip to your bottom lip as he pulls away.

Then another one, playful, to your jaw.

When he presses his face into the side of your neck, you expect him to bite again.

What you don’t expect is for him to nuzzle into you, inhaling deeply before heaving a great sigh, his tail flopping lazily to land across you with a thump.

He’s officious as he rearranges the covers, ensuring your arms are tucked carefully away from him before he’s willing to fully settle into the bedding, pulling the blankets up around the both of you like a den.  He hums something low in his chest as he tucks himself up alongside you, long tail curled around your waist. 

It’s rhythmic–

purring.

And it’s…soothing, actually.

The weight of him, the warmth.  The incessant lamplight of the Amaryllis District, shining ever present through your window, is dim–tolerable, even, courtesy of Vere's magnificent shadow manipulations and the blankets sheltering you. 

The constant noise seems to fade away as well, obscured by the sound of purring. “Falling asleep when you have me in your bed, pet?  You really do try your luck…”

[steveseddie]

green and yellow

rating: t | cw: none apply | word count: 2,270

tags: eddie munson lives, and he graduates!, established relationship, fluff, soft boys, steve harrington is smitten

for the @steddielovemonth “love is watching them do the stupidest things and falling harder for them every time”

click here to read on ao3

***

Steve is grateful when Principal Higgins finally ends his boring speech and steps down from the podium.

He started dozing off halfway through it, and he could feel the kids starting to get restless next to him, impatient for the moment they’ve all been waiting for.

The first one comes when Higgins calls Robin to the stage. Steve stands up and puts two fingers in his mouth and whistles, while the kids clap and hoot and cheer. Further up front, Mr. and Mrs. Buckley clap for their daughter too, but in a more subdued manner.

Robin climbs the steps to the stage, tripping on the very last one but catching herself just in time before she faceplants. Her face is bright red as she accepts her diploma, but she’s grinning widely. She makes eye contact with Steve and waves frantically, Steve gives her two thumbs up and an enthusiastic smile. After she walks back to her seat, Principal Higgins starts calling more names. Steve sits back down, but still claps politely for all those kids that he’s seen around town, but doesn’t really know.

When it’s Jason Carver’s turn though, Steve doesn’t clap and neither do any of the kids. He glares at him as he makes his way across the stage, grinning and waving as if he hadn’t attacked Lucas months ago or tried to get Eddie arrested or killed, and later on, expelled from school when the charges were dropped. Clearly, only Steve and the rest of the party hold a grudge because everyone else in the gym claps for him, making Steve’s blood boil.

After a few other names are called, Principal Higgins makes a special mention to Chrissy and asks for a minute of silence. Steve’s eyes scan the first few rows where the class of ‘86 sits in their caps and gowns, looking for Eddie, knowing that Chrissy’s mention would probably have upset him.

He spots his messy bun tucked under his cap. He can’t see his face, but he can see the way he’s tugging on one of his earrings, which Steve has only ever seen him do when he’s feeling very anxious. He wishes he was sitting next to him or that he could at least meet his eyes to let him know he’s here.

The tugging stops when Principal Higgins moves on and calls more names. Finally, he calls Eddie’s.

Steve and the kids don’t let there be even a second of silence, they all jump to their feet as soon as the name is called and give Eddie an ovation as big and loud as the one they gave Robin. Not as many people from the crowd join in, a few strangers here and there and Eddie’s uncle at the front, but it doesn’t matter. Eddie’s grin is blinding when he jumps onto the stage. Steve suspects there might be more than a few people glaring at him in the audience, giving him nasty looks, but no one could be able to tell by looking at Eddie who waves and bows and throws kisses at the crowd like they all came here to see him.

Principal Higgins hands him his diploma with a pinched face. Eddie takes it and Steve holds his breath. Next to him, he hears Dustin whisper, “do it, Eddie, do it!”

And almost as if he’d heard Dustin, Eddie raises his right hand and gives Principal Higgins the middle finger with the most manic grin Steve has ever seen on his face.

“Son of a bitch did it!” Dustin says, throwing a fist in the air and another wave of hoots and cheers starts in the back of the gym. Steve has half a mind to scold Henderson for his language, but he lets it slide, joining in on the cheering with another two-fingered whistle.

But the Eddie Show isn’t over yet, if there’s one thing that Eddie’s good at is giving a performance. He runs to the podium, grabs the microphone and uses it to address the crowd with a, “So long, suckers!” before dropping it on the floor, doing a dramatic curtsy and jumping from the stage. He runs all the way to the back, people’s heads whipping around to stare at him. Steve sees more than a few horrified looks, but there are also people trying to hold in their laughter.

Steve’s eyes don’t linger on them, they follow Eddie as he skips through the chairs. He knows that no one in that gym is looking at him the way he is- with literal hearts in his eyes.

Eddie finally reaches them, sitting in the very last row because by the time they arrived (late because herding a gaggle of teenagers never gets any easier) it was the only place with enough free chairs to sit all of them.

Eddie ruffles each kid’s hair, one by one. Even Max’s, who in any other circumstances would bite his head off for it, but not today. She’s grinning just as big as the others.

When Eddie reaches Steve, the last one of their group, he’s expecting to get the same treatment, and he sighs inwardly, thinking about all the time he spent on his hair this morning. But instead of messing it up like he did with the kids, Eddie cups Steve’s cheeks in his hands and stands on his tiptoes to plan a kiss to Steve’s head. By the time he falls back on his heels and lets go of his face, Steve’s cheeks have turned the brightest shade of red. Eddie winks at him, then he faces the audience one more time, throws up his devil horns and runs out of the gym.

With Eddie gone, Steve sees people’s eyes shift to him and his face flushes even more if that’s even possible.

He’s grateful when Principal Higgins picks up the microphone and asks everyone to take their seats again so they can continue after that rude interruption.

Steve flops down on his chair, but he can’t focus after that. His face feels like it could burst into flames any second and he swears he can still feel Eddie’s lips against his head.

A part of him wishes Eddie kissed his lips instead, even if, realistically, Steve knows that it would’ve been suicidal to do that in front of so many people. But who cares? He thinks. Just another way to say fuck you to this shitty town.

Steve only pays attention when Higgins calls Nancy’s name, near the end, and then he’s cheering and clapping and whistling again as she gracefully crosses the stage and picks up her diploma.

Shortly after that, Higgins asks the crowd to give it up one more time for the class of ‘86 as they all toss their caps into the air.

Steve’s eye catches something green on the floor almost right in front of him. It’s Eddie’s cap, which probably fell off his head from all his jumping around. He picks it up and tucks it under his arm.

Once the ceremony is over, everyone starts heading to the front to congratulate the students.

Steve hangs back. Robin is currently congratulating the rest of the band kids that graduated with her and he can see her parents waiting to smother her with a hug. Nancy is nowhere to be seen, probably taking the time to congratulate everyone in her class because she’s nice like that. Steve can give them a big hug later, as well as the bouquet of flowers he got for each of them.

For now, he has something to do.

He slips through the doors of the gym and goes looking for Eddie.

He finds him right outside the school, leaning against one of the walls with a lit cigarette between his lips. He’s staring down at his diploma so hard that he doesn’t notice Steve.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to be smoking on school grounds,” Steve says, walking over.

Eddie’s face lights up when he sees him, he grins at him with the cigarette dangling from his lips. “What are they gonna do? Expel me?”

Steve shrugs. “Higgins could take your diploma.”

“Over my fucking dead body,” Eddie says, but he snuffs out the cigarette anyway after taking one last hit. “Do you think he enjoyed the show?”

Steve snorts. “I’ve never seen someone’s face get so red, I thought he was gonna pop a vein.”

Eddie gives a bark of laughter. “What about you, Harrington? Did you enjoy it?”

“It was quite the show, Munson.”

He does a flourish with his hand, hinging at the waist. “I’m glad it pleased your Majesty.”

“It wasn’t just me. I’m pretty sure the kids worship you right now. They might be already planning to build a statue in your name.”

“Oh the people of Hawkins are going to love that,” Eddie says with a snort. Then his gaze falls on the cap in Steve’s hands. “Hey, is that mine?”

Steve nods. “You forgot it inside. When you were making your grand exit,” he says, twirling the cap on his finger like he would a basketball. “Can I?” He asks, gesturing at Eddie’s head.

Eddie grins. “Go for it, handsome.”

Steve nearly drops the cap when Eddie calls him that, but he doesn’t. He gently places it on top of Eddie’s head. When he does, Eddie blows out some air, making the tassel flutter. “You also forgot to do this,” Steve says, flipping the yellow tassel from the right side to the left. “There. Now you’ve officially graduated.”

He expects Eddie to make a joke or do a silly face, but instead he goes still, his eyes following the tassel as it swings back and forth. Then he says quietly, “It doesn’t feel real. Sometimes I feel like nothing that happened after the Upside Down is real. Like I died there or I fell into a coma, and this isn’t really happening.”

Steve grabs Eddie’s shoulders, he waits until Eddie meets his eyes to talk. “It is, Eds. All of it. You lived and you graduated and you showed everyone who ever doubted you that they were wrong.”

Eddie swallows thickly. His eyes dart over Steve’s face. “Sometimes you don’t feel real either. Sometimes I can’t believe that you-”

“That I love you?”

Eddie’s eyes widen to the point Steve thinks they might pop out. “You- what?”

Steve didn’t plan to say it right now. He wanted to wait until it was just them after the party that he’s throwing for Eddie and the girls at his house. He wanted to make it romantic. But it’s like he can’t help himself, the words bursting out of him.

“I love you, Eddie. And I’m so proud of you.”

Eddie whines low in his throat, eyes glistening with tears. “Goddammit, do you know how fucking unmetal it is to cry at your graduation? Fuck you, Steve!” He says, furiously wiping his eyes.

Steve lets out an undignified scoff. “I tell you I love you and you say fuck you?”

“Oh God, you keep saying it,” Eddie whispers, like he’s talking to himself.

“I will keep saying it ‘cause it’s true. I love you, I’m in love with you. The whole time I was watching you in there I wanted to yell ‘that’s my boyfriend and I love him!’”

He knows he’s laying it on too thick, but he doesn’t care. Not when Eddie’s tears fall and he looks at Steve with awe in his eyes. “Steve.” He shakes his head, the cap slides to the side, sitting crooked on Eddie’s head. “You’re such a sap, but I love you too. So much. I couldn’t have done this-” he gestures at the cap and the gown and the diploma, “-without you.”

Steve smiles. His heart feels like it could burst out of his chest when he hears that Eddie loves him back. “You could’ve, but I’ll make sure you never have to.”

A few more tears fall from his eyes and Steve uses his thumb to wipe them away. He can hear the noise coming from inside the school getting closer and louder, and he knows they have maybe a couple of minutes before people start exiting the school.

“Okay, no more tears, today is about celebrating. Besides, the brats will never think you’re cool again if they see you crying.”

Eddie laughs wetly, but manages to put himself together. Steve takes his hand and intends to drag him along to go look for his uncle and their friends, but Eddie stops him.

“Wait,” he says, using his free hand to cup Steve’s jaw and bring him in for a quick kiss. “Wanted to do that inside, but. You know.” Steve nods. He knows. “Okay, let’s go find everyone. Uncle Wayne bought a camera just for this and he I know he’s dying to use it.”

Then he’s dragging Steve toward the doors at the exact moment they open and people start pouring out.

Eddie can’t keep holding his hand after that with the kids crowding around him and taking turns hugging him or jumping on his back. Then it’s Wayne’s turn, who gives Eddie a heartfelt hug that he sinks into with the biggest smile Steve’s ever seen. Then it’s Nancy and Robin, and then Steve again. Then it’s pictures and piling everyone inside Steve’s car and Nancy’s station wagon.

There, Steve gets to hold Eddie’s hand again, over the center console as he drives them away from Hawkins High.

With his free hand, Eddie flips off the building, and everyone in the car, including Steve, cheers.

[slavicafire]

oh I am such a hater. booted it up just to make sure it works and even the title screen makes me mad. cartoony ass mobile game

[raticalshoez]

i'm having hyperfixation drought so i did what i did best and created a crossover episode

[pencap]

By Sylvie (j.p.)

[pandadrake]

Someone commented that they thought my drawing of Harvey Dent was Bruce Wayne, so I tried drawing Bruce Wayne and he turned out so weird and creepy-looking that I'm uploading this instead.

[kaisollisto]

(Based off of the reality of having a metal ring in your back as a constant reminder of your fate and how that affects you as a person set in the Switzerland arc)

“Does it hurt?” 

Ava’s pressed face down into the pillow sleep curling around her limbs. She hums, she can’t remember what she says, she’s exhausted. Her arms are tangled beneath her pillow. She holds her fingers tightly between each other, her bones ache from the pressure but her hands no longer shake. Ava hasn’t experienced this before, a fear that haunts her at night. (She finds she cannot stop dreaming about dying. It’s stifling in the cover of night trying to figure out where she is.) 

She slowly opens her eyes and squints in the darkness. Beatrice is facing her a furrow in her brow that Ava knows she’s doing unconsciously. Ava’s lip quirks a smidgen, Beatrice looks funny. It’s a bit silly to her, Beatrice no doubt working out a solution to an unknown problem that Ava has yet to see in the middle of the night. In her sleepy state she wants to laugh at the imaginary cogs churning in Beatrice’s head. 

Beatrice scooches closer and Ava panics, her skin can taste the dust of Bea’s forearm. She hoists herself up on her elbows, turning to face Beatrice. “Wha?” Ava’s shaking off bits of sleep from her mouth when Beatrice repeats herself. 

“Does the Halo hurt?” 

She doesn’t know if she wants to answer that. Ava peers over Beatrice squinting at the harsh light of the digital clock on Beatrice’s side. Ava loves it, it reminds her of the early 2000’s and the aesthetic of waking up to an alarm to go somewhere. The clock blinks an innocent 1:43 Am, and Ava debates on letting her head thump back down. 

She turns her body on her side, she can feel the halo shifting in her back and it makes her want to throw up. The sides of the halo press against her shoulder blades and Ava resists the urge to yank it out. She grits her teeth and settles ignoring the skin of her back pulling tight to accommodate for the ring. Beatrice is still expecting an answer and Ava can’t lie to her, she pulls the covers of the sheet up to her chest hoping to bide more time for an answer. 

"Everything hurts Bea," Ava smiles, "getting my ass handed to me is hard work."

Beatrice frowns displeased but looks at her through her lashes, it's unguarded, the stress and worries of the world stay out of their room in the dead of night. Her lashes are so pretty and Ava wants to curse the soft glow of the moon. There’s just enough moonlight to illuminate her eyes but overshadow her freckles. Ava swallows down the taste of defeat, she can’t win, she thinks. 

Her gaze is soft, Beatrice is looking at her and it’s different yet the same. The same feeling in her chest constricting her lungs, the same soft gaze of Beatrice. Beatrice who likes what she sees in Ava when Ava can barely see where she begins. She doesn’t like to dwell on it, the truth of the matter being what belongs to Ava.

If she closes her eyes she can pretend just a little longer. She can give herself the hope of the future and what comes after all this. She can put down the fighting and the artifact and live. Ava doesn't want to think about it anymore, at least not tonight when Beatrice is here with her. 

Beatrice is soft. She knows it from hours and hours of training. She's felt it when Beatrice corrects her form, in the way she talks. She speaks from a place of care like she has turned the harsh words in her brain over and over to soften the syllables spoken to Ava. And Ava doesn't linger on it, the meaning behind it, (Ava didn't think she'd make it this far, finding a person who cares quite like Bea does.)

And Ava's got it bad, she knows she's fucked because Beatrice doesn’t say anything about her language and Ava can't not tell her the truth. She looks down, her hand fiddling with the bed sheet underneath them. 

"It doesn't hurt," if she thinks about it she can feel the fibers of the cotton between the pads of her fingers. "But it's very uncomfortable." She doesn't want to find the response in Beatrice's eyes, content to hear it from her voice. The soft British lilting accent that holds her just as soft as a touch. 

She waits, she can picture Bea’s mannerisms with her eyes closed but maybe she should check just to be sure. Ava peers up at Beatrice and she’s suddenly closer. Her eyes really are pretty, there’s a depth to them that Ava wants to spend an ungodly amount of time studying.

“Can I help?”

[aq2003]

martha jones is kind of like if horatio and ophelia were one person tbh

this post by darkcomedies

s03e08 human nature // hamlet (2009), act 3 scene 2 // hamlet to horatio, act 3 scene 2 // martha about ten, s03e09 the family of blood // s03e03 gridlock // hamlet (2009), act 5 scene 1 // canary in a coal mine by the crane wives

s03e02 the shakespeare code // hamlet (2009), act 3 scene 1 // ophelia about hamlet, act 2 scene 1 // s03e07 42 // hamlet (2009), act 3 scene 2 // s03e05 evolution of the daleks // hoping on another life by madds buckley

hamlet's letter to ophelia, act 2 scene 2 // s03e13 last of the time lords // hamlet (2009), act 5 scene 2 // the shooting script for s03e07 42 // the tags on darkcomedies' post

[ruvviks]

The Dobrynin family is a corpo family through and through, rooted in Arasaka and Orbital Air going back by several generations; though their powerful position within the corporate world ends with the children of Nadya and Matvey Dobrynin. With Vitali and Daniil fired from Arasaka and Kang Tao respectively— the former indirectly getting his parents fired, too— and Roksana having refused to set foot within a megacorporation from the start, the family begins crumbling apart at the very seams when clashing interests lead to grudges, betrayal, and pointless acts of revenge. ↳ read the unrevised fic here if you're interested!

taglist (opt in/out)

@shellibisshe, @florbelles, @ncytiri, @roseeway, @stars-of-the-heart;

@lestatlioncunt, @katsigian, @radioactiveshitstorm, @estevnys, @adelaidedrubman;

@celticwoman, @rindemption, @carlosoliveiraa, @noirapocalypto, @dickytwister;

@killerspinal, @euryalex, @ri-a-rose, @velocitic, @thedeadthree;

@kanos, @swordcoasts, @ordinarymaine, @claudiawolf, @strafethesesinners

[sweetnnaivete]

ngl i hate when books change things from country to country like title or especially the actual contents of the book......stop you're dividing the fanbase !!!!

[lensinski]

Bad Bet on a 459-Silent - The Green Hornet (1966)

Crime fighting hero The Green Hornet is shot by the police and can't go to the hospital if he doesn't want to reveal his identity. So he stages an attack on his civilian identity, newspaper publisher Britt Reid, by his sidekick Kato who pretends to shoot him in the shoulder.

[batsplat]

controversial opinion but I don’t think that in terms of rivalries and feuds marc is that interesting. like if you exclude valentino you’re left with who? dovi? they did have exciting on track battles for sure but let’s face it dovi was never really a huge title threat. and their off track relationship as a result had no tension. but who else?

qualified agreement in that, yes, I also don't think marc's slate of rivalries/feuds is all that satisfying... I just don't feel like this is entirely marc's *fault*. I mean, first off, valentino is definitely a positive outlier in this regard in that he was just working overtime in terms of coming up with compelling feuds. he's not quite the spiders georg of fantastic feuds, but he's not far off either. secondly, when compared to the other aliens + dovi... marc is at a very obvious disadvantage in that those guys were all direct peers who already had a lot of history with each other. dovi made fourteen year old jorge cry, twenty year old casey threw a temper tantrum when dani beat him, teenage jorge was judgemental of casey's fan engagement skills, and obviously there's the jorge/dani of it all. even the bits of that diagram that never had any major beef will have at least had a little bit of sizzling tension, like dovi's wariness of dani as a teammate. marc was always going to be on the back foot here - he really could have done with a pol esparagaro-type figure to crack on and become a big deal in the premier class. you need interpersonal history for a strong rivalry, and marc was always working at a deficit by having to start from scratch

this is the thing, right: imagine a world in which marc is born a few years earlier. in your hearts, do you seriously believe he would not have had a major sustained feud with at least one of jorge, dani, casey or dovi? I'm thinking he gets at least 2-3 in all honesty. casey if they ever ended up teammates is practically a given - and even without that you'd have to say it's a near certainty that it would've gone very badly. I mean good lord, casey vs the marc marquez towing addiction feels like it inevitably ends in casey physically assaulting marc on-track at least once. jorge had feuds with literally everyone, so that one also feels guaranteed. dani was a way less prickly character by the time marc got to the premier class but used to be a notoriously difficult teammate - so those two at honda and, again, odds are pretty good you get something going. dovi's a bit more marginal in that it kinda depends on what their respective competitive situations look like - plus dovi was generally more of a single issue jorge lorenzo hater - but you'd still expect it to be at least a little bit snarkier. so yeah, just a straightforward counterfactual - but it should still demonstrate that the picture is more complicated than 'marc marquez sucks at feuds'. there's clearly more going on here

so I kinda feel like there's two interrelated questions here, right. let's break it down:

how high quality are marc's rivalries/feuds?

to what extent can the quality or lack thereof of marc's rivalries/feuds be attributed to him, versus circumstantial factors that were outside of his control?

now with the first question, again, I do agree that right now in his career... marc could be doing better. he's got one major feud - and admittedly it's a doozy, but it's against a guy who has five major feuds to his name. if you look at that without context then it's quite easy to conclude valentino is putting in all the hard work, with little to no contribution from marc needed. apart from that... well, his other big rivalry on paper is with dovi - which, yeah, that one is lacking in narrative tension. the main issue with that rivalry isn't actually the lack of drama per se, it's that it just doesn't go anywhere. it's a bunch of strong on-track battles with no real arc to connect them, just ends up being completely static past the conclusion of 2017. I never got the sense that the two of them felt massively differently towards each other after 2019 than they had a couple years earlier... that's what kills it imo, like you need something to be happening in a rivalry. you need the two parties to have a substantial impact on each other! you can vaguely make that case for 2017 if you really want to push it - but it's just not enough, it only lasts for a few months, and it's lacking in the build-up and pay-off department. there's no real shift in their dynamic, not in terms of their relationship or their title fights or even their on-track battles... their first big battle is dovi beating marc in austria and their last big battle is dovi beating marc in austria, so you can't even say marc's learned how to deal with the red bull ring's final corner better. the only thing that's substantially changed is that marc knows he'll win the title anyway. look how far we've come

then there's marc's rivalry with dani, interesting on paper and they did have a reasonable amount of tension, but obviously you'd be hard-pressed to mention it in the same sentence as any of the real top tier rivalries. it's just over too soon, marc wins it too conclusively, and they don't have a single memorable on-track battle to their name beyond 'that time marc cut dani's sensor cable'. the jorge rivalry isn't terrible - you've got a few strong-to-iconic on-track battles like jerez + silverstone 2013, mugello + silverstone 2014, mugello 2016, austria 2018... but yeah, the tone is really quite muted and reserved by jorge's standards. there's not a massive amount of development in that relationship post-2013, and it just sort of fizzles out over the years. again, really becomes more of a collection of moments than an actual cohesive narrative arc - like something like austria 2018 is a fun throwback, you've got jorge being mad at marc over the aragon 2018 crash that essentially ended his season, but it also doesn't really lead to anything bigger. maybe there was a teensy bit of hope the honda teammate situation would reawaken that rivalry (me and casey both grabbing the popcorn, mind), but jorge just wasn't competitive enough for that to go anywhere

so, who's fault is this? is marc just mid at starting feuds? why hasn't he started more feuds with a bunch of people who showed they were perfectly capable of starting feuds with each other? why hasn't he given the people more to work with? who can we blame for this sorry state of affairs?

now, honestly, I reckon most of the issues with marc's track record can be put down to circumstance and poor timing. I already said that you'd expect marc to be doing way better if he'd been born early enough to run into the aliens in their primes. this is for several reasons. the first reason is that he managed to miss casey entirely - who on paper has to be the alien you'd expect marc to get on the worst. casey has the most rigid belief structure surrounding riding standards and acceptable levels of aggression, he's the least likely to be okay with marc's 'vicious on-track smiling off it' schtick, he had a multi-year vendetta against the exact sort of behaviour in practise and qualifying marc has made a habit of throughout his career, he is a strong believer in the kind of teammate cooperation in development marc memorably eschewed at honda, he would have also found marc's flavour of media games distasteful at best, he's highly sensitive to anything that could be construed as an attack on him... and marc in turn would have been aware of all this and actively enjoyed pissing casey off. in some respects they feel like an even worse match than valentino and casey. marc and casey on the 'alien compatible personalities quiz' score negative points. so that's just poor timing - marc barely missed out on him! you've removed the most irascible alien from the picture, the guy who had the highest quantity of low level beef with the entire paddock... it's already taken away such a major obvious feud opportunity from marc that you have to be a bit more lenient when judging his record

beyond that, let's turn to two interrelated reasons for why marc didn't get more narrative juice out of his other rivalries with that generation: a) the competitive landscape, and b) how the aliens themselves changed over time. the biggest and most important factor is (a). my general stance with feuds is that it's really really hard to start a feud in year one of a rivalry - you simply need more build-up than that. this is incidentally also 100% true of valentino's feuds. biaggi and valentino already despised each other going into 2001 (incidentally the lack of a narrative arc is why that one's also not a top tier rivalry for me), sete and valentino needed 2003 to set up 2004, valentino and casey were more or less fine in 2007 and ditto with jorge and valentino in 2008 and even mostly 2009. you can likewise point to valentino and marc already having enough significant interactions in 2013-14 to set up the volatility of their on-track encounters in the first half of 2015. for a counterexample, check out valentino and nicky hayden - who were title rivals in 2006 and 2006 alone, and managed to get through that entire year with minimal drama and their relationship emerging entirely unscathed. if hayden had still been more competitive after that year, maybe something would have changed... but as it stands, you do need time to build up the kind of interpersonal history for things to get nasty in a meaningful way. see also btw how dani and valentino's rivalry never got properly nasty, despite some build up in 2006

compare and contrast with marc's situation. 2013 is actually perfectly good set up... except then it's immediately followed by a dud of a season, where marc is dominant enough in the first half to make the title fight essentially a non-starter. after 2013, dani really isn't a competitive threat to marc anymore outside of isolated patches, and marc so effectively wrests control away from that team that he doesn't really need to do anything more dramatic. (also a question of the personalities involved - if you paired up jorge with marc as teammates in 2014, that situation immediately looks a lot more volatile.) now, okay, you might query the lack of tension between marc and jorge in 2015... but marc was just too focused on valentino that year, not least because that's the guy he was actually fighting on-track. and he nukes himself out of that title fight fairly early on, so the interpersonal valentino stuff kinda becomes the main source of competitive stakes for him at certain times in that season. 2016 the title fight fizzles out around assen, and then jorge's off into the competitive wilderness himself at first ducati then honda. and with dovi, you've got the obvious problem is that the seasons are in the wrong order. dovi was a serious title threat... but only in the first year of that rivalry, aka 2017. and only for part of that season! at the start of the year, it was really vinales marc was focused on - hence badgering him in pre-season testing - and it really took quite a while for marc and dovi to establish themselves as the two title contenders. as a season, it most closely resembles the chaos of 2006 - which, again, didn't lead to any drama between valentino and hayden in part because it just wasn't as focused on two protagonists. after that, dovi has a poor start to 2018, and by 2019 marc's just flattening everyone. it's basically like if you switched 2003 and 2004 for sete/valentino (though obviously sete's 2003 is a fair bit more competitive than dovi's 2018)... you needed the proper title fight when they were already established rivals. real take - valentino in marc's situation most likely doesn't start a feud with dovi in 2017-19 for the simple reason that he just does not need to. valentino's feuds typically come from some sense of competitive necessity, or at the very least convenience... casey is the strongest example here, where valentino behaves as closely as he ever has to a rational actor and only really escalates that feud when it makes perfect sense to do so. with dovi, given how little threat he posed in 2018-19 and especially presuming there's not a preexisting interpersonal relationship that can be twisted by the injection of competitive stakes (as there was with sete)... why bother?

this, to me, is really the main explanation for prime!marc's feud record. he runs into versions of the aliens that all eventually drop off competitively, and doesn't have to face the same level from them as a collective as he would have in say 2008-09. he doesn't have to face casey. and his sete equivalent is just not as much of a competitive threat as sete was beyond the first year of that rivalry. feuds do need something to get them going - and generally, competing against the same guy across multiple seasons, feeling genuinely threatened by them, is one of the most common and important preconditions. the second alien-related factor is how the aliens themselves had changed. again, we're missing casey... and then with jorge and dani, well, they'd definitely mellowed from where they were at c. 2006-08. there's a few reasons for this. firstly, they grew up. just a little. it's been known to happen. secondly, you do have to mention the sic factor... discussed a bit here and I don't really want to go into too much depth about it, but obviously it does make a difference that jorge and especially dani had gone through this experience where they'd essentially been feuding with another rider who then died. inevitably, that will have played into how they reacted to marc. thirdly, this is a topic for another post but... jorge and dani (and casey) had become pretty determined in 2011-12 not to give the media and fans what they were so desperately yearning for (drama) - in an act of generational solidarity against the concept of beef. it was a bit of a reaction against how they felt constantly misinterpreted by fans and media, as well as essentially being quite contrarian about being incessantly called 'boring' all the time... and a fuck you to valentino and his supporters in the fanbase + media specifically by having things be more civil between the three of them than they had been in times past (plus how they rejected any sort of hard riding). all this means marc has the misfortune to run into versions of the aliens who are actually very much trying not to start feuds. I mean, even valentino wasn't really out to start feuds, it just sort of ended up happening... it's way harder to start a feud with 2013!jorge than it is with 2008!jorge - and the two major jorge feuds that still flare up past 2013 are one where there's already significant history (like, say, jorge thinking dovi was already attempting to 'undermine his morale' when they were both teenagers)

the other situational factor is the time marc has spent in the competitive wilderness. marc was 27 when his arm injury happened. as a point of comparison, that's the age valentino was in 2006 - by which point he has had two major feuds plus a couple more minor ones. in a way, right, you can say marc wasn't doing that badly at that stage... marc is now 31, aka valentino's age in 2010. by then, valentino had added two more major feuds to his collection; he's quite productive in his late twenties you have to say. but marc obviously hasn't been in a situation where he's going to be getting embroiled in great rivalries... the only title he'd been fighting for before this year was champion of crashes. you're less likely to start feuds when you're in the competitive wilderness - there's just not any point and marc quite frankly had better things to worry about. the thing about 2019 is that at the time, people did feel like marc might have been setting up some juicy rivalries... the most common names talked about back then were rinsy and especially fabio. now, as it turned out, rinsy was outshone by his teammate in the one year suzuki was in the title fight, so that probably wouldn't have become a big thing regardless of marc's situation - but fabio... well, I don't know if I think marc would've started feuding with him necessarily, but you'd at least hope for some flavour of interesting rivalry. admittedly, you were giving marc a bit of an unfairly difficult task here, given the age gap equivalent rival for valentino is casey. again, look me in the eyes and tell me you think fabio quartararo isn't harder to start a feud with than casey stoner. starting a feud with casey is easy mode. give me fifteen minutes trapped with him in a conveniently broken lift and I bet you I could make him my lifelong enemy

still, crucially we never got to see that play out. and without the injury, marc would've already had several years to fight pecco and even jorge martin on equal-ish terms, which again just isn't an opportunity he's had until this year. those were some of his prime feud-starting years stolen from him... though also, speaking of casey vs fabio - I mean, that's the other thing, isn't it. whether you want to blame it on this generation of rider personalities or overly professionalised upbringing or the social media climate or whatever, the general willingness to feud with other riders has massively declined in the paddock. even insulting your fellow riders is pretty rare. casey thought the media and fans were too harsh to him back in the day, to put it mildly, but in a lot of ways it'd be far worse for him now. (incidentally, y'know the whole mir apologising to marc thing - can you imagine casey doing that? the correct answer is no, obviously not, how is that even a question, are you insane.) and even that generation was seen as a milder assortment of characters than valentino's lot, who in turn were at times considered oddly friendly by the guys who came before them. there are no max biaggi's in today's motogp. sete failing to threaten to punch valentino after jerez 2005 was considered disappointingly polite by a lot of the media. It Was A Different Time. it's not just that marc's feud rate is flagging - it's the case for everyone, which is how you get acosta offering to try and spice things up between the current title contenders. marc does need someone to feud with, and it doesn't help if they're all being so awfully conflict-averse

so, that's the marc defence case. marc just hasn't had enough plausible opportunities to start proper feuds, and you can't really judge him by how situational factors keep conspiring against him on that front. now, I think that is probably the main reason why it's been quite so dire for him... but still, it's also not quite satisfying to pretend like marc and valentino are quite literally identical in that regard, that they would have ended up with exactly the same profile of feuds in each other's positions. admittedly I don't really believe valentino would have had a radically different number of feuds in marc's career timeline... jorge is if anything the most proactive of the lot, often not even really needing much competitive justification to escalate a feud. still, you do suspect that there are differences in marc's approach that would always make him a little less likely to come up with these high quality feuds. one factor is motivation - valentino generally needs to get more creative in order to motivate himself to win than marc does, cf how much more flighty he gets when things are going well for him. valentino has long had a reputation for using his rivals to motivate himself, building them up as enemies and so on. there's rivals for which this is more the case than others, and it's a bit more complicated than that... but in general, valentino really benefits from these feuds, and is more reliant on them than marc is. marc can also use his rivals to motivate himself, cf 'his record at misano'. the most egregious example is 2019, where he comes in off the back of two back-to-back last lap defeats, hops onto the rear tyres of the yamaha's for much of that weekend until eventually he has that spat with valentino in qualifying that conveniently gives him the fire to reverse the recent trend and snatch victory away from poor fabio on the last lap. that's probably the most proactive he's been about it, and it's the kind of enterprising spirit I'm always happy to see in my riders. but in general... he does also just seem pretty content to reel off victories without any added source of motivation. valentino needs to jump through a few more hoops to get himself going, which happen to be very feud-inducing hoops. marc is far more capable of showing up and just doing the business

there's a related factor here that's a bit more nebulous and it's just... how they go about winning, both races and titles. now, okay, obviously they're both aggressive riders - marc notably so for the entirety of his career, while valentino got more aggressive after leaving honda and having to compensate for a bike disadvantage (having already been a menace in the lower classes). generally marc is the more aggressive rider, with valentino a little happier to pick and choose his moments and only escalating when he really feels he has to. similar peaks, lower baseline of aggression. that being said, valentino relied on one-on-one duels a lot more in winning his titles than marc did. marc's biggest strengths in winning his titles was a consistent and relentless pace advantage over the opposition, where he was able to score higher on his bad days than they were on theirs. his wins were generally more likely to be dominant than valentino's were (though it is admittedly quite hard to tell at times whether valentino was really riding anywhere close to 100% in his honda days) - and the momentum swings in his title fights tend to be because his opponents had made errors. valentino kinda needed the 1 vs 1 thing to be clicking for him to win his titles, because that's what his whole game is built on. 2004 plays out completely differently if valentino doesn't win any number of close duels - obviously welkom, but perhaps even more importantly the mugello/catalunya/assen stretch of the season he entered with a points deficit and left the new championship leader (with his relationship with sete rather worse for wear to boot). 2008 is obviously the poster child for this, as to a slighter lesser extent is 2009, which has been covered elsewhere on this blog and will be again in the near future... marc, by contrast, kinda thrives on losing close duels against his title rivals that are worrying to them because he was so close to victory at his weaker tracks. you can cite various mugello and austria and qatar races here... again, has been discussed elsewhere, but the point is that it's just a bigger part of valentino's game than it is for marc. and if so much in terms of stakes and championship momentum is attached to these single races... well, that's actually pretty much the perfect trigger point for starting feuds. by the latter half of his prime, marc kinda knew he could get away with losing some of these fights, especially against dovi (vs how he allegedly was 'angry' after the rins defeat and really relished the triumphalism of beating poor sweet fabio). valentino could extremely not afford to lose some of these duels if he wanted to win the title, and often ended up souring his relationships with his competitors in the process of winning. again, laguna 2008 is the poster child here - valentino's behaviour in this race is far more significant in determining that relationship's trajectory than him being 'mildly chilly' towards casey for the preceding one and a half years

the last factor kinda feels like the most obvious one: valentino often was just more proactive in his shit stirring, especially off-track. marc tends to do a lot of his psychological warfare on the track, which is discussed in more detail in the mind games post but is obviously reflected in stuff like stalking specific riders endlessly in practise and qualifying. valentino does plenty of on-track psychological warfare and he certainly wasn't averse to the odd towing shenanigans (just ask casey), but he was also more prepared to just fire a few shots in the media. he's capable of more subtlety than he's sometimes given credit for, had a pretty good feel for escalation... which can actually be quite frustrating, because at times you have to take his rivals at their word when they say he was being mean about them in the media - not always easy to find actual examples of that! he'd also get creative about how to exert pressure on his rivals - for which one of the more obvious examples would be getting proxies like his crew chief jb to do the mudslinging on his behalf. still, it shouldn't be too controversial to say he's more likely to attack his rivals directly in the media than marc is - who ramps up the subtlety all the way and usually just gestures vaguely in the direction of saying something that could be a snide remark... but isn't really direct enough to actually be a clear attack. now, if you set baby casey or baby jorge on the case, notoriously sensitive characters that they were, there'd still be a decent chance they take offence at the sort of thing marc says about his rivals... but as it stands, marc clearly prefers this less obvious approach, and this current lot isn't going to call him out on it. and yes, obviously sepang 2015 and the repercussions thereof will have strengthened marc's conservatism in this regard, a wish to avoid any further drama paired with a desire to show that valentino was the problem in that particular rivalry by avoiding any further feuds. and if marc's less likely to be proactive in media mudslinging and is also less likely to find himself in the sort of race that burns interpersonal relationships... well, it's not surprising he'd be less predisposed to feuds, is it

there's some other stuff we could bring in here, like valentino's tendency to play an active role in narrativising his career that fortunately just happens to also makes feuds more likely (topic for another post currently in the drafts). you could talk about how marc is less sensitive than jorge or especially casey, how he's more likely to brush off criticisms and then commit himself to on-track revenge. how he has a lot of low level beef with other riders that has just never quite been given the space or opportunity to grow into a proper feud. how jorge is more impulsive and is likelier to start fights immediately in response to a perceived slight, versus marc who is far likelier to bottle things up. in general, though, I still put most of the blame on circumstance. while valentino is definitely the frontrunner in the feuding department, there's no single correct way to go about starting your feuds - and jorge, for instance, has really showcased an alternative approach that can also yield some very positive results. marc should have been given more opportunities to figure out his own way to start up multiple narratively complex rivalries/feuds. he has some traits that are well-suited to a strong profile of rivalries and feuds, from his on-track aggression to his tendency to play games in the media to his ruthlessness to his ability to take defeats personally and feel threatened by rivals. the towing thing. his behaviour as a teammate. how uncompromising his approach towards riding is. there's a lot of strong stuff there, it just hasn't been given the chance to shine as much as you'd like

all that being said... he still has time! there's no reason to believe next year won't give us what we hope for in that regard, as long as that's a reasonably competitive title fight. and I don't think it'd be fair to pecco and marc to attribute any heated rivalry between them completely or even mostly on valentino - they have enough reasons unrelated to him to desperately want to beat each other. if anything, the valentino factor is unfortunately more likely to make them both a bit more restrained in that regard, wary of the drama of it all... but here's hoping! and they've already built up a bit of history now, some significant on-track encounters - I'd say that in an ideal world they've done more than enough prep work for them to get to feud territory next year. the other obvious name is pedro, a charmingly genre aware child with what a rather pronounced scepticism towards marc specifically, who feels like he would not only be up for a feud with marc but has quite possibly already game-planned what that feud would look like. hey, you never know, maybe I will successfully barter away my soul to finally make yamaha competitive again... let's see if we can try to get that depressed frenchie interested in some proper rivalries once he's back in the game. hopefully, marc still has a few competitive years ahead of him - and hopefully, he'll also get some help from the other side to get something narratively compelling going. I believe in him! remember, valentino pissed away two entire years in his early thirties but still managed to start his most long-lasting and emotionally devastating feud at the age of 36. isn't that inspiring? it's never too late to burn bridges. I for one hope marc still has something rancid in store for us