#anyway. now that i've thought of using footnotes you're never going to hear the last of me. BUCKLE UP.

[alacants]

Okay feel free to leave this in the depths of your ask box haha but I had to get it out. I don't think Sincaraz have a compelling dynamic at all? IDK the whole "Fedal 2.0" thing just feels manufactured a bit by ATP marketing. I simply feel there is a lack of matching each other's freak therefore I am obviously going to dump some rarepair discourse in your inbox sorry

Jannik seems like someone who's only really comfortable with the few people he's really close to & so in Fic Land I think that translates most compellingly to a friends to lovers thing with Matteo or Jack. Alternatively I think Janholger enemies to lovers is so fun. Angst/sexual tension of your rightful "destiny" on tour being "stolen" etc etc. Great hate sex potential.

I know Carlos pining over Jannik is a popular take but to be honest I think Carlos acts around Jannik the same way he acts around every man he meets (cuddly golden retriever) & people only notice it with Jannik because they're direct rivals. I honestly think the most fun Carlos ships are the more unexplored ones. Carlos & Grigor could be good (how are there no fics for them yet?). Or Ben? They vibe on the same silly level

dying, poor anon, based on the back-to-back asks you've been holding this in for a while, huh. re: your first ask, this is a safe space in the sense that i'm not going to respond with "but ACTUALLY it's REAL." at the same time you did just come to a known yapper with a prompt that is implicitly about metanarratives in sports fandoms.

because, i mean, that's the thing. this is a sports fandom. full of sports fans. the narratives on the court aren't just a vehicle for the personalities off the court—they're why we're here. and love it or hate it sincaraz is one of THE narratives. partly because, yeah, tennisworld is desperate for the next fedal.¹ but also partly because they play insane and unbelievable tennis against each other. we are always talking about miami and indian wells because no matter how many times you watch those points they never get more normal. 

like, the "carlos pining" take—you're coming at it from the perspective of how they interact backstage, so to speak. others are coming at it from the perspective of carlos talking up jannik as his biggest rival for two straight years, when he was the youngest no. 1 in history and jannik was Just Some Guy. "because they're direct rivals" IS the answer. (i know it wasn't actually a question.)

this is obviously not everyone's reason for shipping it or the only reason they ship it.² (and beloved mutuals please do NOT start an indirect back-and-forth through my inbox of "but actually carlos DOES treat jannik differently here's 39841038490 specific pieces of evidence" because i have a real job to do today.) just, it's not incidental to the appeal. it is the appeal.

just cut a gazillion words about early fedal and the future of tennis. ok your real message here is that the things you find most compelling have been underaddressed by fandom. this is fair. as someone who enjoys several ships that have nothing to do with rivalry or metanarratives and everything to do with They Just Really Like Each Other, i get where you're coming from. honest. i think with jannik/matteo in particularly you're looking at a promising future, like, we're in a shipping boom right now! whether that will translate to fic is an open question. (i feel like the jannik/jack miniboom didn't result in that much fic but i also didn't go looking because i am not compelled by jack draper. sorry beloved mutuals.) i believe in the power of matteo's face to deliver but i think maybe promptfest could be an early bellwether—there were quite a few jannik/matteo prompts.

(i'll also take this opportunity to note that i doooo hope that promptfest will produce some rarepair fills and prompt amnesty is ongoing. once again please don't flood the form with 20 prompts but if you want to drop one or two for a ship you can't believe is missing from the table…)

size is a challenge here. if the current iteration of tennis fandom were bigger sincaraz would still be the main course but at least you'd have other things to eat as well. rarepair would mean "ugh there's only a dozen fics in the tag" instead of "ugh there are zero fics in the tag." however that is somewhat out of our hands.

so the real, actual solution is… be the change you wish to see. this is not a very satisfying answer. believe me. beLIEVE me. i understand. but after MONTHS OF LABOR³ i'm starting to see the fruits of my rareishpair efforts and i believe you can too. take your character insights and flesh them out a bit, string a couple anecdotes into a narrative (optional), add some illustrative visuals, boom. mayafritzes' janholger post totally sold me and i think a lot of other people! (would loooove to read jannik/holger/invisible presence of carlos alcaraz fic.) of the ships you mention i would particularly enjoy seeing you or someone else do this for ben/carlos. :D if you can seed the ground with a fic that also helps. 

sorryyyyy i realize you're just venting and not asking for either deep analysis or action items. this is the risk of coming to my askbox though. 😔 best of luck finding food that is better suited to your palate, i hope you don't have to cook it ALL for yourself. :(

--

¹ this is a strategy that is destined to fail btw. which makes it especially appealing (meta)narratively. they built a statue of us / and they put it on a mountaintop…

² re: jannik: i am actually totally on the same page with you in that i think he VERY much wouldn't be comfortable around carlos. the difference is that i think that just makes the fic potential more interesting. SORRYYYYYYYY.

³ obviously this is exaggeration for comedic effect… to a point. people here were shipping it already and it's the fact that i did see a brief discussion in the ferru tag that finally pushed me get on tumblr instead of just pour all my thoughts directly into bff texts. but the discussion had yet to produce fic. so, rolls up sleeves. hasn't escaped me that fic #5 is yet to appear tho.