#margaret ofc

[variousqueerthings]

I find all of hawkeye’s sweetest/most believable/most erotic (because most of the time they’re really not erotic at all - always thinks of loretta swit describing him as a little boy) sexual relationships with women to be Erika, nurse Able in s4, and Inga, and they’re all examples of times when he’s feeling challenged and vulnerable in his sexuality-and-romance internalised ideas..... 

[wonder-worker]

Wild how we know that Elizabeth Woodville was officially appointed to royal councils in her own right during her husband’s reign and fortified the Tower of London in preparation of a siege while 8-months pregnant and had forces gathering at Westminster “in the queen’s name” in 1483 – only for NONE of these things to be even included, let alone explored, in the vast majority of scholarship and historical novels involving her.

[80smen-fanclub]

He could get it raw all night all day

[krookodyke]

elisabeth sparkle and sue b. stance catgirls. if you care.

unedited raw files for your usage

[batsplat]

do you have any favorite tennis matches? what's your favorite player and rivalry if you have one?

(note, I will be leaving both agassi + sampras out of this post as they have already been discussed in a fair bit of detail on this blog, though I might at some point make a post specifically about their matches. obviously they'd be pretty high up in all three categories with regards to favourite matches, players, and rivalries)

I have a lot of favourite tennis matches!! I'll throw a few of them under the cut, but honestly give me half a chance and I'll go on forever. my all time favourite tennis match is the 2003 us open semifinal between justine henin and jennifer capriati. it is available in full on youtube and I think you should watch it even if you have only the slightest interest in tennis. this is a match you need to experience for yourself and I will not spoil the result, but it features basically everything you could ask for:

very high stakes, both in terms of being a slam semi and for both players involved. it's an interesting stretch of henin's career, plenty of controversies that season and the potential for a rematch with countrywoman clijsters in the final. capriati during her noughties career revival had FINALLY managed to overcome her issues in late stages of slams and had won three of them... but her home slam at the us open was the one she wanted to win most of all. a history of semifinal choking she was attempting to conquer in front of her home crowd - fighting a woman six years her junior who had already tasted slam success that year

two very different personalities, the cold and calculating henin against the ferocious and passionate capriati... both not strangers to a little bit of gamesmanship, and of course you see that on display in this match too. keep an eye on the poor line judges

two contrasting but similarly engaging playstyles, the boisterous force of capriati coming up against henin's lethally elegant all-court game. henin's one handed backhand better than sex question mark. it's a great stylistic match-up, and produces some excellent tennis across the entire span of the match. just SUCH a great watch, like I really cannot speak highly enough of the level on display

a highly involved crowd who want their home favourite to win SO BADLY and are more than happy to do anything to help her cause. gets a bit wild, like the best us open matches tend to do

some truly insane momentum switches, many prompted by psychology and some prompted by physicality. one player's body starts letting her down in the final set in pretty striking fashion. one player's mind plays havoc with her, possibly even more memorably so. a very dramatic finale

the cruelty of tennis on full display. a match where you suffer for both players, who both want it so badly and are visibly fighting demons on the court. truly, truly brutal for the loser

I love this match so so much. I know it's very on-brand to direct you to a match from over two decades ago, but I promise you. it's worth it. sometimes the old stuff is the best

and do I EVER have a favourite player and rivalry!!!!!!

MY GIRLS. okay, look, they're both extremely retired and had their last match in 2010 BUT it is still my favourite rivalry!!!!!!! here, have another bit of my output for them:

wE hAvE aLwaYs ProTEcTEd tHis iMAge oF friENdShip tHat nEVeR eXistEd istgggggggg NOTHING WAS BROKEN BETWEEN US BECAUSE THERE WAS NOTHING TO BREAK

if you've ever heard someone be extremely annoying about federer's game, you probably can imagine what I sound like talking about henin. she's got my favourite backhand of all time, I genuinely think it is a work of art. I love how she moves, the way she unleashes on balls on the run, I love how she gets into the court in such a lithe and precise manner to pick up the next ball. I love how effective the serve is despite her height (number one commentating cliché for her lol, she's short we get it). the slices, the gorgeous drop volleys, the laser straight forehand... and again, the backhand. when she takes a swing at that thing and fucking pummels it past her opponent, stretches her wings to make the ball soar, it's just truly my favourite shot of all time. there's a specific backhand crosscourt on-the-run pass she hits in that aforementioned us open semifinal where... yeah. what can you even say. better than sex full stop

and well... okay, look, I am AWARE a lot of fans still hate her and I do get that she won't be everyone's cup of tea. but y'know. sometimes you just have to support women's rights and wrongs, and I do think some of the criticism of her is also a bit overblown. she's a cheater, yes, I won't argue with that. but I think sometimes cheating is interesting!! she really really really really needed to win, she was cold and ruthless about it - but also, I'm sorry, people would NOT have hated her quite so much if she were a man. and I'm also not saying a sad life story justifies cheating etc etc, but I do wish people were a bit more interested in why she needed to win so badly. she also has the number one athlete attribute that makes my brain go crazy - a deeply conflicted relationship with the sport itself. always caught between running towards and running away from tennis... yeah. god

the single best resource in tennis is a website called tennisabstract, it really is fantastic, I've contributed a bit to their match coding project before and definitely will again when my schedule's freed up a bit. I have a lot of time for the guy who runs it, I really do. there's this series he did, tennis 128, where he listed the top 128 players of all time according to his metric and wrote a piece for each of them... and I think they're all very interesting, it's a great project. but. there's a good chance henin got the most negative write-up of the lot, in a way I have to admit I take issue with. some excerpts:

well, tough luck. I don't care. the lgbt community has forgiven justine henin. look at what a cute tomboy she was as a teenager:

look at her holding a bird trophy:

wifey

the other half of that rivalry is her fellow belgian clijsters. very much a case of two narratives haunting each other!! do not separate!! anyhow, she's another player with a game I absolutely adore, these big scything groundstrokes but ALSO plenty of variety, like we're not talking a dull baseline basher here. and the movement!! sliding on a hard court is STILL pretty rare in the women's game, so it's very much seen as something associated with clijsters and clijsters alone:

life changing thighs is what I'll say

clijsters was everything henin was not - warm, popular in the locker room and with fans, a cheery outgoing personality who always had plenty of people rooting for her. she was also seen as too nice to win. and there are few things on this planet that get me going more than a choker. than somebody who just... freezes in the most important matches of her life. which for a while there had a nasty habit of involving henin, because of course they did

clijster's another one with a really fascinating career arc, one that is inextricably linked with henin's story - and thing is, she did get her happy ending. she's the feel-good story, proof that even chokers might be able to make it in the end. she conquered her demons... one of the very, very, very few to do so. she changed the narrative of her career completely. now I DO hate how this kinda... low key gets implicitly used as another stick to thwack henin with, this kind of, ooh!! look!! you can be a good person and be successful too!! which! idk. god forbid we root for a flawed athlete now and again. but I think this does a disservice to clijsters - not least because she WAS pretty nasty about henin in a way she wasn't about basically anyone else. henin and clijsters are more than just sinner and saint... don't let tennis fans tell you otherwise

and yeah, the two of them obviously had a bit of an emotionally tortured rivalry. belgium cooked up two insanely good tennis players born exactly one year and one week apart, the only two players of that stature the country has ever produced. they made each other better and they made each other worse. friends and enemies and something in between... and in the end, fundamentally inseparable. citadels have been built on less

anyway tbh I'm not going to pretend like anyone is summoning up that kind of narrative juice these days, but obviously I still have my faves. as regular blog readers may be aware, my favourite current player is this washed string bean who mostly just loses to more talented players and throws tantrums these days. I'll support him until his time runs up though. medvedev's got this fantastically unorthodox game that I could dissect all day, he's the smartest top player, he's funny as shit. his game should never have worked and he has no right to be as successful as he is. I could hold a lecture series on his forehand. I'm very much a pusher-inclined fan... I like counterpunchers, I like players who run around a lot and defend, and I also like tacticians. I was a pretty early adopter because I love a quirky playstyle and weird technique, which was then affirmed with the miami 2018 debacle (iykyk). but there was a moment I knew I would be his fan for life, and if you are a tennis fan you can probably guess what's coming:

"so I want all of you to know, when you sleep tonight, I won because of you" I fell in love

never ever has he let me down on the drama front. his "oops I did it again" basel 2018 instagram post, his "I think I killed someone? my apologies" from us open 2020, "if I die, who'll take responsibility" from olympics 2021, the "it's easier to enjoy life when you have no brain" paris 2021 monologue, the yawn at turin 2021, stomping on the ground davis cup 2021, the "his father can talk every point" ao 2022 rant, "I'm gonna pee as slow as this court" from iw 2023, when he got rid of the singles stick monte carlo 2023 plus the "look at yourself in the mirror" press conference comment, "vamo vamo vamo" from uso 2023... I could keep going. "shut your fuck up" has become a part of my vocabulary icl. I love his press conferences and watch a lot of them, just consistently a very interesting guy to listen to. he is unfortunately sort of hellish to follow as a fan, but y'know. sometimes it's not just trophies that make the journey worth it (cope)

women's tennis, my actual faves have basically disappeared from the scene this year so I'm not even gonna dignify them by mentioning their names. I am pretty ride-or-die for dasha kasatkina, a useless pusher who's also the wta's highest ranked lesbian and makes a vlog with her girlfriend I definitely recommend. I like her tennis a lot in all its horrendous pushing, she's very sweet and fun and produces an obscene number of cute photos with her girlfriend. beyond that, I suppose I am basically a swiatek and sabalenka fan this year, I find both of them highly engaging in different ways, I love how they're like... actually very good but are also seemingly constantly fighting demons. basically the two most compelling players in the game currently TO ME. I'm really really enjoying their rivalry, my main complaint is that I wish they played more (praying iga's new coach fixes her during the off-season). they produced by far the best match this year, madrid final, which I'd also absolutely recommend. but yeah, I generally vibe with all the top players of the women's game, if to differing extents!! really strong era at the minute that also promises to keep getting better. we pray

anyhow. a few more favourite matches - I'm going to try and hold myself back, because I really could go on forever. a lot of the old matches I watch are from noughties wta, but I'll limit myself because I'm aware this really is probably of interest to nobody and give just a further two - sharapova/henin wta finals 2007 and venus/davenport wimbledon 2005. both pretty normie picks, but sometimes the normie picks are normie picks for a reason

for my sins, I do have a few big three matches in fairly regular rotation, typically on in the background when I'm working. main ones are djokovic/federer us open 2011, djokovic/federer wimbledon 2019, djokovic/federer wimbledon 2014, and djokovic/nadal roland garros 2021. I also have a bunch of murray matches in rotation but I tend to mix it up for him more... my other go-to run is all of leylah fernandez's pre-final us open 2021 matches, which are just consistently bonkers in the best possible way. there's a few other recent-ish matches I really like to revisit, like iga/sublanko madrid 2023, fernandez/osorio monterrey 2022, kerber/juvan strasbourg 2022...

and then, of the more recent-ish men's matches, pretty obvious where my biases lie. medvedev/djokovic cincy 2019, med/wawrinka uso 2019, med/nadal atp finals 2020, med/thiem atp finals 2020, med/djokovic uso 2021, med/sinner atp finals 2021 (conceptually hilarious match), med/faa ao 2022 (go-to flight match, this one), med/tsi ao 2022, rune/djokovic paris 2022 (and honestly that whole rune run), med/zverev monte carlo 2023 (don't feel great about including this but I'd be lying if I said I didn't love it), rune/sinner monte carlo 2023, rune/foki madrid 2023, med/alcaraz uso 2023 (I promised I'd sing the american national anthem if he won that match so that's a voice note that still exists out there)... and so on

I could keep going, but I'll cut myself off here. and end things with my personal favourite instagram post tennis has produced. from after the aforementioned rune/foki madrid match:

'personally I hold nothing against the Spanish people' dw king I'll do it for you

[alongwalkhomecomic]

garden investigations

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previous / next

[solargrove]

took some cas portraits of my legacy sims for the family tree :3

[ravenkings]

“Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”

― Margaret Atwood

[presidentalpaca]

thinking aloud here on the off chance that simon died and ascended to the dead world he would get to choose what version of himself to present as. would he choose ice king? at this point in f&c I'm thinking probably, but he's after ice king's mental state, not so much his appearance. and based on what we saw in distant lands especially, you aren't going to mentally regress to that time in your life. so imagine simon dying, learning that he can be the ice king again, then facing that the change is only external

[unproduciblesmackdown]

pics from the first readthrough of summer stock

[wonder-worker]

"Administratively, too, [...] queens were considered the legal lords of their landholdings. [...] Grants noted that the queen's officials had administrative autonomy without being subject to the king or anyone else, and evidence of the same assumption can be gleaned from court rolls that were recorded with headings indicating the lord of the manor whose court proceedings were being enrolled. As an example, some court rolls for the manor of Haveringatte-Bower specified that it was the court of [Margaret of Anjou] that was in session, while later rolls recorded Elizabeth Woodville as the lord of the manor court."

-Michele Seah, 'My Lady Queen, the Lord of the Manor': The Economic Roles of Late Medieval Queens", Parergon, Volume 37, Number 2, 2020.

[remyfire]

Unhappy to announce that I am thinking of rare pairs literally all the time with 98% of my brain

[tricornonthecob]

I am obsessed with smol humans who very much appear to be inhabited by old people who have been on this earth too long.

you can hear the accent without unmuting the video

[killjoy-prince]

THEODORE MENTION

[blousemouse]

Kristen was actually my least favorite character by far in s1 and 2 but I'm actually really liking the direction I think she'll go in this season. She might actually end up being one of my faves of junior year if her arc is done well

[ladykailolu]

jfc I was thinking about Godot and Jake being dads (against their own wills lmao) to Gyro’s bastard girls because their boyfriend is irresponsible and it’s not fair to have the kids suffer, and then this scenario came to mind:

It’s a parent-teacher meeting for Maggie’s highschool, and Gyro refuses to go. So, Godot steps in, and not only does he play the role of Maggie’s dad, he’s also gotta keep the secret that there is no “Mrs. Zeppeli” and that Gyro wasn’t involved with two other men. Based off of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air:

Teacher: Will Mrs. Zeppeli be joining us?

Godot: Uh, no, I’m single. I mean, um, Maggie’s mother ran out on us. Maggie was but a mere tyke at the time. I had to be both Mommy and Daddy. We went from training wheels to training bras. They both came off too soon, didn’t they, kitten?