#competition/pressure

[kinktober-2023]

Kinktober Day 1 :

Competition / Pressure

{How Reaper meets his future partner Dakota}

The infiltration mission had been rough so far and with a sniper on the loose Reaper quickly found himself running out of options. So, as a last ditch effort to evade the commandos on his ass, he dips into an abandoned building and holds his breath in spite of his burning lungs. Each breath he takes is followed by several tense seconds of waiting until - finally - the commandos move on.

He breathes a breath of relief, deciding to catch his breath as he assesses his situation. His partners, Chief and Noelle, are likely captured or killed, making his only options to escape or, by some miracle, convince the commandos that he isn't an intruder. Unfortunately, with the sniper lurking around, both options feel like losing battles. However, just as he's about to dart out and test his luck in the abandoned streets, he hears the white noise of a radio from the second story.

"Wolf, any eyes on the intruders?"

A voice breaks the static, momentarily muting it to allow vocals to reach the ear of those who are listening.

"None, not hide nor hair," another voice replies just above him, making his heart leap into his mouth.

It's the sniper, it has to be! Is his first thought. His second thought is to get rid of the sniper and make his job a lot easier, especially if he can mimic the sniper for a while in order to by himself some time.

Up the stairs he creeps, unaware of the danger that lurks just above him until it's too late. At first, he's confused because the room seems empty, but the second he steps inside he's brought into the reality of his situation as his brain gets rattled by the butt of the sniper's rifle. Then he's kicked hard in the side before he can even begin to think and then knocked unconscious with ease.

When he wakes he's zip-tied to a metal folding chair, the short brunette haired sniper sitting on his lap with pressure applied on his groin as they continue their surveying without missing a beat. Helpless against his captor all he has to occupy himself is the slight friction on his groin and the sound of his captor's authoritive voice as they bark observations out to their fellow commandos.

[heartswithinreach]

petition to move kitty cards to the battle menu where it fucking belongs

[nezierf]

that one meme from twt except you gotta remember these two are absolute losers

[idiot-mushroom]

@phykoha how would you feel abt doing a tie and possibly teaming up in the @tmntbestsibscompetiton (this is my proposal bc ur rlly cool and it would be badass if we team up i think)

[prostocupoftea]

Fsh.

also i gave him arms. cause i can.

I am in love with another ai in a silly old puter. Im so wild and unpredictable. You could never imagine what would be my next move. I totally do not have a pattern of behavior. No sir-

[lilacandladybugs]

Can you give more context on the technoblade Mr beast thing?

Okay I tried to find my old posts for you but I'm on mobile and it feels weirdly high effort for me to get out of bed to make this post but basically dream thought it would boost engagement in summer 2020 to talk about how he thought he was better than techno at pvp, so before anything happened tensions were already pretty high. Dream Loved technoblade content and he thought techno would be super down but he was a Fake Fan because any real technoblade fan knows that technoblade would do Anything to avoid conflict pre duel proof of his conflict avoidant ass->(x) techno has a video that's him v skeppy (he was way better than skeppy at pvp it wasn't close) where he "settles" who is better by challenging him to Grinch simulator and they only fight at the end bc skeppy wants to. Anyway so technoblade hated the idea bc he wanted the fans to get along and he hated being put under pressure like that.

One day Mr. Beast who is oblivious as all hell tweets at technoblade and puts him on the spot offering 100k to whoever wins a duel. Everyone thinks it's a terrible idea but techno feels cornered so he agrees. Even the dream fans are rooting for technoblade. (x) It's bad. A bunch of people hated on Mr beast for putting techno in that position, tensions were already super high and techno was already wildly uncomfortable, but then to get put on the spot? By Mr beast? Over an amount of money that is literally life changing? Techno kinda killed himself training and he destroyed btw but it was super unhealthy 0/10 hated the experience. I've never been so relieved in my life than I was that techno won and the whole pvp community was also so relieved. He literally was so stressed he didn't eat and then couldn't eat afterwards bc his stomach shrank -> (x)

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Outdrawn

f/f contemporary romance

two cartoonist who’ve been rivals since uni, and now have competing webcomics online, have to work together on the relaunch of a cult classic at the comic press they both work at

they both struggle with art-related physical and mental health issues, and complicated families

[leomssis]

I want to be great or nothing

the greatest, billie eilish // symphonia ix (my wait is for you), grimes // oh no!, MARINA // american beauty, sam mendes

[milkywayco]

headcanon that the todoroki siblings grew up ice skating with their mother rei has an ice quirk, so maybe she grew up with it fuyumi and natsuo went the most. touya was obsessed with getting endeavor's approval, so he often refused, but he did go sometimes. by the time shouto could have gone, he was seperated from his siblings and rei wasn't very stable

fuyumi and natsuo kept going even after things fell apart. they kept that one thing that reminded them of their mother, and no matter what happened they would always go skating on those cold days during winter break when neither had school, and later on fuyumi didn't have class to teach

but, once the siblings start talking, fuyumi and natsuo take shouto ice skating with them, teaching him how so that they can all go with their mother once she's out of the hospital once touya is arrested and put in a reform program, it takes awhile before he's trusted to go places but once he is, they invite him to come with them and maybe, once, during winter or up in the mountains with the league, touya taught them because it was one part of his childhood that made him happy and he wanted to share that happiness with the people he cared about a day where they don't think about work or the war. a day where they just let themselves be people, let themselves have a day of fun. a day of purely enjoying the others company

[rudjedet]

hey uhhh

guess who's maybe gonna do gymnastics again

[stuckinapril]

Do you prefer dating someone within the medical field or not?

It’s not my preference or anything, but high chances are I’m ending w another doctor who’ll be just as miserable as me slugging thru med school then residency and then still yet a fellowship 😍 tho I’ve also known doctors who married non doctors & are actually thriving ab it so idk

[il3x]

deep sigh... High School Graduation Cluster Trigger is an incredibly compelling idea, but I'll never be able to follow through because getting into the headspace of anyone involved would probably make me throw up.

[jackdaniel69nice]

Could you draw Dark Shadow and Tokoyami play chess? (Your choice on who would win.)

Im so sorry this was my first thought

In all realness here’s some thoughts:

Tokoyami would play lots of chess with his grandfather growing up so he’s a chess wiz

Dark shadow has generic chess moves memorized and is actually a good player but finds the game boring so they cheat to entertain themself

They both win an almost equal amount of times this way

Tokoyami used to get really upset when he was little but now he actually encourages the cheating because it makes the game more interesting with constantly having to pick out new strategies. He also likes that dark shadow is having fun

They have a mini “game” going on where toko is trying to catch DS in the act of cheating and Shadow has to be as sneaky as possible

On a side note both shadow and tokoyami know slight of hand

One more final note tokoyami is weirdly competitive and is a master at most games, especially card game (dark shadow also knows how to count cards do not take them to Vegas)

Unedited photo and ref pic under the cut

[hecate-spawn]

I have hate in my heart and all of it is for Arisa Higure. Girl shut your bitch ass up and worry about your own fuck ass group

Shout out to Mariana tho hope she gets an L2D

[batsplat]

so i’m kinda new to motogp, i started watching it from this season and your account has been very helpful. i have a question, i’ve seen a post on insta where they were comparing marc and pedro results from the first race to the fifth races (i think?) in their rookie year. and a lot of people in the comments where talking about the fact that you cannot compare their results because they’re two whole different situations. but are they? ‘cause at the start of the season everybody was calling pedro the next marquez and a lot of motogp legends were talking about how talented he’s. which i’m not entitled to discuss. but if you compare the results, i wouldn’t say pedro’s season is disappointing (because it’s still early and he has two podiums), but i think it’s pehraps underwhelming compared to marc’s. so what i’m trying to understand is why are their situations considered different and why some people kind of “discredit” marc rookie season when they compare it to acosta’s? (like i thought that winning a title in you rookie year was the most impressive thing you could do)

welcome to the sport, and that's really nice to hear!!

so, I did do my 'comparing between eras is impossible' thing here, but obviously this isn't particularly useful. I'll get over myself and give you a proper answer, but fwiw I still believe that direct parallels can only ever be of limited use. here's a few things to keep in mind when comparing the two:

factory vs satellite: factory teams will always have at least a little bit of an advantage over the satellite squads. even if it's not in equipment... it's also just about the amount of resources that are being mobilised to help you get your results, the experience of your team, etc etc. now, I put this first because I don't think this is a massive factor here. ktm's whole thing is that they want to essentially run four factory bikes, see the rebrand next year, and obviously they're very motivated to help pedro out. I'm sure he's getting a lot of backing - in terms of historical comparisons, it's a bit more valentino 2000 than it is casey 2006

bike quality: the honda in 2013 was the best bike on the grid. pedro's ktm is... well it's certainly not in the top four. after that, the pecking order does get a little tricky, but it's certainly not decisively clear of either the aprilias or the gp23's. we do know pedro basically has equal machinery to the other ktm's. now, those are the first riders he has to beat... and he's beating them! going into this year, binder was getting top three rider on the grid shouts and pretty much everyone thought he'd be outscoring acosta at least in the first year (not me tho <3). I think these acosta performances have sparked a bit of a debate over 'was the ktm better than we thought all along and the riders were just being overrated, or is acosta just that good'... makes it kinda easy to forget how people talked about binder last year. but crucially even people who rated pedro very highly generally didn't think he'd have the upper hand this soon. pedro is p5 in the standings (behind three gp24's and marc marquez), versus the other ktm's at p7, p...16? jesus. and p17. marc's teammate in 2013 was p3. now, yes, nobody is saying binder is as good as dani pedrosa and he's been having a very rocky season - but at least some of binder's issues seem to be bike-related... definitely a bike that seems to have some serious gremlins and pedro needs to be credited for mitigating those. also, this is an era in which the bikes are more complicated than ever and generally considered to be even trickier to adapt to than in times past, which makes pedro's immediate consistent pace pretty much everywhere, every session particularly noteworthy

spread of field: related to the previous point - not only is pedro's bike worse, but the field as a whole is more competitive. in 2013, if you weren't on one of four bikes, it was going to be really hard for you to fight for wins. in 2024, there are a lot of bikes capable of fighting for wins, and you see that in how mixed up the order is race to race. it's just a different era... from around 2007 to 2015, there was a clear disparity between a few bikes and the rest, enabled both through technical regulations and other external factors (e.g. the impact of the financial crisis and smaller teams struggling as a result). the average level of the field is also higher nowadays, there's a lot of very strong riders - which means if you're having a slightly rougher weekend, your floor is considerably lower and you will have to accept you might not be in the podium fight at all. the margins are smaller now in both qualifying and in races... small swings of performance in both bike and rider can have way more dramatic repercussions

the eye test: for obvious reasons this one's a bit harder to put words to. but... pedro just passes it, with flying colours. it's the way he throws himself around on the bike, the obscene amounts of lean angle, the ridiculously late braking and the way he somehow still gets the bike turned, how he keeps taking lines that nobody else is taking, how it's allowing him to fight his way through the field (notoriously tough in motogp these days)... in the same way in which marc in 2013 was clearly just riding differently to all the other riders that preceded him, you see this stuff with pedro, you see he's the next step. you can tell he's just got that special something that allows him to do stuff with his bike that nobody else can. also, this isn't quite the same as rating his rookie season, but obviously everyone already knew what a hyped prospect pedro was headed into this year. he hasn't shown any sign whatsoever of succumbing to the hype/pressure and letting it get to him, which is also a great sign for the future

how good his results are: so, obviously he hasn't won a race yet - even though he's now secured multiple podiums. but again, unlike with marc''s 2013 there is no single weekend in which the ktm has been the strongest bike. sometimes it's been a bit closer and sometimes it's a little further away... yes, pedro has started making a couple of mistakes, but also that may just be the result of putting the bike in places it doesn't really belong. marc only had one race crash in the rookie season, but he also knew he couldn't afford to make mistakes - he was in the title fight. pedro is playing around with a worse bike and if he thinks he has the pace to win, it makes sense for him to just push that little bit extra, come what may. it's now been quite a few weekends since pedro hasn't decisively been the best ktm on pace - and, really, what more can you ask for? unless binder's suddenly forgotten how to ride a bike, it's reasonably likely that the ktm is at least a little worse than it was last year, which makes these results even more impressive

the rookie title question: yes, a rookie title is uniquely impressive! it's a particularly tricky situation to deal with... marc really had to be operating on a very high very consistent level that entire year, and in no way should it be diminished what kind of performances he had to put in week to week to claim that title. (though, of course, marc did get a little bit lucky that year, in particular with his rivals' injuries.) the thing is, we'll never know if pedro would manage the pressures and travails and ebbs and flows of a title fight in his rookie season as well as marc did... because he hasn't had the opportunity to fight for it. we just don't know! which makes it a bit hard to penalise pedro for not being able to match that... you just have to find a happy middle ground where you acknowledge how impressive marc's title was, while also allowing that on pure performance pedro might be shaping up as every bit as impressive

marc is very marmite in most online motogp fan spaces, whether those detractors are partisan valentino fans or think he's too aggressive for their tastes or don't particularly fondly remember his dominance or just don't like his vibe... so I'm sure there's plenty of people on instagram who would like to discredit him!! but I don't think calling pedro's rookie season comparable should in any way be used to discredit marc - the only point is that if you look at his current performances, it's completely plausible to believe he can match/surpass marc in the future. what he's doing right now is really impressive! it's not quite the same headline numbers, but there's weekends where he's quite plausibly on. like. the joint 12th best bike or something. so it really is all very tight and he is doing very well! but also you can't compare eras and all of these comparisons easily break down and sometimes you can just treat two things as separately impressive without attempting to definitively determine which is 'better', especially in motorsports where so much isn't determined by the actual athlete themselves and instead by factors they have zero control over

[allieinarden]

Man, I still can’t believe how many people read that article about how six religious Tongan boarding school boys belonging to a culture of boating and fishing, who were close friends before they got lost, behaved when they found themselves stranded on an island, and went “This completely invalidates every idea William Golding had about how 50+ random British boarding school boys emerging from a plane wreck might handle it.”