#competition is good for the sport AND the team

[weaselle]

i definitely wouldn't consider myself abused, but my parents did things that were cruel and some that could be considered abuse, and they did it because they thought they were helping.

Things like not even telling me when teachers recommended i skip grades, not telling me when coaches recommended i be transferred to more competitive, higher skilled teams (they had no idea just how horrible my self image was, and thought they were helping me have a normal social development, when really they were hiding things from me that could have helped me overcome what is now a lifelong psychological issue)

They did things like kept me on restriction for 7th, 8th, and half of 9th grade. Restriction in my house meant no leaving the property, no having anyone over, no screens of any kind, no phone conversations, and sometimes i was also on book restriction, which meant no non-school books and involved being searched for contraband fiction everyday before i left for school.

They didn't say hey, we're going to lock you up in solitary confinement for 2.5 school years during the time when social interaction is most important for normal development. They simply said "every friday you need to get each one of your teachers to sign off that you completed 100% of your homework and turned it in on time for the week, or else you are on restriction for another week" and my adhd ass with my dysfunctional executives could never manage to do it.

They didn't say hey, we're going to let you continue to wallow in the belief that your birth parents were right to abandon you because you are not smart enough or good enough to be a worthwhile person. They simply thought "if a child skips grades and leaves their sports team friends behind they won't have a normal childhood" and left me with no way to know I wasn't incompetent and worthless.

They thought they were motivating me to do my homework. They thought they were helping. They were trying to get me to follow a normal childhood trajectory and develop good habits and achieve good grades so i could succeed in life. The reality is, it was very damaging to me. But they had three other kids and a lot to manage and didn't really realize what was going on with me, and what they were doing seemed very reasonable to them.

They love me and did some truly wonderful parenting.

And they also did a lot of damage. To me in particular. They really fucked me up. That's just the way things are.

They are good people who did their best. No child should be so confined that long the way i was, true. And their best in certain areas (like being perfectionists who only ever told me how i did things wrong) which might have merely been not great for another child, was incredibly bad for me because of my specific needs. In retrospect it seems like maybe they should have known better. But also in retrospect they were just normal adults making mistakes. In most areas they were better parents that many, many people have access to. And they also did some things that were terrible for me.

I know my experience is not the same as people who grew up in abusive households, I have had friends and partners who were very abused indeed. But I do think this post touches on something that is real, and worth digesting, and perhaps my own experience shows the far edge of the concept, as a place to start thinking about it.

otherwise interesting post ruined by the bold insistence that you can never accidentally abuse someone & that all abusive people are self-aware evil masterminds

[feddy-34]

i do not trust the opinions of rbr/max fans who got into the sport after 2021 simply bc they've never seen the team struggle before

like y'all have zero sense of proportion im sorry 😭 the team is not having a total scale meltdown just bc max quali'd sixth in monaco and red bull isn't a zillion points ahead in the constructors.

chill the fuck out!!!!!

[zeldasadork]

scott and joel are good rivals too because they both are sort of the catalysts of their own demises (particularly in secret life) but scott moreso in a tactical self-martyring way and joel in a “unlucky and with poor risk assessment” way

[batsplat]

pecco rant please please

*spins wheel on possible topics* absurdly underrated but in a dumb way. you'd think you can stumble your way into two premier class titles. I don't care he's on the best bike - let's be honest, how often this century have the title winners not been on the best bike? 2004 and to a lesser extent 2005 you can say clearly weaker bike, 2007 late 2010s 2021 there's a clear enough disparity with anyone else riding the bike that you can say clearly the rider is making the difference/it's an unrideable wreck one guy is making respectable, then there's a few seasons where it's at least very close whose machinery is best or they're fighting with people on equal equipment, which pecco has done! but generally speaking, good/promising riders end up on good bikes and then they win. that's how the game works!

the thing about 2022 is that it had such a massive mid-season swing that overhauling a ninety something point margin cannot come down to any single factor. is it fair to say fabio lost that title? on balance, it's a bit harsh - yes, there were a few too many errors post-sachsenring, yes, some were driven by desperation, but also you can't really expect anyone to ride a flawless season. but pecco did win that title as much as yamaha lost it. I don't care if you're riding a literal rocketship with two wheels, you can't win four races in a row if you're not extremely good at what you do! if we're saying that title was worth less because the yamaha turned to shit in the second half of the season, then let's keep going. let's put an asterisk next to 2013 because jorge and dani both got injured (let's not even get into the 'if marc hadn't been injured' asterisks because that's where you get into truly silly territory). is 2006 not a legit title because of all the bad luck valentino faced that year? let's say all titles between 2007 to 2015 were worth less because at any one time only 4-6 bikes had a realistic chance of winning races. throw out any title before 2009 because they were constantly fucking about with the tyres and there wasn't a level playing field. if you're motivated enough, you can play this game with basically anything, but it's dumb and pointless because that's not how sports works! you can only win against whoever you're facing. it has always been thus and it will always be thus

it's narratively fun and juicy that pecco has these insecurities himself - but within the context of everyone else doing discourse over it, the whole thing is massively overblown! linked to some of the worst sports discourse about how much people love to disparage late bloomers, because they need every single successful athlete to fit the same mould of the ultra-talented wunderkind, apparently. it's more interesting when it's not always the most 'talented' (whatever tf that means), naturally gifted, *fast the second he touches a bike* bloke who wins. sometimes they have to work hard for it, sometimes they have to improve themselves year on year and be smart about how they do it, sometimes they have to be in the right place and right time, sometimes they have to be very lucky. sports is all about competition, and competition is all about contrast. it's a contrast that can be generated in a whole lot of ways, and in fairness to motogp they have come up with a bunch of interesting narratively tense contests that don't rely on a massive fundamental 'talent' differential - but at the end of the day, that's one of the best ones you can have! the more ways you can have to win in any given sport, the better, both in the literal sense of how you go about the actual process of winning and how you even become a winner. none of this means that pecco isn't very very good, it means he got there in a different way than every other multiple champ this century has. it fundamentally flattens the sport if you want every top-level competitor to be an alien-level talent... one of the best things about this current era is that it has given us something new and exciting in that regard, where you well and truly believe some very different blokes might have what it takes to eventually be champion

anyway, pecco is absurdly adept at digging himself into holes and absurdly adept at digging himself out of them. he's one of the worst frontrunners imaginable in every sense, biologically incapable of dominating without at least a perpetual hint of jeopardy, both in the context of a race and a season. but when his back is against the wall, somehow he keeps finding performances you never imagined he was capable of. his mixed up and slightly odd skillset, his strengths and weaknesses, how he's better and worse than he has any right to be... all of it lends itself to perpetual momentum shifts and thrilling seasons - because you never quite know what you're going to get. love him or hate him, he's a gift to the overall competitive landscape! god knows the racing hasn't been much to write home about these last few years (though, yes, we did have a good little run this season), but somehow he's managed to get himself involved in two out of the six title deciders this century back-to-back. is that not the dream for the viewer, to have a bloke at the top of the sport with a little self-combust chip in his head every time he builds too much of an advantage? build a hundred of those guys! throw a marc marquez at him and see what he does! I can't wait to see what he'll come up with next

[idkimtiredanddumb]

Surely like, I mean the Mafia doesn’t care how they get their money right? Like so long as they’re getting the 80% of how much an exy player would make why would they care. So I present to u : Jean Moreau fucking off and becoming a really famous artist instead

[solariex]

i completely forgot its super bowl sunday and i honestly dont really care for sports much or anything

HOWEVER....

there's these two OTHER superbowl like things but theres one with cats, and one with dogs, (i think its kitten bowl & puppy bowl) basically tldr they do it to encourage people to adopt the cats/dogs and all !! :D

and i just came up with the silliest headcanon that red would MOST DEFINITELY watch those, and either would force everyone else to watch it

OR, it would be even funnier, if the colorgang was watching the actual superbowl and red was watching either one of those, and even funnier idea if red would get INVESTED into it

so just imagine, colorgang just casually watching it (or even not watching it i dunno if theyd be into sports like that) and then you just hear red shouting in like a room over being super invested in it

[innanzituttoticalmi]

i'm sorry if you genuinely think bozzi and leclerc "copied the other driver/engineer's strategy" i canttttttt take you seriously

[freebooter4ever]

Lol grandma mailed me more old photos so here's proof that i was clearly always a hipster with my terribly 80s patterned red dress and leggings (also the caption written on the back of this photo is 'laura with curled hair' because my stick straight hair being curled was a big deal). And on the right a shot of me in yellow with the white headband to hold back said straight hair looking taller than everyone else at that age in basketball. My dad's in the back probably looking on disapprovingly because I have the ball and am probably about to pass it instead of shoot it (the other girls liked shooting much more than me so i let them).

[showyoumyfavoriteobsession]

Roughly once every four years I ponder the alternate timeline where I didn't get scared and quit college rugby after a single practice

[lesbiansanemi]

Watching trivia game shows with my roommate on the couch and absolutely demolishing. Annihilating. I could beat ALL these people and telling him I need to go on these shows. Knowing damn well as soon as I was surrounded by strangers and bright lights and unfamiliar sounds my sensory issues would kick in and I would become the stupidest person on the face of the planet

[almost-correct-quotes]

how can you even name a hof basketball player i have literlally never hesrd of that kan in my entite life

i just knew the name sounded familiar so i looked it up and. apparently he's a basketball player

[justaboutsnapped]

Since that sports rpf breaking the containment post is making the rounds… does a fencing fandom exist on tumblr I REALLY need to know because every time I search it up here it’s either picturesque houses with wooden fencing or fanart of fence the comic…

I fenced recreationally for about 5 years, and because that was done rather unwillingly, I never actually got into the sport (as in I didn’t watch it whatsoever which is bad I know). However now that I’ll never be the one on the piste again it’s becoming increasingly compelling to me…

[say-duhnelle]

I'm not sure that naming gymnastics as the antithesis to sports with "ghettoized leagues for the frail and delicate" where traits more common in cis men give you an inherent advantage is quite the W you think it is, mate

crazy that in the 1970s they were like, "fine, women can play sports. but because they're innately less athletic than men, only in a special ghettoized League For The Frail And Delicate where they get paid less 😊". And not only is that still the system in 2023, but viciously lashing out at the smallest challenges to that system gets framed as Feminist Praxis

[narryffdreaming]

i honestly can't tell how many times ive been on a bench hoping judges wont see when an athlete steps on a line or makes a mistake lmao

[lovevalley45]

i realize a flaw in establishing bright city as having a hockey team like vegas might imply they also have the raiders and for that i say no <3… i do not claim them