#the rivalry that should have been!

[gaffney]

And our second semifinal match will pit AXEL KOVAČEVIĆ AGAINST ROBBY KEENE.

[revenancy]

the linden game || ex. 1

I kneel behind the painted wood, set the rifle on the ground, and raise my empty hands into the air. “I’m unarmed, Weller. You fucking coward.” “Like I trust you, Sedger.” An offended scoff, above me. Bray drops down between a pair of thick, high branches in the lintree we picked as shelter, and he brushes broad leaves from broad shoulders, rolling his neck until it pops. “Ara tell you to shoot me?” “Always.” “You going to?” “Not sure yet.” I lean back on my heels and measure him up, trying to figure out how he got into those branches in the first place. He’s a head taller than me, and he’s got to be eighteen stone by now, and I’m mainly just amazed the tree didn’t bend under his weight and throw him out entirely.

THE LINDEN GAME taglist;

@space-writes

[the-black-bulls]

Magna and Klaus? I know they haven’t interacted but they have a lot of parallels

Send me duos or trios and I'll give you my opinion

oooooh 👀

my first take on this duo? Glasses™

my second take on this duo is that I can see myself enjoying their interactions more than I do with klaus and luck, despite the latter sharing several canon moments, buuuut let's be honest magna is such a well rounded character he can work perfectly with almost anyone 😎

my third take on this duo is that they're a classic, so much so it took me a second to confirm that, no, they haven't interacted and if they did it was brief or short, which is a shame because they're the pure embodiment of Senpaihood™

they're passionate, they're loud, they represent two different sides of the world but interestingly share some parallels, plus fire and steel is such a cool combo... I'm really surprised at myself for liking this duo, it's not a favorite, but it's so good it should be canon!

[batsplat]

favorite motogp rivalry not involving any of the aliens ?

you know, the fact that this is so tough shows just how inescapable they've been in the sport. still, I'll give it a shot

you can go several directions here - either stick to the present, or go for stuff this century that's more in the background, or go way way back. I'm reasonably fond of that eighties early nineties period and the varied rivalries they produced between all the anglos... you know, spencer, gardner, lawson, rainey, schwantz, doohan, that lot... (admittedly some haven't massively endeared themselves to me with their post-retirement punditry, but it is ever thus with athletes.) couldn't do that justice here but a few quickfire thoughts

lawson and gardner is one of those fun ones where you have two completely different blokes competing who just fundamentally Did Not Get Each Other at all. gardner was cocky, forthright, brash, whereas lawson was far more reserved, cool-headed, cerebral... and, of course, they didn't didn't just understand each other, they also didn't like each other at all. infamously gardner was not exactly thrilled when his long time rival was signed for honda (gardner's manufacturer) and gardner had to find out by reading the papers

also they shot this safety ad together and apparently didn't speak to each other the entire time, even though they were in close proximity for hours. don't you just desperately want to recreate this with certain riders, hm

anyway, of course there's also rainey and schwantz, probably the one everyone knows... as ever, important they didn't get on and hated to lose each other

all culminated in the dramatic 1993 season, with schwantz determined that it would finally be his year... and it's a classic season, one hears (even if one is unable to judge for oneself), but a title fight with a sad twist when a collision between the two of them at misano ends rainey's career while handing schwantz his only 500cc title. in the end, it also ended schwantz's career, who retired at the end of 1994. of course dorna promised they'd never go to misano again, which they stuck to for a full fourteen years

then again, arguably the vibes were a bit too good back then between riders, like what's all this then (from schwantz)

actually, I suppose none of those were technically 'motogp' rivalries, but. same difference. there's a few in the years after... I do find the whole 1998 250cc season deeply compelling, but it also would feel like cheating because what makes the harada/capirossi thing so fun is that valentino is there acting as the third man. very much the dynamics between all three of them that are so great. plenty of spats in the years after that, but something like dovi/iannone is more just good fun than a proper 'rivalry'. you do generally need some proper development for a real rivalry, and the aliens just monopolise so much attention this century. so you do basically have to fast forward to... well, the last few years, where the most notable ones have been pecco/fabio and pecco/jorge martin

now I do like pecco/fabio conceptually - it's interesting to have this rivalry between two guys who were being moulded into being the marc challengers by their respective manufacturers and then to have had marc suddenly disappear on them. the way it suddenly thrust fabio into the spotlight, how it put all these expectations and pressures on him and essentially made him title favourite overnight... vs how pecco is the closest motogp has had to a dominant force in the post prime!marc era and is constantly uneasily grappling with that legacy. you've got all this uncertainty and insecurity and asterisks and the shadow cast by the greats (who haven't even had the decency to go away completely), the weight of those legacies... also, two kinda funny title fights, if odd ones (especially '22 lol). main problem is that their wildly contrasting fortunes whenever they were title rivals mean they've managed to avoid actually fighting each other on-track. insanely frustrating and the real asterisk for this rivalry

pecco/martin has been strong stuff, yeah. super contrasting personalities, such visibly different riding styles, and considerably more material when it comes to on-track battles than pecco/fabio (still more work to be done though). that intra-manufacturer arc has been fun to follow, this stand-off between ducati's golden boy and the challenger with the eternal underdog mindset. both have a tendency to feel like the world's against them (which is a trait many riders share, sports is such a wonderful breeding ground for victimisation complexes), both are so incredibly unreliable. both rather volatile in their own ways, both battling their own insecurities. also, it doesn't hurt that they've got a bit of shared history as teammates back in the day. would've been interesting to see them as teammates in motogp, curious how jorge reacts to this latest twist... the needle between them has been fun, especially the silly valencia stuff, though I wouldn't mind some more openly hostilities between the pair of them - and I do feel like marc's reemergence has inevitably ensured the two of them are paying less attention to each other. even martin's grand big fuck ducati thing is now more about being rejected in favour of marc than about pecco getting preferential treatment. still, they've got time, could give us plenty more to work with

which is my favourite of those? I don't know... the tricky thing about the older rivalries is that I believe very strongly in evaluating rivalries by actually watching their competitive output and there's only so much of them I can watch. I guess by process of elimination it's currently pecco/martin? for a hot second there I suppose pecco/bez looked like it could be quite interesting, but they didn't really fight for the title and remained friendly so. whatever. it'd be nice if everyone else picked up the slack some time soon

[tonya-the-chicken]

Why are you gay

[boinin]

fandom consensus: Hiori's going to help Isagi score the final goal against Ubers!!!1! Then Bastard Munchen beat PXG and win all their NEL games, lessssgo

me: ah, but what if... Hiori and Isagi flub their goal opportunity, Ubers counter to win the march... aaaaannd Hiori's frustration with the loss motivates him to play, ahead of the PXG game?

[ratwoman161]

Gave the Markovic family a lil' makeover, again inspired by @muckleberryjam <3

Lucia and Mateo practicing their wedding dance

[andrewknightley]

every scene with aveline in da2 is like oh wow aveline woudl be so fucking cool. if we explored this in deep. wouldnt it

[botseeksbot]

[vvitchering]

Who do I have to throw money at to get a Din Djarin novel? There’s so many Star Wars novels, I want one about Din’s life growing up to become the man he is when we meet him in The Mandalorian. I want to read about him going from a scared orphan foundling to a scrappy trouble maker to a young adult with the weight of providing for his tribe on his shoulders. Desperate to make a name for himself because with notoriety comes bigger paydays. Struggling to reconcile the heroic and protective image of Mandalorians he’s carried with him since his own rescue with the reality of being a feared bounty hunter.

[tenpixelsusie]

a heem heem whimper

[seriousbrat]

now that I think about it Dumbledore doesn't even use the word "rivalry," he just says this:

Well, they did rather detest each other. Not unlike yourself and Mr. Malfoy. And then, your father did something Snape could never forgive.”

which is true enough. they did detest each other lol

[ragnar0c]

Caspian mentioned on stream too… I CANNOT WAIT TO GET TO HER. She is literally the worst!!! (In love w/ her)

Who would win… two fully established guilds with an oracle and a mind reader? Or one tall hoplita/ninja?

[talietikasero]

capcom thank you for the wholesome twin sister content

[neitherlightnordark]

he sucks

[wonder-worker]

Didn't edward iv leave his brother Richard in lots of financial difficulties though?

No, he did not. I really don't know where this myth has originated from other than the persistent need to victimize Richard.

Firstly, Edward IV didn't leave Richard anything. Whatever he left was for his own son and heir, Richard's nephew, who Richard usurped.

Secondly, Edward IV was literally one of the rare few medieval kings of England to die solvent. He had managed to break the vicious cycle of plummeting debt and inefficiency that had plagued pretty much every single ruler till then. It doesn't really matter how much money the crown actually had left at the time of his death*, because the fact that he died solvent meant that whoever his successor was (in this case, Richard III), they were going to begin their reign with a financial advantage that no English monarch had enjoyed for the past 200 years. I don't know Richard's fans have convinced themselves that he inherited financial difficulties instead.

As stated by David Horspool, Richard's own historian:

"(Richard III) would try to differentiate himself from his brother, whose ‘unlawful invencions and inordinate covetise, ayenst the lawe of this roialme’ he would later denounce in an Act of Parliament. In fact Edward had managed to set royal finances back on an even keel after the disastrous waste and inefficiency of Henry VI (and all former kings post Henry II), Richard was, initially, the beneficiary of the better practise instituted by Edward IV.”

(The contemporary Croyland Chronicle mentions a main reason that Richard was better prepared to defend his kingship was "because of the treasure which he had in hand—since what King Edward had left behind had not yet all been consumed". They may have exaggerated the money Edward left behind, but either way it shows how contemporaries were aware of Richard's comparative advantages. It's highly ironic that what should have been used to uphold Edward's son was now being used to uphold his son's usurper instead).

Thirdly, Edward IV had presided over a highly effective and innovative combination of financial policies. These included the elevation/increase of royal chamber finance, the enlargement of the crown lands (Steven Gunn calls it "the most extensive royal demesne in medieval English History"), and an increase in royal feudal rights towards the end of his reign, among others**. Most importantly of all, he was actually successful, meaning that whoever followed him would have the huge benefit of having his established and well-attested precedent to continue from. Indeed, Charles Ross has noted how "Henry VII had the great advantage of being able to build upon the foundations laid by his father-in-law". Richard III, who seized the throne just a few months later, would have had the same advantages, as Horspool also notes.

Richard III, in fact, seems to have (temporarily) reversed some of his brother's well-established policies which could be used to gain money. Eg: he abolished benevolences; and he repealed Edward IV's newly established wardships and marriages act in the Duchy of Lancaster "notwithstanding that he conceiveth the said act to be to his great profit … having more affection to the common weal of this his realm and of his subjects than to his own singular profit". If you deliberately reverse policies with immense potential for revenue-raising, I don't know how you can then go on to complain that your brother left you nothing.

In conclusion: no, Edward IV did not leave Richard in financial difficulties. If anything, he left Richard with financial advantages that no king had had in over 200 years.

(Also, just to clarify: the Woodvilles did not steal the treasury. We know for a fact that Elizabeth Woodville did not have any money in sanctuary. The story of a theft was only mentioned by Mancini and either originated in gossip or, more likely, from Ricardian propaganda aiming to vilify them in 1483 by positioning them against the crown.)

*We know for a fact that Edward IV died solvent, but from what I understand, the exact money he had is impossible to know because of his missing chamber records. Contemporaries like Croyland did believe he had substantial money and treasure; on the other hand, Rosemary Horrox has analyzed how his cash reserves were probably relatively low due to international conflicts the previous two years. Either way, like I said, the main thing is that he was the first king in over 200 years to die solvent, which was massively advantageous to his successor. **While his policies were clearly innovative, they weren't all completely original. However, their combination certainly was; they were modified to actually work better; and they were initiated from the beginning of his first/second reign and widespread across the royal lands (rather than in smaller pockets), meaning that they were clear systematic policies. They were also, like I mentioned, actually successful - meaning that they would be the proven precedent that his successors would turn to.