Which Hurts - Tumblr Posts
I'm such a girl who lays in bed and doesn't want to get up
the fact that arthur leclerc seemingly doesn’t have a huge charles shaped complex despite everything is so insane to me, like ….
imagine you’re a 13/14 year old boy and your parents tell you that you have to give up on your dream, most likely for good, because the family can only afford to keep one child’s racing career alive. not only are you being told to give up on your dream, you’re also being told to give up on your dream in favor of your older brother’s dream — the same dream that the both of you share. that. that’s got to be brutal. it’s indirectly being told that you’re not as good as him, that he has a better shot at making it than you. and no matter how much it is the truth it’s still gotta sting. a lot.
then a few years later you’re able to pick up the same dream again, allowed to fan the dying embers of hope into a fully fledged flame, and allowed to dream. you’ve missed some of the most crucial years of development for young hopefuls in the sport but damn it if that’s going to stop you. you will grab at this opportunity no matter what. only this time the reason you have the money and sponsors to even compete at all is because your older brother succeeded. he made it. he is racing in f1, and, on top of it all, is being touted as a potential world champion in the making. the only reason you can chase your dream again is due to him proving it was the right choice to let him continue when one of you had to quit to support the other.
you’re now back in racing, but everyone and their mother is calling you a nepotism baby and talking about how you wouldn’t be where you are today if not for your brother (without knowing how true that actually is). your last name is not your own anymore, it is his and you’re merely borrowing it, and everywhere you go discussion follows if you really deserve to be there despite the fact that you just want to race like all the other drivers, despite that so many other drivers also come from extremely privileged backgrounds, only that those kids never had to take a break in the middle of their career.
every interview, every social media post, every youtube video you show up in is haunted by his presence. when you speak the first remark is that you sound similar to your brother, when you make a certain expression it’s that he has made the exact same one before, and when you laugh it’s called identical to one much more famous than your own. you’re not your own person, only a distorted mirror image of someone who has achieved everything you also dream of; and who achieved his dream with the blood of your potential future dripping from his fingers.
imagine all of that and then imagine still having a (seemingly) great relationship with said brother. arthur is a stronger soul than me because i would have been crushed under the weight of the complex that i’d have developed ! i love that all three leclerc brothers seems so tightly knit together in spite of the sacrifices they’ve all had to make. arthur gave up so much to allow charles the chance at success, and it could have easily soured their relation but it doesn’t seem like it has and i love that for them <3