#he knows what human sports are like

[kitkatt0430]

Benjamin Sisko is an amazing man, but it's still hilarious that so many people to fixate on him as their personal rival.

Dukat, Eddington, and Solok are the most notable three. And all three all wind up completely changing their personalities to revolve around one-upping Sisko and he winds up beating them anyway.

After Dukat destroys his career, he re-fashions himself into what is essentially the Emissary of the Pah-Wraiths. He's always been fixated on Sisko to some degree, but the final season takes it up to eleven.

Eddington becomes fed up with his career and projects his frustrations on to Sisko, re-imagining their relationship to be one where he's the noble criminal and Sisko the evil, relentless enforcer. But reality was never going to conform to his imaginings.

Solok, the Vulcan who was so obsessed with one-upping Sisko that he also developed an obsession with baseball. He drags his crew into it. He taunts Ben with it, makes things personal in a way the other two can't. In part because Solok is so incredibly petty. The other two are so grandiose in their methods, but Solok takes the petty route every time.

[hauntingjasper]

Blind as a bat

[bumblingbabooshka]

Rare Chakotay-Janeway-Tuvok moment: These three have got to get together and see a ball game or something.

[mechahero]

//Yeah, Lambda probably doesn't need a sports bra or anything when he knows he's going to be active because his body is made out of solid unmoving metal but you know, old habits and such.

[skylilac]

this book is acruakly soooo disappointing

[benevolenterrancy]

I'm certain that school isn't always That Easy for everyone who isn't capable of a) reading minds or b) seeing the future to tell what the test answers will be... especially since they keep turning around and changing the dang curriculum. science was invented specifically to inconvenience immortals who have no interest in keeping up with it

[dnangelic]

full respect to portrayals who do otherwise but my dai will always suck at art. more specifically, he will always suck at the technical aspect of it. no matter how hard he practices he simply does not have the hardwiring in his brain or his hands to produce perfect art, the same way someone who's naturally tone deaf can't be readily expected to ever sing a masterpiece score: even though with enough practice they can reach a certain point, it's still a point that most could consider average, ordinary, not all that impressive. this doesn't stop daisuke, though. he's still going to produce his clumsy and talentless art solely because he likes doing it, because he loves it.

and the thing is, the thing about him is, his appraising sense for art itself is actually essentially equal to a hikari's. even someone who's tone-deaf can still become a master of music theory, and that's likewise how, where daisuke is. he can immediately discern messages and pick up on an artist's intentions and emotions within a piece; he KNOWS how these colors and materials and techniques and all sorts of works should go, somewhat intuitively, what they should and do often mean, but he, fundamentally, just can't manage it his own self. his hands never manage to replicate what's in his mind with clarity, there's always some kind of flaw. he forgets, flubs up one thing or another, his work will always seem amateurish even after months, years, decades.

sometimes it bothers him, but most of the time he's accepted the fact and his own limits. of his skill, his creativity, but as long as he can still get to express something sincere and from the heart, he's content. even if it's ugly, it's true, it's his, and he still tried to seriously accomplish creating, making something that he wanted to.

[gayemeralds]

creates my own iteration of a franchise and becomes so so so attached. latoya my love im so sorry you’re not real. you are in my head tho and im going to lie here thinking about you.

[takiki16]

so what’s the deal with your new blorbo? assume 1. i know how football works (used to actually watch) but not how/why some players get famous; (2) i know nothing about messi except that he. exist; (3) feel free to go bananas to your heart’s content if you decide to answer this.

fuuuuUUUUUUUQ ME. Can litchrally any Argentinian, any FC Barcelona supporter, ANYONE who has followed fuutyball for more than *checks watch* TWO WEEKS spot me for this one?!?! I am GROSSLY underqualified to answer this question Cunningham's law is about to hunt me for SPORT.

Okay. LIONEL MESSI. I can't summarize everything about this Guy who is currently one of the Main Characters of the most watched sport in the world, but I CAN summarize how he has started cooking my brain!!!

(that is him!!!! my guy!!!! HIM JUMP)

I have been trying to read a book with @rhaeneystargaryen for at least a couple years now, but somehow never had the spoons or the right overlapping interest. And then she told me that she was reading this:

I figured I would give it a try! I wanted something low effort, low investment, something I didn't care a whole lot about that I could put down at any moment bc work has been hell lately. And then I hit THIS line in the introduction, and I could literally FEEL the cursed hyperfixation key in my brain start to turn:

GUESS WHICH ONE IS MESSI!!!!!

I'm not a twitter stan, I swear. I am AWARE there is a media layer here. These people are real, actual human beings with documented flaws and mistakes, I am WELL AWARE that they are ungodly wealthy pro athletes and not "stars who are just like us!!! ✨✨✨." It's also obviously reductive and unfair to view anyone solely through a comparative lens - no living being could live up to the marketing hype that has been generated around Messi, Ronaldo, or indeed any pro athlete in the elite leagues.

BUT GOTDAM IF THIS FUCKER DOESN'T MAKE IT HARD!!!!

Bare bones: Lionel Messi is a football player born in Rosario, Argentina, who at 13yo moved to Spain to play for FC Barcelona. He joined the adult team at a whole ass 17 years old. Ensue absolutely RIDICULOUS teen prodigy meteoric rise, with both Messi and Barcelona winning all the Best Football Awards ever and Best Individual Sports Achievements in Everything. I have spent the last two weeks spending FAR too much time reading football books, and all the gotdam graphs look like this:

People talk about Messi being the player who made them fall in love with "the most beautiful game," and I can SEE WHY!!! HERE I AM!!!! A CLOWN!!! ALSO FALLING IN LOVE!!!! I am googling sports highlight reels of his plays like a CHAD FOOTY HOOLIGAN!! WHO AM I, I AM HAVING AN IDENTITY CRISIS. It is just so much fun to WATCH him! Listening to commentators screaming "Eight, ten, IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW MANY DEFENDERS THERE HE GOES THROUGH THEM!!! MESSI GOAAAALLLLL"

What makes it WORSE is the whole fukken rivalry business the book was about. Cristiano Ronaldo was another super-gifted player who debuted at about the same time and had a similar prodigy teen genius rise. He signed for a rival club in the same league at the same time Messi was playing with Barcelona. The story reads like a gotdam Hollywood sports drama, on both an individual and a team level!! I cannot IMAGINE what it was like watching this unfold as it was happening!

For starters: on an individual level, they were constantly thrown up against each other for every award imaginable. The Ballon d'Or awards list, which crowns you King of Soccer for the year, has looked like this since 2008:

(there is obviously talk that Messi is up for an EIGHTH award this year, but I don't think about the future bc it is bad for my cooked brain 😊)

On a team level, there was (and IS) of course the clubs. I am ABSOLUTELY not qualified to get into the weeds on this, but the rivalry between Barcelona and Real Madrid has deep, deep political, historical, and cultural roots going back (among other things) to Catalonian oppression under the fascist Franco regime in Spain. Josep Suñol, then-president of FC Barcelona, was shot in 1936 by Francoist troops.The matches between the two clubs and the two players with their drastically different teams and styles at the time were super-charged - an ACTUAL QUALIFIED Barcelona supporter is going to have to get in here and explain the history and emotion behind the Clasicos bc THAT IS SEVERAL BOOKS IN AND OF ITSELF!!!!!

The whole point of THIS particular book was not, in fact, a blow-by-blow comparison of the players. The point was that by being WHO they were and WHEN they were, Messi and Ronaldo changed the shape of the game forever in terms of marketing, branding, team strategy, finances, etc etc etc. It's an interesting read (if not entirely unbiased on all points), if you enjoy the absolute blood and oil-soaked clown show that is professional football money!

But ANYWAY.

AFTER I finished the book Messi ended up cooking my brain bc (1) all of the context above re: rivalry in league football, and (2) his PERSONALITY. Someone made him in a lab to ruin my life!

I mean, the club loyalty gets me. For his entire professional career, Messi has played for exactly two teams - Barcelona and his homeland Argentina NT. He only left Barcelona in 2021, VERY much against his will (per him, his agent, his friends, his family, AND FC Barcelona) due to an absolute hot mess of a league financial situation that is apparently still sorting itself out. I don't know how common it is for pro athletes at his level to move around, but I feel like it's more common than that!!! THE CLUB LOYALTY gets me, the HOME LOYALTY gets me!!!! Especially as he's gotten better and better, and there's been more and more pressure on him to keep delivering even in the absence of anything else!

The gotdam STOICISM also gets me!!! Call it shyness, call it humility, call it down-to-earthness or reservedness or whatever you want - what everyone kept mentioning about him in the books (and what certain French marketing departments are still probably saying about him) is how QUIET he is. Journalists would complain about how he "made it to age 30 without ever uttering an interesting sentence in public." A Nike exec who lost a bid with his agent for a sponsorship waved it off by saying "Imagine how much trouble we would be in if Messi had a personality." Relative to his peers in the elite football world, he doesn't have a flash lifestyle with a huge entourage. He doesn't do a lot of press. He doesn't try to push a personal brand, even though it's a big chunk of income for wherever he plays. Even though he obviously COULD, he doesn't go around talking about Greatest Of All Time (TM). When he DOES give interviews he doesn't even talk super loudly. He keeps to his immediate family and his closest circle of friends.

AND YET. AND YET. ON THE PITCH, HE PLAYS LIKE HE DOES. He creates not just for himself, but for his TEAMMATES the way that he does! I realize that NO ONE gets an award for being a team player in a team sport, or for "not being as much of a dick as you could have been," but HE STILL HAS HIS HOMETOWN ACCENT!!! He dedicates his goals to his GRANDMOTHER! He met his wife when he was FIVE YEARS OLD, he has never had a relationship with anyone else ("It has always been Antonella, for me"), he has three beautiful kids, his teammates keep apparently falling in love with him and doing Intricate Rituals, I AM ENDEARED I AM ENDLESSLY ENDEARED

Did I mention he is also very short? Allow me to mention that. 5"7 / 1.7 meters in pro-athlete world is PICK-UPABLE SIZE. Multiple reels out there of his teammates celebrating goals just by PICKING HIM UP it MAKES ME SO FOND

(on an Intricate Rituals note, Messi's size and his evasive style of play has caused a lot of opposing team's strategy to be "make a cage, kick him as soon as you can and tackle often," which has in turn prompted a lot of specific protection strategies for him as a forward and also over-protective teammates :)))). WHICH OF COURSE COOKS MY BRAIN EVEN MORE YOU KNOW HOW IT IS.)

And that isn't even STARTING on his saga with the Argentina NT, which reads like YET ANOTHER HOLLYWOOD SPORT DRAMA that I cannot believe actually happened!

Again, I am begging ANY Argentine to jump in here, I AM GROSSLY IGNORANT as to the history of this sport I got here two whole weeks ago how is this HAPPENING to meeeeeeee

My very basic understanding of the situation is that Messi has played for the national team ever since 2004, whenever he was on break from Barcelona. Over the years since then, Argentina (with Messi) has tried again and again to win the World Cup (and the Copa America), but consistently failed despite regularly advancing to finals. BECAUSE Messi was on the team, Argentina routinely and perhaps unfairly got billed as "favorites" to win, with criticism in the press being focused disproportionately on Messi when they didn't. I don't know how bad the situation in Argentinian media got, but even the western English outlets were picking it up. "Messi plays better for Barcelona than for his home country, Messi isn't Argentinian enough, Messi keeps too much to himself and doesn't sing the anthem,etc etc etc". Maradona famously commented that Messi was "a great person, but had no personality," and that it was useless to try to make a leader out of him because he caved under pressure (referring to Messi reportedly being sick from nerves before the world cup games).

(note: gotdam rivalry. Of the people named who would be better and more stylish leaders, Cristiano Ronaldo was up top )

The pressure DID get to Messi in the end - he issued a statement in 2016 saying he would retire from international football, but there was a huge home campaign to get him to come back to the team. Argentina still didn't win the 2018 World Cup (players of opposing teams said that their strategy against Argentina was not letting them pass to Messi). And so on, and so forth.

AND THEN!!!!! 2021!!!!!

I THINK I HAVE POSTED FAR TOO MUCH ALREADY about the current Argentina NT for someone who, as I said, JUST ARRIVED AT THIS GOTDAM SPORT, but I'm going to make everyone look at these quotes again. These are quotes the team has given ABOUT MESSI HOW IS THIS REAL????

Argentina would go on to win the Copa America - and then...well 🥰

I DON'T KNOW IF I'VE EXPLAINED THIS ADEQUATELY!!! I DON'T KNOW IF I HAVE SUFFICIENTLY REPRESENTED THE DEGREE TO WHICH MY BRAIN IS COOKED!!! Did that mean anything to anyone???? I don't know!

HELL

[thoughtfulseason]

exactly 2 months left until my third tournament. i have been preparing as hard as i can since my second one (which was absolutely tragic) and i really want to show my coach and myself that i can do a lot

[cynocardia]

morgan was definitely the kind of kid who would have bragged about how all his teachers think he's a prodigy but he like, grew up

he will correct you on stuff, like if you say a simile is a metaphor, but that's not arrogance that's just autism. he doesn't feel like it's impolite. likewise, sasha can't stand people calling their crutch a cane, because it's not. but because they're such a people pleaser they'll also call it a cane sometimes

[pridewon]

a mini-thought as i reply to a thread, but considering that furudate has confirmed that ushijima did go to university (there goes my timeline grumbles), i’m rolling with the assumption that he deferred his university induction by one year, so that he could spend one year after highschool training for and participating in the world championships, before going into higher education and starting his college athlete career. 

[paragonrobits]

some important calvin and hobbes facts in case you haven't read the original comic strip in a long time or only absorbed stuff on it from memes and out of context bits on here:

Calvin's last name has never been given, and neither has any of his parent's names. This was actually why his uncle Max only showed up for a brief storyline; the creator of the comic, Bill Watterson, ultimately felt that while it was fine to have him as someone for his parents to talk to, it felt far too awkward to never have Max refer to them by name and he never made a return appearance.

The general tone of the comic is fairly light-hearted, with a big emphasis on goofy slapstick comedy contrasted by clever wordplay and often surprising adult-centered jokes that'll hit you like a slap. A big part of the comedy is, as Watterson put it (paraphrased) "It's really funny to me when people express deeply stupid ideas with really fancy terminology." One notable example you might have seen is that one bit where Calvin asks his mom for money to buy a Satan-worshiping rock album and his mom replies that there's nothing genuine about them and they're just putting on the attitude for shock value, and comisserates with Calvin as he deplores that mainstream nihilism can't be trusted. He concludes that childhood is disillusioning.

There is a LOT of criticism of the extreme materialism and selfish mentality of the late 80s, when the comic was initially written. This may go a long way to explain how its aged so well; much of what it criticizes resonates well with people today.

Bill Watterson views comic strips a legitimate form of artwork, and repeatedly fought to have more space to draw more beautiful and artistic backgrounds, which was a very hard fight and unpopular even with other comic strip artists. He eventually did win some compromises and a lot of Calvin And Hobbes' artwork shows it, with the use of space to indicate time as well as a sharp contrast between the often plain environments of mundane life contrasted by the wildly beautiful imagery of Calvin's imagination (which often sports realistic depictions in an art shift of sorts).

Hobbes is explicitly not an imaginary friend, by word of Watterson himself. We don't know WHAT he is exactly, and Hobbes is apparently unaware of the strange nature of his reality; people look at him and only see an ordinary stuffed tiger plushie, but he has a tangible effect on the world that would be physically impossible for Calvin to do on his own. He's apparently been around for a while, and was apparently around when Calvin was a young baby.

On that note; Hobbes has implicitly killed (notably treated as both a gag and also with the vibe of 'he's a tiger, duh') and while he doesn't do it again on-screen, he doesn't have any moral issues about it. Calvin claims that he's never had trouble bringing Hobbes to school because the last time he did, Hobbes killed and ate a bully named Tommy Chestnut and simply comments that it was gross and he needed a bath. Calvin's tried to repeat this again, but Hobbes was grossed out at the thought having to eat a kid raw and not being allowed to use an oven first, or complaining that children are too fattening.

Hobbes became gradually less human-like in body language and more like an actual cat in both body language and behavior; this was due to Watterson drawing more inspiration from his cat, who also inspired a lot of Hobbes' running gags, such as pouncing on Calvin when he got home. Several years into the syndication of the strip, Watterson's cat passed away, and he did a tribute to her with a comic strip of the two of them agreeing to try to dream together so they can keep playing when they have to sleep; Watterson's commentary (if I recall right), remarks on his cat: "We can see each other again in dreams."

[steakout-05]

happy pride month everyone and a big shoutout to people who use it/its pronouns!! using these does not make you less human (unless you jive with that, then hell yeah), less worthy of basic common decency, nor does it make you "delusional" or weird in a bad way for using them. it's a very underappreciated pronoun set and i think it needs a lot more love and awareness because it goes so hard and deserves to be respected just like any other pronoun!!

[inkskinned]

the thing about some men is that they want you to remember, at all times, that you are underneath them. that with one word or look or "joke", you will stay beneath them. that even "exceptions" to the rule are not true exceptions - the commonly cited statistic that one in eight men believe they could win against serena williams.

women's gymnastics is often not seen as real gymnastics. whatever the fuck non-euclidian horrors rhythmic gymnasts are capable of, it's often tamped down as being not a sport. some of the most dominant athletes in the world are women. nobody watches women's soccer. despite years of dancing and being built like a fucking brick, men always assume they're faster and stronger than i am. you wouldn't like what happens when they are incorrect. once while drunk at a guy's house i won a held-plank challenge by a solid minute. the party was over after that - he became exceedingly violent.

what i mean is that you can be perfect, and they still think you're ... lacking, somehow. i hope you understand i'm trying to express a neutral statement when i say: taylor swift was the possibly the most patriarchy-palatable, straight-down-the-line woman we could churn out. she is white, conventionally attractive, usually pretty mild in personality. say what you will about her (and you should, she's a billionaire, she can handle it), but a few things seem to be true about her: 1. she can write a damn catchy song, and 2. the eras tour truly was a massive commercial success and was also genuinely an impressive feat of human athleticism and performance.

i don't know if she deserves the title of "woman of the year," i'm not debating that in this post. what i am saying is that she was named Woman of The Year, and then an untalented man got onstage at the golden globes and made fun of her for attending her boyfriend's football games. what i am saying is that this woman altered local economies - and her dating life is still being made into a "harmless" punchline. the camera panned, greedy, over to her downing a full glass of champagne. congratulations taylor! you are woman of the year! but you are a woman. even her.

fuck, man. write better material.

a guy gets onstage at a college graduation and despite the fact like half the crowd is made up of women, he spends a significant proportion of it warning these people - who spent possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars on their education - that they were lied to. that the "real" meaning of femininity is motherhood. that they shouldn't rest on the laurels of that education-they-paid-for but instead throw it away to kneel at a man's heel. imagine that. sweating in your godawful polyester gown (that you also had to pay for!), fresh out of 4 years of pushing yourself ever-harder: and some guy you've never met - who knows nothing about you - he reminds you this "win" is a pyrrhic one at best. you really shouldn't consider yourself that extraordinary. you're still a woman, even after years of study.

god forbid you are not a pretty woman, but if you are pretty, you must be dumb. god forbid you are not ablebodied or white or cis or straight or good at swallowing. you must be beneath a man, or else they are not a man. the equation for masculinity seems to just be: that which is not a woman or womanly (god forbid). anything "feminine" is thereby anathema. to engage in "feminine" things such as therapy, getting a hug from a friend, or crying - it is giving up ones manhood. therefore women need to be put in their place to ensure that masculinity is protected.

this is something i have struggled to explain to terfs - they are not doing the work of feminism, but rather the patriarchy. by asserting that women and men must be (on some secret level) oppositional and in conflict, they also assume that being a woman is akin to being another species. but bigotry does not stem from observational truths or clarity - that is what makes it bigotry. there was nothing in my childhood that made me fundamentally different from my brother. we are treated differently nonetheless. to assert there is some biological drive that enforces my gender role is to assert that women have a gendered role. men do not see women as equal to them not because of biological reality - but instead because the core tenant of the patriarchy is that women aren't full, realized people.

we are told from a very young age to excuse misbehavior as a single man's choice - not all men. it is not all men, just that one guy. all women are gold-digging bitches who belong in the kitchen - but if a man is mean, bigoted, or violent to you, it's just that particular guy, and that means nothing about men-as-a-whole. it is only one guy who got mad when you gently rejected him. it is only one guy who warns her this trophy is heavy, are you sure you can hold it? it is only one guy who smashes her face into the cake. it is only one guy talking into a mic about hating our bodily autonomy.

i have just found that they often wait until the moment we actually seem to be upstaging them. you sit in a meeting where you're presenting your own findings and he says get me a coffee? or you run to the end of the marathon and are about to finish first and he pushes your kids out in front of you. you win the chess game and they make some comment akin to well, you're ugly away. we can be the billionaire and get the dream life and finally fucking do it and yet! still! they have this strange, visceral urge to say well actually, if you think you're so great -

it's not one just one guy. it's one in eight.

[werecreature-addicted]

going to underground fighting rings not to place bets or to drown your sorrows in cheap booze and blood sport but because the werewolf who fights in the cage matches is so. fucking. hot. You're no better than a sad man in love with a stripper. but you come back every week, you sneak in after dark and stand in the jeering crowd looking up at the hulking monster and watch him fight. Sometimes you hope he'll look down and see you, most nights you're too embarrassed to show your face.

There's something about watching that werewolf tear into the other opponents that sets your blood on fire, the blood, the sweat, the way his lips curl back in a snarl when you're close enough to the cage you can hear him pant and growl, every punch he throws makes your knees weak. It's better than porn. you almost never make it through the entire match. Not when he's the one fighting at least. You watch the werewolf punch the other guy so hard he's lifted off the ground and your brain goes fuzzy picturing those big hands lifting you up by the hips, pinning you against the cold metal grate of the cage that surrounded the fighting ring, you picture him forcing your thighs apart with those scared hands of his and drop you down on his cock.

You push your way out of the crowd and to the dingy bathroom. You can't help it. You really can't. you lock yourself in one of the stalls and touch yourself, fingers quick and messy just trying to be quiet as you picture The fighter breaking your nose and licking up the blood. choking you with his big hands while he mounted you from behind on the dirty floor of the ring. One time you'd seen him bite another opponent and now the thought of him biting you like that, sinking those sharp teeth into the side of your neck or into your thigh was the only thing that could get you off. You thought about it now, feverishly touching yourself with one hand, the other covering your mouth, still, little whimpers of pleasure escape you.

You need to be more careful, more people are coming in and out of the bathroom, the fight must be over. someone's going to get pissed that you're taking so long soon. You're surprised when a half-hard cock pokes through the glory hole an inch in front of your face. You jump. In all your time masturbating in this shit-hole bathroom, you'd never noticed the hole in the side of the stall wall.

You stare at the cock for a second, hand still in between your legs. it's too big to be human, and the half-swollen knot throbbing at the base makes you think of your fighter, your werewolf.

"I know you're in there, i can fucking smell you, just like i can smell you getting horny in the crowd, fucking surprised you don't leave a puddle on the floor slut." he snarls and bangs on the side of the stall.

"Go on take what you want, suck this dirty cock you've been drooling over," You lean in and smell him, it's almost enough to make you cum right there. You should do what he wants, blow him like a good whore, but you are so so bad at denying yourself. Instead, you run your tongue over his balls, whimpering at the taste, you're drunk off of the musk of him, and the low groan he lets out is almost enough to make you cum right there. Eventually, though you move your mouth up, kissing and licking his shaft, and take the tip of the werewolf's cock into your mouth. He wastes no time thrusting into you, fucking your face. You let him, really it's the least you can do for the champion.