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dirtytransmasc · 3 months

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~ Mother Flower — Spider and Sa'syul in grief ~

Spider and Neteyam's ikran grieve their loss together.

Her name is Sa'syul. "Sa" taken from Sa'nok, or mother. "Syul" taken from Syulang, or flower. Name Translation: Mother Flower.

Spider has lost his baby brother, Sa'syul has lost her fledgling, both are everyone's last thoughts in terms of grief, and both seek each other to soothe the pain.

Note: in canon, according to the wiki, Neteyam's ikran is male, but idc about that, I think Eywa would have given Neteyam an older, motherly, female ikran to watch over him and act as a second mother and he would have loved her.

↓↓↓ fic below ↓↓↓

They're both grieving. They're both missing a piece of themselves. Their boy' gone. His baby brother, her perfect little hatchling. Taken by war, never to return.

Sa'syul had stopped eating. She couldn't bring herself to do it, to go out and hunt, couldn't find it in herself to soar the skies or touch the water or weave the odd mangrove forest. Grief consumed her in her seclusion to the dark of the trees, away from everyone else. All but one boy. The human boy. Spider.

Her boy had loved him, missed him, and wanted things to be better. He had been scared to try and approach him after years of being distant. He wanted to fix it, but didn't know how. Now he never would.

Spider found solace in the forest. He had to be strong for his siblings, not wanting his grief to weigh on them, and wouldn't dare mourn in front of Neytiri or the similarly mourning village, he didn't have the right to.

So he went to the forest to be alone, to scream and cry and hit things to try and make the ache in his chest go away. It never did. it just consumed him, like it did Sa'syul, draining him of energy and will and life.

Both hid away in the forest to keen and starve and wallow.

Neither knew what to do with him gone. How was life meant to continue? How were they meant to keep living? How does one live without her bonded? Her fledgling? What about his baby brother?

It all seemed so impossible. How could they just move on as if he was still here?

She watches him, watches him cry, watches him curl into the hollows of trees and sob, watches him punch at the ground and the rocks and the trees till his knuckles bleed.

He had listened to her mourning songs, her grief filled cries, her agonized calls to the sea, calling for her little hatchling to come back to her, to rise from the waves. He watched the skies to see if she would go out and hunt, but she never did, not once since he had returned to his siblings.

They pity one another. It's impossible not to. Both are withering away. Both are alone. No one hears them.

Until one day, the human boy doesn't come to the forest.

Sa'syul didn't hear him crying as usual, she didn't see him curled up in a hollow, didn't smell the blood from his battered fists in the air.

So she goes looking, wanting to know where he has gone? Why was he not here, with her, in the forest, their place of grief and solace?

She finds him lying in the sandy grass, just on the outskirts of the village, basking in the sun, hands mindlessly petting at the grass beneath him, not caring for his risky choice of a resting place.

He hears the rustling of brush and branches from the forest. Part of him hesitates to turn and look at the potential threat, willing to chance fate, but ultimately he knows better, and shifts his head to look at what's watching him from the treeline.

He sees Sa'syul, truly, for the first time in months. He'd caught glimpses of her in the forest, but never sought to look at the hiding creature. He respected her wishes. She would remain hidden from his eyes if that's what she wished.

The last time he'd actually seen her was when he helped Lo'ak tend the ikran after the last raid. Neteyam couldn't do it because he was being tended to. She had preened his hair a bit when he scratched where her harness had been.

Now she was a pitiful sight, coming out of a fortnight long seclusion. Her figure was weak and thinning, eyes sad, posture tired and shaky.

Withered was the right word for her.

Despite this, she's quick to approach him, shuffling forward on her foreclaws, coming beside him without hesitation, nosing at him with her beak, and sniffing him gently, chirping as she inspects him for injury. When she finds him uninjured, outside of the scabbed wound on his chest, she calls to him, wanting him to follow her.

She wants him to go back into the forest, but he doesn't move. She nudges his leg harder, then his side, trying to force him to sit up. When he doesn't, she gets worried and frustrated. This is what her hatchling's body had been like when she saw him for the last time. She knows this boy isn't dead, not like her Neteyam, but why would he get up?

He's not sure what he's meant to do as she stares at him, clicking at him like he was a chick. He shifts ever so slightly so he can lie firmly on his back, a vulnerable position, but one that is solid and secure. He won't risk any sudden moves, especially as he cries and touches become more and more desperate.

After that, he doesn't move a muscle, trying to avoid her eyes, but not closing his own, not wanting to disrespect and anger her, but he won't show weakness either.

When he doesn't move, she decides to settle into the grass with him, unable to hold herself up any longer and giving into his wishes. Maybe the boy just needed time. Maybe he was exhausted like her and couldn't find it in himself to move. Maybe he just needed to see that it was safe.

But she does the unexpected, at least in Spider's opinion. She rests her head against him, rubbing against his shoulder and chin before laying her beak over his chest and arm, careful of the wound there, her wings spreading to soak up the warmth of the sun.

She keens once more. The warmth reminds her of flying. She remembers she will never fly with her boy again. It hurts.

Spider is awe struck. He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't even know what to feel. He'd come here for a cry, not having the energy to climb through the brush or up into the trees

— Or the dirty looks every time he came back. No one trusted him, always questioned what he was doing in those hours he spent hidden away —

So he had slumped into the grass and tried to convince himself this was all a bad dream and he had just fallen asleep in the forest, back home, and he would wake up and head back to the village and find all four of his siblings alive and well.

And now he had his baby brother's mourning ikran lying on his chest. He doesn't know what he should do, if he should say something, if one wrong move will get him killed.

Sure he had worked with her before and she seemed to like him, this was different than taking her tack off, she was grieving and starving and who knew how she would react to him.

Ikran were flighty creatures on the best of days and this was not the best of days, so he was erring on the side of caution.

What was she even doing here? With him of all people? He had no idea, but listening to the cries she let out caused something in his chest to well up.

He recognizes them.

He understood them.

If there was one thing he understood about this situation, it was her cries.

They were cries of agony, of longing, of grief and mourning. They were screams of a pain so deep you think it must be killing you.

As her calls reverberated through his chest, they felt like all the ones he had cried himself. She missed him, and he did too.

He can't help the tears that gather in his eyes or the sobs that barrel out of his chest. They're silent at first, part of him terrified to mourn out in the open, but the flood gates open as she begins to keen along with him, agonized sounds leaving her as she slumps into her more and more, clearly exhausted, and silent sobs turn to wails.

He finally moved to sit up, trying to escape the head rush and weight on his chest, taking her with him as he did so, shifting her so her head lay in his lap. She coos at him a bit as she nuzzles into his lap, accepting the change with ease.

He rubs a hand over her beak, up over her forehead, down her neck, and under the edges of her riding saddle — Neteyam never got a chance to take it off, he never would ever again, and no one could get close to her after the funeral. So there it had stayed — scratching at the itch that surely lingered there.

"I miss him too, I miss him so much Sa'syul," he sobbed, peering down into his lap, into her eye, fingers reacting the patterns that danced on her skin, "I want him, I want him to come back, I want this all to be a bad dream"

She cries up to him, lifting her head to nudge her beak into her chin and then his cheek, wiping the tears away, wings fluttering with emotion, tail shifting where it laid on the ground.

"Why did he have to come and save my dumb ass? I would have been fine! I would have gotten out on my own and he would still be here..... it's all my fault," he rubs a hand at his face, a realization hitting him like a train, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. He should be here with you... not me."

The second the words fell from his mouth, she snapped her strong jaw at him, not nipping him, but the sound alone shocked him. She sat up from where she lay in his lap, not straying far, but rising to look him in the eye.

She couldn't speak, but she didn't have to. He bowed his head in respect. He didn't agree with her thinking, but didn't make it known.

Before he can even look up, she's nuzzling him again, breathing warm air out of her vents, bringing her wings in front of her, as if to comfort him and cradle him in her arms. He settles into her chest, letting the tears fall and his heart ache. She does the same. But not being alone makes it feel less all consuming.

As they fall apart in each other's presence, Neytiri will catch a glimpse of them, her first born’s ikran wrapped around the demon's child. She watches as Spider cries into Sa'syul's chest, and listens to the ikrans own cries. A deep feeling of dread forms in her chest. Was it anger? Guilt? Grief? Something else entirely? She wasn't sure.

She just knew she hated seeing them that close, hated seeing how he pet at her head and the bases of her kuru's, feeling that the child should not be anywhere near her son's ikran, should not encroach on that scared bond, should not be taking her son's place… yet, she saw the way Sa’syul clung to the boy, the first person she had approached since being shown Neteyam's body, and she knew that the ikran needed this just as much as the boy did.

She would be cruel to tear them apart, and she should probably feel guilty for even thinking about it, for the way she's treated Spider, so poorly he refuses to grieve in her presence, bottling it up until he can disappear.

She doesn't move to stop them. And when Spider comes back to the mauri hours later smelling of ikran, she says nothing.

After that day, Spider will go hunting for Sa’syul, bringing her baskets of fish and fruits, sometimes meat if he can find something good in the strange mangrove forests he's learning to hunt in. They would sit in the sun at the forest line, leaning into one another, sharing their feast with one another. She'd have her fair share of preening him, nibbling at his salt soaked locs and peeling shoulder, and he'd give her a good rub down, loving on her as much as he could.

They'd even play fight now and then, whether it be a spur of the moment event or a fight over the last piece of fruit it didn't matter. It made them smile.

And te words and calls and songs that would be passed between them were their own little secret, they understood things no one else could, in ways no one else could. They may not share the same language, but they saw each other, and that's all that mattered.

Spider would never be Neteyam, would never be her hatchling, or her bonded, not like her boy had been. But he was a hatchling and he had no one else and he understood her so she would watch out for him. She would love him and care for him and keep him safe, because that's what her boy would have wanted.

And being alone was much worse than being with him. He was good and kind and golden and so much like her boy. He never pushed her or tried to bond with her in anything more than quiet companionship. He brought her treats and scratched all the right places and would cheer when she took to the skies once more. It was like a balm to her aching heart.

and he loved her. She was a warm, calm, wise presence. She did not care that he was human. He respected her and she respected him. she would preen him and he would preen her. Soon they would hunt together in the forest. For once things were a two way street. It was nice.

They made it work. They made the grief tolerable.

#literally going crazy over Neteyam's ikran #I want to know everything about her #and I think her knowing Neteyam wanted ti have a better relationship with his big brother and rhen becoming the inly person Spider could-#truly grieve with would be tragic #they've both lost their boy and now they have each other #avatar 2 #avatar the way of water #spider socorro #miles spider socorro #miles socorro #neytiri #avatar #avatar spider #neteyam sully #neteyam #ikran #avatar ikran #I hate how I ended this but oh well

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batsplat · 4 months

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and this from 2017:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

anyway

#anitalianfrie #rosquez #//#sg15 #4693 #society if tumblr allowed you to upload more than one video per post >>>>#I hate how speculative the last few paragraphs are. badly sourced psychological analysis but well #this wasn't actually meant to be a sepang 2015 post bUT this was a follow-up post waiting to be written lbr. give me an excuse etc #anyway this post is incredibly incoherent but. shrug. idk how to fix it so whatever #i've seen a few posts here that slightly have the tone of 'oh if only marc had known how valentino behaved towards casey stoner'#listen. he did know. he probably thought it was fantastic. idk what to tell you #you'll note the dec 2015 quote implies casey 'lost' the off-track battle with valentino which I'm not sure casey would be a massive fan of #marc and vale both had a bit of a case of not like other girls about each other and y'know in a way that's still true. just in a sadder way #batsplat responds #curse tag #idol tag

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