#so maybe he crashed in that le mans too!

[inhidingxoxo3637]

Me pretending to be shocked Acosta crashed at Le Mans for the third year in a row

[batsplat]

This line made me sooooo insaneeeeee

BUT ITS TRUE

they did not expect it from each other

You mention that after sepang 2015 that marc refused to take it lying down and retaliated, would you say that one some level vale expected him to just take it?

And also could you please recount events in which marc also waged mind warfare on other people after the divorce™ I think that the psychological aspects of his style are so incredibly interesting like how in le mans, bezzechi kind of crashed out and how viñales mentioned in post race interview how " when he heard marc's bike he knew it was over"

Thank you for your very valuable contributions to motogpblr, you enrich the experiences of all

right. right! following on from this post... fair warning: 'what was valentino's plan in sepang 2015' and 'what mind games has marc cooked up over the years' are two questions that don't exactly lend themselves to concise responses, though I've done my best to edit this down to a somewhat more palpable length. so *cracks knuckles*. let's do this

first off, sepang 2015. yes, marc did very much refuse to lie down and, yes, he did instead very much retaliate. I'm not sure if I'd say valentino expected marc to 'take it' exactly, though the hope would have been that it would a) make him more cautious around valentino, b) throw him off-balance, and c) make him more error prone. I mean, certainly you'd have to assume he didn't expect marc to react like that because.... well. otherwise, why would valentino have done it? yes, he has repeatedly alluded to having wanted race direction or dorna or whoever to step in, but those guys infamously aren't particularly proactive. and, let's just pretend for a second here that marc really had been plotting to ruin valentino's title - what are you going to do about it if you're the ones responsible for enforcing the rules? even after sepang, when it was reasonable to suggest marc had been messing with valentino in that race specifically, there was only so much they could do. sure, the main reason they didn't penalise marc was because he'd crashed and had in essence already been penalised. but if you want a more drastic penalty, then you're going to have to show that marc is doing something emphatically illegal. I mean, it's not like race direction penalised valentino when he was racing jorge in what can only be described as a cheerfully malicious manner in motegi 2010, at a time when jorge was close to sealing that year's title and the two of them were racing for *squints at notes* p3. they can't actually stop you from being a little shit, you know

this line of argument might be ascribing too much rationality to valentino's actions - maybe he was hoping race direction would do something. it's worth pointing out that one of valentino's later comments (from march 2016) to my reading suggests that valentino had already spoken to race direction several races before sepang about marc's behaviour, but they didn't listen to him. the sepang presser then constitutes an attempt to publicly force their hand... except it still wasn't enough. and a part of valentino surely must have already known it was going to go wrong after saturday's qualifying. the incidents during the practise sessions that weekend weren't particularly egregious, but they involved two riders who were both clearly willing to play games with each other (including in some towing-related shenanigans). crucially it's not really the type of thing that would happen if one rider had been spooked so badly they're making sure to ride on eggshells around the other bloke. at the end of the day, valentino thought he could unnerve and disorientate and unsettle marc - and if you're being generous you could say he at least picked the right target. marc had broadly demonstrated he could be unsettled that year, which jorge had very much not

if you're being less generous you could say 'but it's crazy he's doing this to the bloke who isn't even his title rival'. which is the whole problem from valentino's perspective - he simply couldn't engage jorge in direct combat (and again, this does make it more remarkable he even got it to valencia given one of his big big strengths in title fights was being completely neutralised). jorge has been involved in plenty of great battles over the years, but his 2015 title was won purely on raw pace and having just enough tracks where he was fast and it wasn't raining for things to work out in his favour. it was marc who valentino was continually getting into fights with, whether at argentina or assen or silverstone or... well, even phillip island, valentino fights marc a hell of a lot more than he does jorge. which makes for a weird championship in a lot of ways, but also makes it a bit inevitable that valentino ends up disproportionately focused on a bloke who isn't actually his title rival

if you want to be even less generous, you can say it was a rather radical misread of marc's character from a man who (any conspiracy theories aside) has always seemed to understand marc pretty well. like, this is the thing right, obviously hindsight is 20/20 and all that but can you really imagine any universe in which marc hadn't done something roughly along the lines of what he did that weekend? in a way, this is probably the bit that bothers me the most about the whole thing, just feels like it couldn't have ever achieved what valentino intended it to. I can excuse breaking the heart of the kid who hero worships you, but I draw the line at being kind of dumb

the way I'd break it down is by looking at why he was in a headspace in which he wasn't making good choices, and then consider what his actual thought process (however irrational) might have been. so on the one hand, you've got all the contributing factors that explain the poor decision-making process, that explain why he wasn't thinking clearly. on the macro level, you have the arc of his career and what this title meant to him and how it fits into his desire to win on his own terms and prove everyone wrong and all of that. you have the pressures of that specific season and how it had gradually gotten more and more intense post-assen, the influence of the people around him and how they had allowed/contributed to him getting increasingly distracted from the actual riding as the season went on. this factor obviously includes the man who actually presented valentino with the phillip island telemetry and had seemingly been badmouthing marc for more than two years. you have the arc of valentino's relationship with marc, his belief that marc was a sore loser who only played nice with valentino while he was winning and who valentino thought he had been more than generous to in response to marc's lack of composure earlier that season. this eventually coalesced into a mental list of all the times that year valentino felt marc had fought him differently than he would anyone else, from argentina to assen to silverstone to misano to, of course, phillip island. you have the compressed time scale - four days from the race at phillip island to the presser in sepang, at a time at which valentino will have been at his most exhausted and spent after the travails of first motegi and then phillip island at the closing stages of the toughest season of his career. it's this that creates the sense of urgency, the need to do something now to stop the opportunity from slipping away. and then, of course, on the micro level you have the actual details of the supposed conspiracy that relied on the specifics of how the race at phillip island ended up unfolding... of tyre management and seagull murder and fluctuating lap times and suspicious late race pace and a perfect last lap

which, okay, I think it's fairly obvious that valentino wasn't thinking clearly. but he still must have been intending the presser to do something, something that was different from what it actually ended up doing. now, the way this works in my head is that valentino basically did the equivalent of pressing a big red button labelled 'chaos'. if you do what he does in the presser, that's the inevitable outcome, right: you're ensuring this entire weekend is going to be a complete mess. in theory, you're the one person who's had the chance to mentally prepare yourself for that mess, because you're the person who's pressing the button. you're hoping everyone else will be off-balance, distracted... to some extent it's less about wanting to intimidate marc per se (bad idea!) and more about making sure he has other stuff to worry about. maybe you're hoping marc's going to make some mistakes, crash in ways that aren't caused by a movement on your part that looks suspiciously like a kick, be a little out of it all weekend. I mean, marc did have a tendency to hit the deck when under pressure that year. the hope is at the very least he's going to be a little more cautious, so worried about ruining his reputation that he's not going to attack you too hard. basically, hope he does anything other than what he actually ended up doing, aka throwing himself at you again and again in the race in a sort of agonised fury that paid no consideration whatsoever to his reputation, ruined or otherwise

this is where the sepang 2004 parallel is at its most instructive to me. you're giving everyone something to talk about and you know it's going to be the centre of attention that weekend and you just kind of have to hope that the chaos ends up creating an opportunity. and, for a hot second there, it did look like valentino might have been onto something. he qualified on the front row for only the fifth time that season (y'know his qualifying actually got a fair bit better in 2016, presumably because he just wanted to maximise the number of awful vibes pressers) and he outqualified jorge for only the second time that season (again I don't mean to be rude but, jorge, how the fuck did you almost lose that title what were you DOING). it's pretty unfortunate that the very start of the sepang race played out in the exact perfect way to allow dani and jorge to escape while marc and valentino started divebombing each other. this is the thing right, there are lots of ways that race could have unfolded and it basically could not have gone any worse - and it's helped make valentino's initial decision to blow shit up age particularly horrendously

the other underlying explanation is a somewhat more opaque one. people want to feel good about themselves, they want to have a positive sense of identity along several different metrics like self-worth and moral virtue and so on. it doesn't feel good to lose, and it especially doesn't feel good to lose if you've tried really, really, really hard. a lot of sports psychology is about the challenge of managing vulnerability. there is something inherently vulnerable about competing in the public eye: you are trying hard to win but there is always the possibility that you will lose. if you lose with other people watching, you are making your inadequacy public knowledge. this is why athletes search for explanatory mechanisms - maybe they make a public show of how they weren't actually trying hard, about how they don't actually care that much, or maybe there's something they can blame like the machinery or injury or the team not being on their side or whatever. maybe there's someone to blame. a narrative of sabotage allows you to preserve belief in both your own ability and your own self-worth; it is the perfect explanatory mechanism. and to some extent, this type of thing is necessary - you're not going to be able to compete well unless you have high self-belief to the point of delusion, which means you do have to tell yourself all kinds of things to keep the faith. but paradoxically, these explanatory mechanisms are also incredibly dangerous, because you cannot compete to the fullest extent of your ability if you are not throwing yourself into what you are doing in your entirety, without any restraint or self-defence. you have to be open to experiencing the pain of defeat in its rawest form to be at your best. you have to be willing to go to those infamous 'dark places' within yourself to win. the moment you are thinking about how you will explain your defeat, chances are you've already lost

but hey, I've never competed in a motorbike race before, what would I know of the psychology of it all? let's get the words of someone who should know a little more than me:

Looking back, what I said about wanting a bike that could win at Welkom, well, that was a way of boosting morale, an attempt at wishful thinking. You can't demand something like that. And even if you get it, there's no certainty you'll win. But then again, we riders always say all sorts of things. Sometimes we believe what we say, even when it sounds crazy, other times we're just being hopeful and, still at other times, it's all an exercise in self-delusion. We try to convince ourselves of something, because ultimately, every time you step on the track, words don't matter, and it's just you, the bike and your opponents. In fact, that's the only time you really have a clear picture of things. When you're actually on the track, racing against your opponents. That's when you know where you are and where the others stand. You know how your bike is doing and how those of your opponents are faring. That's the moment of clarity. Then, you can say whatever you like to everyone else: your chief mechanic, your mum, your girlfriend, the press... but, deep down, you know the truth and you know it with crystal-clear clarity. You can tell people you fell because the bike didn't follow the trajectory it was supposed to follow, or tell them that you're actually really fast, but the bike simply isn't. Inside you, however, you know the truth. You know you fell off because you made a mistake, or because your opponent is simply faster than you. And the opposite is also true. Deep down, you know whether your victories were deserved. You know if you won races on the turns, when it's down to your ability as a rider, or on the straightaways, when it's all about the power of the engine. You know the others are looking to make excuses when they say you beat them just because the bike was better. I always knew the truth behind each of my victories, and behind each of my defeats, too. I knew exactly why and how I won or lost. And so, at the end of 2003, after winning everything in sight with the Honda, I was certain I could win with another bike. But, of course, until I actually did it, I couldn't be truly certain. Thus, I set off on my journey, in search of that place where certainty meets truth.

(sidebar: I find it funny how the bit about straight line speed reads like just an extremely obvious dig at casey in his ducati days but, published in 2005, your honour he's innocent)

what valentino describes in that passage is the awful, inescapable secret at the heart of all competition: at the end of the day, you do know. you can only do so much to protect yourself from the truth. you have to tell yourself a story, even if it's crazy, engage in all manner of self-delusion to throw yourself into the field of battle again and again and again - where inevitably you are going to lose, again and again and again. any great athlete has to start out at least a little delusional, for there is something inherently insane about thinking you will be one of the very best in the world in your field. eventually, much of that delusion may turn to reality for the chosen few, but the delusion never completely goes away because there is always more to win and always more losing to do along the way. when the delusion stops, so does your career. valentino's endless capacity for storytelling and self-delusion is inherent to his success - he would not have been as good as he was if he had not found all these stories to tell himself, all these reasons to believe, to keep motivating him, to wring special performances out of himself when he needed them most. he told stories that were ridiculous until he turned them into reality. if valentino were anyone other than the person who killed his tenth title in sepang, he would not have won the other nine in the first place

and yet, chances are, valentino already had lost headed into sepang. chances are, he knew as much. chances are, he chose the kindest possible story to make sense of it all. at the very least, what he wanted to do was expose the truth as he saw it - make sure that everyone in the world knew what marc had done to him even if it didn't end up saving his title campaign. but in exposing one truth, at the same time he managed to obscure a different one. because in the end, certainty never did meet truth in 2015, because we'll always have a question mark about what would have happened if valentino hadn't said what he had said in that press conference, what would have happened if marc had reacted differently, what would have happened if race direction hadn't handed out penalty points or if marc hadn't been so hurt and angry he was unwilling to take risks against jorge in valencia. yes, of course it's likely that jorge would have won anyway, but we don't know that. it's 2006 all over again, isn't it? there's a likely winner, there's maybe somebody who should be winning, but there's never any certainty. that's why we line up on sunday, or so the cliche goes. the main lasting success of that press conference is that it has cast a shadow over the whole championship - not just in the sense of making the whole thing unpleasant to think about, but in the more literal sense of concealing the realities of that title fight, of generating ambiguity as to how it all might otherwise have played out under more 'normal' circumstances

except, of course, valentino has told us himself that he does know the truth about all of his victories and defeats. of course he knows jorge was faster than him that year, which is why he wasn't trying to win that title on pace. by any reasonable standard, there's no shame to that, not at that stage of his career and not against that level of opposition. there's plenty of ways in which valentino was the stronger rider that year, still, somehow, and enough sliding doors moments that would have given valentino just enough points and granted him a completely deserved title. but of course it was still frustrating, and it was frustrating to be reminded constantly in the paddock - including by marc - of how jorge was the faster of the two of them. valentino knew he couldn't beat jorge on pace, which is why he never tried to, but it still wasn't easy. it still required him to just... put away his ego, ignore all the snide remarks about his speed, ignore marc's digs and jorge's cockiness, and just devote himself to winning the title in the only way he could. that's the heart of 2015: it's all about valentino suppressing his worse instincts right until the moment he doesn't. it's the pressure, it's all the blows his ego has taken that year...

and of course, it's also marc. at the end of the day, it'll always come back to that - the fact that marc had made himself into someone who had the power to genuinely hurt valentino and how he then managed to make himself a target of valentino's suspicions (topic for another post). going into sepang, valentino already knew that more likely than not he was going to lose the title, and he decided he blamed marc. at the very latest during the race, he knew he was almost certainly going to lose the title, and now he definitely blamed marc. that's how it goes, isn't it... valentino's reasons for saying what he said in the press conference were complicated, but marc's actions then proceeded to simplify everything. any uncertainty, for valentino, was removed by that race. it was stripped away even further, if possible, by how marc approached the valencia race and his decision that he wasn't going to risk anything - not when it could help valentino. their whole tragedy, of course, is that if you had placed valentino in marc's shoes that weekend at sepang, he would have done the exact same thing

which is unfortunately as smooth a transition as I can come up with to stop discussing valentino's psyche and starting discussing marc's. let's talk mind games

the first point that's worth stressing is this: most of the mental pressure that riders exert on each other happens on the track. I think this is where 'mind games' becomes a bit of a tricky term, because inherently the connotation there is that you're doing something a little sneaky, a little underhanded to get under the skin of your opponent. but valentino has said it himself: you need to be performing on-track for any of this to work. and it goes beyond that - the on-track performances are key in determining what kind of psychological pressures you are exerting on your opponent. ideally, this is a symbiotic relationship where, as valentino puts it, the off-track 'work' that makes the opponents 'suffer' is used to... well, just back up what you're doing on the track, to make sure they're getting the message. to just play with them a little in a way that is conducive to bringing about further on-track success

so, in the interest of not getting bogged down in semantic debates about what exactly counts as playing 'mind games', I'm going to throw out the term for now. I think it's interesting in itself that this phrase is how people refer to that kind of behaviour, something about how it comes across as just a little derogatory, a little suspect... but we're going to ignore that. it's completely useless to discuss 'mind games' as this kind of ethereal higher-plane tactic that only happens in press conference rooms and on three hour long podcasts, as if it's somehow disconnected from the reality of what's actually happening on-track. (on-track behaviour is also at times referred to as mind games - but less frequently, and it tends to be used more for behaviour in non-race sessions.) it's also a bit of a sleight of hand: there's not anything inherently more 'honest' or 'straightforward', anything less 'psychological', about deliberately bullying someone on the track versus saying something snide about them to the media. what we are interested in here is the question of mental pressure, how riders exert it on other riders, and how riders go about working on the suppression of their rivals. basically, for a more fun term, think of anything you'd consider to be psychological warfare and go from there (the ask does actually specify mind warfare, which feels like a happy middle ground)

and just to reiterate this, the vast majority of the psychological work valentino himself did on his opponents - including in ways that marc has gone on to emulate - was done on the track. a race like laguna seca 2008, which relies so heavily on tactics and valentino's assessment of casey as a person and what message valentino decided to send casey that day... well, it may have had its effects reinforced off-track, but fundamentally that's still a heavily 'psychological' victory that enraged and unnerved casey through what valentino was doing during the race. and if you're assessing valentino's 'mental game' while leaving out laguna 2008, you really might as well not bother

so what we're looking at here isn't going to be exhaustive, but it's still going to hopefully cover most of the major aspects in a way that gives a sense of that integration between the off- and on-track. now, coming up with a list of examples isn't all that easy, because first of all... man, marc's been around for a long time by now... if we recounted every minor incident with another rider, we'd still be here by the time twenty to thirty years have passed and valentino finally gives marc a call. second of all, marc does undeniably leave less of a paper trail than valentino. partly he has objectively gotten himself involved in fewer feuds (though I'd argue there are also circumstance-related factors there), partly he's also been warier of how he approaches this kind of thing as a direct result of sepang 2015, and partly it's just a question of personal style

valentino tries to suffocate you with the paper trail, leveraging his skills at manipulating the media to make your life unpleasant, to throw distractions in your direction, at times to make sure you are overwhelmed by the frenzy and the noise and the chaos. all this, obviously, he does in addition to making your life on-track as miserable as possible. marc prefers a slightly quieter approach, maybe an indirect dig here or there, a habit of letting you know on the track if he's decided he has a problem with you. which means that a lot of what people consider marc's 'mind games' basically go something like this: a) rider does something to piss marc off (this can just be 'beating him'), b) marc does something dubious to them on-track, c) rider complains about marc, and finally d) marc goes ?? idk why they're saying all that but not really my problem :) and goes along his way

but that does make it a little tougher to actually provide a good overview of what he's doing - because, at the end of the day, I too can only be so certain that he's attempting to fuck with rivals. that's the nice effect of it, right, you get these statements from other riders where they're complaining about marc and broadly speaking I do believe them when they say he's being a little shit again... but it's a little harder to prove that this is his intention. which means they also end up engaging in a form of shadowboxing, where they think he's messing with them and they say he's messing with them but it feels kind of one-sided and silly and like maybe they're simply imagining things. which must be just... incredibly annoying. god

in a way, the best proof we have that marc regularly fucks with his opponents is that everyone in the paddock is more or less agreed in their belief that he is constantly engaging in psychological warfare. you've got other riders saying that marc is continually dabbling in 'mind games', you've got journalists on their podcasts saying that marc is always messing with people and is an awful teammate to everyone who isn't his brother etc etc, and you kind of assume they'd be the ones to know. though, if anything, this can mean they sometimes have a tendency to overshoot, which is how we got endless speculation at the start of this year on whether marc was lying to people or sandbagging or whatever when he was busy adapting to a new bike. sepang isn't irrelevant here - marc became more closed off and private and secretive and circumspect about his real feelings as a direct result of how bad that whole experience was for him. sometimes it feels calculated to unnerve his competitors, and sometimes it does seem more about just protecting himself. but that's the thing, right - if you acquire a reputation for "mind games", then people will think you're fucking with them even when you're not. which can be useful! but, as should be obvious, it demonstrates that just because somebody is accusing marc of engaging in gamesmanship, doesn't mean it's actually true (which is also of course the case for valentino)

^'who's most likely to play mind games in a press conference?' winning here! alex rins hands on hips we will get to you in a bit

all that being said, we do have plenty of fairly clear examples of the ways marc tries to fuck with his opponents, so let's get to those. here are the elements I'll focus on: 1) an explanation of how the on-track exertion of psychological pressure works, in races as well as outside of them, 2) intra-team dynamics, and 3) some specific examples of how the on-track and off-track tactics are integrated. again, far from exhaustive - the examples are supposed to be more akin to illustrating marc's approach rather than definitively listing every instance in which marc has exhibited a particular behaviour. the streamlined approach, if you will

so, let's start with the actual racing. the aspect you bring up in the ask: the intimidation. bez doing his sad little crash out of p2 in the le mans sprint, maverick thinking it's so extremely over the moment marc came too close in the main race. I've edited this section down a lot to avoid getting too into the weeds here, but let's just give the brief sparknotes version of how this intimidation works:

speed: if you are not capable of performances that unnerve your opponents, obviously you will not unnerve your opponents. no shit. marc's sheer pace is terrifying in its own right... it makes you wonder if that cushy gap you have to him is quite as cushy as it looked a lap ago. how often he seems to be able to access something special, how it piles on pressure in the context of a title battle to know that he is fast pretty much everywhere. the speed does a lot of his work for him in the intimidation department, nothing fancy required

circumstance: so, say you've got an alien behind you. not to name any names... but there are some aliens where, if they are having a good weekend, they wouldn't be behind you in the first place. that doesn't mean the alien can't still be plenty scary... but when they're at their best, they're dominating out front and so are less 'threatening' when they're sitting on your rear tyre. when things aren't going their way in a given weekend, you maybe don't have quite so much reason to be worried. marc (similarly to valentino) is a lot more flexible in how he wins his races - which might mean he's looking very ominous from say p5 at the end of the first lap. there's less possibility of respite, less chance that if he qualified badly, he has the decency to still be slow come sunday. if you find yourself on the same bit of track as marc... that's probably not great news for you in any weekend

aggression: the obvious one. marc isn't as afraid to crash as everyone else is, he's willing to go for it if he's given half a chance - which he never fails to remind people of. he said it about half a dozen times at le mans this year, including with his competitors in the same room. convenient when you have such an immutable character trait you couldn't do anything about even if you wanted to, which also just happens to make you terrifying to fight with. sometimes he mixes up this rhetoric a bit - e.g. in 2016 after his messy 2015 he did talk plenty about his newfound maturity. still, not bad if his opponents are constantly reminded of how unyielding he is... which is of course part of the reason why he bangs on about it so much

(on the flip side, while it is obviously in his best interest to barely say a word against hard racing because it would make him come across as a massive hypocrite, marc has this nice little habit of reframing his opponent's moves as just not being particularly sensible in that situation. look at how he talked about the pecco portimao crash this year - sure, it's a racing incident, but it also wasn't "necessary" to fight like this for fifth/sixth place given pecco had a championship to consider. pecco's move was "too optimistic" - and, my favourite bit, he would "learn" from what had happened. which is nicely condescending, and a good way for marc to criticise aggression in a more circumspect manner: don't call your opponent dangerous, call them an idiot instead)

tactics: linked to the second point - part of the reason why valentino instantly recognised himself in marc and has always acknowledged what a clever and tactically astute rider he is. the other aliens to varying degrees tended to prefer the 'start fast and fuck off' approach to winning races. by contrast, it's hard to really pinpoint what an 'average' race win would look like for either valentino or marc. they are capable of the 'dominate out front' victory (marc historically more so than valentino), but they also have a bunch of other ways of winning races that all produce their own psychological effects on their opponents. to give a few brief examples, you've got the 'stalking and studying' approach, closely tailing opponents and gradually ramping up the pressure while you analyse where they're strong and where they're weak before eventually making your move. you've got the 'comeback ride', which is frustrating in how it means the field is basically never guaranteed a break from these assholes - this is all about relentlessness and generating a sense of inevitability. you've also got the 'fucking around before fucking off' approach, where you get involved in a scrap for much of the race and it looks like you and your opponent(s) are on equal footing... before suddenly pulling the pin and disappearing off into the sunset. there might be good reasons for marc and valentino to stick around that don't just amount to 'playing with their food' (though there is that too) like tyre preservation or figuring out grip levels in the wet or whatever. nevertheless, it's intensely demoralising for the competition, because it almost feels like the whole thing was a lie, an illusion of a fair fight... they've been tricked into thinking they had a hope of emerging victorious. obviously, all these different ways of winning are also investments for the future, so that next time your opponents are in xyz situation you generate uncertainty and doubt and preemptive frustration in their minds, as they wonder whether they can really get the better of you this time

now, obviously a lot of this is just about marc's natural strengths as a rider - but the point is that these operate on the psychological level as well... and you can gently encourage this with a little bit of extra off-track 'work'. what you say about your own aggressive riding, what you say about your opponents' aggressive riding, any impression you want to reinforce in the minds of your competitors. there's a lot of long-term reputation management involved here. (a little more about these reputations in the context of argentina 2015 in this post.) most of the 'intimidation' happens on-track, and it's also a result of deliberate riding choices that aren't just about winning any given race. of course, it's helpful if you are particularly adaptable to different race situations, if your flexibility allows you to reinforce the impression that you are always a threat. if successful, you can make sure your opponent is already mentally beaten by the time they know you're coming for them. (I'm not personally massively a fan of the term, but this kind of thing is what generally counts as the 'aura' an athlete has.) ideal, really - to be so intimidating your opponents can't even put up a proper fight

then, of course, there's the stuff that happens outside of races but in practise and qualifying instead. a perfect opportunity to be a dick to others on-track without the stresses of a race. which means... well, look, we can't ignore marc's habit of sitting on other riders' rear tyres when they're attempting to hook together a fast lap. the towing thing radically escalated when the honda was at its least competitive post-2020, but marc was definitely very much already at it before that. (incidentally, one of the cuntiest things he has ever said was when he pointed out in 2019 that he was leading so many laps in the actual races that he wasn't getting much chance to study the other riders there.) nobody really needs me to list every single towing-related controversy marc has involved himself in over the course of his career, but it might be a good idea to get the thoughts of somebody who knows a thing or two about fucking with his rivals. valentino himself has gotten the towing treatment a few times over the years courtesy of marc, and both pre- and post-sepang his stance has generally been 'listen it's a dick move but smart play, gotta hand it to him'. take this from catalunya 2019:

and y'know, he gets to the heart of the whole matter rather nicely -thanks to the local marc marquez understander for logging in years before the discourse about it became such a big thing. marc follows other riders around because it's a great way to study them and he also does it because he knows it's extremely annoying. it's annoying both because you know you're helping out another rider who you don't want to be helping out, and because it is just quite distracting to have someone that close to you, being able to hear their engine, etc etc. one thing that changed after 2019 was how necessary it was for marc to do this... marc went crazy with it at a time when it was often the only way he could put together a decent lap (and also because it played into the strengths of the honda, for a given value of the word 'strengths' - he's spoken a fair few times this year about how he finds it harder to follow other bikes on the ducati) (not for lack of trying). but valentino is also spot on in that marc is excellent at choosing his victims, how marc understands you have to pick someone who needs to put a good lap together and has no choice but to drag you along with them

I mean, think about why he just couldn't seem to leave poor pecco alone for a while there. first of all, pecco is fast, and marc clearly feels quite comfortable following him around. secondly, pecco tended to put himself in positions where he really needed a good lap because he'd gotten himself stranded in q1 or only had one more shot at a lap or whatever. plus he was fighting for championships, so he couldn't afford to fuck marc over out of sheer spite. thirdly, pecco has been fighting for titles for the past few seasons, making him one of the riders to beat. which means that marc was motivated to a) study him, and b) fuck with him - both of which were investments for a future in which he could fight pecco properly. makes complete sense! insanely irritating if you're the victim, which is half the point. also helps that pecco very obviously found the whole thing frustrating and tiring and really hated being asked about it, but also was equally obviously adverse to kicking up too much of a fuss about it for various reasons. the perfect victim

on the flip side, marc has been known in the past to be quite careful about who he is giving a tow, like for instance this from brno 2014 (ironically the first race that year marc did not win):

The two front row slots for the Ducatis were a problem for Rossi, dropping the Movistar Yamaha rider down to seventh, and the start of the third row. Rossi joked darkly about Marquez’s strategy, claiming that he was giving the Ducatis a tow to put them in between him and his main rivals. “For sure he is clever,” Rossi said. “He doesn’t pull Jorge, me or Dani, always a Ducati.” Marquez laughed at the suggestion, admitting only half of Rossi’s accusations. He certainly didn’t look for Ducatis to give a tow, but he would not give one to his rivals, he said. “It’s your decision to close the gas,” Marquez told the press conference. “If it’s Dani, Jorge, or Valentino behind me, for sure I will close the gas, but if it is another rider, it doesn’t matter.” That is in itself an admission of just how little competition Marquez sees. He is prepared to give anyone a tow, except for the other factory Honda and the two factory Yamahas. In effect, he is dismissing the threat from any other riders. Harsh, but fair.

and, y'know, if it were so easy then everyone would do it. you need a certain level of skill to actually pull off the towing bit, which marc is clearly very good at. you also need to have a good feel for picking your moments, who to bully, when to slot in behind them, all that kind of thing. and, lastly, you also need the sheer power of shamelessness on your side. which, that should more or less cover it... there are some real gems like mugello 2019 where marc accused ducati of ordering pirro to shadow him and then played a complicated game of chicken to catch a tow from dovi and snag pole, or mugello 2021 where marc was so determined to follow vinales through q1 that he was even alert enough to dive back into the pits with him as vinales tried to get rid of the small train of guys following him... but overall, I think valentino did a pretty good job at summing up the main points for me, so let's leave the towing discourse at that. returning to catalunya 2019, obviously it is also extremely valentino that he then had a sneaky little look at the honda's dashboard 'just out of curiosity'. truly a meeting of the greats, those two, we'll never find their like again

let's move on to intra-team fuckery - which is all about suppression of rivals. your first job is to beat your teammate, and the first arena of trying to fuck with your opponents is what happens within the team. my general assumption here is that marc's particular approach is less inspired by valentino and more just the result of his natural competitive instincts (which, to be clear I do think is true for much of the tactics described in this post). it's also not something... I know the ask specifies post-2015, but I don't think it's something that changed after sepang, except insofar as marc had won the most important teammate war of his career and didn't need to be quite as aggressive towards dani any more. given the continuity between the intra-team situation pre- and post-2015, I'm not going to make much of a distinction here and just rattle through some details about the intra-team dynamic from the start of marc's time in the premier class

so, the first bit of context that has to be acknowledged: a lot of the dani/marc war wasn't really fought between the two of them directly. both of them had... well, rather drama-happy managers, who a) were willing to do a lot of the mudslinging on the behalf of their charges, and b) were pursuing agendas of their own to establish themselves within the honda hierarchy. I think it's fair to say that not all of what they were getting up to was necessarily just about acting in the best interest of their riders - and it is an internal power struggle that could've had pretty disastrous consequences for marc in particular. here's a longer write up I quite like about the situation within honda in 2013, which came to a bit of a head with the phillip island fiasco (when marc was disqualified as a result of failing to change bikes early enough). just a few excerpts (though again I'd recommend reading the whole thing):

(gabbarini is pecco's crew chief these days by the way, small world.) so obviously a lot of this is kind of dumb, not least because marc came very close to losing that year's title to a yamaha rider as a result of all this behind the scenes bullshit. it also is just the kind of thing that happens when you lock a bunch of big egos into a small space within a competitive environment - and is a nice little insight into the early year machinations that were going on as marc and his team attempted to establish themselves within honda. which they did in part by pushing through key personnel changes that replaced anyone too closely associated with the old regime... and there's also the less pressing but interesting question of whether (as casey believes) marc's team pushed casey out the door because they felt 'threatened'. this sort of backroom manoeuvring is part of the game, albeit an unsavoury one, and great athletes do have a tendency to be ruthless in asserting themselves within team environments

of course, by 2014 marc was asserting himself ever more on the track. dani might not have yet fully accepted the number two status, but he was increasingly pushed into a position where he knew he had to play along, to not kick up too much of a fuss in his own best interest. did that perhaps play a role in how all those 2013 complaints about marc's aggressive riding - not least when it caused dani to crash in aragon and effectively ended his title bid - died down a little in the following years? who's to say! of course, marc has been pretty open in admitting his abrasive approach to the teammate dynamic, which he was kind enough to shed some light on more recently in marc marquez all in. I assume pretty much everyone reading this will have watched marc marquez all in, but for reference I've still included a transcript of the relevant bits of marc marquez all in. here's marc talking about the teammate relationship:

Dani and I, now we get along great, and he's an amazing person. But in 2013, 2014, there was a lot of tension. He was the king, the number one. People listened to what he said in the box. Everyone expected something from him... The team was focused on him. And out of nowhere comes this kid. A kid in his first year after Moto2. And well, first race and... boom. Second race, boom. And it's a hard pill to swallow. [...] I've never been a nice teammate. I've always liked to... You've got to make your teammate's life impossible, if you can.

and dani's take:

Those years there was a lot of tension because we were fighting for the same thing. He knew about my potential. That's why he always tried to stick to me, so I had no space to really take off. [...] He's very competitive. That's his strong suit, how competitive he's always been with everything.

and then at the end of that segment, marc says the following:

It is true that after 2015, 2016, everything calmed down, and we had a good, normal teammates relationship. After a while, I think you learn to accept the situation, right? It happens, and I'm sure it'll eventually happen to me too.

which I suppose is a fairly diplomatic way of saying the relationship got better when marc had won the war and dani had to 'accept' his lot in life. the king is dead long live the king, etc etc. intra-team competition is perfectly natural, but of course that doesn't mean all riders approach that dynamic in the same way. dani's "I had no space to really take off" is a nice way of putting it I feel, how he talks about marc 'sticking' to dani, marc's determination to just continually work away at his teammate... to suppress him, to smother him, to ensure that not only was marc winning the war but he would keep winning the war. marc made that team his own and he ensured that dani's continued presence in that team was happening on marc's terms. a job very well done

marc is also remarkably open in describing one of the specific tactics he utilised to achieve the desired effect in suppressing his teammate. in marc marquez all in, he admits to intentionally giving misleading bike feedback when it could give himself an advantage over dani:

But back then we had a great bike, everyone worked well. So if a replacement piece worked for him, I didn't like it, "This doesn't work. I want this one. I want this replacement piece, since I'm leading it. I want it. Don't give him this." "You want to try it?" "Yeah, sure." But I didn't want to.

now, listen, I'm sure this kind of thing does happen. that being said. marc, come on, not everyone is engaging in this degree of underhanded behaviour wherein you're intentionally hampering your teammate's efforts to improve the bike just to ensure you continue to have an edge over them. let's make a casey stoner comparison, given that I am legally obligated to mention him in most of my posts. he is actually relevant here though, as dani's pre-marc teammate and the bloke who would have more likely than not been marc's teammate if he hadn't retired. casey talks a bit in his autobiography about working with pedrosa at honda, mentioning how it was nice to have a teammate with a similar pace so they could actually develop the bike together. he also says this:

I never felt threatened by a teammate because I have never had one that I felt was consistently quicker than me and throughout my career our biggest competition always came from outside the garage. Still, I have great respect for Dani, our partnership was a fruitful one and I think we worked really well together to help Honda build their best ever bike in the RC213V.

while I do quite like the implication that casey would have felt 'threatened' by any teammate who could match him, I think it's fair to say that this is a pretty different approach from what marc's describing above. of course, casey could be misleading us... but, call me naive or gullible or whatever, I really just don't think casey was pulling that kind of shit on his teammates. I'd go so far as to say that this kind of thing is maybe not quite as widespread as marc portrays it as being. it might also be worth quickly bringing in casey's thoughts on such a combative style of teammate relationship (from 2009):

probably for the best we never got to see how that particular teammate dynamic would have played out! also, luckily enough, we do actually have somebody who can corroborate that casey and marc behaved differently as teammates. let's get the thoughts of dani himself (april 2023, so after marc marquez all in had been released):

“At least in the team we were in, HRC, it was like this: the one who goes the fastest is the number 1, the one who chooses the parts and the one who determines the direction a bit. “When [Marc] arrived, I was in that position and with the races and the championships he took that position and decided in his own way. When I was directing more the evolution of the bike I had the parts first and I never thought in [my] own way.  “My way has always been to do the best for the team, and if I have the best parts to make the bike the best, I'm not thinking about my rival right next door, but about Yamaha, Ducati... whoever the rival was, because I consider myself part of the brand. Later he had that other way of doing it.  “I don't think I was missing [the same way as Marquez], because my way of being was that one. For example, before Marc came in, with Casey Stoner, he never played that game either."

so, yeah, maybe not completely universal behaviour. I don't know, I do find it kind of charming that marc has this very 'ah well everyone does it' attitude. now quite honestly I personally would not admit to this sort of behaviour even in confessional amazon prime documentaries - and it's fascinating what kinds of things he has a filter about and at what times he just decides to be, uh, very candid. I mean, I suppose this is a nice way of publicly forewarning any teammate who isn't your brother that you're going to try and make their life miserable. so that's something. anyway, marc did obviously win the internal war - which is the kind of thing that does matter if you're trying to impose your will on bike development... even if you're just doing so to fuck with your teammate. so by 2016 you reportedly had a situation where marc's direction was being followed to the extent that it harmed all the other honda riders:

But Pedrosa claims he had no input in the decision, and is now paying the price of having to compete on a bike built around Marquez’s preferences. The 30-year-old also said that he knew he would be in for a difficult time in 2016 as early as the Valencia test last November. "In the end we didn't have many specs [of engines], but out of the ones we had I wouldn't have chosen the current one,” Pedrosa admitted. "When we picked the bike I already knew things would be very hard. I already knew how the bike handled in November. But it is what it is. The choice of bike that we have was [Marquez's], I had nothing to do with it. For the moment, he's ahead and he deserves to be. He likes the bike, he adapts better to it, while I struggle more. That's obvious, you can see it in the results and in the way we ride." Pedrosa said the poor performance of Honda’s satellite bikes this season in comparison to previous years was yet further evidence of how the RC213V has been designed around Marquez’s needs. Cal Crutchlow’s sixth place at Catalunya has been the best result for a Honda rider besides Marquez and Pedrosa of the campaign so far. “You have to think of the team, not only about yourself,” Pedrosa added. “If you look at the rest of the Hondas, they are a lot further behind than two or three years ago, when you had [Stefan] Bradl or [Alvaro] Bautista finishing fourth or fifth. Now they are 10th and further [back]. So we have to try to get the other teams to work too."

obviously, to some extent teams following the lead rider and prioritising their feedback is completely natural and even wise - they're the one who is winning for you. it does also end up being a bit of a self-perpetuating cycle that makes the rider already winning more likely to continue winning, which helps explain why these riders are even so invested in their internal bickering. all that being said, of course it's worth noting that different riders conceptualise that teammate relationship differently, and the extent of intra-team cooperation can vary drastically. marc has a very particular understanding of that relationship when he is paired with anyone who is not his brother - one that is generally speaking pretty far along the combative end of the scale

unfortunately, we never really got to see how bad the whole marc and jorge (also not the easiest of teammates) situation could have gotten. in 2018, their relationship was definitely better than say 2013, but also jorge was still perfectly happy to criticise marc - whether after argentina, or that whole aragon incident they had

(marc did call jorge afterwards to check in on him, which jorge did appreciate.) but jorge never had the pace in his honda days to threaten marc, so nothing really got going between the two of them. if memory serves, the closest we ever got was catalunya 2019, where they had a bit of a coming together in practise - incidentally the first (and in retrospect only) weekend that season where jorge had potentially dangerous pace

But Lorenzo’s apology seemed to clear the air. Marquez explained that once he “was calmer” and the fear of dropping outside the all-important top ten had subsided, he could see the #99’s point of view. Marquez also noted how he was twice penalised in 2018 for similar actions to Lorenzo’s in FP3. He then pointed out how neither his team-mate, nor Joan Mir, who blocked the reigning world champion at one point during the Mugello weekend, were punished. Speaking to Spanish journalists after Saturday’s press conference, Marquez, said, “He [Lorenzo] apologised to me, because he was in the middle of turn three. While people can say it's only free practice, it was the third one, in which the last laps are like qualifying. “I was so angry because I knew that my lap was the one to enter Q2 directly. In the end I finished ninth, the worst classification of the year. It’s clear that last year I was twice in the middle of the track and on both occasions I was penalised. At Mugello I came across [Joan] Mir, we touched and everything and then at the end of FP3 it happened again with Lorenzo. But this happens... When it does everyone has to be judged equally. There is no difference. He simply apologised. Logically [after the session finished] I was calmer and I understood, because no rider waits in the middle of the track – or at least I hope they don’t."

obviously, this isn't like, a big deal, but in the moment it was one of those 'oooh maybe this'll go somewhere' incidents and the eternal drama enthusiasts in the commentary box were talking about it at the start of the race. like I said, that was jorge's first honda weekend where he was showing actual pace, so it felt like this might be building to something. except then, uh, jorge decided to skittle all of marc's rivals in one go in the race itself and somewhat hilariously managed to just miss marc. and then jorge got injured again the next race and it all just kinda fizzled out after that, so we never really got to find out what dramatics could have been possible there

and that's it as far as teammates prime!marc had in the premier class go. childhood rival pol espargaro took on the mantle for two years in 2021-22, at a time in which there was much kerfuffle about honda's development direction and whether they'd followed marc's path for too long. espargaro did attempt to assert himself in that team and they did try to develop the bike in a way that suited all the riders better rather than just marc, which *gestures at honda post-2020* worked insofar as marc also ended up in the trenches. that being said, pol was never a particularly serious threat to marc - aside from that one race to start off 2022, which maybe prompted a little bit of needle from marc (based on what the podcasts™ were saying at the time in any case) but nothing dramatic - so, y'know, that was kind of that. in those two years plus the year where marc had joan mir as his teammate, of course you can go into the weeds and dig out minor disagreements... but apart from the conversations around development direction and how marquez-centric honda should be going forward, it's just a bit of a different vibe when you're beefing for pee one million or who gets to be the leader of that year's crash rankings. of course, if you really want to stop marc from tormenting you, maybe you should just try being his literal brother. pecco, if you want any more useful advice like that: I offer very reasonable rates, just give me a call and we can hash something out

so, we've covered how the on-track stuff works and looked at the intra-team dynamic - what's next? time to explore a little more how marc goes about unsettling his rivals, how he attempts to give himself the decisive edge over his opponents... and also, what purpose this all serves when it comes to his own psychology. intimidating rivals typically has another underlying goal: it's about motivating yourself. it's about proving to your rivals just how far you'll go to beat them while proving as much to yourself in the same breath

again, at times we're a little light in terms of an actual paper trail of this intimidation... given that marc does like to take on the role of the aggressor in on-track disputes, often he doesn't even have to be the one to comment - and instead the onus is on his rivals to voice their dissent. there's also the issue that marc did have a paucity post-2015 in terms of 'serious title threats over the course of multiple seasons' - which, I don't know, this does feel like a thing somehow, you just don't really build feuds in a single season. even valentino, known feud enjoyer, always needed a little longer to really get something going. looking at marc's career, obviously you do have dovi, with whom he had a very cordial rivalry between 2017 to 2019... but the only year in which dovi was a serious title threat was in the first year of that rivalry, in 2017. after dovi's poor results in the first half of 2018, that title bid was essentially dead on arrival, and the 2019 title fight generously lasts until catalunya when jorge skittled the field minus marc. there's a couple marc rivalries with young challengers that looked like they were just about to kick off after 2019... but, well, we'll never find out how those would have played out. and it might be worth pointing out that in his prime, valentino's disagreements with riders who weren't serious threats to him winning titles didn't really go beyond what marc had going on with assorted other riders from 2016 to 2019. it's a bit of an open question if you want to attribute marc's lower number of feuds primarily to his actual personality and how it differs from valentino's, or whether you think it just reflects their respective competitive situations. the boring answer is that it's probably a combination of both of those things

that being said, obviously you can engage in a wee spot of psychological warfare without it escalating to feud level. now, let's get the obvious out of the way: marc and valentino were still very much at it post-2015. of course they continued to be deeply invested in their attempts to undermine and mess with each other. but, let's be honest, they're their own special little thing and it's just going to derail this post if I pay too much attention to them. there's a certain level of feuding where it becomes increasingly detached from any sort of actual competitive calculus and is more about a fraught relationship between two people who have managed to severely hurt each other. that being said, it's worth pointing out that marc was perfectly capable of using that feud to spur himself on. for the easiest evidence of that, just look at some of his misano performances... in 2017, valentino had just nerfed himself out of the title fight, whereas in 2019 he was no longer a serious threat to marc on-track. and yet despite how valentino wasn't the on-track rival marc should be concerning himself with, in both cases marc ended up using his valentino-related rage to find that little bit extra within himself in order to steal the victory

^from the marc (+ dovi) race rec post

there's plenty to be said about the misano 2019 qualifying incident, but let's set aside the specifics for now (though, speaking of towing-related drama, marc had again during fp3 shadowed valentino around the track, which... why are you hounding this man in misano of all places, marc). the whole kerfuffle certainly didn't hurt marc's race performance, and it's fair to say he seemed particularly thrilled with that victory. obviously, these were pretty pointed celebrations, very in your face, big fuck you to the nation of italy and valentino rossi specifically. celebrations like this are important in both what they're signalling to the enemy and what they're signalling to yourself. if there's one thing you can learn from valentino, it's that a celebration is a public message, and can function as a statement of sorts about what the victory 'meant'. what's the story you're telling with your victory? what do you want to take away from this race? what do you want your opponents to take away from it?

misano that year had come after marc's struggles in last lap duels, with the two races directly preceding it featuring last lap losses to dovi and alex rins respectively. now, on the one hand it's not always catastrophic on a psychological level to be constantly losing last lap duels... because in marc's case they did help reinforce just how dangerous he was, where even at his weaker tracks he would hound his rivals until the very end. on the other hand, obviously it's preferable to have a reputation for winning last lap duels as opposed to losing them - not least because it adds to how intimidating you are when you are locked in another last lap duel. valentino of course had a reputation for being lethally effective in that sort of situation, and it's nicely helpful if your enemies assume they're fucked when you're in their postcode with around three laps to go. I discussed this dynamic a little bit in how it relates to the sete rivalry here and here, which links back to the discussion of how you exert psychological pressure on the track. some relevant excerpts, plus some of my race notes:

marc is obviously more than capable of adopting similar tactics in his racing, but the sete rivalry still holds up as a really good demonstration of the kind of rewards you can reap through a steady diet of psychological intimidation. this is why it's so important to keep an edge over your rivals: you want them to be haunted by the ghosts of all your past on-track encounters whenever you're fighting to the point where it's detrimental to their actual riding. anyway, let's quickly check who marc was actually fighting with during the last lap of misano 2019, and whether that might have had anything to do with why marc was so thrilled to get the victory. oh, the rookie revelation of 2019 and the guy marc quickly identified as the big big threat of the future, you say? poor little fabio quartararo who still hadn't won a race yet, but who marc managed to dramatically deny on two separate occasions that year on the final lap? getting in early on the mission of building up some crucial psychological baggage, are we now?

obviously, and pretty tragically, this future investment on marc's part has ended up being completely irrelevant (unless yamaha wants to do something so so crazy for me and build a functioning bike before marc's hair goes grey), but equally obviously none of us knew that at the time. and fabio was able to take away some positives from the misano experience:

“I knew he would try something, but you never know with Marc,” said the Frenchman. “He can overtake and pull away because I really don’t know if he really saved his tyre. “The good thing was I could overtake him back, and this going home gives me a lot of confidence, to say ‘he’s a seven-time world champion, but we can overtake him’. So, he’s a human like us.”

because that's what it's all about, isn't it. giving the opposition the impression that you're not even human - and, even if fabio is saying the experience gave him 'a lot of confidence', imagine how much more confidence he would've gotten if he'd won. also, check out fabio's comment about not knowing whether marc had been saving his tyre. that's why the 'fucking about before fucking off' approach to races is so effective: because of how it generates uncertainty, it generates doubt, it makes your rivals wonder even during races whether there's a chance you're just toying with them

we do have a bit of a sample size issue here when it comes to assessing marc's celebrations, in that his two last lap duels with fabio came a) in valentino's backyard, and b) when marc sealed that year's title. it means that if the celebrations seem excessive, there's still other plausible explanations for why marc was so happy to get one over the rookie that aren't related to trying to bully fabio into submission for as long as he still could. did marc really use them as a way of reminding everyone, including fabio, including himself, of who's really in charge? again, you'll have to draw your own conclusions

I'm doing my best not to cover anything that's happening this year too much, since this is the stuff I'm assuming people reading are basically familiar with. but of course, if we're talking 'pointed celebrations' then there's also a few from this year that stand out. this isn't to say that marc's joy at his ducati successes have been anything other than genuine, that he isn't happy or relieved or revitalised by his current season... but, well, part of being revitalised is also being back in the game where fighting for titles is concerned. take the jerez celebrations, ecstatic in spite of losing a tight battle, openly loved and adored by his home crowd. look at how he's done his thing repeatedly this year of engaging with all these crowds, getting them to celebrate with him specifically. a cynic might say it's a way of reminding his opponents that they might be winning right now... but they should never forget who the crowds have really come to see. which would be charmingly valentino of him. while marc (probably wisely) never went too far in mimicking valentino's unique style of celebrations, he is an avid enough student to understand the importance of the theatre of victory. like in his third ever premier class race (from the jerez post):

racing is one thing, but it's always important to consider how you're reacting in both defeat and victory. like valentino before him, marc prefers not to openly show his rage. like valentino, more often than not he will be publicly magnanimous in defeat. like valentino, he's not adverse to twisting in the blade a little further in victory. like valentino, he's very much aware of when a camera is watching him. with marc, you can also observe how determined he is to appear unaffected and unbothered by the effects of sepang 2015 on his public image (except in displays of very carefully managed vulnerability like marc marquez all in). there's plenty of examples of this, but most relevant here is how marc concerns himself with not being openly affected by fans booing him. take blowing kisses to the misano 2017 crowd after his warm up crash... which, looking at his post-race presser comments, whatever he may say clearly (and understandably) did bother him. likewise, see the glee of the misano 2019 celebrations. with those celebrations, he's trying to tell you that not only does it not bother him that they're booing, but instead he relishes it. the more they do this, the more he will win

one more case study before we wrap this post up, this time using a specific rival to illustrate some of his more common tactics and how the spats he gets himself involved in generally play out. said rival is alex rins, who especially in 2019 had emerged as one of marc's prime challengers. now, before we talk about any disagreements between those two, I do have to mention that rinsy has a bit of history with the marquez family (this from 2016):

in the end, dani stayed on for another year and was replaced by another ageing spaniard marc felt confident he'd have the measure of while rinsy signed for suzuki - so it's very unlikely marc had to play any active role in blocking him from taking the seat. that being said, obviously the main takeaway is the bad blood stemming from alex marquez's moto3 title campaign and how alzamora organised that team around the younger marquez. god knows how rins felt about this by 2019, but I doubt he'd just forgotten about it. there's also this from 2020, which to me reads as a little dismissive about someone who was your teammate in moto3? I don't know, judge for yourself:

anyway, back to marc. the 'biggest' incident between the pair of them was a coming together in qualifying at brno 2019 (one of the all time great qualifying performances from marc by the way, well worth a watch):

During qualifying at Brno, cameras picked up the end of a tense tussle between MotoGP champion Marc Marquez and Suzuki's Alex Rins. The pair were caught putting some close passes on each other before pulling into pit lane, where they continued to 'duel' - until Marquez reached out with his arm to put some space between their machines. Marquez then over swapped to slick tyres and romped to pole position on the drying track, with Rins claiming sixth on the grid. "It's a tricky thing because for sure [Marc] is now one step in front of everybody. He put the slick tyres and he was super-fast. But I think he has no respect for the other riders. He is riding on his way," said Rins. "I will explain to you what happened: On Corner 5, he went a little bit wide and behind him was Miller and me. When he went wide, he looked back and saw Jack and me. Jack passed him, but then he went back onto the line and sincerely he disturbed me. I was pushing. I was not super-fast, but I was pushing. "So on the next left corner I tried to do my line. He opened a little a bit the door and I go in. I touched him, but I think it's his fault; if he is riding slow he needs to open the door and that's it. But anyway, then on the last corner he braked super-hard to overtake me [back]. Then when we were coming into the box I was in front of him and I go straight and he has no space to go by my side. If I was him, I would cut the gas…" "I ran wide at Turn 5 and Jack overtook me because I checked behind and I only saw him, so I tried to follow Jack because I know he had good pace. Then I went a bit too wide and there was a small space, but enough and [Rins] ran into me…" said the Repsol Honda star. “The funny thing was when we entered the box and the tyre wall was there [in front of me] and I didn’t have the space [to get through] because he was going that way. I don’t know if that was intentional or not, but for me it wasn’t important. I lose zero time on these sort of things.” Told Rins had said he had no respect for other riders, Marquez responded: “Of course I don’t agree with this, it is his opinion." "It's not the first time," Rins had explained earlier. "Everybody knows Marquez and everybody knows that he has an incredible talent, but also what happened in FP1 with Vinales was more-or-less the same. Marc loves to play this game and try to get in the head of other riders. But in my case I'm really calm. I just tell the truth and that's it." Asked if he thought he needed to try and get into Marquez's head, Rins responded: "No, I don't think so…. For sure if I'm fighting for the world championship with him I will try to do something, but he's 80 points in front of me - maybe he's scared, I don't know!" Austin winner Rins, who has fallen in the last two races, is fourth in the world championship.

their most significant race clash was in silverstone 2019, where alex got the better of marc in a very dramatic last lap duel. I've heard journalists make vague reference to marc not taking that loss particularly well, though... again. hard to actually pin him down on a lot of this! but we do have more extensive comments rinsy provided in early 2020 to work with, and he at least seems to agree with that assessment:

"Marc is so good at these mental things, he plays a lot with all the riders," Rins told the official MotoGP website. "For example in Brno last year, I was on a fast lap, he looked behind at me and opened the line a little bit, but not too much. I was on the dry line and I touched him. I lost my lap, but I continued pushing. Then in the last chicane he overtook me so closely, we were so close to a crash, and then he went into pit lane. From that moment, I said to myself, Marc is considering me as a rival." Rins - who declared "Marquez has no respect for other riders" immediately after the incident - got his revenge in the form of a thrilling last-corner victory pass on Marquez a few weeks later at Silverstone. "Marc is the man to beat and the rivalry is so high," Rins said. "More in 2019, because I shared more moments on track with him. For sure whenever he finishes just in front of me, I'm a bit angry, I want to beat him. But also for him. I remember when I beat him in Silverstone he was so, so angry." Rins added: "I like this because it means that I'm doing a good job. Marc is an incredible rider, winning a lot of races and championships, and if he thinks of me as a rival, it means I'm there fighting him." Rins took two wins on his way to a best-yet fourth in the 2019 MotoGP standings.

now, yeah... the problem is that this is all very much hearsay (but no more so than plenty of similar comments valentino's rivals made about him!) and rinsy could just be lying about this or misinterpreting it or whatever. we are very low on actual evidence for the stuff he says here. if you watch silverstone 2019 and the aftermath, you will not see a marc who visibly looks angry - of course you won't, because he almost never looks visibly angry. unfortunately, we don't have the chance to grill alex on why exactly he was left with this impression. at the end of the day, like with valentino, when it comes to evaluating the honesty of a lot of these character references you will just have to make up your own mind. like with valentino, some of these men will either be exaggerating the extent of the harm or just straight up making shit up. then again, like with valentino, the number of people who do seem to have the impression marc was fucking with them maybe suggests that there is something to these allegations

just a few things to note here... to highlight some of the common features that tend to crop up in these marc incidents:

there's the accusation of lack of respect towards other riders - valentino is the one who most infamously made that accusation in the aftermath of argentina 2018, but of course he's far, far from alone in making comments along those lines. marc certainly has a tendency towards being... uncompromising in his approach, shall we say, which can at times lean towards treating his competitors mainly as obstacles and inconveniences

the anger that's being attributed to marc. which he doesn't tend to directly express towards his competitors off the track! but if he is angry, it may instead... seep into how he approaches instances where they share space on-track, as well as affect his general demeanour towards them

there's rinsy suggesting marc is known for playing these games, that he does it a lot, and he's also known for being very good at them... which again is often something we only hear about indirectly, but of course it's interesting if that's the general paddock consensus

there's also rinsy's insistence that marc's games don't bother him at all - he's just calmly noting that marc's engaging in them! again, it's quite hard when you're familiar enough with valentino's oeuvre to not be slapped in the face with the similarity in some of the rhetoric their rivals use. doesn't mean all of these different dynamics are directly analogous, but it does speak to how determined the rivals in question tend to be in... y'know. telling themselves that they're above the whole thing. unfortunately, sometimes it is just very, very hard to be unaffected... and sometimes you're already losing by talking about it, because it shows you've been thinking about it

which, check out marc's response. 'oh, obviously I don't agree I lack respect' 'ah, I lose zero time on these things' (for another example of him using similar language, you could of course look to his comments about bez last year in valencia). this is marc's go-to - he generally quite likes to deny the existence of a problem, makes it sound like the whole thing is very one-sided... he keeps his distance and can maintain his poise and this veneer of neutrality, where he is not causing any drama. maybe the other guy's just imagining things! that's really not marc's problem, is it now

lastly, you've got this notion of marc messing with other riders selectively, and specifically doing it when he's identified you as a potential threat. again, maybe you think alex is reading too much into it! but equally, it's worth noting that we have as much evidence for marc messing with rinsy as we do for, say, valentino messing with casey in practise sessions in 2006 (as casey's autobiography claims). it would have been completely competitively reasonable for marc to identify alex rins as one of his primary threats in the future... and it would also not be hugely surprising if marc wanted to maintain a psychological edge over him

incidentally, at 2020 jerez rins and marc had another little run in during a practise session - where alex was left 'visibly frustrated' after marc was slowing down on the racing line while rinsy was completing a flying lap, which he ended up having to back out of. this denied rinsy direct entry into q2 (though marc didn't end up being penalised for it). of course, marc's jerez race reached an unhappy conclusion and rins was too injured to even start it, and after that they've never been even remotely close to fighting for a championship. though there's still a little bit of needle between the pair of them, mainly resulting from how rinsy ended up joining lcr honda in 2023 after suzuki departed the scene. there's marc's reasonably innocent comments in 2022, on a day in which rinsy won another last lap duel for the victory in phillip island:

"I will not give any advice," said Marquez. "For me it is another opponent. It’s good that joining Honda is one world champion [Joan Mir] and one rider that is winning races with another manufacturer.  "Like this we will see exactly the level. I’m working really hard for the 2023 project with Honda and they are working really, really hard too. I don’t say I wish [him] the best. Let’s just go and see. He is another opponent, if not it would be fake’."

or here, take this from before mugello 2023, again mostly innocuous:

By contrast, Marquez believes Mugello is one of Rins’ best tracks and he wasn’t surprised to see the COTA winner at the sharp end. “No [I’m not surprised], because Rins, even with Suzuki, had 5-6 circuits where he is very fast and then others where he struggles more. Normally here with Suzuki, he was very fast and very consistent,” said Marquez, whose only premier-class win at Mugello was back in 2014. “He is really good in fast corners so, for example, in Le Mans he was struggling more than me and here he is very fast. It is good for Honda and Honda riders that someone is faster because like this you have more chance to look and compare the things.”

love being told I have "5-6 circuits" where I'm very fast. or take rinsy's innocent surprise that marc didn't end up winning at the sachsenring, and how he suggests it was maybe because of all the pressure marc had been feeling:

"It's hard, it tastes very bad to me because Marc has a fucking talent and it's not being easy at all,” Rins was quoted by DAZN. “But hey, in the end you have to turn the tables, you have to win, you have to build a winning bike. "Damn, I thought that Marc would also win in Germany. What happened? I don't know, I have no idea. Pressure, extra pressure, I have no idea.”

and then, of course, there was always that little hint of tension that came as a result of rinsy being honda's only race winner that year, at marc's beloved cota of all places... which became a bit of a discourse point (not always propagated by rinsy) to say that, hey, maybe the honda wasn't so bad after all... anyway, here's what marc said when rinsy signed for yamaha:

Repsol Honda rider Marquez was asked about Rins’ departure and answered: “I had an interview, they asked me about this rumour. I said ‘I don’t think so’ because Rins won a race and he said ‘it’s a good bike’.  “So I didn’t expect this move. But then the day after! I’m happy for him, it’s a good move, he’s moving from a satellite team to a factory team. Yamaha has power and energy from the past.”

marc had said 'surely not' but then the very next day he was left shocked and taken aback! he'd thought rinsy loved the bike so much! he'd thought rinsy felt it was actually a good bike! he'd thought rinsy would never want to leave! how unexpected this whole thing was to him!

(there was also talk about rinsy's unhappiness at how honda treated him and his development feedback - but as there is less than zero evidence marc had anything to do with that, let's leave it there)

did marc really behave differently towards alex rins because he saw him as a threat? probably! possibly? probably! but he hasn't really felt the need to say as much. sometimes, you can fuck with people by staying silent, and sometimes you can fuck with them just because you have a reputation for mind games - which marc, like valentino, has acquired over the years. ideally, your on-track plus off-track presence gets to the point where you don't really need to do anything and can let your opponents engage in shadowboxing while you can spend your time in more useful ways. think of that excellent clip from motogp unlimited where poor joan mir complains about marc's towing, freaks out when he realises the press has said he's complained about marc's towing, and then goes to explain to marc how he hadn't actually complained about marc's towing. and marc, with the air of a man who has been high on painkillers for the past week and hasn't given joan much thought beyond contemplating how well he'd pair with potatoes, graciously accepts this explanation - which joan is painfully, obviously relieved by. marc wasn't playing any 'mind games' in this clip, he was just standing there. but sometimes that's all you've got to do! call it a good return on prior investment. (partly this is also just a result of the status the sheer extent of marc and valentino's successes provides them and, relatedly, their power and influence within the sport.) here, from one of oxley's books:

Once you've established a reputation for trickery, you can confuse people without doing anything. At this year's [2009] German GP Casey Stoner accused Rossi of attempting to confuse his rivals by scrubbing the white sidewall paint from his front slick; the paint denoting Bridgestone's softer compound tyres. In fact Bridgestone had run out of white paint (no, really), but the reality didn't matter because Stoner was sat on the grid, convinced Rossi was playing tricks when he should've been getting himself in the zone, focusing on his race.

that's the ideal, right: you don't even have to do the dirty work yourself because it's the reputation doing the work for you. marc inspires a similar effect on riders, where he just gets them to the point where they're spending way too much time hyper-analysing whatever he's doing at any given moment. which means that he doesn't actually need to be trying to fuck with anyone for the effect to still be the same. free and easy, what's not to love

so, that's it, more or less. all the on-track stuff, from 'how to build up an intimidating presence 101', to just being extremely annoying in non-race sessions, to trying to mess with your teammate, to more generally how you go about handling disputes with other riders. managing your motivation, their motivation, everyone's motivation. of course marc's not quite scaled the heights (yet) of cursing another rider to never win another race again - which, hey, nobody's perfect, but I think he's built together a fairly decent resume for himself! there's plenty more stuff you could get into here, c.f. 'everything that's been going on with ducati internal politics this year'... but this post is more than long enough, and you can follow all that stuff while it's actually happening. a few more related topics I've deigned outside of the scope of this post include how he generally manages perceptions of himself and his performance potential in ways that aren't targeted at any specific rival, for instance how he talks about his injury and has a tendency to change his tune depending on what's convenient at any given time, or how in the past he managed perceptions of the competitiveness of his honda package. likewise, I also haven't discussed the actual success rate of these tactics: let's not forget that trying to fuck with your rivals doesn't... always produce the effects you want it to. (sometimes just in kind of dumb ways, like I get messing with the rookie sensation but please try not to crash when catching a tow, marc. "marc clearly tried to get into fabio's head and I think he hit his head himself quite big." "so, I think it's karma. fabio's on pole and I hope marc is uninjured of course. but he tried to get in his head because he knows fabio is fast." not ideal!) but, hey, the most important thing is he's trying hard and having fun. or something

because that's the thing, right. when you are attempting to exert psychological pressure on your opponents, when you're trying to weaken your rivals, inevitably this also has an effect on you. there are athletes who prefer to completely ignore their opponents and act as if they are essentially competing on their lonesome. neither valentino nor marc fall into this category. as a result, how you behave towards your rivals inevitably also becomes at least in part about motivating yourself. you are attempting to focus your mind in some way - whether it is to see your rival as an enemy or to simply distance yourself from them or otherwise. you may even be minded to treat your rival particularly warmly, knowing they are less likely to give you grief if you have ensured the interpersonal relationship has remained amicable... maybe even looking for a slight psychological edge if they are not sufficiently motivated to beat you. maybe that too is about managing your reputation and drawing a line under past unfriendlier rivalries, to distinguish your most beloathed rival from all the others. you may need to find a way to keep the fire within going, to reinvigorate yourself even in periods of relative competitive tranquillity by giving yourself something to be angry at, a reason to fight and to win out of spite... finding reasons to care, again and again and again. celebrating with exuberance not just because you are genuinely filled with joy but also because you need to be filled with joy - so that you can find it within yourself to keep fighting. there's never just one brain involved in the arena of psychological warfare. to succeed in sports the first person you have to play mind games on, after all, is yourse- *gets taken out by sniper rifle*

[fiveredlights]

there's glitter on the floor after the party: the deleted scenes

i'm sure it'll make someone happy because i think we all need it! just as a note, this is all unedited so some of it might make no sense and that's okay.

(i recommend the google doc for easier reading otherwise the whole thing is under the cut)

Chapter one: 2023

I don’t have anything to show…anything I did cut has already been long deleted. My bad. The first two are very sparse because I was cutting unwanted things as my Google docs was lagging whenever I opened it. The only thing I remember writing that chapter was that it was meant to coincide with Daniel’s return to COTA in real life but I ran out of time so I pushed it back to Las Vegas. 

Chapter two: 2024

CUT: Daniel winning the championship

WHY: Felt too rushed and easy. No emotional pay off, you were only just introduced to Daniel in RBR again. Also don’t ask me what happened to Max for him to not just clean sweep 2023-2027. Also don’t ask who won the championship in 2026. I declare that your favourite driver won it and I definitely did not forget to give a championship. 

DANIEL: Oh my god, it’s just surreal like I don’t know how to describe it. Especially after the past couple years, it’s just—yeah. And to do it with Max too, it’s just something special for me and the team. 

MISCELLANEOUS: 

73 Questions With Daniel Ricciardo | Vogue

3.3M views 2 days ago …more

Vogue 4M

[00:00:00]

DANIEL: Hello Vogue, didn’t see you there. Welcome to my home away from home.

[00:13:33]

PRODUCER: One sentence you could tell your younger self? 

DANIEL: Doors are meant to be opened. 

[00:15:09]

PRODUCER: Worst thing about racing in Formula 1?

DANIEL: Accidents, hands down. It’s horrifying as a driver to watch someone crash, because that’s when everything sort of gets a reality check in the cockpit. Like we are racing around at three-hundred kilometres an hour, and there is a real chance that something could go wrong. I’ll never forget Max’s Silverstone accident, just—yeah it just a horrible thing to witness.

—

emotionalsupportredbull

not daniel fidgeting with his necklace when he talks about max’s silverstone crash… you ain’t slick boy

#yes i have deluded myself into thinking it’s from max #i’m already depressed i don’t want to hear it #join team emotional support redbull delusions

348 notes

frenchpine

qu'est-ce que tu sais, espèce de salope française qui aime l'érable et qui parle bizarrement ? sors avec ça (What do you know you maple-loving weird speaking French bitch? Come out with it)

#je ne veux pas te traiter de salope #ou peut-être que c'est le cas (#i don’t mean to call you a bitch #or maybe i do)

392 notes

(i promise i wrote this before he decided to rear end daniel in china. i pinky promise.)

landando

daniel “doors are meant to be opened” ricciardo

#what is my man on #doors are meant to be opened 😭😭 #he didn’t open a door one time and it’s haunted him for life

78 notes

Chapter three: 2025

CUT: Red Bull marketing video

WHY: Chapter was already very long. Also I couldn’t find any good questions.

Daniel and Max play the F1 newlywed game 💒💍

827K views 10 hours ago #Gives you wings #F1 … more

Oracle Red Bull Racing 1.58M 

INT. RED BULL RACING HOSPITALITY - DAY

[00:00:00]

MAX: Hello everyone and today we are playing the newlywed game. 

DANIEL: Are you excited? 

MAX: I mean I have to say yes otherwise I look like I’m in an unhappy marriage. 

DANIEL: Wow—

MAX:—Also the name doesn’t even make sense. Newlywed? That isn’t us.

DANIEL: [To off screen] Guys, I would get someone to approve your overtime, we’re gonna be here a while. 

[00:02:01]

OFF SCREEN: Who is more likely to overpack for a holiday?

DANIEL: Don’t look at me!

MAX: We have three suitcases. 

DANIEL: It takes effort to look this good. 

MAX: Three suitcases every single race weekend.

DANIEL: What’s the next question? 

CUT: Lucinda’s vaguely threatening email

WHY: Broke the fourth wall. Glitter on the floor is meant to be solely a third POV view and I couldn’t justify it. 

CONFIDENTIAL: PRESS STRATEGY REGARDING MAX VERSTAPPEN AND DANIEL RICCIARDO

From: lucindasalzar@/press.redbull.racing

To: maxverstappen@/redbull.racing, danielricciardo@/redbull.racing

CC: christianhorner@/redbull.racing, teamdaniel@/press.redbull.racing, teammax@/press.redbull.racing

Date: 21 Nov 2025 at 3:04am

Hi all, 

Please see attachment below for finalised details regarding your press strategy and talking points this weekend. Media have been advised to not ask any questions about the ring and we’d like to keep it that way. Remember to keep it vague if you do get asked, and if you don’t feel comfortable a simple no comment will suffice. 

Please email for any further clarification or questions and good luck this weekend. (And please no spur of the moment Las Vegas—Elvis impersonator weddings you two.) 

Best regards, 

Lucinda Salzar (she/her)

Head of Communications, Red Bull Racing. 

E: lucindasalzar@/press.redbull.racing

P: +44 ** **** *****

CUT: The chaotic Abu Dhabi super seat swap

WHY: I had to cut this because I altered the timeline, Las Vegas was going to the second last race. In an earlier version Max and Daniel were gonna come back in 2026 and also drop the Matilda news at the same time but I wanted more content just out of Maxiel so I had to leave this on the cutting board. Some of it made it into the published fic but the original thing was more chaotic. (Also I changed the Red Bull junior driver at least once a week because they kept dropping them. It went from Hauger, to Crawford, to Maloney and then I just gave up because I could not keep up.)

lights-out-away-we-go

red bull needed to replace two drivers and they did in THE MOST CHAOTIC way possible. okay, just listen: 

the official red bull reserve driver is liam lawson (of alpha tauri, so he obviously gets pulled up)

alpha tauri then call on zane maloney to replace liam (alpha tauri’s reserve driver)

BUT, daniel’s car still needs to fulfil the mandatory rookie free practice session (max’s was completed in mexico when maloney drove)

red bull can’t get zane in daniel’s car again cause he’s got to drive liam’s… so they’ve got to find someone who has the super licence points … we’ll come back to this

so right now car 3 is being driven by liam lawson, car 40 is driven by zane maloney. i hear you ask… who is driving car 1? it’s none other than yuki tsunoda (of alphatauri)

I KNOW, but red bull have quite literally run out of contracted reserve drivers and i believe because every driver is technically employed by red bull (whether they drive for RB or AT) they’re able to pull them up or down without the FIA kicking up a fuss

i’ll wait for why red bull pulled up both AT’s 

this means yuki tsunoda’s alpha tauri will be without a driver and once again, red bull call Pepe Marti

#i don’t even know if this is 100% correct i could be so wrong

13,482 notes

—

SKY F1 SPORTS- 2025 ABU DHABI GRAND PRIX - FREE PRACTICE 1

David CROFT: Welcome ladies and gentlemen to our final race of the 2025 season, to our first free practice session under the blistering sun of Abu Dhabi and if this is your first time watching, welcome along cause this will certainly be an interesting race weekend. Now, eagle eyed viewers may have caught that AlphaTauri driver Yuki Tsunoda is in the Red Bull, and his team mate is sitting in the next garage over not in a car. Anthony Davidson is with me—Ant, care to explain to our viewers at home the driver seat swap chaos that’s happening down at Red Bull? 

Anthony DAVIDSON: Hello everyone, wherever in the world you may be watching and yes, chaos is the right word for it isn’t it? I’ve got about five pieces of paper and I’m going to do my best to explain, what I think, is the most complicated driver situation in F1 history. 

CROFT: Yes, for those who didn’t join us last time out or who may be new to F1, I promise driver seat talk usually isn’t this complicated but we’ll do our best to make sense of it all. Now we’ve got to start at the last race for it all to make sense. Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo had a nasty crash with Enzo Fittipaldi of Haas that left him with a concussion and bruised ribs, which is why presumably he isn’t racing today, and we wish him well in his recovery. Red Bull’s other driver Max Verstappen was also not able to race this weekend for an unspecified reason, so Red Bull are left with two empty seats.

DAVIDSON: We know that Red Bull’s official reserve driver is Liam Lawson, so that’s no problem there. He’s driving Daniel’s number 3 car, but here’s where the trouble starts. Car number 3 still needs to complete its mandatory FP1 session, which Zane Maloney was planning to do this session. But you’ll notice that Zane is in Liam’s car right now, the Alpha Tauri—and this is because he’s Alpha Tauri’s reserve driver. 

CROFT: Still following everyone? So far, car number 3 is being driven by Liam Lawson, car number 40 is being driven by Zane Maloney. But Liam Lawson isn’t even in car number 3 at the moment, it’s Pepe Marti, who is currently racing in Formula 2 and part of Red Bull’s junior academy. He’s competing the mandatory rookie FP1 session for car number 3.

DAVIDSON: So now we move onto Max Verstappen’s car, which is being driven by the other AlphaTauri driver, Yuki Tsunoda. Which now means AlphaTauri needs a driver to replace him and it’s Red Bull junior driver, Isack Hadjar who is in car number 22. 

CROFT: Right, so it’s Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson in Red Bull for the race, Zane Maloney and Isack Hadjar in the AlphaTauri’s and Pepe Marti in Liam or Daniel’s Red Bull for FP1. Confused? Don’t worry, so are we so bare with us if we accidentally get names and teams wrong because I believe this is possibly the biggest driver change in F1 history.

DAVIDSON: Yes and because I know people will be asking, “Why didn’t Red Bull just put Maloney in Daniel’s car for the whole weekend?” and we have an answer and officially, it’s because of contracts. Whatever behind the scenes isn’t allowing him to drive that Red Bull which is why they called up Yuki instead. Maloney has also said he feels more confident driving the AlphaTauri all weekend rather than the Red Bull, so that also may play a factor in this. 

CROFT: But also this is a perfect opportunity for Red Bull to compare both drivers, should the opportunity for one of them to make the move into Red Bull when the time arises. 

Chapter four: 2026

CUT: Netflix Drive to Survive script

WHY: Once again, I was lazy and didn’t want to write a script. I kinda wish I did though, I think it would’ve given Las Vegas 2025 more substance, especially because you only see it through a fan perspective whereas DTS allows you to get the driver’s perspective, but I do plan to finish this off…. eventually….

Netflix- Drive to Survive

Season 9, Episode 3 “Redemption”

The Las Vegas Grand Prix is back in town but it’s not all good fortunes for those driving. The biggest paddock secret is unveiled.

—

INT. KITCHEN - MORNING

We see scrambled eggs on a frying pan. 

OFF SCREEN:  Daniel? Where is my jumper? The blue one? 

The camera zooms out from the eggs to see Daniel, wearing a light blue jumper, grimacing at the camera. 

DANIEL: (Under his breath) To be fair it was my jumper first.

The camera swings to Max in the doorway, arms crossed as he narrows his eyes at Daniel. 

MAX: I heard that. 

(In the garage, during the crash.)

RED BULL TEAM MEMBER #1: Has anyone told Max? 

RED BULL TEAM MEMBER #2: We’re not telling him.

RED BULL TEAM MEMBER #3: Seriously? 

RED BULL TEAM MEMBER #1: He thinks his husband is dead, we’re telling him!

INT. HOTEL ROOM

PRODUCER: Do you have some fears about allowing the world to know about your relationship? 

DANIEL: God, of course I have. We both have. But we spent so long being—not scared, but worried let’s say about the consequences of us just being together. But then Las Vegas happened and all I wanted was Max to sit by my bedside and make a stupid joke about me being in hospital again. And it was when Christian literally had to fight multiple people to get Max into that hospital I realised that what we were doing was unsustainable. 

PRODUCER: Unsustainable? 

DANIEL: Are you married? 

PRODUCER: Yes? 

DANIEL: Have you ever watched your partner crash into something at three hundred kilometres an hour and no one telling you if they were even alive? Because I’ve done that. We’ve done that. Multiple times. 

Montage of different Max & Daniel accidents. 

DANIEL: And then you have to go on with your day, going to debrief, doing press but all you really want to do is go to them and make sure that they’re even alive? 

PRODUCER: …

DANIEL: So yeah. Unsustainable. 

—

333 update account @/official333

📺 | Drive to Survive (Netflix) 

Daniel talking about his relationship with Max on and off the track: 

Q: Do you think it’s been challenging to balance out the relationship given your unique relationship with Max? 

Daniel: No, and I think people over dramatise the complexity of it all. I mean sure, it has been somewhat difficult, especially at the beginning but in the end it is just racing, you know? We’re both aware that we are something different from the other drivers, but I like that. Not many people get to do what they love with their partner right next to them, so I definitely take every race we do together for granted. 

476 replies 88 reposts 8,372 likes

CUT: Alternate ‘M’ reveal

WHY: I genuinely spent like half an hour thinking if fictional Max and Daniel would show Matilda, I had earlier drafts where they hide her face until I was like okay, this is fictional. Bad things do not exist in this universe, so it’s fine. Plus, Matilda is so cute I can’t hide her.

[Video: Daniel, standing in front of a door. 

DANIEL: I know a lot of you guys might have noticed that I’ve been dropping clues towards who this mysterious M is and it’s finally time to reveal who it is. 

He opens the door and pans the camera to Max. 

DANIEL: M stands for Max. Sorry to break the news, it’s not that exciting. Wait, who’s that? 

The camera pans further down to show Max holding a baby, she’s sleeping soundly in Max’s arm.

Photo: A baby. She’s wearing a light blue onesie, and her hand is wrapped around a mini honey badger soft toy.]

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danielricciardo Everybody meet Matilda. Matilda, this is everybody. 

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georgerussell63 They learnt what hard launching is and said we’re going to do it for everything… Congrats 🙌 

landonorris be prepared for the onslaught of driver themed onesies coming your way… 

1 March

CUT: The half-completed TIME article about Daniel

WHY: I did not have it in me to write another 1000 word article. I spent around a week just writing Daniel’s The Players’ Tribune article. But what I did write, I did like. Was also around the time TIME named Taylor Swift as their person of the year, so that’s where I got that inspiration. 

How 2025 was the year of the Honey Badger—Daniel Ricciardo on winning his first Formula 1 Championship during a historic year.

by Tylda Rune-Liberi for TIME

February 15, 2026 9:33AM EST

It’s 2017 and F1 driver Daniel Ricciardo was asked in a press conference what race he would like the new owners of F1 to host. His answer? Las Vegas. In 2023, five years on, his wish was granted. Two years later, in 2025, the race he had proclaimed as a dream race would turn into stuff of nightmares. 

Leading the race and looking like he would take a first win at Las Vegas after a podium in 2023, it looked like everything was going Ricciardo’s way until a bizarre accident with Kick Stake Sauber’s Theo Pourchaire causes a major accident, leaving Ricciardo wedged in the cockpit for over half an hour. 

Pourchaire had given way to Ricciardo as he was being lapped, before attempting to unlap himself, choosing the wrong moment as Ricciardo was heading into the pitlane. Radios released after the accident have Pourchaire admit he “didn’t think he was going into the pit lane.”

It’s a horrifying crash to watch—even with the knowledge that both drivers would be okay, and it would soon be clear that no one felt it more in the pitlane than Ricciardo’s own teammate: Max Verstappen. 

Formula 1 drivers all drive with the knowledge that a crash could happen at any given moment, but this accident was different. 

[Photo: Daniel, in a dark navy denim blue overshirt and jeans.]

Ricciardo and Verstappen have had a long and varied partnership throughout their career, first starting in 2016 where Verstappen was brought up mid season from then-Red Bull junior team Toro Rosso (now Visa Cash App RB), winning his debut race with the team, where it looked like the win would go to Ricciardo instead. They would go on to be teammates for another two seasons, before Ricciardo announced a shocking move to Renault (now Alpine). 

One thing that stood out about their initial partnership was how their off track friendship never seemed to waver, even in their most turbulent of times (see Hungary 2017 or Azerbaijan 2018). In an era where friendships between teammates seemed to famously end in failure, in the likes of fan dubbed ‘Brocedes’ (Nico Rosberg & Lewis Hamilton; best friends growing up who’s friendship ended in rivalry fighting for a championship) or former Red Bull teammates Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber (Multi-21 Seb?), it was an outlier that the two remained such good friends, even after Ricciardo had departed Red Bull. 

Even Ricciardo mentions that Lewis Hamilton had gone up to him to ask how Verstappen and Ricciardo had managed to keep their friendship going even though they had tussles on track. “I don’t really know,” Ricciardo says. “I mean it’s definitely all in hindsight now, but I think it was because we—or at least I—knew that our friendship was really important. Like it was no matter what happens I don’t go and screw up this friendship I have with Max.”

Ricciardo would go through a bumpy time in his post-Red Bull career, going through two seasons at Renault, two seasons at McLaren before a 6 month break where he was named ‘Third Driver’ for Red Bull, a 6 month stint in Red Bull sister team AlphaTauri (formerly Toro Rosso, now Visa Cash App RB) which was marked with Ricciardo missing 5 races due to a hand injury during a free practice session in Zandvoort before returning back to the very seat he left six years earlier, Red Bull announcing Ricciardo’s return at the 2023 Las Vegas race. 

A move that was then deemed as a surprise move by many pundits, all was put to rest when Riccardo finessed his AlphaTauri in the podium position, grabbing the team 3rd place and their first podium since Pierre Gasly in 2021. 

Something was different about this second stint, and it wasn’t the journeys they’ve both gone on since they both parted ways. There was something different about them together. 

[Photo: Max and Daniel laughing in the Red Bull garage.]

Nine years on since their first race together, it was oddly reminiscent of their first. Verstappen crossed the line to win a race his teammate had been poised to do so. Only this time, the celebrations were much different. 

With Ricciardo in hospital, Verstappen quickly left the race track after a tuned down podium ceremony, skipping out on mandatory post-race media duties, where competitors and team can attract fines for doing so. (The FIA opted not to fine Verstappen and Red Bull in this instance.) 

Even during the red flag it was clearly Verstappen was antsy, with his radio calls after finding out his teammate was in an accident conveying his state of worry. Leaked video from inside the Red Bull garage has Verstappen mention not finishing the race, wanting to be by Ricciardo’s side instead. 

///

“I remember I posted the post and people were like ‘Oh, maybe he meant it in a friendly way’ and I was like f***, I’ve got to actually spell it out for them.” Hence, the iconic post that broke the F1 world was born. 

[Daniel’s tweet.] 

It’s 2020, and the Australian Grand Prix has just been cancelled due to COVID. 

All the drivers and teams are left scrambling to try and leave the country before the borders close, and Daniel Ricciardo has just invited Max Verstappen to stay over at his house in Perth. 

“I don’t think I can even call it a friendly gesture, because as much as I like the other guys on the grid, there’s no way I would’ve invited them over.”

///

“Yeah, I won a championship. But I’m still the same person.”

Ricciardo’s often been somewhat of an open book, he says—whether it was for the better or for the worse. Every aspect of his life has been so highly publicised, from winning races to what it looks like when he’s not, it’s remarkable how he still holds nearly the same candour, even if his name and career has seemingly been dragged through the mud a thousand times over by the media. 

Last year he publicly came out in a F1-related podcast, to what he says was very unplanned. “I didn’t plan to come out, let’s say, it just kind of happened. 

“I didn’t even plan to come out, let's say, it just kind of happened? I was recording a podcast and I was talking about 2022 and how it unfolded, the support systems around me and I said “my partner”, and a part of me went Oh, shit! I hadn’t talked about my relationships at length before that, and I knew people were going to absolutely run with it and then I was like—well, might as well just go the whole nine yards, so then the second reference to my partner I very deliberately dropped in he. And that was it.”

“I remember so vividly, I went home that night and I told Max, oh I think I did something stupid and his mind immediately went to me accidentally leaking like team secrets or something big like that, and I was like no, I may have accidentally came out and within like three seconds you could see is brain just switch. 

“There is no we found the elephant in the room or whatever. The elephant has always been in the room and it’s just decided to make its presence known.”

“Look, I definitely understand some of the criticism that some people may have with F1 or Red Bull or us capitalising on our relationship or whatever, but I think now more than ever there’s a need to perhaps know who the drivers are when they aren’t driving.” Ricciardo adds. 

“Because it’s all fine and good if John Smith is winning races and driving amazingly, but if you know next to nothing about the person because it seems like they’re packed up and shipped race to race, you’re not going to root for the guy because they’ve made no connection.”

Ricciardo quickly clarifies that it’s not a negative for sports people or celebrities to maintain their personal lives, but he sees it more as a way to express or show what he wants to show in his own lives. “We spent nearly five years it near complete secrecy from the outside world and whilst I’m not saying that we should’ve just been public right from the start—we probably wouldn’t have survived—I was just wanting to post a photo of Max burning dinner or something and not have gossip magazines or Instagram accounts dissect every pixel of it.”

Did Ricciardo get pushback from the FIA or his team? It’s a difficult question to answer, he tells me. NDAs and whatnot. He says, “The team was wonderful about it, though. Had multiple team members come up to us willingly to fight the higher powers if needed which was very sweet.”

“Let’s just say there were conversations that I had been made aware of that had made me feel like we weren’t even allowed to look at each other when we were in the paddock. I felt like they were asking me to only refer to him as my teammate, stuff along those lines.”

///

“One of our friends told us at our wedding something along the lines of for F1 drivers, you did move pretty fucking slow in your relationship! And Max was like yeah, did you know who we were in 2018?” Ricciardo laughs loudly, scaring one of the cats who seemed ready to take a nap. 

///

“I used to rely so much on what other people thought of me, it wasn’t enough that I thought I was the best guy out there, you also had to think I was the best guy out there.”

///

Racing has always been part of Ricciardo’s life, but he doesn’t want it to be the only thing now in his life. He wants you to ask about things not related to racing, like how much he loves his family or how he thinks the Buffalo Bills are the greatest NFL team on earth. 

“I’m not going to do this forever, you know?” He says, finishing the can of Red Bull he’d been slowly sipping throughout the course of this piece. “I hope when I look back at these years of my life I’m going to be equally proud of what I did in the car and what I did outside of it.” — With reporting done by Tylda Rune-Liberi and Nicolas St. Revelate. 

CUT: Max and the team getting called up to the FIA

WHY: The FIA seems like an organisation who might send me a cease and desist if I wrote them as quietly homophobic. I don’t have money for a lawsuit. Also wanted to keep the universe happy because the real one is not. Still think my Mad Mex reference is funny.

Autosport @/autosport

Breaking: Max Verstappen summoned to the stewards after allegedly breaking parc ferme rules. 

12 replies 90 reposts 821 likes

—

F1 - 2026 AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX - POST RACE PRESS CONFERENCE - TRANSCRIPT

23.3.26

Q: Sorry, Daniel just coming back to you now. We’ve just received word that Max Verstappen has just been summoned to the stewards for breaking parc fermé conditions, any reaction on that? 

Daniel RICCIARDO: For what? 

Q: Uh, we think it might be related to post race procedures around weighing. Not entirely sure yet, his meeting is at 6:15pm.

DR: Well there goes our dinner plans. To be fair our dinner plans were literally just Mad Mex in our hotel rooms before flying to Perth, but still. 

Jack DOOHAN: Mad what? 

DR: Mad Mex? You know, the Mexican fast food place. Surely you’ve had it. 

JD: Oh, I thought you said Mad Max and I was like, “He finished P4 that doesn’t seem too bad.”

DR: Did Max not do the weigh in or what? 

Q: He did, after your podium. Sorry mate, even more bad news for the team, they’ve been summoned to the stewards as well.

DR: If I find out I’m going to lose another podium about ten years on after the race here I’m gonna be pissed.

Q: This one is related to Article 26.13 b, where “Unless authorised by the FIA, no one under the age of 16 is permitted in the pit lane at the following times: b) The period commencing fifteen (15) minutes before the pit exit is opened to allow cars to cover reconnaissance laps and the time when the last car enters the parc fermé after the sprint session or the race has ended.”

DR: What cause we had our daughter with us at the podium celebration? 

Q: Quite possibly, yeah. 

DR: That’s interesting. I—yeah, I’m just gonna say that’s interesting.

Oscar PIASTRI: Kevin had his kids with him in Monza twenty four, didn’t he? 

DR: Yeah, I’m sure the team will have a lot to say so we’ll just leave it at that. 

CUT: Reaction to Australia winning

WHY: Timeline changes. Original timeline was Australia 2026 being their first race back after Las Vegas and relationship/kid reveal. I apparently also cut the all Australian podium. Can't remember why.

[Photo 1: 

Photo 2: 

Photo 3: 

Photo 4: Lucinda holding the constructor trophy on the podium, Daniel giving a big grin next to her.]

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danielricciardo Never thought I’d be able to share a podium with two other Aussies but what better time than at our home race. @/jackdoohan @/oscarpiastri @/redbullracing 🇦🇺❤️

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ausgp Surely this gets us a public holiday?! @/auspm 

oscarpiastri We’re about to get even more annoying… 

—

Oracle Red Bull Racing @/redbullracing 

Don’t mind us, we’re just in a puddle of tears over how cute @/Max33Verstappen and @/danielricciardo are 😍😭🫶

[Video: Taken from behind the parc ferme barriers, Daniel holding Matilda as Max hugs him, one hand around his waist and the other around the back of his neck.]

—

jeanie 🤠 @/COTADANIEL

flabbergasted about how well max and daniel hid their relationship from the world because man that he looks at daniel like he hung the moon stars and the sun and we’ve just been blind to notice

jake @/381racers

Maxiel admin logged on today thank you universe 🙏

—

DANIEL: Yeah, I just didn’t think I was able to have this, you know? If you had told me like seven years ago that hey, “You’ll be winning again and Max and your kid will be right along with you”, I would’ve laughed in your face. There is still absolutely more work to do, but I’m just glad I get to have my little moment without like some of these outside factors screaming and kicking at us. 

CUT: Jake @/381racers meeting Daniel

WHY: Felt too indulgent. Loved it, but I think the idea pushed the boundaries/fourth wall maybe A Little too much, even for my low standards.

jake @/381racers

Only felt right that I get this signed 

[Photo: Jake’s infamous tweet “Max Verstappen can you fight?” printed out and framed. Max has signed it and wrote “Yes he can.”]

—

jake @/381racers

First photo really Daniel did you have to shame me further . I thought we had a promise. Anyways, here's the video of me meeting them.

[Video: Jake meeting Daniel, in Red Bull hospitality. They’re both sitting down in chairs, and Jake has his hands on top of a frame placed face down on the table. 

JAKE: Do you remember like two years ago in COTA you wore a leather jacket outfit and basically the internet blew up because of how good you looked? 

DANIEL: Yeah, with the cowboy hat and everything! 

JAKE: And there was a tweet that trended on that weekend—

Daniel sits up in his chair, eyes widening in realisation of who Jake is. 

DANIEL: Oh my god you’re “Max Verstappen can you fight?” guy?!

JAKE: Embarrassingly, yes. 

DANIEL: (offscreen) How did you find him?! 

OFFSCREEN: Remember when I said I was going to bring my boyfriend this race? 

Daniel looks back and forth behind the person offscreen and Jake multiple times before bending over and laughing hysterically. 

OFFSCREEN: Yeah, I’m not happy about it either. 

DANIEL: Oh my god did I like cause you two to meet? 

jake @/381racers

No I too am not happy about my internet history coming back to bite me 

CUT: Interview with Lawrence Baretto

WHY: I ran out of time. I had planned to post this at the end of Jan, but since I didn’t post that NYD bonus fic, I didn’t wanna go a month without an update so this got culled. Also my vague illusions to Max’s dad felt a little weird.

Exclusive: Daniel Ricciardo on retirement, 15 years of F1 and family with Lawerence Barretto

When I ask about his daughter and if they have any interest in making her follow in her parents footsteps, he shuts down my line of questioning pretty quickly. 

“No,” he immediately says. “I’m not going to write out a path for her to follow, or put expectations for her to go into karting because of a family legacy. I think Max knows it a little bit more than me, how the expectations of someone who’s meant to take care of you can tarnish the thing you love.” 

Jos Verstappen, Max’s father and former F1 driver hasn’t been seen in the paddock since 2023. Both declined to comment when asked. 

“If she wants to start karting, then we’ll probably have a very long conversation about how it’s important that she finds it fun and if she doesn’t then she doesn’t. It’s not important to me that she wins or whatever, I just want her to enjoy it.”

Chapter five: 2027

CUT: Drive to Survive script

WHY: I did not have the energy to write a full script, and I felt like there were too many events to write about and I could not do it justice. Also I would like idk if Max and Daniel would show Matilda on DTS which is crazy because Matilda is not real…

—

Drive to Survive

Season 10 Episode 10 “One final rodeo…”

After fifteen years in the sport, Formula 1 says goodbye to Daniel Ricciardo. 

[00:20:26]

INT. HOTEL ROOM INTERVIEW

PRODUCER:  We don’t have to talk about Las Vegas. 

DANIEL:  No, it's fine. Probably should. Uh—yeah. 

PRODUCER:  We can take a minute. 

DANIEL:  Yeah, thanks. I didn’t talk about it last year did I? 

PRODUCER:  No. Okay, we’ll cut. 

CUT TO BLACK. 

Sound of car crashing into wall, before it fades in to show the Red Bull in the pitlane wall. Cuts to people reacting—Red Bull employees, fans in the grandstands and then a birds eye aerial view of the crash, showing the medical and extraction crew. 

PIERRE HAMLIN (V.O): Daniel, are you okay? 

Cuts to Max’s T-CAM footage, him driving past the car. 

MAX (V.O): What the fuck happened? 

PIERRE: Daniel, please just press the radio button so we know you’re okay. 

Cuts to Daniel’s T-CAM footage, his helmet leans against the left side of the halo, indicating he’s unmoving. 

PIERRE: Daniel, can you hear me? 

Cuts to showing the Red Bull pitwall, everyone looking at each other worried. 

DANIEL (V.O): The first thought I had was: Shit. This is really bad timing. Second thought I had was: Max is going to kill me.

Cuts to Daniel's forward facing cockpit onboard, him moving his head and looking up and down the cockpit.

PIERRE: Daniel?

DANIEL: Yep. Fuck. My chest, fuck. Shit, is um the other driver okay?

PIERRE: Yes, he's okay but don't worry about him. Do you think you can get out of the car?

DANIEL: Yeah no, I don't think that's happening with breaking something. Fuck, my ribs. Oh god. I think something's broken.

PIERRE: Okay Daniel, the medical team are nearly there but do not move if you think it will cause more damage. The car is safe, so do not worry about anything else.

DANIEL: Yep, okay. Um, will someone tell Max I'm okay? Just, don't freak him out yeah?

PIERRE: Copy Daniel, it will be okay, it will be okay. Just keep radio on please.

DANIEL: Okay. Fuck, this sucks.

INT. STUDIO

TEXT: Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing driver

MAX VERSTAPPEN: Been a while. 

PRODUCER: Didn’t think you were going to agree. 

MAX VERSTAPPEN: Would be a big thing if you made it look like we hated each other again! 

PRODUCER: We asked Daniel what his first thought was when he had that accident. He said “This is really bad timing” and that you were going to kill him. Why? 

MAX: Well, because of Matilda.

EXT. PORT HERCULES, MONACO— MORNING

 Long shot of Port Hercules, Monaco, filmed from a balcony. It’s peaceful, quiet—the city sounds filling the background before we hear a baby scream in joy. 

DANIEL: Matilda! 

Matilda is on the floor in the living room, on a playmat and she plays with wooden blocks. Max is next to her on the ground, with his back leant against the couch, Daniel is on the couch. 

DANIEL (V.O): Yeah, she’s one of the best things to happen to me. For a long time my whole life was just racing, but now she’s my whole life. Like it’s okay if I have a bad race or whatever, I’ve got to move on quickly because she’s there at home waiting.  

MAX: Having a kid does change you, I think. Daniel will not say his driving has changed, but it has. 

PRODUCER: In what way? 

MAX: I think now he is more focused on winning every race, not that he wasn’t before. But because maybe he knows that every race matters more now. You hope that the others around you will not be too reckless so that you can go home after the race. 

EXT. CIRCUIT OF THE AMERICAS — MIDDAY

TEXT ON SCREEN: 2025 UNITED STATES GRAND PRIX

RED BULL EMPLOYEE #1: Hey, welcome back Danny! 

DANIEL: Thank you, thank you. Hope you didn’t miss my handsome face too much. 

RED BULL EMPLOYEE #1: I didn’t know Jake went on holiday! 

DANIEL: I’m gonna crash the car just for that.

RED BULL EMPLOYEE #2: No, we’re just kidding. So how’s the baby? 

DANIEL: She’s great, do you wanna see a photo? 

RED BULL EMPLOYEE #1: Oh, she’s adorable. Matilda was her name? 

DANIEL: Yeah, yeah. We had a list but I think Matilda was the only one that stood out to us. She just looks like a Matilda you know? 

///

The camera swings to the right, as Daniel’s head sticks out from the door. 

DANIEL RICCIARDO: You aren’t talking shit about me, Maxy? 

MAX VERSTAPPEN: Of course I am. 

///

MAX: I have raced with Daniel in every single year of F1. I think it will be weird.

DANIEL RICCIARDO I think I was a pretty good darn car mechanic. 

CUT: Max’s interview with GQ

WHY: If you haven’t learnt by now, I am very lazy. Honestly, I just wanted this chapter out and I knew I didn’t have the time to write a whole article. Also I don’t think Max would be this open about this relationship but maybe Daniel made him more open in this universe. I still stand by the first sentence, it is possibly the truest thing to come out of the fic.

You can’t talk about Max Verstappen without eventually talking about Daniel Ricciardo, and you can’t talk about Daniel Ricciardo without eventually talking about Max Verstappen. This was a true statement in the earlier part of Verstappen’s career, but now perhaps even more so. “He’s made me a much better person,” Verstappen comments when I ask him about his husband. “I maybe wasn’t the best person to be teammates with when I was first in Formula 1, but he stayed friends with me. Even after he left and I was not being nice to him, he still stayed. That was very important to me.”

There’s a certain aura of happiness that comes from Verstappen when he starts talking about Ricciardo, and he says it’s probably one of the most documented love stories of F1. 

It started in the early morning after the final race of the 2018 season, and a drunk voicemail to Ricciardo kicked things off. “I was still mad that he was going, and I had too many gin and tonics and I called him at like 12 am or something. Obviously he didn’t answer because he was sleeping but I said really embarrassing stuff in that voicemail.” He left one more a couple hours later, asking Ricciardo not to mention it. 

“He really took that to heart.” Verstappen laughs. “I don’t really know why, we would talk when we saw each other on race weekends and pretend that everything was fine between us.” 

They were seemingly friends only when it was the race weekend, but off track they had never been further apart. There was a lot of resentment and unsaid conversation from Verstappen’s side, self proclaiming that his stubbornness had put a pin in their relationship. “It’s easy to say now looking back, but I thought Daniel leaving Red Bull was also leaving me. And I didn’t take it well.”

But a little bit of push and shove from his fellow friends made him realise that having Ricciardo in his life was more important than whatever feelings he had towards him leaving. 

///

Verstappen proposed two years later in December 2022 at that same house. “Coordinates of the house and everything on the ring,” Ricciardo comments when he drops in to grab something from the office. “Cried like a baby when I realised.”

Deleted Epilogue:

WHY: I still can’t decide if Matilda would go down the F1 path. If she did, she is definitely a Ferrari driver. Just to mess with her dads. I think she would sign with Red Bull in the junior seasons, maybe do two seasons with Red Bull then switch to Ferrari. A Sebastian Vettel if you will…let’s hope it turns out better for her than him. 

[Photo 1: A Ferrari car crossing the chequered flag.

Photo 2: Matilda on the third step of the podium, holding the trophy in the air, the Australian flag wrapped around her shoulders.]

Photo 3: Matilda hugging her parents in parc ferme.]

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mvr one home race down 🇦🇺, one more to go 🇳🇱 😉

View all 6,384 comments

scuderiaferrari 👏🎉

23 March

—

SKY SPORTS: 2048 AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX

David CROFT: And Matilda Verstappen-Ricciardo absolutely sends it down the inside and makes it stick, and what a move! Gosh, I was not expecting her to pull it off but she absolutely does and gets a roar of a cheer from the home crowd, Verstappen-Ricciardo is currently in P3. 

Jenson BUTTON: I mean, we should not be surprised. Daughter of Max Verstappen, a six time World Champion and Daniel Ricciardo, another World Champion. A lot of racing talent in that family, I thought the last of the late breakers was Daniel but she has really put a new meaning on late!

DC: And speaking of there is Max and Daniel Verstappen-Ricciardo, who I imagine are probably the most nervous parents in the paddock right now! A lovely nod and clap of encouragement as we watch the reaction of Matilda’s overtake for P3. 

—

matilda verstappen-ricciardo @/MVR 

if you’re wondering if it’s embarrassing to have your parents show up at work to congratulate you just wait till one of them interviews you in front of the tv…. thanks dad i’ve never felt so uncool before

138 replies 98 reposts 20,482 likes

—

POST RACE: PARC FERME INTERVIEW

Daniel RICCIARDO: Matilda! 

Matilda VERSTAPPEN-RICCIARDO: Oh my god, please be cool about this. 

DR: Just wait till I convince F1 to let me and Max double host it. 

MVR: This is actually my worst nightmare. Like maybe three other people will understand what I’m feeling right now. 

DR: 

///

MVR: I mean I’m not worried about a legacy, if people think I’m here to start or continue a legacy then they can think that, but I’m here to race. Not carry on whatever my parents did. 

[small-sinclair]

Hehehe I love you’re writing, here’s another request, angst with a happy ending

7. I told you that I fucking loved you and you stood there and laughed at me (angst prompt list)

9. “I love you doesn’t begin to express what I feel for you.” (Fluff prompt list)

Reader confessed their love, Bo laughs (it’s out of disbelief reader doesn’t take it that way) reader leaves, Bo comes home in the evening, obviously dude sucks at his emotions and they argue and then Bo ends up word vomiting a love confession too, little kissy at the end :3

Ooooooo. This is a nice one! Had to think about this one for a moment, but I think I have something for this :3

Bo x grey reader

What a Fool

Tw: sfw, confused Bo, mention of future killings, mention of murder/using a person, lovely Bo at the end,

When you told Bo how you felt in the garage, he had to take a double take on you. He looked at you in a mixture of disbelief and... hurt? Why does his baby blue eyes look so hurt when you said you want to spend the rest of your life with him?

"Say that again, honey?" He asked, wiping his hands over his pants, oil stains on his face. He was working on a 2004 Jeep today, and the motor was giving him trouble. "I think the heat is gettin' to my head."

"I said," you take a breath, "I love you, Beauregard Sinclair." You felt butterflies fluttering around your stomach and head. The way the golden afternoon light touching his skin and his wrist made him look like a saint. "I love you so much it hurts sometimes."

The corner of his lips twitched as a goofy smile cracked. At first, you thought he was happy, but when he started laughing hard and held him stomach, your confidence fell. He looked at you, trying to keep a straight face, and laughed harder.

He wiped a tear from his eye. "Oh, y/n--what? Did Lester put you up to this? Goodness me, darlin'. You're the funniest human alive." Bo turned back to the jeep. "What a joke."

That was the straw that broke the camel's back.

You burst into tears, turning on your heels, and left the garage. You didn't mean to start crying, but a cry escaped your mouth as you ran out the garage, pushing Lester aside as he brought visitors to the station. Lester raised a brow at you then looked back at Bo, who was following you behind, confused as ever. The group--two girls and one guy--watched as you ran up the hill towards the house. You want to throw yourself on the closest thing like a Disney princess does in a moved when their love denies them. Is this what it feels like to be broken hearted?

One of the girls didn't stop watching you go until Bo said, "Don't mind 'em. They're actin' funny."

"I don't think they are, mister," the blonde said. "I've seen a broken hearted person, and that one," she thumbed over her shoulder, "just lost all of their love all at once."

The red head girl nodded. "Yeah, man. The hell did you do to them?"

Why don't you mind you own business? Bo wanted to snap, but he had to keep the good southern charm on. Maybe they won't do anything about it?

"It don't matter," Bo said, waving it off. "Y/n just said they love them."

Lester's eyes lit up like a puppy being given a bone. "Really? That's great!" He had the biggest smile on his face. "They were real nervous about it but I told 'em 'at y'all love 'em, too, Bo!"

Oh... no. "They weren't lyin'?"

Lester's not one for violence, but... "Wha did ya tell 'em, Bo?"

Bo's blood ran cold as he covered his mouth. Man, did he feel like a prick. "I thought they were jokin' an'--"

"Don't tell me you laughed at the poor thing!" The blonde said in disbelief. "Please say you didn't?"

"Yeah, I did." Why is Bo talking to the people he's going to kill? "I thought they were jokin' an' Les put 'em up to it!"

The man shook his head, clicking his tongue. "That's cold, brother."

"Ain't your brother," Bo snapped, pacing back to the counter then towards the group, covering his mouth. "Really fucked up 're."

"Yeah! Crashed and burned seems to sum it up," the red head said. She nodded at the door. "You should go after them and say your sorry."

The blonde nodded in agreement as she checked her phone. "Yeah, mister. If you go now, you can beat the rain." She then held up her phone. "Cause, like, it'll be cheesy as hell if your run through the rain to get to them."

Lester had to nod in agreement. "Yeah. Super cheesy."

Then the man held up a hand, asking, "But do you feel the same about them? Like, do you love them?" He shoved his hands back in his sweatshirt. "Because if you say it and not mean it, it'll be Oversvile for you."

"Brendon's right," the blonde girl said. "Because that could make this worse and you might lose a friend." She then looked at the red head and asked, "Remember Will did that, Macy?"

Macy, the red head, nodded. "He played me like a fucking room after that, Percy." She then looked at Bo. "You better figure it out, man."

Bo chewed the inside of his mouth as he placed his hands on his hips, thinking. What did he think of you? Sure, he would laugh with you, talk with you, sleep and hold you. Part of him wanted to kiss you when you dragged him outside to watch the fireflies dace over the wildflowers. The way you spun in the flowers as you tried to catch stars in your hand and held yourself so soft and gentle around them, your smile always warm. Cracking up laughing when Jonesy jumped up to lick your face made his heart swell like no other. Every time he was around you, he felt so calm and lighter. Bo's heart ached when you would curl up closer to him at night, hugging his wrists and scars with so much love. He hated when people looked at you wrong, and he hated when you were taken away from him just to talk to a group of people. When you fell down the spiral stairs and hurt your knee, he wanted to bend over backwards to make you stop crying. He hated to hear you cry, to see your sadness, to see your frown... He hated seeing you run out of the station, holding her face, crying. It felt like a bullet to the chest.

So, why did he laugh? What made him think that it was a joke?

Then it hit him: Trudy said it and never meant a word. The only love he's every felt was... was with you.

"Oh, shit," he said under his breath. "What did I do?" He then looked up at the group then at the door. He heard the soft rumbles of the thunder and flashes over the sky. Fuck the killings, fuck the group... he wanted you. Sweet, perfect, beautiful you.

Macy seemed to be reading his mind. She stepped aside, and held her arm out as a path to the door. "Well, get after it then!"

That was all he needed to hear. He hurried pass them and started up towards the house. The group be killed or not, it doesn't matter. You were in that damn house alone crying. What a fool he is! A damn fool! Here you were, in the shop, looking nice than normal, all dolled up for him, just for him, to ruin something that's been building up in his chest for weeks!

What a fool Bo Sinclair is.

*****************

"I'm an idiot, Vincent!" You sobbed in your pillow. He sat on the edge of your bed and rubbed your back. "A dumb, love, stupid-stupid idiot!"

You scared him when you slammed the door, causing him to drop his coffee mug of tea. It hurts seeing you cry, but it hurts more knowing your crying over his dumb twin. Vincent just wanted to hit Bo with the tow truck--

"Y/n?" Bo called from downstairs, closing the door. "Darlin'?"

"Go-go away!" You chocked out, yelling back down. "I-I don't wan-wanna talk to-to you!" You heard his boots coming up the steps as rain pattered against the glass. You hugged your pillow tighter as you cried.

When Bo saw this scene, his knees didn't feel right and he felt sick. He did this to you. He made you cry. Goods, he's like his father--

Vincent glared at Bo as he stood. His hands moved quickly. 'Talk to them. Y/n's hurt. Fix it.' He stops at the door then looks back at Bo. ‘Fix. It.’

Bo took a deep breath and nods as he brother past by him, his eyes lingering over your crying form. He took careful steps in your room and sat on the edge of the bed. He folded his hands as he listened to your tears. The hallow pit in his chest caved in faster as you flinched away from his hand touching your knee. He hated himself more. He hated himself more than anyone.

"Hey, darlin'," he hummed softly, his voice echoing inside his chest. "Wanna talk to ya."

"Why?" You sniffed. "What? You wanna laugh at me more?"

Those words were like daggers in his heart. "No, no, y/n-- I didn't mean to laugh."

You turned on your side and sat up. You brought your legs close to your chest. He brought his leg up on the bed and shook his head. "I told you that I fucking loved you," you wiped your face, "and you stood there and laughed at me, Bo."

Thunder rumbled against the roof. "I didn't mean to, honest."

Your eyes were so red and puffy that he didn't want to look at you. "What am I to you, Beauregard?"

"What do ya mean--"

"What. Am. I. To. You?" You didn't mean to sound tired or angry. You didn't mean to curl your fingers into a fist. "Tell me. What?" You used your arm as a tissue to wipe away the snot. "Do you see me as a play thing? Want me in-in the basement like the rest?"

He felt disgusted. "No, no!" The near thought of you strapped down in some place horrifying like that nearly broke him.

"Then what am I to you?" You snapped, making him jump at the suddenness. "Am I a joke? A dumb person you thought it'll be fun to play with?" Then something clicked and your mind didn't want to go there, but it did. Your body started to shake. "Are you waiting for the perfect moment to kill me?"

Lightning flashed over his eyes, his blood running cold. Your voice being defeated. Your heart breaking in his hands all because he laughed? Calling them a joke? You. Perfect you. Breaking for a damaged Bo. Why? Why are you doing this to him? His arms reached around you and pulled you into a tight embrace. He held your head against his chest, his hand covering the back of your head protectively. You could hear his heart hammering against his chest.

You struggled against his grip to wiggle free, but it felt so safe, so loving. Luckily, your struggling failed as you cried in his arms. He hushed you softly, kissing the top of your head.

"Wanna know wha' you are to me?" He whispered as rain pattered like bullets. "Yer my first thought every morn. My last thought every night. Yer the reason I git outta bed to mak' coffee. I-I fucking live to hear ya say 'good mornin' ' to me, and it drives me crazy when ya don't say it." He held your head up and cupped your cheek. You were looking up at his beautiful eyes. Those baby blues that made you hit the ground harder. "I thin' 'bout ya when I work on the cars. I thin' 'bout ya when I smoke, wonderin' if yer cooking or bakin'. Shit," he couldn't help but chuckle at thought, "I've said yer name out loud with my last name: Y/n Sinclair." He blushes. "An' it has a good rin' to it, yeah?" You found yourself nodding. He rested his head in your hair, smelling the flowery shampoo you used this morning. "I don't know what ya did to me, and I like it, y/n," he looks down at you. "I like ya a lot."

"So," you hiccuped. "You love me?"

"I love you doesn’t begin to express what I feel for you, darlin' y/n," he answered, laughing. There's a sparkle in his eyes when he asked, "Mind if I show you how much I love ya?"

You managed a nod as your cheeks flushed red.

He leaned down, brushing your lips gently with his rough thumb, and kisses you. His lips were cracked, but they felt like the softest pillows under you. The storm under your skin calmed when you pulled yourself closer, running your hands over his shirt sleeves, tugging him closer. He held your back up as he deepen the kiss. He took you in as if you were the last glass of cold water in July. His head spun as the thoughts of you twirling in the ran sent his mind a blaze, taking you as you were, putting his mama's ring on your finger to forever call you his.

"I love you, Beauregard Sinclair," you breathed against his lips.

He smiled against your skin. "Say it again?"

"I love you, Beauregard Sinclair." And you would say it until your dying breath.

[ray935sworld]

The right kind of comfort

This story is based on a very funny post by @yeastinfectionvale that I took a little to serious. I may have misunderstood the assignement and my brain came up with this story so... I hope you enjoy it anyway!

And shout-out to @hotmessmaxpress for explaining to me how to do the under the cut post. Thanks again.

Summary: Bez crashed in Assen and gets his d sucked by Valentino Rossi. But is that really what he needs or who he needs? (Hint Bez x Marc at the end) 3.4k words

Don't like it, don't read it. Continues under the cut and on AO3.

Story includes a negative self-view while dealing with insecurites. Please don't read if this may trigger you

A DNF. Another fucking DNF after Le mans. He had one podium back in Jerez and beside that had to be grateful to even have made it to P6. He had to get used to P14, P11 and P13. And he was regular outscored by his teammate. The year before Bez already had 2 wins before Assen and had lead the championship for 2 races. Now he was lucky to get points. He was fighting against Raul Fernandez in the championship standings for P11, with just 6 points separating them. If he had known that when he was 3rd last year, he probably would have laughed in disbelief.

What had happened? What had happened to him? Why had his performance suddenly drop drastically when he was still working hard? He was still trying his best. Now it was his cursed reality. He was doing everything. He put in the work to figure out what his problem was but it ended up being worthless. Whenever he thought he had made progress, he got in the race and messed up. Every time.

With more self-doubt than ever, he headed back to the garage. Technically his bike was still running and he wasn’t hurt – beside his pride. But he knew if he continue, he would just damage the bike further and he didn’t had to put his mechanics through the troubles. So he went back, keeping his head low. He tried not to face them.

His mind was screaming at him. They were disappointed in him. They had to. He kept messing up their hard work. He didn’t deserve being part of the team or even being in MotoGP. He should just go back home and beg his father to give him a job in his shop. He could hide in shame in the back and work on some cars, never to be seen again. Maybe that wasn’t the worst idea after all. No more cameras, nasty comments and he wouldn’t disappoint everyone the way he does now.

He felt random hands on his shoulders, trying to encourage him. Fake. Someone told him it was okay. It wasn’t. They said that he was just struggling. He’d soon make his comeback and show them what he is really able to do. Lies. They didn’t actually believe he could do it. They didn’t thought he was a good rider. They didn’t believe in him. They just had to say it. After all, his action determined how their work was depicted. So if they fucked him up further, they would hurt their own career. Right? So they needed him to perform. And every basic psychology said that talking shit about someone who trust you was the worst thing to do.

He sat down for a moment. He pretended to listen to his mechanic, just nodding along but in reality, he was trying to down the voices in his head. Valentino Rossi – a god a motorcycle racing – had thought he was good enough to be trained by him. Maybe he was wrong. He had gave him a place in his team. Twice. For 5 years he was in one of his teams. And now he was messing up his last year with them. How he managed to secure that god damn Aprilia contract was still a mystery to him. He didn’t actually deserve it. He would disappoint them too. They wouldn’t renew his contract, maybe even replace him during the season and he wouldn’t find another bike cause no one was as stupid to give him a chance. Not when so many talents were currently competing and already knowing on the door from Moto2 and Moto3. HE wanted to cry at the thought of having to give his dream up that early. After only a few seasons in MotoGP, he’d be forced out. He wanted to cry. He felt tears in his eyes and just as he was about to wipe them away he heard his head mechanic say “I think you should get changed and take a break. We will have a debrief later and talk about how to improve. Alright, Marco?”

He nodded. He wasn’t of any use anyway. He couldn’t even handle a debrief right now. How was he supposed to handle a bike?

He somehow ended up in his motorhome. He didn’t really remember the way there, just that he had hurried and did everything not to be seen. Luckily most people where watching the race so he could easily slip away.

He opened the door and the first thing he felt was the way his heart broke. He felt it deep in his chest. His tears started flowing and he pressed his back to the door. A sob left his lungs. He was crying and he wished he wouldn’t know whose hand it was when someone lifted his chin. But he knew.

He didn’t had to know to recognize how the skin felt on his. He looked up. He didn’t want to. “That was a stupid one” his mentor whispered. He almost cried harder but instead forced a laugh. “At least I’m young enough to actually compete” he shot back.

He couldn’t pinpoint the moment when he had started to cover up being hurt by attacking back. Maybe he had just started to copy his behaviour on track to off track. He really just wanted to break down and cry but right now, with Vale’s hand on his cheek, there was no way out. He could push him back and ran of course. Vale certainly wouldn’t stop him. But why would he? Wasn’t that man in front of him his gay awakening, the one he had jerked off when he was a teenager. Wasn’t he everything he wanted in moments like this?

It’s not like he had lost his looks since Bez was 17. He was still hot. Probably even hotter. And an orgasm was a good way to get ride of his thoughts.

“At least I was actually able to compete” The words felt like a knife was pushed in an already open wound. So Vale truly didn’t believe he was able to compete at the top? He swallowed when he felt his until then closed legs been pushed apart.

He smiled while sitting down almost pressed against his crotch. His grin wasn’t the one that Marco was used to. It wasn’t the kind Vale smile he usually had when the academy was together at the ranch. It was the one that made him feel like he was nothing more than prey for a wild animal. Like there was no purpose for him other to get fucked right there and then, on the floor of his motorhome.

As if he had read his thought, Rossi put his hands on him. His finger tips started to touch the neck of his suit. He was playing with it. “But what you are currently doing… It’s just sad to watch” He felt tears return to his eyes and his mind racing. All the thoughts he had tried to get ride of were suddenly back again. They were stronger. “Pathetic… Fighting for… What was it? P14? P15?” His hand were on his suit. He felt them burning through the white leather. His left hand was holding his hip in place. His right hand was on his zipper. He opened it painfully slow.

Bez let out a whine. He didn’t enjoy this kind of intro. Of course he liked foreplay, but not in sticky cloth, when his body was full of sweat and he felt like he was starting to cry if he didn’t got distracted. And he needed hands on his naked body not on the fucking zipper. “One or two points while Digga is on the podium keeping Marquez behind him. And you fail to stick to those few spare points.” “I’m sorry” he forced himself to say. He looked up again. He stared at him, refusing to break the eye contact first. “I made a mistake, okay?! I’m sorry” he defended himself. His mind didn't got quieter. It got louder with each of his words.

Skilled fingers found their way under his leathers. “I know” he said, there was no love in his voice. No kindness. No comfort, not real one. “And I know you wanna do better” “I… I do” That’s how it regularly went. “It’s just frustrating and I feel so-“

Vale’s fingers felt burning hot on his already warm skin. He pushed the material away from his shoulder and his lips silenced him. Kissing Valentino had long lost the feeling of unfamiliarity and strangeness. Back in 2022, it was an unusual, somehow excited feeling to be noticed like that by someone like him. Now that the hero bliss had worn off a little more – after seeing him naked and getting fucked by him regularly. The need to get ride of his thought was more dominant now. And there was no better way than this… Right? So why push him away? He smiled.

Instead he closed his eyes. He knew it wasn’t what he really needed but it was close enough. So he finally shut his mind up when he felt Vale’s hand in his hair. It glided over a pat of his forehand and buried itself in his curls. He felt his nails tear in his scalp. He moaned in the kiss at the sensation. Vale grabbed a big hand of curls at the back of his head and used it to pull his head back. At the same time his other hand added pressure to his still clothed dick.

Their lips parted with a needy sound. Bez heard an unplaceable sound leave his lips when he obligated Vale’s gesture and let his head fall back. He felt the wall of his motorhome against his head and it reminded him that they were still on the floor. Not that he cared. Not when he felt Vale kissing his throat. Once. Twice. Three times. Then the other side. One. Two… Three. Then he moved to his chest. For a moment he kissed his ribcage. He barely felt it. It was just a short, light kiss on his skin.

“Va-Vale-“ he didn’t even know himself what he was about to ask. “Mmmh?” “Please” he whined in a high voice. He felt needy. An embarrassing red colour painted his cheeks. “Awe” Vale mocked him. His chin hit the abs of the younger one as he looked up. He had put his head on his stomach to smile at him. “Don’t worry” His smile was not as cold as before. Instead there was a fire. Like he was playing a game and knew he was winning. “I got you, Marco. Don’t I? You’ll be a very, very good boy for me and let me take care of you so you can perform again”

He spoke his name so softly that Bez felt a sense of pride rise. He quickly nodded. Yes. Yes, he wanted that. He needed to be taken care of so he could perform again. Maybe he had been wrong. Maybe the thing between them wasn’t as cold as he thought. Maybe there was passion and this whole foreplay was just how Vale was. Maybe he liked it. Bez could deal with it. No problem.

Vale’s hands had by now left his hair and were wandering over his body. He caressed his skin like it was treasure. “Oh Marco, you’re still so beautiful” he whispered.

He quickly grabbed his hips, like he was afraid he would run away or leave as if this was now an option. Bez felt the heat between his legs grow. Blood was rushing south way faster now that the older man’s hands were close to the remaining leathers. He felt himself getting hard. It was uncomfortable against his clothes and there was nothing he could do to prevent it. Not that he really needed to. After all this was exactly why they were there.

“I want you” The retired rider whispered as he pushed the material away from his hips. His naked ass hit the cold floor. For a second if was uncomfortable but Bez made a sound of agreement and quickly kicked everything away from them. Vale could have said anything. With his hands basically on his now exposed cock, he would agree to everything. It felt good to be desired even though it's just in a weird way that he didn't even truly understand. But he didn’t care. He came back, every time and accepted greedily whatever he was willing to give him. He took anything. He wouldn't deny the pleasure his mentor brought him for anything.

He wanted to feel his hands on him, like he did right now. He needed to feel him grabbing his thighs. It was close to being violent. He pushed in the skin and buried his fingers in there for a moment. Marco moaned. He knew his skin was probably turning red, stained with the pressure. Pain and pleasure mixed and his neglected cock stood up for attention. There was a little bit of pre-cum leaking to prove his excitement.

He was no longer thinking. Desire took over and his hands grabbed Valentino. He felt his neck and pulled him closer. He hungryly kissed him. He wanted to feel his lips on his. He wanted to feel his body against his. He wanted to feel his skin on his and pretend just for a moment that this was real. That they were real. That there was hope. That those two had future together even though he wasn't even really sure if he wanted said future not that this was a concern for him at the moment. After all, all he wanted right now was there. He wanted a release. And the one willing to give him the release he needed was his hero Valentino Rossi. He was in front of him willing to fuck him stupid.

He felt his hand wandering down between his legs. Just for a moment he was carefully stroking his thighs. His mind was finally quiet. He could finally breathe. He could just enjoy the moment and that was all he wanted. He kissed his mentor and kissed him again while feeling the vibration leaving the older Italians chest. „How eager" he replied while starting to touch the tip of his cock.

Bez response followed with a needy whine that accidentally escaped his throat. He took it as an encouragement and rubbed the tip of his cock before suddenly leaning down. The rider felt his breath stop for a moment. He started at the dark hair that was now only a breath away. He could feel the breath of the older against the skin of his V-line. It somehow burned against his already hot skin.

There was no more hesitation. He put his hand on his head and tried pushing him towards his leaking dick. The next thing he knew he felt warm lips on the tip of his dick. Before he could even realise what was going on his whole cock was surrounded by heat and wetness. He almost screamed from the pleasure.

His lover sat a fast and unbroken speed. Clearly not his first time. Bez knew that. But now with his hand burried in Vale's hair, all he could do was moan his lovers name. He tried to control his breathing. He couldn't decide if having his eyes wide open or closed tight enough to see stars was the better option. His gronas formed words. "Vale! Va-Va-Fuck!"

He sucked him off and when he felt a familiar heat pool in his lower abdoman he let go of his head. Instead his hands now formed a fist and he pushed it against the ground. „I'm… I'm gonna… I'm gonna come! Fuck! Vale-!"

Then the sudden release hit him. The tension left his shoulders as he came. He didn't had the strength to continue to push himself against the wall so he didn't. He let go and breath. He was breathing heavily. He was trying to control it when he felt Vale's mouth leave his skin. He looked up. His eyes were tired but he could clearly see the smirk in the older man's face.

He had swallowed and was now getting ride of the last drops that were still in the corner of his mouth. „Better?" he asked and kneeled next to Bez. For a moment he hesitated but than quickly nodded. „Yes, thank you Vale." „Always" he whispered and kissed him. This time it was a soft one. Almost careful as if he wanted to apologize for being to rough earlier.

„Okay, the race should almost be over. I'll be heading back now and you should finally take a shower" he announced and stood up. Bez stared at him in disbelief. He had gotten used to the sudden end of their sessions. That didn't mean he liked it. “See you later, okay?”

Bez knew he couldn't expect anything different. It wasn't part of their arrangement. So he faked a smile. “Yeah, see- see you”

Vale didn't even looked back as he closed the door. The silent 'click' confirmed that he was now gone. He had left. Bez stared at the door. He imagined Vale was still standing there.“I just… I need someone and I don't want to be alone right now”

He buried his head against his knees. Emotions he couldn't place overcame him as he was cursing himself again.

That night he went out. Not with the academy or his team. They asked him to join but he politely declined. He wasn't in the mood, at least not for the popular, loud, straight club, they always went for. He now went to a different kind of club. More private. Less known. It was a messy one actually. The kind no one told you about. He preferred those one. Especially cause this one, was known to be a gay club.

So he sat down at the bar. He burried his head in one of the biggest hoddies he owned and looked around. He watched a young woman flirt with a slightly older one. Both laughing and sharing glances. They looked so in love. They looked happy and Bez wanted excatly that. He was on his 3rd drink when a voice behind him suddenly addressed him. For a moment he was annoyed. He had no interest in talking to a fan. He wanted to bury his Frust in alcohol.

“Sorry about your DNF. You really deserve better”

Confused he turned around. He knew this voice a little to well. He was meet with a shy smile. He smiled back. Maybe it was a reflex, the crippling loyalty or the alcohol. Probably a combination of all three. But he smiled back, a kind, real one.

“Sorry about your penalty. P10 after a fight like that was undeserved" he said and watched Marc Marquez smile.

[persesphonestears]

Another tattoo

(Gif not mine :>)

A/N: So I have to make this a more than one part series because I wrote like way too much and I’m gonna die if I don’t post this already. Also so sorry it’s only Ghost in this post, but promise the second part will have the others!! I actually had so much fun writing this like omfg, I don’t have any piercings or tats for myself thanks to money problems atm but like actually I don’t know where I was going with that- uh anyway enjoy! I’m very tired. (looking at the amount now seems rlly small so sorry :/) ALSO I FUCKIN HATE THE NAME TOO LEAVE ME ALONE.

CW: He/they pronouns used for reader(? I might have ended up just using they/them), Reader has tattoos and piercings, I DONT THINK I USED Y/N LES GOO, I call ghost Simon when he isn't at work, Probably incorrect tattoo health procedures, Reader may be a little bland when first meeting Ghost(?), small mentions of gods(?)

Word count: 1342

Simon was finally let off for a break, given it’s only because Price knew he wasn’t keeping himself healthy or sleeping, so being the ‘dad’ boss he is, Simon was forced to take time off. While Simon wasn’t even close to being happy about having to not stay at base and having to make himself food and all the other human necessities, he’d been wanting a new tattoo for some time now. While maybe some of the privates would simply tattoo each other with pen ink, he’d rather die on the field than die from an infection from a more than likely shitty tattoo.

Walking through the somewhat dodgy looking part of his hometown, looking for a seemingly decent tattoo shop. While walking his eye was caught by the small little tattoo shop that looked clean and not all that dodgy. A small bell as the door opened rang as Simon stepped through, looking around at the walls he was impressed with the artwork that was displayed. He could hear faint 2000s rock music in the background of the shop, standing awkwardly waiting to see if anyone was actually here.

Turning around to walk out, he heard a small crash and a string of curses that followed.

Simon stopped and turned to see a short tattooed and pierced person walking out from the back of the shop. “Hi, sorry I was uh..” their talking trailed off as he looked down to see a fresh and unfinished tattoo on their leg. Unknown to Simon, the person in front of him was just very very happy that they weren’t able to be seen from the back, preferring not to be caught staring at the huge 6’4 man in their shop. 

“Uh anyway, I’m guessing you don’t have an appointment cause I don’t have any till later tonight, but I take walk in’s, both for tats and piercings'' They rambled off as they walked around to the front desk checking through their computer, Simon watched them, surprised by the feeling of fluttering in his stomach. Pushing it away he cleared his throat “Uh yeah walk in, are you able to tat up my other forearm?” he was wearing a t-shirt under his hoodie, happy he wasn’t going to be taking his shirt off. “Mhm sure, I just need to ask a few questions and then get you to sign some consent forms, that cool?” He asked walking back around and sitting on one of the couch chairs at the front, taking a seat after them, Simon sat and agreed to the others' request.

“Cool, alright so first is which arm you want it on obviously and if you have any tattoos on your forearm already?” Simon answered with short and gruff answers “My right arm and no, my left is already tattooed(I think I can’t remember which arm of his is tatted).” “Right cool okay so I’m not gonna bother asking if you're of age because it's pretty obvious because holy shit you are probably the biggest and hottest man I’ve ever seen, but just read through these quick and sign ‘em” Thanking whatever gods there were for people not being able to read minds. Handing the forms to Simon he grabbed them and the pen from your hands, giving a quick read through signing where he had to. Putting them back on the desk, you grabbed them right back and skimmed through them, “Okay Simon, well what do you want?”.

—tiny time skip–

After setting everything up and placing the stencil of the sketch that you drew up (That Simon wouldn’t admit but absolutely adored) onto the gruff military man that was sitting in your chair. “Okay, you ready?” A simple nod was what you received in response. Instead of pushing you continued to go ahead and start his tattoo, not once deciding to ask about some of the many scars that graced his arms. Them seemingly adding onto your attraction for the stranger in your shop as he sat still and silent. Becoming; as you do when tattooing, engrossed in the soft buzzing, the hushed music of your playlist and the ink going into skin at your hand.

“How many do you ‘got?” The gruff voice from above me spoke as I continued to stab his skin. “Tats or piercings?” Responding with another question as I kept my focus on the shading, trying to not let the fact that this absolute 10/10 was asking you about yourself. Sure it was most likely to just make conversation but you could dream. “Both?” The voice behind the black surgical mask didn’t sound overly confident but even when peeking up at the man he was still only looking forward. “I stopped counting how many tats I got a while ago. As for my piercings uh..” cutting myself off to count in my head. “I’d say about 9, not counting my ears.” Feeling a cold gaze turn towards me I stiffen slightly. 

“You only have 6 on your face.” (I chose to give reader a vertical labret, septum, both sides of the nose(like so you could use a chain), bridge, eyebrow :D) His voice replies, stifling my laugh “yeah I know I just don’t normally let people see my chest or just randomly show my stomach.” Giggling, I look up to see his ears turning a slight pink. “R-right sorry.” Trying not to laugh at a client, we continued to talk for a bit more before I suggested to put a movie on more to make it less uncomfortable for me with the awkward conversation. After picking a movie, he seemed to relax just a tad more, getting myself comfortable. I continued to finish up the art piece I was adding to someone's skin.

—another time skip because Ghost would get something edgy and big and I can’t keep writing silly awkwardness—

By the time you had finished and made sure to add some disinfectant and soothing cream to the skin before wrapping it up. You pat his shoulder smiling softly “you’re all done big guy”. Rising from the seat, he walked somehow (even though this man is huge) silently towards the front desk. Scanning his card and giving him the papers that explained how to look after his tattoo. “Thank you. You’re uhm. Very handsome- or uh pretty? I don’t know, can I just get your number?” Stumbling over his words brought a smile to your face. “Sure, I’d uh I’d actually really like it if you took my number” you ramble as you grab some scrap paper, quickly writing your personal number you hand it to him.

Seeing his eyes scrunch slightly, let you know he was smiling at you, and god almighty if the fact that this huge, scary, masked, stoic, man giving you a smile, that you couldn’t even see, wouldn’t make you swoon. Giving you a quick nod he walked out, the small bell above your door ringing in your ears as you watched him leave. 

Giggling to yourself as you stupidly fist pumped the air and twirled around happily, not registering the sound of the bell being rung, indicating the opening of a door. What you did register was the once again gruff voice, clearing their throat as you turned back to look at the man who just left back in your shop. “Forgot ma’ cap.” Swiftly grabbing his hat back with what you could only assume was the smuggest look ever he turned back around. This time leaving you with a curt “Bye now, doll”

Leaving you red faced, in the middle of your own shop. Snapping out of it you groaned loudly before retreating to the floor, hidden by the desk. Cursing yourself for your stupid victory jig you did before even making sure that he wouldn’t come back for a bit. A buzz in your pocket distracted you from your internal dread, pulling out your phone and opening it to see a message from an unknown number. “That lil’ dance was very cute btw”.

A/N: *twerks cutely* ANYWAY

[the-iceni-bitch]

Don’t You Shiver

Kinkmas Day 10: Protective and Possessive

Relationship: mob!Lloyd Hansen x fem!reader (le grand homme and coquinette, Poison Paradise)

Words: ~2.1k

Summary: No one should ever try to take you from Lloyd.

Warnings: explicit language, explicit sexual content (unprotected vaginal sex, soft sex, multiple orgasms, cream pie, implied sexual assault (not by Lloyd!), comfort sex), kinda hurt/comfort, violence, murder, mentions of guns, SOFT LLOYD, they’re in love, SMUT!! 18+ ONLY!!

A/N: Oh my god, I love Lloyd Hansen. This man is so unhinged but so lost for his girl and I want it bad.

I am no longer doing taglists so if you want to stay up to date on all the latest filth, follow my sideblog @the-iceni-library and turn on notifications!

Lloyd couldn’t bring himself to scold Pronge, just gritting his teeth and gripping the edge of the dashboard when the man sped through another red light. He was too fucking furious, and he knew Pronge was too, the both of them fuming silently as they made their way through the city towards his estate.

Pronge didn’t even get a chance to throw the car into park before Lloyd was ripping the door open and sprinting towards the house, slamming the front door open so hard it crashed into the wall as he drew in ragged breaths and glared at the goons that were filling his foyer. He barely registered Pronge charging past him and running up the stairs, his fist clenching at his side when he finally found the moron who he was going to kill.

“Adams.” He was snarling, rolling his head until his neck cracked while he ignored the sounds of Pronge bellowing for everyone to get the fuck out and then the clatter of medical equipment being thrown against the wall when the staff didn’t listen to him fast enough. “What in the actual fuck were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that I’d save your club from getting shot to hell.” Oh, the fucking idiot was going to fight him, he was going to make him bleed. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

“You didn’t do fucking shit.” Lloyd growled as he slowly stalked toward the man, practically vibrating from the anger that was coursing through him as he thought about exactly what he was going to do to this bastard. “You left her.”

“She should have hid like I fucking told her to.” It was like the man didn’t realize he was already dead. “Maybe if she had listened…”

“No, fuck no.” Lloyd breathed deeply as he struggled to keep from completely losing his cool. “She doesn’t listen to you, she listens to me. You listen to me, do you not understand what your fucking job is?”

“Well excuse me, but I didn’t sign up to babysit some spoiled little cunt.”

It was like all the air was sucked out of the room when he said that, the few men who had straggled to provide some sort of backup immediately moving away from the dead man when Lloyd froze and his expression became blank.

“The fuck did you just call her?” Lloyd’s voice was dangerously silent as he drew even closer, his face splitting in a sinister grin when the dumbass finally seemed to realize he was alone and about to die. “Say it again.”

Adams barely had a chance to open his mouth before Lloyd smashed his fist into his face, trying to return a few feeble hits and failing when Lloyd gripped his collar and punched him over and over. Lloyd was silent as he kept beating the man, letting go of his collar when he felt him go limp but continuing to rain blows on him until he felt his bones starting to crack. He didn’t even care when he felt the skin on his own knuckles splitting, his vision red and hazy until someone yanked him away from the unrecognizable lump of flesh and made him let out a roar.

“Hansen, Jesus Christ, he’s fucking dead!” August kept a tight hold on Lloyd while the man still thrashed like he was going to rip the corpse apart. “You’ve been beating a dead body for five minutes, calm down.”

“He left her!” Lloyd dragged in a ragged breath and told himself he wasn’t crying while he screamed. “Let me rip that asshole apart, I don’t care if he’s dead.”

“Shit, just breathe, man.” August jerked his head at Everett so he could drag the body out of there before Lloyd lost it again, frowning when the man snarled even though he was starting to sag in his grip. “You want to see her, yeah?”

“I - yeah, I wanna see her. Let the fuck go of me.” Lloyd sniffed and pulled himself out of August’s hold, running a hand through his hair and shrugging to regain his composure. “Where is she?”

“In her room.” August gave Lloyd a wary look before moving aside, gripping the bannister but letting the man walk up the stairs. “Kemp said she’s fine, just rattled.”

Lloyd nodded as he slowly made his way to you, his breath shaky in his chest while his hand lingered on the handle to your door before he pushed it open and laid eyes on you.

Adams was lucky he was already dead.

You looked so small and fragile, and it made Lloyd’s chest ache, the bruise marring your face and your tear swollen eyes making his rage start to bubble to the surface again. Someone touched you, someone other than him had the chance to put their hands on you and leave marks and he was going to burn everything to the fucking ground. He was gentle when he sat next to you on the bed, softly running his palm over your arm and rumbling when you flinched and slowly blinked awake.

“Lloyd…” if you started crying again he didn’t know what he was going to do, his nostrils flaring as he breathed deeply and cupped your face in his hands.

“My love.” He hushed you and let you pull yourself into his lap, tucking your face into his shoulder and winding his arms around you while you shuddered and whimpered. “I’m here, you’re safe.”

“The club was supposed to be safe.” You clutched at him desperately, wincing when his hand found a sore spot on your side and nuzzling at his neck without a care that he was covered in someone else’s blood. “I was alone, and he touched me, he tried - he tried to… if she hadn’t been there he would’ve taken me, I couldn’t do anything. Is she okay?”

“She’s gonna be fine, she’s recovering.” Everyone who had anything to do with this was going to die the most painful death Lloyd could think of. “I’m gonna make sure she’s taken care of, I promise. No one will ever take you from me, no one will ever touch you again, or I’ll feed them to their families. I’m so sorry. Tell me what you need, amour, I’ll do anything.”

“I need you, please.” You whined when he brushed his lips over yours, burying your hands in his hair and deepening the kiss as he stretched his body over yours. “I don’t want to think anymore, make me forget, mon loup.”

Lloyd groaned as he pulled the blankets off of you, frowning when he got a look at the bruises that were covering you until you pulled his face back to yours and arched into him. His callused hands were almost tender as they slowly traced the curves of your body, the vibration of his low growling buzzing against your lips while he slid his fingers under the edge of your nightie and slid it up towards your hips.

You panted quietly into his mouth as you gripped his shirt in your fists and started to drag it over his head, craving the feeling of his skin against yours and losing yourself in his eyes as he kept his gaze fixed on you. As soon as you tossed his shirt aside he was latching back onto you, murmuring affectionate words against the skin of your throat and purring when you took off his belt.

He held you close while you undid his slacks and pulled them down his hips just enough, cradling your jaw and slowly stroking the curve of your cheek with his thumb as you gripped his cock and began to slide him inside you. The small gasp that escaped you as he stretched you wide made his jaw clench, the hand that wasn’t framing your face cupping your breast as he rolled his pelvis into yours when your bodies were finally melded together like they belonged.

“You’re alright.” Lloyd was reassuring himself as much as he was you, sighing when you nodded and grinding into you when he felt your pussy flutter for him. “You’re mine, I’m going to fucking kill every fucker who thinks they can even look at you. No one will ever hurt you again.”

“Yours.” Even with him pressed right against you it didn’t feel like he was close enough, you wanted to be in the same skin as him, winding your legs around his hips and mewling when you felt his heartbeat thumping against your chest. “Only yours, my wolf, Daddy.”

“Yes, fuck.” He growled and pulled your face as close to his as possible so you were breathing the same breath, bending his knees under your thighs so he could seat himself as deeply in you as possible as he plucked at your lips with his teeth until they were wet and swollen. “Let me take care of you, I love you.”

You could barely reply that you loved him too when he rolled into your clit and drove into you with a slow stroke that made your body shake, your hands clutching at his shoulders while you whimpered for him. Every time your breath caught when he bottomed out Lloyd felt himself fall for you even more, promising himself that he would never let anything happen to you. He couldn’t lose you, it would kill him.

Lloyd started kissing the bruises that were ruining your perfect skin, gently brushing his lips over your cheek and your throat and your shoulder while you let out soft moans and ran your fingers through his hair. Your cunt gushed and squeezed his cock when he snarled against the handprint that had been left on your breast, your body arching off the bed while you sobbed softly.

“Please… Daddy, please.” You bit your lips when he kept sliding his cock in and out of you at that delicious pace that made your brain go all soft, whimpering when he gently gripped your hand so he could kiss the bruises on your arm. “I love you, Daddy, I need it, don’t stop.”

“I’ll give you everything, shhh.” He nuzzled at your cheek as he brought his face back to yours, groaning into your mouth and barely pulling out as he longed to keep as much of his body as possible molded to yours. “Ma jolie fille, Daddy loves you so much, hates seeing you hurt. I need you, give me another.”

You nodded and felt tears starting to leak down your cheeks when you fell apart for him, letting your mouth fall open so he could swallow your cries as his tongue curled against yours. Lloyd pressed his entire body into yours as your swollen cunt clamped down on his cock, moaning into your mouth and rolling his hips slow and deep as he filled you with his cum.

“Lloyd…” you clung to him as you came down, still trembling and crying a little while his eyes remained fixed on yours. “Please don’t leave me.”

“No, of course not, coquinette.” Lloyd wound you in his arms after pulling the blankets back over the both of you, rolling onto his side and tucking your face into his shoulder as he kissed your hair. “I’m here, you sleep.”

He waited until your breathing was deep and even before paging for August, scowling when the man opened the door louder than he would have liked as he sat up against the headboard with you still tucked into his chest. You barely stirred at the other man’s presence, sighing softly and snuggling closer to Lloyd without thought before you settled back to sleep.

“The asshole doesn’t want to talk.” August ran a hand through his curls and leaned against the door frame. “Nick wants to let Kemp have a go, but now that Pronge made sure his wife is recovering he’s pretty insistent that he be the one to get info out of him.”

“Nick’s princess is good then?” Lloyd breathed deeply when August nodded, his fingertips trailing over your skin lazily while he chewed on the inside of his cheek. “Do we actually need this idiot to talk? It’s not like we don’t know who’s behind this.” He huffed when August just shrugged. “Let Pronge at him, it might keep him from accidentally killing one of the med staff. Tell him to leave some for me though. Think I’m gonna feed that bastard his own balls after what he tried to do to her.”

[whattraintracks]

28. Broken Vase - TMNT 2012

Little Raph goes out with a crash.

Mikey looks up from his comic at the sound of a crash. Little Raph runs into his bedroom a moment later, and Mikey's just thrilled the tiny troublemaker came to him first. He beckons Raph to his lap, where the kid tucks inside his shell. With a blanket and some adjustment, the lump looks just like a pillow. Mikey snickers, practicing his innocent face for whoever inevitably comes looking for their mini maestro of mischief.

Seriously, five-year-old Raph is the prince of pranks. The same sweet face and small form that nobody suspects make him the perfect accomplice. Mikey had no idea Raph was so devious. He actually has to reign in some of the kid's ideas. Even then, they've gone through more water balloons, silly string, and air horns in the last couple of weeks than Mikey does in a few months. The guys are still setting off bang snaps around the lair.

Pranks or no pranks, Mikey loves getting to spend so much time with Raph. He and Donnie were thick as thieves when they were all little, and these days Leo's his best friend whenever they're not fighting, so it makes Mikey pretty happy that, right now, he's kid Raph's go-to brother. The others will joke about Mikey being easy to get along with because he's the most childlike, yadda yadda yadda. But you know what! Maybe that's not such a bad thing. What's wrong with dressing up, and playing pretend, and arts and crafts and coloring? Is it just 'cause they're a little older now? Mikey couldn't care less. It makes him happy, it makes Raph happy, and that's all that matters.

He gives Raph's shell a little rat-a-tat-tat and settles back to read. He doesn’t get very deep into his stack when he realises two things. First, no one's come calling for Raph. Second, his lapful of turtle is shaking pretty hard, and it's not with giggles.

He lifts a corner of the blanket. "You good, little man?" 

The only answer is a hiccupy sob.

"Aw, buddy,” he winces.

Sometimes Raph's deviousness comes back to bite him. One of their early pranks caught Leo on a bad day. Leo got really startled and almost started embarrassed-crying, and then Raph was devastated and started actual-crying, and it just went downhill from there. So Mikey's been trying to keep their antics harmless and random.

"No one's come looking for you. They can't be too mad," he assures.

Raph just keeps crying. Mikey’s debating if he should ride it out when he has a brief flash of panic. Mentally shaking himself for not checking sooner, he asks, "Are you hurt?"

More sniffles.

"Hamato Raphael," he says in his best impression of Leo's leader voice, "Are you hurt?"

Finally, a thin, watery voice replies, "No." 

"Okay,” he heaves a sigh of relief. “Okay, that's good, little dude." That took years off his life. No wonder Leo acts so old; Master Splinter must feel ancient.

He slumps against the headboard, tugging Raph a little closer. "No worries, you can chill with big bro Mikey until you feel better. I won't let anyone bother you."

Since Raph usually settles down with snuggles, Mikey returns to his comics, mostly at ease. Sure enough, the quaking and sad noises stop by the time he finishes his last one. Oh, hey, it's probably close to nap time.

"What should we make for your pre-nap snack, kiddo?" he asks cheerfully.

No response.

He repeats Raph's name a few times. Poking him gets nothing, too, so Mikey assumes the micro turtle fell asleep. Oh well, there’s no point in waking him now that he’s out. Someone'll feed him when he wakes up hangry.

With nothing to do and pretty hungry himself, Mikey uses his rad ninja skills to slide Raph to the bed—oh, ouch, numb legs, very numb legs—and wobbles out to find some food. Good old 'out of sight, out of mind' takes over, and Mikey promptly forgets about all things Raphael for the next three hours.

He's having a dinner-making-jam-sesh in the kitchen when Leo peeks in to ask, “Have you seen Raph?”

"Hmm?" He tugs an earbud down. "No, not since I left him to nap in my room."

"In your room?" Leo echoes.

"Yep," Mikey pops the p with a smile, "'Cause I'm obviously little Raph's favorite big brother." But Leo doesn't take the bait. He just furrows his brow and heads back the way he came.

Something pings in the back of Mikey's head. An annoying noise he figures is the universe telling him this is important. So he tosses everything into the slow cooker and races after Leo. Mikey follows soft murmuring to his bedroom, where Leo's crouched beside Raph still tucked in, still in his shell. His big brother rubs a gentle hand across the turtle tot's carapace. Raph hasn't moved an inch since Mikey left, and it fills him with anxiety. The little guy's not moving, not making any noise, he can't even tell if he's breathing.

"Little brother," Leo croons, "will you come out and tell me what's wrong?"

Mikey thanks everything for the gasping, whiny sob that echoes out. Leo catches him with a free hand as he stumbles to the foot of the bed.

No amount of coaxing or bribery draws Raph out, so Leo picks him up and motions Mikey toward the dojo. Right. Getting an adult is absolutely the call in this situation.

They trek to the dojo, picking up a fretting Donnie along the way. Bowing as they enter, Mikey's faintly impressed Leo can manage the correct angle with Raph in his arms and without falling over. Master Splinter is kneeling beside a pile of ceramic shards. After a quick rewind, his brain finds the audio of the crash that started this whole thing. His eyes catch on the dusty robe and an old repair kit, and he wonders if Sensei went to the storage room between then and now.

Furry ears flick in acknowledgment. "Sit, my sons."

Mikey's heart twists when Raph's breath hitches. Leo must notice, too. He kneels to face Master Splinter but doesn't let the little turtle go, arms bundling him tighter. Mikey and Donnie kneel on either side of them, and it feels like falling into rank.

Master Splinter watches them settle from the corner of his eye.

"When Raphael was quite young," he pauses, snout twitching, "the first time, that is—he broke this bowl in a fit of anger." He gestures at the dish before him. It's a beautiful gold-veined thing, and it takes Mikey a minute to notice the original interrupted pattern beneath.

Sensei's voice sharpens subtly, "What have I taught you of kintsugi."

Mikey and his brothers recite the old lesson with practiced ease. They could probably repeat Sensei's cultural lessons word-for-word in their sleep, dreaming about a heritage that can never be theirs. Mikey stumbles over his words only when Raph finally pops out of his shell, rubbing at his eyes and curling against Leo.

Sensei nods approvingly. "Things broken in anger can never be fully restored, but they can be made functional again."

He looks directly at Raph, "Tomorrow, you will aid me in mending this vase you have broken, an active meditation on the consequences of your anger. Do you understand?"

Raph bobs his head miserably. Mikey has just enough time to think, that's it?, before Sensei dismisses all four of them.

That evening, Raph hardly says a word. He's not moping, just quiet, reserved, like he's trying to avoid attention. Mikey's heart breaks when even his best jokes and silliest faces can't bring out the smile that usually comes so easy to his little brother. The three elder turtles wordlessly agree to tag team bedtime, and Mikey feels a little better knowing Raph went to bed with big hugs from each of them.

Then, just like that, it’s over. Donnie cracks the reaging agent, and Raph is back in all his slightly-taller-than-Mikey glory before lunch. And it’s great! It’s Raph whole and himself and 100% back to normal, and he predictably insists they forget the little thing ever happened.

Except Mikey can't. Can't stop thinking about how crappy little Raph's last full day with them was and that it's kind of maybe his fault for not noticing it sooner. He dreams that night of a little big brother with golden veins but broken eyes and that no matter how tight he hugs that tiny turtle, his pieces just won't stay together.

He wakes with a shout that gathers all his big brothers. He lunges teary-eyed at Raph—normal-sized, too big to wrap his arms around Raph—babbling half-formed apologies. Leo and Donnie join the hug, and Raph is pressed in from three sides. Mikey prays that will always be enough to mend whatever tries to break him.

[jotunvali02]

Watched John Wick again, this time in OV.

Caaaaine... ^///^

His scenes with John are a lot gayer than in my memory.🕶️🏳️‍🌈

Spoilers below

Caine used to ride John. Noted.

Watching them fighting is like watching gay sex. No debate.🏳️‍🌈🔞

Skarsgård's French accent is rather good without sounding like a caricature. I still wanted to punch his richass face. I like how everyone disrespects him more and more as the movie moves forward.👍

Did anyone notice that Caine is careful enough NOT to kill Koji's men?? Even when he literally has his gun against their forehead? No, he just smugly smiles and knocks them out. He was sincere about not killing inside the house of a friend. 😭

The end credits with Sawayama's voice explode your earsdrums and you LOVE it! The songs sound 200% better in a movie theater btw.

People loved Winston and his swag very much. And loved the puppy and the puppy eyes too of course. The peeing part is the best obviously. It's the LEAST abusers of animals deserve.🐶

While John always keeps a stern and brooding face when he's fighting, Caine snarks and smiles and enjoys his fucking self when he's doing it. HE loves his job! (when it doesn't involve killing his husband and friends of course)

I love how the main difference with John is that Caine is more expressive. He cries when sad, smiles when happy, swears when angry... not things you expect from pro assassins, let alone from John Wick.

"But I can hit you. Motherfucker."🤬

"Lights out, assholes."😎

Harkan reminded me of a mix of Jack Horner from the Puss in Boots feature and Ridge Taylor from the French-Canadian parodic TV show Le Coeur a ses raisons. So I call him Ridge Horner now.

"He's mine." Caine talking about his husband. He also likes to remind everyone how John is HIS business and no one else's.

John supporting his husband in his mother-tongue (the level of complicity!) in front of a cheating bastard.💕

YOU DON'T KILL DOGS, YOU CRAP OF A MOTHERFUCKER !!

I don't know about Berlin, but the whole shit on the Place de l'Etoile could totally happen in real life. Maybe not for that long, but it could happen.

About Paris: THERE IS A FUCKING FUNICULAR TO GO TO THE SACRE-COEUR! Why the fuck didn't you take it, John?? We even SEE the station! We actually can SEE the lights of the fucking station like three or four times while he climbs the stairs like a fucking idiot! I swear I craved to cry in despair and scream out "The station! The fucking funicular station is right behind you!! Take it, stupid!"

Finally,

A church. Really? A church? Where they both coincidentally end up at the same time?

"I missed you, John."💔

IN. A. CHURCH.

A duel that strongly looks like a wedding. Like the most beautiful and most romantic wedding, with the Harbinger who look like a priest in his fancy clothes, the two witnesses (like in a wedding) and the mushy clichéd sunrise.

I swear when the Harbinger puts on his ceremony attire, I expected him to go "we are all gathered here today to witness the union of Mister Wick and Mister Caine" and so on.

GASP! I understand the stairs trip now! It's a fucking metaphor for walking your beloved to the altar! Of course!!

"I want you to take these stairs, John." Course you do. How could your wedding be carried on otherwise?

Btw, Caine should have kissed John after the duel.

To keep the wedding metaphor until the end and most of all: If I had been forced to kill the man I love or else my daughter would be killed, and that man managed against all odds to set the both of us and my daughter free and safe while my sole idea had been to kill him, I would have crashed on my knees, sobbed my eyes out and most importantly KISSED him with all my heart! And told him I fucking LOVE him!💗💗💗

Like, Caine is the happiest, the most joyful man at this right moment, he's visibly trying not to cry out of joy and endless love and gratefulness for John and... just a "my brother" and a pat on his back? Like... everything written above + the fact John is maybe dying right now and that's all you do??

THAT'S the most unrealistic part of this movie! Not the Berlin club, not the Place de l'Etoile, not the outrageous number of assassins, not John's apparent immortality, it's Caine NOT kissing John on the mouth after all the bullshit they've just lived!

Shut the fuck up with your "my brother". Call him "my love", "my beloved", "my cherished one", there are so many possibilities!

[expired-applejuice]

Part 6 of incorrect les mis

Some or these may have been done.

Grantaire: I will not let a technicality stop me.

Joly: Techni- you mean the law?

Grantaire: Yes I hate that word.

-

Bahorel: I asked Feuilly out.

Montparnasse: Oh, I'm sorry.

Bahorel: Why?

Montparnasse: Well, I assume he said no.

Bahorel: No, he said yes.

Montparnasse: Really? Then I'm sorry for him.

-

Courfeyrac: Gay as fuck to be a angry politician. What are you mad about? Men? Are you just crazy about men?

Grantaire: I hear that politics is a man dominated field. Is that what you want? To be dominated by other men?

Enjolras: *confused* I beg your pardon????

Grantaire: *holding out a Bouquet of flowers* what's not clicking?

-

Jehan: Well, this is the last box of your clothes. I'm just gonna label it, 'What were you thinking?'

Feuilly: Funny, 'cause I was just going to go across the hall and write that on Montparnasse.

-

Courfeyrac to Combeferre: I don't know how many times I have to say this. Do not like a picture of my ass on Instagram if you don't want me in your DMs telling you to spank it, all right? Just don't do it.

-

Fantine: Javert, you and Valjean did not do it. And while I applaud your misguided efforts to make me jealous, I have work to do. So... leave.

Javert: I don't care about making you jealous. I just care about pleasing your fella.

Fantine: Valjean is not "my fella".

Javert: *smirks* And how!

-

Eponine: I've kinda of had this uh, this crush on you. But since you were with Marius, I-I didn't do anything about it. But, now that you're not, I'd really like to ask you out sometime. So-so that's-that's what I'm doing, now.

*Marius gets this hurt expression on his face and goes into the back room*

Cosette: Wow! Umm....

*A loud crash and the sound of breaking dishes. Followed quickly by another crash, Marius emerges with everyone looking at him*

Marius: I dropped a cup.

-

*Grantaire stops Combeferre*

Grantaire: Oh, Combeferre, I saw what happened. Is your boyfriend okay?

Combeferre: *stops short, looks at him* My boyfriend?!

Grantaire: Yeah, th-th-the loud little friendly one you're always hanging around with...oh, uh, Courfeyrac.

Combeferre: He's not my boyfriend.

Grantaire: Are you sure...?

Combeferre: Yes, I'm sure. I don't like him. He's shallow and loud, talkative. He's everything that I hate.

Grantaire: But Combeferre, you hate everything.

Combeferre: What's that supposed to mean?

Grantaire: Well, it means that... that maybe you like him cause... *sings* I kinda think you dooo.

Combeferre: No! How could I like him. Because I don't like him! Because I can't like him! Grantaire, if I like him.... shoot me.

Grantaire: *turns to him and makes a finger gun* POW!!

-

Grantaire to Enjolras: You'll figure out what to do Apollo, you have great instincts. You have a great butt too, but that's a whole other thing.

-

Bossuet, drunkingly confronting Musichetta: Hey you! Musichetta is it? Yeah. I don't know where you're from. But I'll have you know, I am the catch of Paris.

Joly: That's true. That's how he signed my yearbook.

-

Marius: Okay, remember, workout time tomorrow is 6:30. So get some rest. Or do what I do: lie awake and listen to your roommate do stuff with your other roommate on the other side of the wall.

*Everyone stares at Eponine and Cosette*

-

Joly, putting a hand on Bossuet's forehead: God, you're hot...

Bossuet: So are you.

Joly: With a fever.

-

Courfeyrac: We don't have to do nothing *looks around* nothing big was taken, probably some kids having fun.

Enjolras: Fun?

Courfeyrac: Yeah, you know, fun... that thing you've never had.

Enjolras: I have plenty of fun, okay *walks over to Grantaire and smiles* I'm fun, right?

Grantaire, looking Enjolras up and down: You're good lookin!

-

Eponine: Anyway, I was wondering if, you were the sort of person who... eats lunch.

Cosette: Are you asking me out? 'Cause it would be kinda weird since I just broke up with Marius.

Eponine: Yeah uh... okay. I'm-I'm sorry. Bye.

Cosette: No! Wait! I was just saying that so you'd think I was a good person. Fight for me.

Eponine: Uhh, I won't take no for an answer.

Cosette: Not great, but we can work on it at lunch.

-

*The other cops walking in on Javert packing up night vision goggles*

Javert: Oh man, I gotta go to the bench in town. I'm late to stalk Valjean.

-

Courfeyrac: So what, we just sit?

Combeferre: Ohh, no, no. We're not going to just sit. *calls Marius* Shhh.

Marius, answering the phone: Hello, Marius Pontmercy.

Combeferre, in a high pitched female voice; Hello Mr. Pontmercy... I love you.

Marius, angrily: Alright, whoever this is, stop calling me! *Les Amis silently laughing* It's been six months! It's not funny!

Combeferre: But, I love you.

Marius: Leave me alone! For the love of God, leave me alone!!!

*Combeferre hangs up*

Combeferre: And that's Wednesday.

-

Feuilly: We just have to really, really, really, not let stuff like money get--is that a hickey?

Jehan: No, I just, I fell down.

Feuilly: On someone's lips? Where'd you get the hickey?

*Bahorel high fives Montparnasse*

-

*Marius tries to enter the Cafe back room that has a voice command*

Marius: Marius.

Computer: Access denied.

Marius: Pontmercy.

Computer: Access denied.

Marius: Nostrils.

Computer: Access Denied.

Marius: *grumbles* Napoleon's Bitch.

Computer: Welcome, mari-quiff.

-

Marius: I know I didn't do anything wrong, but where am I gonna find another friend like Courfeyrac?

Eponine: Look, there are plenty of other fish in the sea, okay? It's like when you and Cosette broke up. It was for the best. And after a while, she found someone better. Me. And since then, I've enjoyed throwing that in your face as often as possible. What was your question again?

-

*Valjean and Javert hug*

Fantine: Could you cut it out? I gotta go home to an empty apartment.

-

*Marius wants to talk to a hidden Cosette*

Marius: Eponine, do you know where she is?

Eponine: 712 Forest Lane, blue house with a little flamingo on the lawn.

Marius: Wow. Stalk much?

Eponine: Yes.

[chussyracing]

Hi, I was wondering, and honestly this is for any cholar (Charles scholar) that wants to take a spin at dissecting this, but why is the Monaco Grand Prix an emotional experience for everyone (chirlies). I get that it is Charles’ home race and with his string of bad luck, incompetent cars and strategies, it has taken longer than expected for him to win his home race. But the same could be said for Pierre, Yuki, Lando, Zhou, Esteban, and George. They haven’t won their home races but no one seems to wax poetry about it. The only suitable parallel that comes to mind is when Senna, if I’m not mistaken, won his home Grand Prix after five years of bad luck and he was so tired that he couldn’t lift the trophy. Did that create an allure around winning on home soil or is it something more. I’m still trying to learn my F1 history, so I might have missed important details, facts or people. I’m sorry for that🫶

Thank you

Nah, don't apologise. It never occured to me but now that you said it like that, it's a relevant question anyone could be asking.

In short: 1. he is special 2. monaco is special 3. he was freaking close many times before. All details below the cut to avoid cluttering people's dash!

So first of all, there's a reason they call him il predestinato. You probably heard the story that it was given to him by Carlo Vanzini after pr training session where his teenage self bravely claimed that he doesn't need to train some situations and phrases, because there's no way any teammate of his could be better in equal machinery. It only really stuck around his win in Monza (because of the legendary commentary of his race win), but everyone suspected he was destined for bigger things much earlier than this. He was dominant in every sense of the word in F2, then he literally destroyed Marcus in Sauber despite being a rookie and had arguably the best rookie season since the time Lewis debuted. It's not a coincidence that he got offered the Ferrari seat so early on, so young and for such a long time (and the speculations about him getting it were here much sooner than that too). He got a seat of last Ferrari champion who was outperforming his teammate at that time too and (people used to be so mad at Charles for this) technically although not literally pushed out both Kimi and Seb with his performance, because Ferrari count on him long term.

Monaco is special. (I'm incredibly biased and on the contrary to many Charles fans who hate the circuit and want to drop it from the calendar from the future, I love it.) Every driver wants to win there, maybe even more than a home race. Don't hold me accountable on this but I think there's a real quote from a former champion that literally goes like "one win at monaco is worth two or three somewhere else". It's not a coincidence that the greatest drivers of history were the best in Monaco (Senna, Schumi, out of the drivers on the grid of course Lewis). Due to it's difficulty, it's a part of so called triple crown: monaco win, indy 500 win and 24 hours of le mans win. Everything has to be precise, the drivers are literally kissing the walls and being a centimeter off the line can have the worst consequences. It also has many exceptions in terms of how long the circuit is, how many laps are raced, how much they pay in hosting fees. It's been there since the first ever season of f1 with only slight changes. And of course, what people are often most concerned about are the celebrities, the glamour... and the famous celebrations. Idk if you watched and followed last season but I suggest looking up "2022 monaco sergio perez orgy rumours" or "Seb Lewis Charlene Monaco threesome" for funsies

He was SO SO close many times before. In F2 in the main race he started on pole (as usual) fell down - due to some bad team decisions with crashes during the race and safety cars - to p2 and then dnfed cca in the middle of the race due to technical problems. In the sprint, he got to p16/17 before dnfing again due to more technical issues. In Sauber he qualified p14 and dnfed due to a brake failure (also took Torro Rosso driver with him and got 5s penalty for speeding in the pit lane, not a great race). In 2019 there were high hopes but Ferrari fucked up his quali when they decided not to send him out to save tyres and he was out in Q1 - kinda poetic that he ended up p16. In the race (that was really something) he got up to p12, then spun, touched someone else and got a puncture. The damage was so bad that he was lapped before he came out again. Then he pitted again and after a lap Ferrari decide to retire the car, because it was too damaged (I think he was ironically the only one to retire the race despite some others crashing/spinning). The next year it was cancelled, because of the Covid pandemic. In 2021 he put it on the pole again (despite crashing at the last few minutes and red flagging the session). Then famously, Ferrari declared the gearbox is okay and Charles will start on pole. But he didn't, because they discovered an issue before the race they wouldn't be able to fix before the start. To be fair the issue was on the other side than where he crashed, but even in that case, it was a huge let down. And then last year he put it on the pole AGAIN and according to what the data showed, he would put it on the pole even if Perez didn't crash and red flag the session. In the race... I can give you my full written recap if you are wondering but it was a strategy disasterclass and Charles was a sitting duck falling to p4 and not even getting to the podium after yet another home race pole. It's an impressive record, because Monaco especially in modern era is known for little to no overtakes. I think the numbers says something like 8/9 out of 10 last gps were won from pole. If you get the pole the victory should be basically guaranteed. Some people started calling it a Charles curse, a Monaco race curse, home race curse, whatever. To be fair, I hate the narrative, because all it does every single year is him getting mocked and ridiculed all of Monaco race week. People left and right are joking about him dnfing or crashing and what not.

It's sad i'm not the "what if" kind of person, because if I was I'd count how many wins and/or podiums he would have at home by now. Because it's not just a normal circuit like Silverstone is for Lewis or Australia is for Daniel - it's literally his home, because he walked those streets, got his driving licence there, drives around his friends' and family's homes and his own too. The stress is more on home and less on race in his case of "home race". That's why this would mean more than a home race victory and why everyone wants to see it so bad. If F1 was raced on how much people deserve it, nobody would deserve to win Monaco more than Charles.

Sorry this got so long, I hope it helped understand you a bit more about why it's different than a normal race. (If we were discussing a home race for Charles, we can just as well consider it Monza. Monaco is just something more than just that).

[batsplat]

Thank you so much for ur work for this community 😭

thank you!! so, listen, I need to get some casey, jorge and valentino images out into the world

this is from the 2007 qatar post-qualifying press conference. obviously it's not just the three of them given colin edwards is like. right in the middle. (and *checks notes* gábor talmácsi is also there.) but still a photo of historical significance... casey's first ever race with the ducati (which he very much wins), plus valentino with his then-current teammate edwards and then-future teammate jorge... it's a bit unclear when jorge was actually signed - lin jarvis implies it was in 2006 but if that's the case, edwards seemed to be under the impression for a little too long that he wasn't going to lose that seat. anyways! look at wee nineteen year old jorge lorenzo, look at his utter absence of anything approaching a smile... look at him

misano 2007 post-qualifying press conference and a very powerful photo imo... some nicely contrasting vibes here, good composition... jorge had already been announced as valentino's teammate, and the title is already more or less in casey's pocket (even more so after casey won here and valentino had a mechanical dnf lol - they'd basically brought the race back to the calendar for valentino so this was. not ideal! incidentally still the last race with an entirely non-european podium.)

not much from 2008 tbh. casey and vale took turns to flop in the first bit of the season and then jorge started crashing his brains out. anyway these are from indianapolis, at a time when jorge was just about in the process of getting his act together while casey had crashed in his last three races (including laguna where he picks up the bike to finish p2). quite fond of this race actually, bit of a mess due to the weather and ends up getting red-flagged

first race of 2009.... casey's scheduled annual qatar win. decent shout for his most boring one of the lot, sorry king

pre-event presser before mugello, where valentino had won seven consecutive times headed into the 2009 race. if I'm valentino I low-key never show my face again after the le mans catastrophe but whatever it's fine

the le mans fiasco in question

anyway mugello is another wet-ish race that valentino ended up playing too conservatively because of the le mans horror show. so casey wins! also jorge beats valentino! old man's washed! just about scams his way onto the podium

italian press weren't particularly kind to valentino for having the audacity to lose mugello. they said it was over... he was finished... imagine only winning a race seven times in a row. was he even trying any more? loser

valentino bounced back at catalunya 2009 in highly dramatic fashion (y'know, it's the one with the last corner overtake). moment of deep historical significance in which jorge pulls valentino down from the podium to give him a hug

first race where casey was really struggling with his mystery illness... idk if I were valentino or jorge I'd maybe check if the third guy on the podium isn't about to drop dead but. well. professional athletes, never really been known for their empathy. they did clap along with the journalists in the post-race press conference when the moderator thanked casey for actually making it to the presser, so that's something?

we all have our struggles

the very next race. immaculate vibes imo. the 2009 title fight going into assen had all three of them tied on 106 points... #heritage

anyway the race itself is pretty boring (as unfortunately are many of the races that year), but it's valentino's 100th win so good on him ig. he got out a special banner with photos of all his wins, which would've been an absolute pain to lug around if he'd not immediately won the next race after his 99th

cute. unfortunately, this is now very much mystery illness period for casey... heroic effort to get himself to the podium but not much more was possible at the time

laguna 2009 post-quali presser. jorge is sitting for the photo, because even though he'd bagged pole, he had a massive highside right at the end of qualifying... hurt both his ankles and his shoulder. he'd also had a horrendous highside right at the start of laguna '08, did a good job to banish his gremlins in order to win at the circuit in 2010

qatar 2010... can't have been after the race because casey crashed :/ valentino grabbed the win, before immediately injuring his shoulder in a motocross accident. all went downhill from there, really. damn the eruption of eyjafjallajökull we were robbed

laguna 2010 podium, most memorable as 'that time when they accidentally played the italian anthem rather than the spanish one and valentino thinks it's extremely funny' (clip here). extremely poor quality photo shows casey found it funny too. very #them thing to happen to them. valentino buddy the cap's supposed to remain off for the duration of the anthem

this is very much post-leg break btw, still pretty cordial with each other given some of the stuff they'd been saying about each other to the press during that period lol (not casey/jorge, they were basically fine by this point)

presser right after jorge and valentino's little motegi misadventure... gifs from the presser. valentino's smirk vs casey's grin while jorge is being interrogated, I think about you often...

this was casey's fourth consecutive phillip island win (of six total)... isn't that just like. an incredibly cool circuit to be goated at. does mean the fight for the victory was generally quite boring - though the battles behind casey weren't always exactly thrilling either, so you can blame that on the era too. 2008 and 2010 has decent action behind casey, 2009 is the closest casey was pushed for the win and 2011 at least has a bit of weather-related jeopardy

valencia 2010, photos taken before unfortunate events

last shared podium!! le mans 2012, a fun wet race that featured the final proper casey/vale duel at the race after casey's retirement announcement so has real sentimental value... congrats to valentino for not collecting casey this time. presser clip where he shows he's also pretty glad about how he (just about) managed this

[petit-papillion]

My theory (lol) is that he went more casual for the second day of Le Mans is because he really did decide to just crash wherever and sleep for a few hours staying there all night. Then he had to just put on whatever he had around. Can’t say I don’t find it a bit attractive tbh 🤭🥵🙈

Hello 🙈 Anon! Actually I think Charles planned to stay overnight. If I recall correctly, he was invited by Ferrari and stayed in their guest suite. I think he wore his suit on Saturday because he had to do some official stuff (picture with Hypercar drivers, Michelin Man; meet with John Elkann & Fred; some press, etc.). Also, someone like him doesn't go unnoticed on the grid walk, so he probably knew he'd get filmed/photographed a lot on Saturday.

But he and his girlfriend definitely had brought a change of clothes for Sunday. Alexandra, I think, maybe didn't expect it to be as cold as it was and either had to buy or was gifted a Ferrari sweater.

Whether Charles had planned to stay up until 4:30 is another story! And then only sleep for 4 hours... probably also not planned. But I can totally see how this happened, as I too watched it for the first time (on my dodgy live streams) and stayed up way later than I had intended. It was a really amazing event!

[leseigneurdufeu]

Dude I listened to that song and I love it. I really appreciate songs written from the perspective of or about a whole country just... #the state of this world am I right?? (Also Hetalia fan here but shhh)

I understood almost everything but just to be sure that I didn't miss anything from the message, can you post the translation please?

PS you also inspired me to post something

ok so first thing (which honestly is like... normal to be confused if you're not a native speaker) is that the song is not from the perspective of a whole country because it's not La France (the country) but Le France (a ship named after the country).

Basically it was the biggest ship ever build for the 12 years it was in activity. It was the pride of the french fleet (not war fleet, I think it was for passenger transit or something), the apple of their eyes etc. It was a whole symbol.

Giscard d'Estaing, french president, had among his campagin promises that he would keep Le France in good state and in activity. As soon as he became president (well maybe not as soon but you get it) he fucking sold it to a saudian business man who sold it to a norwegian armator (who renamed it the Norway) and then she (the ship) ended up being sold to some ironmonger or whatever (years later, like deacdes later, which was further proof that the France could have kept sailing for decades!)

So, big scandal, big outrage.

The Right Wing goes berserk because they're selling a national symbol, the Left Wing goes berserk because I'm pretty sure there was also something like The France being sold meant a fuckton of jobs disappearing. It probably goes without saying but at the time, to piss off the right and left wings at the same time, for the same reason was kind of a feat.

So anyway here's the text, (the translation), and [explanations of context or explanations of translation].

Quand je pense à  la vieille anglaise Qu'on appelait le "Queen Mary", Echouée si loin de ses falaises Sur un quai de Californie,

(When I think of the old english lady

Who they called the "Queen Mary" [also a big ship from that time, but english]

Crashed [or shipwrecked, the idea is that it's still above water but not sailing anymore] so far from her cliffs,

In the docks of California...)

Quand je pense à  la vieille anglaise, J'envie les épaves englouties, Longs courriers qui cherchaient un rêve Et n'ont pas revu leur pays.

(When I think of the old english lady,

I envy the sunken wreckages,

Long-distance ships that chased after[or looked after] a dream,

And never saw their countries again)

Ne m'appelez plus jamais "France". La France elle m'a laissé tomber. Ne m'appelez plus jamais "France". C'est ma dernière volonté.

(Don't ever call me France again

France [the country this time] has let me down.

Don't ever call me France again,

It's my last wish [dernière volonté -> idiom corresponding to dying wish too])

J'étais un bateau gigantesque

Capable de croiser mille ans. J'étais un géant, j'étais presque Presqu'aussi fort que l'océan.

(I was a gigantic ship,

Able to sail a thousand years,

I was a giant, I was almost,

Almost as strong as the Ocean)

J'étais un bateau gigantesque. J'emportais des milliers d'amants. J'étais la France. Qu'est-ce qu'il en reste ? Un corps-mort pour des cormorans.

(I was a gigantic ship,

I was sending thousands of lovers.

I was France [the country], what's left of it?

A dead body for cormorants [cormorants and dead body sound almost exactly the same in french: cor(ps are mute) mor(ts are mute) and cormor(ants)])

Ne m'appelez plus jamais "France ". La France elle m'a laissé tomber. Ne m'appelez plus jamais "France". C'est ma dernière volonté.

(Don't ever call me France again,

France [the country this time] has let me down.

Don't ever call me France again,

It's my last wish)

Quand je pense à  la vieille anglaise Qu'on appelait le "Queen Mary", Je ne voudrais pas finir comme elle Sur un quai de Californie.

(When I think of the old english lady,

Who they called the "Queen Mary",

I wouldn't want to end like her,

On a dock in California)

Que le plus grand navire de guerre Ait le courage de me couler, Le cul tourné à  Saint-Nazaire, Pays breton où je suis né.

(May the biggest warship ever

Have the bravery to sink me,

My back [literally my ass but let's keep it correct] turned on Saint-Nazaire,

Breton country where I was born! [Saint-Nazaire, biggest naval pier of France at the time, about to close, costing those jobs I was talking about earlier, in Bretagne (one of the western areas of France) is the place where the France (ship) was build]

Ne m'appelez plus jamais "France". La France elle m'a laissé tomber. Ne m'appelez plus jamais "France". C'est ma dernière volonté.

(Don't ever call me France again,

France has let me down.

Don't ever call me France again,

It's my last wish)

.

Anyway I don't know what else to say but don't hesitate to ask more questions.

[charlotteobryn]

Hi, I'm Charlotte Obryn, but you can call me Lottie. I'm 207 years old, born and raised in Xaria, Le' Coria. On the surface, you would see me as just a regular old pale elf with maybe some weird teeth and slightly paler than expected, but my other form is much more feared.

While my mother was a pale elf, my father was an arachne (full blooded, too). So when I came out, I was a mix of both. Eventually, I was able to have both versions of me, my black widow body from my father, and the beautiful curves my mother passed down.

You may find yourself asking, we'll how does one even find a full-blooded arachne, let alone have a baby with it - and to that I say, my mother was a prostitute right outside a nasty entrance to the underdark. She was also willing to do anything for skooma, and my father happened to crawl out of the underdark at the right place, right time, and with the right amount of money. After he met with her, she became pregnant, and he stayed with her as long as he could.

He kept her clean throughout the pregnancy, but the moment I exited, she started right back up. Eventually, my father couldn't take it any more and left. All he left for me was a picture with his name on the back - the text old and faded from tears I had cried over it, wishing he took me too.

With him gone, my mother started taking me to her work. So there in the whore house, I grew up looking up on the classier girls at the better manors and dispising my mother and her low standards. Eventually, I got old enough to work as well. I started at her place, just a small tavern with a few rooms and nothing but sex on the menu. Slowly, though, I moved myself up. Started saving up my money and buying nice dresses, making sure to take care of my body and not let anyone too gross enjoy it. Working out every morning, making sure to mingle with the higher class girls.

Eventually, I ran into Desmona, a human woman, getting man handled by some overly drunk passerby. I immediately came over and convinced him off with offers for free drinks at the last place I had worked at (they were good at handling men like him). Brought him in and caught back up with her. I walked her home to make sure she was okay and got home safely. When I brought her home, her parents thanked me and gave me a lifetime pass for free baths at their bathhouse. I tried to tell them there was no need, but I'm glad I took it that night. I ended up meeting my best friend there and celebrated almost every birthday after my 127th with them.

I would occasionally stay in their guest house. They honestly felt like family, the family I always wish I could've had. On my birthday I would come for a bath and they would always have a little cake and a special hot spring and the guest house with a few little gifts here and there. One time, they even had a little surprise party in there waiting for me and made all my favorite foods. I miss Yubaba's homemade strawberry and creme crepes. They became my favorite quickly. Her husband Yurgen would also always finish up my birthday stay with a nice toasty warm apple cider with cinnamon liquor and whip cream topped with cinnamon, I always drink that when I miss home.

Though, with the ability to always have a place to crash, I only pushed my way up harder. I made sure not to burn unnecessary bridges and to keep my distance from the wrong people. Eventually, I made it pretty far up the latter. I was working in the upper-middle section of town, and I was catching the eyes of some higher end clientele.

While I was focusing on moving up, Desmona was focused on expanding her family. She had two boys (Jöhan and Jömm) and then a girl (Sierra), I think they were holding out for one. Just like their parents, they had a healthy interest in politics and working on the town, fitting of a child from Xaria Springs Bathhouse, a common resting place of the elite government of Le' Coria. Eventually, as Sierra grew older, she saw the problems with the prostitution in our town. Her mother worried for a while but gave in as she became an adult. According to Desmonia, if she was going to do anything from the inside, it would start with me - eventually, it did.

She approached me around her 20th birthday, and I was 187. She wanted to change the way prostitutes were treated and make it safer for them, I was happy to have someone I knew I could trust. We started working together at Lady Avalon's Inn and Tavern. When we started, we bunked together, and I made sure no one hurt her or took advantage of her - after I taught her how to do what I do, that is. I usually don't do that kind of thing, but I saw something in her that spoke to me. Call that fate, call it luck, call it whatever you want - I am glad I taught her what I did. She is the kindest person I've ever met, and she is my best friend.

Eventually, after starting in the kitchen, we got higher and higher up in the manor. I became a Maiden of the Manor (shift lead in the dungeons), and she became a Maiden of the Parlor (shift lead of the upper floors). Then he came into my life and changed it forever.

[timeloop-liz]

Ok @spaceistheplaceart im gonna take a LOT of liberties on this ok. Sorry i just gotta hc a few things for this angst to make sense!

Ok yall i also put a lot of nonsense at the top but i swear i wrote a small snippet at the bottom ok!

The Director doesn’t sleep just incase something happens to Narry. He knows the man doesnt like to be left alone much so he tries to do it as little as possible, unless of course its needed for the lesson. Now the Director maybe doesnt need sleep really but maybe he can get tired.

I figure hes always building Narry up. Helping him through all that self doubt and what not. Its very tiring to do i think. Well not tiring but it tskes a lot of energy to constantly correct Narry when talks poorly of himself. The Director is always showing Narry the good things about himself. Its probably a bit frustrating too for him! I mean he can easily see how wonderful Narry is so why cant he just convince the man of it.

I know it was said the Director takes breaks but honestly how often does he do that? Are they even good breaks? Like i figure he still worries about Narry when hes gone. He likes the man a lot so he worries about him (awww you care about him) so hes not really allowing himself a chance to rest.

Ontop of all that hes making new rooms and new lessons for Narry constantly. Hes multitasking to the max! Ok gotta design this room, o wait Narry is talking to me i gotta pay attention to him! Oh he struggles with criticism better write a lesson for that, oh the room looks horrible gotta fix that! Always going going going. I figure his real rest is the times hes actually in the room with Narry in his doll body. Even then he has to do the work of “animating it” (not literally i ment like moving it about) so its still probably taxing on him.

All of these little things keep building up on him. Normally hes not this invested in his human. So its normally no where near this bad! He just cares too much this time and hes working to hard on it! And maybe finally he breaks a little. Ok nonsense time!

Narry had been taking a small break and the room The Director had made for his break was just a typical office break room. He was sitting on one of the chairs drinking some coffee, the Director didnt think it was an appropriate drink since Narry was ment to be taking a break but he insisted that it would help. It really was. So he was just sitting in here for a spell while brainstorming a few ideas for one of his stories.

He was reaching for his drink again when he heard a loud CRASH sound. It startled him and he jumped up from his seat, bumping into the coffee table causing his drink to spill. He didnt care or notice the drink at all, worried about the loud sound he had heard. “Uh Director? Was that you?” As the seconds ticked on his anxiety grew. Then after a short moment some blue text appeared “oh Yes! Sorry i didn’t mean to startle you i simply dropped something!”

Feeling his anxiety drop Narry sat back into the chair “OH, well i do hope nothing is broken! That was rather a loud crash.” A moment or two and he was starting to worry all over again when he didn’t get a response. “Director?” He called out, his voice laced with worry. “Oh yes? Did yu need smthng?” The message popped up far to his left, which was rather odd because the Director normally out them in front of him. That and hes not one for typos. “Are you su” he was cut off when another message appeared right next to him, this time to his right. He had to lean back just to read it “OH! You semd to hve spilt your drink! Thats wat you wantd yes? Here le t me get tht cleaned up for yu!” Narry had enough time to read the message before the spilt coffee disappeared, the table going with it. A soft thud could be heard as the mug hit the carpet.

‘Something is definitely wrong’ Narry decided. But what? Clearly the Director was having trouble paying attention, which wasnt the worst since Narry was supposed to be taking a break. But the ?man? was normally more focused than this. Plus He normally had better control, and yet the table was gone and only the mug remained. And typos. He only made those when he was panicking or after he was recovering from when he got hurt. No from when Narry had hurt him. No no now was NOT the time to open that can of worms again. He needed to figure out what was wrong with his Director!

WAIT! Thinking back on that train of thought gave Narry an idea after all. Was the Director injured again? The loud crash he heard. The Director said he dropped something. But thats never happened before. The Typos lined up. That had to be it! But how had the Director gotten injured again?? Narry hadn’t done anything to harm him… lately. Did someone else hurt him? His coworkers?? No no they seemed to truely care about the Director. None of them seemed like they would turn on him. So what was it. He was wracking his brain but figured there was no point wasting time. He might as well just ask. “Um Director?” He waited a moment. Sending a worried glass to the ceiling where he assumed the Director was watching him. When too much time for his liking passed he tried again to get the Directors attention “Director? Hello?” Again no response. Did the Director leave? He wouldnt leave him alone would he? He didnt do so well on his own.

Taking a deep breath, Narry tried to calm himself down. No he couldnt afford a panic attack right now something was wrong with his Director! “Director. Are you there?” This time there was a response, finally. “Yes i a mhere? Everyting ok? Are you redy to keep going then?” It was odd for Narry to watch the text come in as it was typed. Normally only full finished messages came his way. This too was concerning. But that wasn’t important! He had to figure out what was wrong with his Director. “Um actually Director i was just uh just wondering if you are ahem feeling alright?” He stammered his way through the question but at least he asked. Worry was starting to get the better of him indeed. This time the message came right away. “Oh yes! I am perfectly fine! Nothing to worry about with me ok! Lets just continue on!! That is if you are ready?”

What a load of crap! No way was Narry gonna believe that! Not after watching the Director type out the message, and in real time watch him back track to his many of his typing mistakes. What did he take Narry for an idiot? Or did he simply not notice how obvious it was that something was wrong? “Now i may not know what is going on with you, but clearly something is wrong!” Narry just wanted to know what. He truely just wanted to help! “Listen Director, something wrong and i just wanna help you ok. Just tell me whats” he was cut short as a loud bang was heard. It almost sounded like a hand slamming into a desk. Narry flenched at the sound. But before he could even think to say anything text appeared in front of him, though a bit higher than normal. “GOD NOT YOU TOO. Listen i dont need anyhelp ok! I have been running this just fine and i will continue to do so! I know what im doing damn it! This isnt my first rodeo! I never needed help before and i dont now! I am perfectly FINE!”

Narry just stared at the text. Unable to move. That was quite the outburst from the Director. Though Narry quickly regained his composure. Thinking about what the Director said. ‘He said ,,not me too,,?? Someone else was asking about his health??’ Who else was there? OH RIGHT his coworkers! They must have been bothering him with their concerns too! So clearly something was definitely wrong with the Director if the others had been trying to help him. “Why not accept it?” Narry asked aloud. It didnt make sense. A simple “what?” Was all he got in return. So he figured time to elaborate. “I mean why not accept their help? Surely they are only worried about you too?” Narry thought the Director had zoned out again when the message finally appeared.

“Their help wouldnt be any good. While i do appreciate, they just do things very differently than I do. We each run completely different problems. Neither of them would be able to create rooms that work for you. Their rooms could make things worse even! They dont know what you really need to the same degree as i do. Everything i do, i do meticulously to create the correct experience for you.”

Narry really felt that. He looked around at the room he was in. What he though was a boring, empty office break room was really full of so much detail. The room probably took the Director a good while to make. And what was it for? Just so Narry could take a little break and write some stuff. While Narry would rather his own desk in him home, he had to admit this room was helping him get less distracted. And it really was a good break room wasnt it? The room wasnt the point , eager to get back to business Narry moved on. Narry finally had an idea as to what was wrong with his Director. He was over working himself! Narry needed to help HIM relax this time. “Director this is a lovely break room you made! Why dont you um come sit with me for a spell? I mean how often do you get to enjoy the rooms you make!” Narry hoped he wasnt being too obvious. “I would love to but i am a bit busy working on another room, and a new lesson as well, at the moment. If you want to stay in here a while longer that’s fine with me, ill still be here bit ill just be working on a few projects i have set up.” His text took a while to show up. Clearly the Director was taking his time to correct his typos and seem perfectly fine.

That was no good! Now it was clear what was wrong to Narry. The Director simply was over working himself! Narry needed to find a way to convince the Director to come down here and to take a break. He had a plan but it was a rather poor plan. It was the only one he had though so he figured he would give it a go. “Oh but Director you dont understand! The lounge it is.. sublime, a uhh work of art!” What was he saying??? Sublime??? A work of art?? Sure its. Noce lounge but he sounded ridiculous. What shocked him though was that it worked! A small message appeared before him. “Alright. Im coming im coming. hang on a moment.” Honestly Narry was baffled that even worked. Still his plan was in full swing! Now he just needed to figure out how to get the Director to relax. And maybe get some well earned rest!

Ok listen yall i tried i swear i did. This was gonna be angst but stupid tumblr didnt save my draft when i tabbed out and it deleted 5 paragraphs. When i type something out my brain deletes it so thats why i write. Normally i can focus on anything till i get the idea out of my head! But the problem with that is once its out its gone from me. Completely. So i had to re do almost the whole little writing part. Hell i even had the other characters come in and help Narry but now its two am and i cant even remember who the other characters are. I might finish this later if yall want me to. Ok im rambling i can tell LIZ OUT