#competitive listening

[vintage-tigre]

[bertoyana]

erik + doing That Thing where he looks at charles very intently and without blinking.

[lazycranberrydoodles]

1 of 3 of my megan studies. —> HISS music video🐍 <—

[toorurii]

Been holding onto these Platinas for going on Years now and I ain’t ever gonna finish these I realize…. Iykyk 🫶💗🛸🥀💎

[dreamsy990]

when i was a kid i fell in love with dandelions. when i told my parents, they said they were just weeds, not flowers at all. i was always upset on the dandelions behalf- why didnt people love them too? why were they a problem when they were just as pretty?

[cybertron-smash-or-pass]

Updated for accurate, non-starscream rep for the Unicron Trilogy

[beachsideufo]

Could you beat stat in an arm wrestling competition, best of 3

yes because i am make of flesh and blood and meat and she is a groveling 2D paper WORMthing in my eyes

[dustybones]

for my buddy @cytostorm!!

[marcygoo]

RA RA REBECCA 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 umm i got bored. idk

[lexosaurus]

I think, genuinely, the coolest part about being in this phandom for so long and semi-consistently putting creative projects out there is that I can look back over the years and see how much growth I've made in all areas of my creativity.

Like, I'm writing things now I wouldn't have even dreamed of years ago, and I'm composing music that past me would have been shell-shocked to hear. And I can see with each new fic I put out, each new song I make, how much better I'm getting. And it's not to say that I've mastered the art of writing and composition, but I've certainly improved a fuckton since like 2017 or whenever the hell I made this account.

Damn, y'all. It turns out that all the experts were right and skill is just a LOT of practice over a long period of time.

[typingfool]

thirdyear!izuku would be the type of guy to sneak into your dorm, and (demand) ask if you can sneak out with him. he'd take you floating above the buildings, beyond it, and he'd trap you in his arms until you force him to return to the dorms---just so neither of you will get caught---he'd follow you (because entirely, he's still izuku, and izuku will always follow through what he's told), open your dorm window, sleep on your bed until someone knocks, telling you how late it is, that you've missed the first period and and and—

[batsplat]

It's a thing I already knew but all your beautiful analysis really made obvious (to me) how much of a grudge holder vale is. That man is never letting it go he's gonna hold his grudges into his grave

you know, I do think this is an interesting issue, because I'm not sure this is true of all his grudges. just sticking here with the grudges he accumulated in his capacity as a competitor, rather than just his general approach to life or whatever... how you judge this will kinda depend on how you feel about the 'reconciliation' he's experienced with some of his rivals - and whether you read the whole thing as sincere or not. now, personally I reckon he still dislikes biaggi, but also you are allowed to just dislike people so I'll give him a pass for that. some of the others, I'm a little more convinced by the whole reconciliation schtick

let's get valentino's take:

interesting that he mentions those three together, isn't it? and like, he's still not messaging biaggi or inviting him to his home - "even with max" kind of tells you all you need to know - but the other two? they said some proper nasty things to each other over the years!! I mean, the casey rivalry, there's some remarks from both sides where quite frankly I think I would struggle just a touch to get over it

I don't know, obviously this could all be pr stuff, but I kind of feel like... y'know, why bother? it's 2022, you're retired, who gives a fuck? sure it's a good look to be all magnanimous, sure it can be a bit of a way of twisting in the knife to the guys left in the cold, but also, who would care if you don't play nice? I think especially with jorge, you surely don't need to do all that, inviting him to your home and dancing with him... (which, again, some of the spats those two had...) and with the casey rivalry, if there's one guy who's still hung up about what happened between the pair of them, it's obviously casey (speaking of blokes who can hold a grudge). maybe this is giving valentino too much credit, but personally I buy it's more or less sincere. there's nothing to really indicate he's still particularly bothered by any of their past disagreements - he's basically going for the 'all's fair in love and motorcycle racing' approach. he knows he was an asshole, he accepts they were assholes too, whatever, that's how these things work. he's generally a fan of drama in rivalries, unsurprisingly, and he was happy enough to contribute his fair share - but he does see it as fundamentally being part of the game

to point out the obvious, check out who he's left out: sete and marc. that's where he can't let go of the grudges... because it's not about the offence itself as much as it is about the betrayal. this is the thing with valentino, right, it's about what kind of bond you had with him. if you weren't his friend in the first place and then piss him off as a rival then, y'know, whatever. obviously he's going to be vicious in trying to get back at you, but also he's really not going to waste his time feeling too aggrieved by it. I mean, think about how all the bullshit between him and casey dropped off sharply post-2012... from valentino's end anyway. think about how jorge and valentino pretty quickly got on again whenever they weren't fighting for supremacy within yamaha. they weren't friends in the first place, then they were enemies for competitive reasons for a while there, then it's over and valentino is basically happy enough to call it bygones

but... if it's a certain kind of bond you had with him and then you wrong him... that little mental list of all his past grievances, all your past transgressions, that's where it comes in. that's where he ices you out. denies you any emotional warmth. ensures that any interaction going forward is conducted entirely on his terms. where even any public 'reconciliation' won't truly be sincere.... or, certainly he's not going to forget what happened. if something else happens... it's like you've always got the potential of triggering this lingering resentment, in a way, where all that past stuff is still primed and ready to be called upon. he certainly doesn't just let it go

or, as he puts it in his autobiography:

Biaggi and I never talk to each other. I mean, we've never had a real conversation, anything that's lasted more than the requisite time to insult each other or put each other down, in the nastiest way possible. In any case, I don't hate him. It's true, we've never been friends, but hatred is something different, and that's too serious a word to describe our relationship. Far too serious. No, we have a reciprocal antipathy. No doubt this is a result of what we do for a living and the fact that we both want to win every single time. And perhaps it's also a function of the fact that we have very different personalities and very different ways of seeing things. Still, I don't think this means we hate each other, as some journalists have written. I think I could feel hatred for someone, but only for someone far worse than anything Biaggi has done. For example, if I were betrayed by a friend, then, yes, I could hate him. But Biaggi will never betray my friendship for the simple reason that we are not, and never have been, friends. Our relationship is very clear: we compete on the track - outside the track, each goes his own way. You could say we detest each other cordially.

... I mean. he said it, not me. and given this book was first published in '05... biaggi can't betray his friendship because they were never friends... I'm not saying he's thinking about sete, but it has to at least be a possibility, right? he's talking about one rivalry here and refusing to even mention the other... and the one he's refusing to mention is the one where he was friends with the other bloke. I don't know, maybe that's reading too much into it! and anyway, even if this passage wasn't really about sete, it's obviously still revealing. "detest each other cordially" is essentially what he was doing with casey and jorge (or from his point of view in any case, not entirely sure they'd agree with that). the grudge comes when he feels let down by you... and then, yes, he'll never let it go

of course, he's willing to set aside his grievances for a while if there's sufficient motivation for him to do so. in 2009, when he had so definitively won that rivalry with sete, why bother kicking up a fuss? in 2016, quite frankly it was just too much, and it was getting to the point where it was obviously hurting him too. on the one hand there was the media furore that had been going on non-stop since sepang, on the other hand it was also hurting his own approach to racing. there's reports from the time how visibly aggrieved he still was in the first few races of the season, and it took until they got back to europe for him to... y'know, have fun again. it's not sustainable to be walking around with a constant dark cloud over your head and broadcasting burning resentment towards your two main rivals. certainly not for someone like valentino - he needs to be having fun! the slight rapprochement needed to happen, in a way, because otherwise those years would have been even worse for everyone involved. but that doesn't actually translate to forgetting any of those grudges. this is about convenience more than anything else

goes to show, really... most of the time he doesn't take these things personally. I talked about it a bit in this post, how maybe it's also something that changed over time for him: the question of whether he was willing to develop these kinds of bonds in the first place with competitors... because he does possess a certain level of self-awareness in terms of what these kinds of rivalries are like and what they do to interpersonal relationships. ideally, you don't want to be hurt by a friend like that, right? better not to have that kind of emotional attachment with your competitors in the first place. how unfortunate it'd be if all those years after sete the circumstances aligned for him to see a competitor as something like a friend again... because, after all, those are the only people who could betray him. those are the only people where he thinks he could truly hate them

[tightjeansjavi]

When you realize that the current toxic relationship in your life is…your place of employment

[total-drama-brainrot]

Alenoah Week 2024: Day 3 - "TDWT Ending Rewrite"

The trek to the top of the volcano was, in layman's terms, agonizing.

Searing heat, somehow simultaneously swelteringly humid and suffocatingly dry, blistered at every inch of Noah's exposed skin and burned through his lungs like hot coals with every laboured breath. The sweat that would've been dripping from his exhausted body like a faulty faucet didn't even have the opportunity to form into pearl-shaped droplets before it evaporated against the overwhelming force of just how fucking hot it was.

And yet he'd made it.

He'd gotten there first, too.

Noah had somehow managed to out-slither the slippery fiend whilst the two were stumbling across the skipping stones of a lava lake, despite the weight of his pineapple dummy causing him to falter after almost every step.

The maw of the volcano bubbled and spat embers at his feet, just a few measly inches from the cynic himself. It was time to end it; the competition, the show, his… rivalry with Alejandro.

As if the mere thought of the Spaniard had somehow summoned him, Noah heard the tell-tale clicking of heeled boots against rock behind him quickly followed by harsh, laboured panting (not nearly as desperate as his own wheezing, but a far cry from the womanizer's usual composure). Alejandro's ponytailed hair rose from the plateaued peak of the volcano, followed by a pair of thick eyebrows furrowed against sweat-sheened skin, then a pair of furious sage green eyes- and sage was the most appropriate description Noah could think of, since they burned with a competitive fire comparable to the all-encompassing heat around them.

"It's over, Alejandro. I have the high ground."

Noah's voice was a hoarse, painful rasp, though whether it was from its unbearable dryness or the tenseness of the situation, he wasn't sure. He stood firmly at the edge of the volcano, searing light illuminating the edges of his form like a foreboding halo as he held Pinealejandro almost covetingly in a bridal carry, hovering the dummy over the scorching cavern of its imminent demise.

Alejandro- the human one, not the pineapple one- continued his unwavering ascent to the volcano's peak until he was but a few insignificant feet away from Noah. His shoulders visibly rose and fell with each huff of magma-scorched breath, and the barbaric snarl he bared towards the bookworm twisted his handsome features into something wild, alight with a passion that burned at white-hot as the lava below.

Then he roared.

"You underestimate my power!"

And lunged towards Noah, carelessly discarding his own pineapple dummy (comparatively twiggier and more feeble looking than Noah's own) as he cleared the space between them in the blink of a cinder-dusted eye.

"I will not lose to someone as infuriating as you!"

Before he could process what was even happening, Noah found himself scooped away from the edge of the volcano and lifted a few extra meters off of the ground, held victoriously above the latino in an overhead lift like he was some sort or glorified barbell. The shock of which inadvertently caused him to drop his own dummy, sending the construct tumbling into the bubbling, gaping chasm below until it plunged into the awaiting magma with a barely audible 'plop'.

For a brief tension-paused moment the two remained eerily still, almost frozen in place with disbelief (an impressive feat, considering it was far too fucking hot for anything to freeze atop the volcano).

Well.

That was that, then.

…It was sort of anticlimactic, really. Noah was almost disappointed.

"Um," The bookworm began, quickly schooling his surprise at being lifted and brandished like a javelin into his usual apathetic countenance, "Are you going to put me down, or…?"

Noah's enquiry was met a bark of high pitched laughter, a sound so entrenched in sardonic humour it was practically swimming in animosity.

"Ah, but Noah," Alejandro preened indulgently, as if he were speaking to a small child, and his snarl curled into a manic grimace. The archvillain's eyes were widened to their extreme, dying wisps of ember light flickering across his gaze which trailed from the waifish nerd held above his head to the boiling magma below.

"I still have a dummy to discard of."

In other words,

THROW THAT TWIG

INTO THE VOLCANO!!!

[creature-competition]

Creature Competition: Round 2B